The Conception of DerrocAr
Dear Diary,
today I started brushing my teeth and taking a shower... no wait, not that kind of diary.
Prologue
This beautiful tale starts in 2019 when in the search of an international release, a KINMO reaches ION’s door. Some inside the company liked the game but both they and I knew that this product didn´t fit their unique catalogue. So I started to work on a deeper project with a new thematic but that kept some of the aspects that had captivated the ION people. Project “Political Kinmo” was started.
If DerrocAr would be a statue, Kinmo would be the rough stone on which I would sculpt.
Setting the narrative
The theme came instantly to me, the chaotic times when the province governors had to choose one among themself to be the next Argentine President after the resignation of De La Rua at the end of 2001. And why this choice? Because we had 5 presidents in 2 weeks!!!!!
We had lots of crises here but I’m sure this is the most exotic by far.
To become the President in Argentina you need to get support of entities and they are even more important if the country is on fire and there would not be elections. So the first change was obvious, the gems (main objective in Kinmo) for the Support Tokens: International, Rural, Press and Unions.
How do politicians get the support of an entity? Through Lobby. Here we have our 1st card
The next was to think about how a politician can steal support from another politician, and the conclusion was obvious too: Promises. They are always good at promising what everyone needs and convincing that they are indicated to do the appropriate task. The 2nd card was ready.
With the “Chipotes”(Squeeze mallet) the differences start to appear. Instead of having just one kind of aggression I opted to have individual conflicts for each entity that supports to players. But the question is always the same: How do politicians get the Unions to start a Protest in your neighbourhood provinces? Mmmhhh things become interesting. Maybe they need to make a Lobby to convince the Union that they need to protest against your neighborhood governor. Yes, the same thing you are thinking happened in my head, I already used the Lobby name on the objective cards. So if I was going to have 4 different conflict cards I could (instead of collecting 3 of the same cards) make a suit of only 2 cards but not of the same kind but one Conflict Card & one Lobby Card of the same entity. Almost Ready the 3rd card.
Now it was time to find the four types of conflicts associated with the four entities: Union-Mobilization, Press-Discredit, Rural-Food Shortage and International-Capital Leakage.
When it came to healing, things were simple again. How do politicians solve conflicts? Lobbying to reach Agreements. So, as I choose to create conflicts, with a suit of an Agreement card & a Lobby card of the same entity you would solve the right conflict.
At this point the Political Kinmo was fully playable. Time to print it and get it to the table.
The first thematic thing that appeared was that, if I had the Support of one entity the other governors can't give me a conflict token because that entity isn't against me.
This thematic point brings a good strategy point also, because now you can shield yourself against the agressions while you are building power. I like this! A lot!!
Time isn’t on my side
My first journey to Spiel-Essen was about to start. The email from ION had arrived a few weeks before, I didn’t have the time that I would have wanted and I knew that this prototype was far away from what the ION Catalogue deserved but I kept the faith that they would find the spark of a promising game in it. And as you know by now, that spark became a flame.
All this happened because, at Spiel, I was lucky to find someone whose face betrayed the enthusiasm he felt for each thing that I showed him about the prototype, my new friend Björn Ekenberg.
/Bruss Brussco