This may feel like a bit of a ramble, but stick with me.
The Setup
I’ve known Dellon Myette for a long time. Well, it feels like a long time. We first started chatting… Good grief, probably back in 2020 or 2021. Back around the time of the first Slug Wizard event (spring 2021). I finally got to meet him in person at Adepticon earlier this year. I even got to play Cauldron, which was a highlight of my trip. He’s a good friend and a cool dude. I could write an entire post about Adepticon easily, but suffice to say it was long overdue and I am humbled to be able to call these guys and so many more my friends.
For the last two years, Andrew Nierenhausen has organized a publication entitled ‘One Page Game Jam.’ Anyone and everyone is invited to contribute to the omnibus (I guess that’s what it is) by writing a tabletop or roleplaying game (or plug-in module, or art piece, or… Whatever, really, it’s pretty flexible) that fits on one 8.5×11 page. It’s awesome. He just published volume two. Check it out.
I work at Mindtaker Miniatures as lead intake specialist. That’s a fancy title that basically means I grab boxes off of shelves (so many shelves) that contain whatever stuff our customers have dropped off to consign with us or sell to us, go through them, determine their value, and punch a bunch of information into spreadsheets so that we can resell it. There’s more to it than that but you get the drift.
Last year, we were contacted by someone managing the estate of a former game store owner. At first, they sent us a steady trickle of items for consignment, mostly huge boxes of hundreds of blisters containing metal miniatures from Black Tree Miniatures. I am confident that we are now the largest reseller of Black Tree Miniatures in the country. That trickle of items became a flood when the estate manager sent us photos of what was left and my bosses decided they wanted to consign it all. A truck dropped off a storage pod’s worth of stuff. Everything you can think of – HeroClix, Games Workshop, Avalon Hill bookcase games, board games out the wazoo, Citadel, Grenadier, Heartbreaker, Harlequin, Old Glory, RAFM, Ral Partha, you name it. We’ve been steadily working through the enormous lot ever since.
And We’re Finally Here.
XTH WONDER.
Let’s connect the dots – XTH WONDER a game I designed with Dellon, for Andrew’s One Page Game Jam, inspired by unloved historical Black Tree miniatures (“unloved” is perhaps unfair, but the fantasy and sci-fi miniatures community is much larger – or at least more ravenous in their purchasing habits – than the historical miniatures community).
And what did we have a ton of at the shop? Romans.
So many Romans. Legionaries, praetorians, cavalry, chariots, command, ballistas, freaking gladiators. Just… Piles and piles (don’t get me started on my irritation at learning recently that both “legionaries” and “legionnaires” are legitimate words). If you would like to purchase some 28mm metal Roman miniatures, go get them. Please. It helps me sleep at night.
So I knew what needed to be done: buy some Romans for dirt cheap (employee discount go woooo) and “make them cool again.”
My answer? Ray guns and bubble helmets. Neon spray paint base coat, black zenithal spray, highlights over black and a splatter of white for a crazy starry effect. I liked it. People liked it. It had traction.
The models came first. The joke was “Romans and Ray Guns.” I told Dellon. He liked it. I said, “Let’s design a game.” He said, “Hell yeah.” So we did.
Designing the Game: The Background for Which You Didn’t Ask
I said, “I don’t want to make just another skirmish game. There are loads of those.”
Dellon agreed.
I said, “Let’s make it on a small board.”
He liked that.
I did some research. Headed to Google. “Ancient Roman games” – okay, I guess Tic-Tac-Toe is some lesser form of a game the Romans invented. Small board. Grid-based. There’s something there. Maybe area control of some sort, like Tic-Tac-Toe. But with miniatures. And laser guns. Hm.
I scheduled a video call with Dellon.
Elevator pitch. Felt thin. “What if we superimpose a 3×3 grid onto a 7×7 grid?” he asked. Brilliant. More space for doing things. The Black Tree Romans I purchased came in packs of four. A 2v2 game sounded too small, and 4v4… Ah, each side of a 7×7 board affords four “starting squares” with one empty space between each. Now the pieces were falling into place.
“I want to use D4s,” I stated. Dellon waffled a bit. But deep down he loves D4s. He told me so. I know people that hate them. They’re pyramids, they don’t roll well, wah wah wah. So what, toss ’em real good and find joy in the little plastic pseudo-caltrops.
“Let’s have each value represent an action the player can take.” Fewer options means reduced cognitive load and increased ease-of-learning. Move should always be an option, so 1-4 all allow movement. Then: claim (because area control, right? This is still Tic-Tac-Toe, three-in-a-row), shoot (because ray guns), and punch (because… Fists). Leaves one more action. “REROLL,” I nearly blurted. Let’s give the players at least a little agency, even if it is random, right?
Add some obstacles to obscure line-of-sight. After all, shooting from across the board one turn one shouldn’t be the norm.
We had the basics. We met for a second video chat soon after. We played a game or two by drafting up two boards and keeping identical board states in our respective locations. It was essentially done.
Dellon is a clever guy. It truly felt like a natural and flowing collaboration – he filled in all the gaps I left, and vice versa. So good.
The Wrap-up
Dellon sketched a wireframe for the one page layout. I made a game board, took some photos, transferred everything to the digital realm and did some graphic design work. I did my best to polish it all up to a nice shiny finish, and I think it came out quite nicely.
If you want to give the game a spin, you’ll find it in the One Page Game Jam Vol. 2 I mentioned earlier. If you want it in glorious neon color, you can get it at Dellon’s Itch.io page. And if you’d be interested in some MinigamePaks™ (title pending) that bundle together a nice folding board, twelve D4s, some plastic frames of multi-part Romans, parts for converting the miniatures, and the one-page rules sheet, give me a shout. We’re really seriously considering it.
Love and happiness to you all,
Bryan
