My Stonemaier Games Top Design Regrets

In today’s video I’m going to discuss the one mechanical element in each of our games that I would change if I could go back in time. I’ll note these in chronological order of release.

00:00 - Introduction
01:20 - Viticulture
03:35 - Euphoria
05:07 - Between Two Cities
06:32 - Scythe
09:54 - Charterstone
13:11 - My Little Scythe
14:26 - Between Two Castles
15:27 - Wingspan
16:55 - Tapestry
19:25 - Pendulum
21:03 - Red Rising
22:42 - Rolling Realms
24:15 - Libertalia

[edwardbrost]

Mad respect to you for being self critical and it shows your ego does not get in the way when it comes to creating the best games you possibly can.

[bushibayushi]

it's so great to hear those thoughts from the designer himself, thank you!

[ryanskrenes]

I love your transparency and honesty in your video (and videos). I own many if your games and love what you do. Thank you for what you do and stand for.

[patrickvalo]

I really respect this kind of video. To look at your own work and see things that could be better is a good character trait

[winstonhammonds]

No! I love the way players add workers in Scythe. It’s perfect! It seems completely natural that production costs more when there are more workers, just as it makes sense that more is produced with a stronger/larger workforce.

Plus it really fits the theme. For that time, period, in a place of war, workers feel like they should be considered resources. Maybe it’s just me, but I wouldn’t change it at all.

[FrankMinogue]

Scythe is definitely one where we love it so much, we have marathon games; some as long as 3 hours, each of my wife and I holding up on playing the last star, until we have had our "fill." We just love getting more and more territory, and very rarely even engage in battle. I never even put out the battle wheels. For Wingspan, while we get the difference between "when" and "if" activated, we find that newer gamers keep asking if they have to do the power of the card. "If" would have been a little bit clearer.

[DamienMcKinnon]

Before I bought the Tuscany Expansion we used to play 2P Viticulture using the solo mode bonus action token rule allowing the bonus action to be taken if you are the first player to get your worker on an action space by spending a glass token acquired earlier from the wake-up chart. This worked a treat!

[Darshist]

Jamie, I can't tell you how helpful and inspiring that was. I, as do many, look up to you as a designer and striving for perfection can, in a paradoxical way, lead to stagnation. To see that everyone looks back and regrets, thinks of the changes they could have made and still can create and be involved with such great work... I loved the vid, plain and simple. Thank you

[ParlorPunch]

As I sit here in Newark waiting for my 3rd-in-a-row delayed United flight I wonder what the world would be like if more product designers and developers were so transparent about their products as Jamie is in this video. This is hands down my favorite of his many videos. What a daring gift to make a video which helps the rest of us designers better learn how to be productively critical of our own games; games which may at some point compete with his own games. Bravo and thank you for showing us how to be gracious designers for when/if our games succeed.

[devinhood]

This video was awesome! Great insights and a look into the design process!

[EmitSlab]

Love that someone is willing to be this open with their or their companies designs. I think most design differences I could definitely think of pros and cons and don't think any of them are super huge. I think I will do drawing 2 Civs in Tapestry from now on though!

Super excited for the Nesting Box and the Asia Expansion for Wingspan!

[yiminey]

My husband and I are HUGE fans of all your games!!! We especially love Pendulum. The timers make it so unique from other games we have that it's one of our most played!

[kuantou]

Stonemaier is the best publisher, everything is well thought and I love the designs, the miniatures and box inserts. But red rising still didn't catch me as I wish it did. I find it hard to add cards to hand. thanks for all the games and keep up the good job. Love Tapestry, Scythe and viticulture.

[CosmoSpex]

Thank you for this! Really interesting hearing your thoughts and what the idea behind certain choices were. Scythe remains one of my favorite games :)

[poonyhooman]

You’re so right about “If/when activated” in Wingspan - especially as it’s become such a Gateway, the comms need to be super-clear.

[alexanderdesouza]

Wow! What an excellent set of insights into your game design process. I have to admit, I'm probably going to adopt all of these "regrets" into the Stonemaier games that I own (Scythe, Tapestry, and Wingspan). Thank you for always looking to make your already terrific games better!

[DavidKuckhermann]

Absolutely love scythe. We are currently playing rise of fenris which is amazing as well, one of my favorite campaigns in any game.
I actually like the way the game ends.
The one thing I would much appreciate is a balance patch, I think it could much improve the game. Of course you can look for house rules, but an official “patch”, that would also be implemented I to the digital version would be so great.

[b.]

We Viticulture and Wingspan with all of the expansions❤ For us with Wingspan the phrase “when activated” was not confusing, because in the German rules it was nicely explained. We absolutely love Viticulture, but we have to admit: there are a two options, which we never use, because we think they are too expensive and not that useful: the windmill and the tasting room. The yoke can be ok, depending on your Strategie and the cottage is quite useful. We never sell grapes 😉 and we think 6 workers on the map are too much, you even get in your own way, so mostly we just play with the Grande and max 3 workers. But all of these things we would not consider as things to regret - everybody is free to create some “home-rules/house-rules” (as we call it) if something doesn ´t suit them! I absolutely love the artwork of Scythe and Expeditions, but unfortunately this type of game is not for us. And yes: that is one really important thing: colours and contrast! Especially for the elderly with bad eyes 😉 We are both close to 60 years and we often choose the games we buy by the colour scheme! So some of the “cool” games don ´t work for us, because they are too dark and don ´t have enough contrast or the font on the cards is way too small for us to read (even with glasses 😉) 😢But it ´s ok, there are plenty of games in this world which work for us 😊

[BassWakil]

The worker/enlist change is a fascinating thought experiment because if you had 6 workers to enlist, it would change a number of things:

1) You probably don’t want the production track to have extra costs since you’re already using food to make workers.
2) You’d have to find a new way for players to get the enlist bonuses (I think one possibility could be that if you max out a bottom row action you get a bonus whenever anyone else does it, or maybe it’s tied to structures or even upgrades)
3) Village hexes are now completely blank spaces and so could either produce another resource, coins, be extra encounter spaces, and/or rearrange some parts of the map.
4) Without villages there would need to be an intuitive place for workers to spawn. Letting them spawn with another worker would actually make producing resources a lot faster since you wouldn’t need the extra move to move your workers from the village.

It’s a simple change on the surface but it would have a bunch of play ramifications that may end up being an overall improvement or detriment. It’s hard to say. I wouldn’t mind play tearing it tbh

[DRjaffy]

I love this video and your channel as a whole! I don't know if you're big into video games or not, but Masahiro Sakurai (big game dev) has a channel where he talks about designing video games and has all sorts of random insights and knowledge. He feels similar to you, top of their industry, and passionate about what you do with an extreme attention to detail. Thank you for being such an open designer, and for continuing to share your passion. I've always loved Stonemaier games, and will continue to support your amazing games! You rock!