Interview: Wayfarer Games on the Wayfarer's Tale Game

Interview by Charlie Pettit

Although there’s no ‘standard practice’ in board game design, we perhaps often see certain things – someone will have an idea, then they’ll make a prototype, playtest it, pop it on a crowdfunding platform, and viola! A board game is born. Wayfarer Games did things a little differently, beginning focussing on a print-and-play style game (one you can download to your computer, and with a print out and a few extras, you can get playing immediately), before both the success and the enjoyment of it led to the formation of Wayfarer Games, with a physical version of the game becoming available on Kickstarter. We caught up with Tristam Rossin and James Emmerson, two-thirds of the new studio completed with Adam Hocherman, to find out more. 

What is Wayfarer Games?

Wayfarer Games feels a little bit like an “Avengers Assemble” moment. James Emmerson, a maths teacher by day and board game designer by night, is the designer of Tranquility, a cooperative card game with gorgeous art. Art done, in fact, by Tristam Rossin, who also illustrated and designed Pebble Rock Delivery Service, but whose artwork is seen across over 50 different games. 

“Tris had put a call out for some games that could be a print and play format.” James explained when we asked how they came together. “He essentially just messaged, ‘have you got anything that I can do as a print and play?’ I said, give me a week, let me look at it...”

Related article: Beginners Guide to assembling Print & Play games

“This was slightly born out of a bit of frustration from the industry.” Tristam backtracks for us, as to why he was making the call out. “I’ve had my own games published and I found the route to market quite difficult. You’re kind of promised the earth when you’re signing these things. And it never quite comes to fruition. I’ve had a couple of occasions where I’ve put in so much work and by the end of it I’ve just about wiped my feet. I’ve just about broken even, but also in the knowledge that there are other people doing really, really well out of it. So it seemed that there was an imbalance of how much work and effort I had to put in for a relatively little return. That came to fruition with a game that myself and James were working on where the publisher actually ran off with the money. So we’re in a position where I was thinking ‘how can I do something that’s relatively low impact on a financial level but have a big impact from the point of view of our control?’. It’s ours, we control exactly what’s happening with it we’re responsible for its destiny and we’re responsible for its success or failure. There’s no one else in the mix there. And that was the foundation behind it. We wanted to have control, even if that was in a relatively small market of print and play, and develop it from there.”

There’s an underlying suggestion of re-finding the fun in the process. Managing publisher expectations and equally managing them to understand the requirements isn’t always a smooth process, and can feel very out of control. Replacing this with learning and enjoying the process from the ground up is a vital way to find enjoyment in it once again. 

“I definitely think it’s such an excellent format for learning how to launch your own thing.” James adds. 

The Idea for the Wayfarer's Tale Game

Tristam had an idea in mind, describing himself as the story guy, where James provides the mechanics. They wanted a relaxed game about going on a journey, traversing lands, meeting characters, and encountering small adventures. It fits into the popular surge of cosy games, easy to play, low stress, fun games that still offer a challenge. 

“I like the idea of something that you could grab at the end of the day, grab a coffee or a glass of wine and just sit there and enjoy it, rather than it be a high level stress experience of trying to beat someone or be hugely competitive.” He clarifies. “So I simply gave that to James and said that’s the tone, that’s the type of game I’d like. Work your magic. And to James’ credit, he’s brilliant at this stuff. I mean, he’s a mathematician by day, and he just works out all the algorithms on how these things work beautifully.” 

James is quick to point out the label of the mathematician may make other mathematicians cringe, but that he is a maths teacher so his “maths is reasonable”. But he goes on to explain that having a brief, a few constraints, helps direct him as a designer into something great. Where he offers mechanics, Tristam builds worlds around them, and together they produce something great. 

“I just say, ‘here’s some scrappily horrible bits of card, go away and illustrate them’.” James jokes. “He turns them into beautiful worlds. And I think it helps as a designer to narrow your focus a little bit, to work out where your limitations are and what the scope is and what you’re working with. Or sometimes you can just be popping with ideas that take off in so many different directions that it’s hard to bring it into a cohesive whole. So I started with the map that you wanted. Tris was looking for this journey in game where you’re travelling across the map. And so you start there and you think, well, how do we get across the map? Or let’s make use of some characters and personalities and then it’s okay, how do these personalities work? What’s their puzzle going to be? And it’s all about creativity with numbers, trying to work out where the push-pull is at the game, where are the decision points, and how to fit it all together. But I like a brief, and I have done a few of these where he’s like, can you make a game like this? And I’ll go, okay, brilliant, what am I working with? And then it helps me to narrow into focus and we’ve got a few prototypes there from that sort of that working communication that we have.”

What is A Wayfarer's Tale?

The game came together into A Wayfarer’s Tale, a print and play that they successfully took to Kickstarter. Print & plays feel almost at odds with the crowdfunding we’ve become familiar with, which is all about more, more minis, more expansions, more stuff, but it quickly became one of the highest funded print and plays on the site. But what is it?

“It’s a roll and write game,” James explains. “But it’s more thinky and with meaningful decisions. You’re not just waiting on those dice rolls, you can actually dive in and say, well if this happens I can do that. You’re thinking moves ahead based on the characters, how you’re using the dice rolls you’ve got and the way you’re trying to get on the map so you really, really have to think about this. It’s a really exciting puzzle, basically.”

“It’s a wonderful player game of voyage and discovery.” Tristam explains, amusingly demonstrating in action the exact balance they described their dynamic works on –mechanics and story. “You are rolling the dice, you’re combining the dice to activate your companions that allow you to cross the map and cross the terrains. And each companion is their own little puzzle that works in a different way. And you’ve got to try and optimise them, whilst trying to get to where you need to go.”

Specifically, the game is a 1-4 player race to explore uncharted islands. You’ll need to collect treasure, avoid monsters, and use different companions’ abilities to best traverse the environment you’re in. Everyone plays at the same time, removing any downtime from the game, choosing from a shared pool of dice each turn. 

Where you place these on your characters will depend on their abilities, and give you some key choices. For example, for your adventurer to ascend the mountain, you’ll need the dice numbers to increase (you want to start with a low roll and increase), but if you score is doubled when you reach the top, should you hold out for a higher number, and activate a different companion in the mean time? Then to descend the mountain, your dice must too… It’s satisfyingly thematic across each of the companions, and before you know it, you’re adventuring off across the map. It takes around 45 minutes to play, either solo or competitively.

The game worked, making it a runner up for the Print & Play award in the 2022 Golden Geeks, the BoardGameGeek awards, losing to Aquamarine.

“It’s an Oscar, isn’t it?” Tristam says of it with a big smile.

“It was massively exciting. As a designer, it’s great to get validation that what you’re doing is good. You know that Tris’s work is also beautiful, but until people have played it – I have to wait a little bit longer for people to go, actually, that was really, really great. So to have a recognised body like BGG saying, yeah, good job, it feels amazing.” James adds.

Wayfarer Games Begins

The status brought with it additional attention, both on social media as more people became aware of the game, and with Tristam describing it as giving additional validity to it – creating something for the relatively niche market of willing print and play players within an already semi-niche hobby of tabletop gaming can feel like it’s a small audience, they describe how it began to feel like it was a game amongst other games. 

It also brought interest from publishers, with one in particular setting them on the path to where they are now. Adam Hockman – “Hock” – approached the team. 

“Our third partner in our trio is Adam Hocherman. He’s worked in the industry for 20 years. He was looking to open his own publishing house and he contacted us and said, look, I’m really enjoying this game, guys. I want this to be the launch game of my new publishing house. He was talking to Tris, and Tris was like, let me introduce you to James and let’s have a chat. And so Wayfarer Games was born.”

With the completion of the trio, and the team assembled, it seemed like the dream team for game design. A designer for the games themselves, an artist and storyteller for theming, and an in industry partner for any additional knowledge, it’s no wonder the team are making a mark. With the desire for it proven, the team chose to turn their print and play into a full, pick up off the shelf style game, which they ran demos of at UK Games Expo, and are bringing to Kickstarter.

A Wayfarer's Tale: The Journey Begins on Kickstarter

“From a design perspective, I have really enjoyed looking at what we can add physically. When we did the print and play, we really wanted the barrier to entry to be as low as possible. So there was very little crafting in the print and play. It was like you can play it just by printing off A4 sheets. You don’t have to cut them or even fold them in half. You just print them and you’re good to go. I think there are limitations to what you can achieve from a print and play and I was excited to be free of those shackles and to be able to do anything that we wanted to do from a physical perspective. But we added a whole expansion that involves physical pieces, and there are minis and there are cards and there are new tiles of companions joining your team and messing with the system. So that was exciting for me.” James describes.

“It’s so much more than the print and play” Tristam says of its differences when we ask what’s changing between the first Kickstarter, and this newest one on the horizon. “The print and play is there, it’s the foundation, it’s what makes the game so good. So it wouldn’t be this without the print and play. But what we’ve done then is layered on everything that we couldn’t. Or we could, but you’d have to be a dedicated print and play gamer that’s into the whole crafting of a game and that takes the audience right down to a tiny level of people really really dedicated. It’s so much more in its physicality. James mentioned just all the cards, the minis, everything that goes with it, just to make it a rich world and so much more than something you print out”.

“There’s a lot more gameplay in what we’ve done, in what we’ve layered on top of the basis that was there to begin with. But there’s also a real tactile element that feels so good. And we didn’t realise that we missed it until we did it physically. So I’m glad we’ve done the big box. I love where it’s gone.” 

You can download your own version to try out, or head straight to Kickstarter to back your copy!