Expandable Board Games

Two men decided that it was time to build their own house. Living with their parents had gotten a bit “crowded” and each longed for some quality alone time (especially in the company of a lovely lady). The first man built his house to fit his needs. The house had everything he desired, but then he got married and discovered his house didn’t have everything she desired, so he had to expand. Adding on to the house was expensive, but she was worth it. When the babies began to arrive he found he had to expand again and again. Soon his home was a sprawling complex of mismatched styles and construction that was barely serviceable. All too soon he began to think of moving to a bigger house.

The second man built his house to fit his needs AND his dreams. The house was too large at first, but the man kept the doors to empty rooms closed and enjoyed the rooms he had furnished. When he married and started a family he discovered he needed more rooms, so he opened the doors to unused rooms and furnished them. Despite a large family, the house served him all his life.

Red Juggernaut is a board game company. We design, develop, and test all our products for the board game aisle of the hobby store. We’re board game players and we have a lot of cool ideas in the works for new and exciting products. Almost all of these products are expandable, meaning you purchase the base game with additional content provided with expansions. Cynics might see this as a means of getting gamers to spend more money, but Red Juggernaut views it much differently.

We all make choices about the games we purchase and play. The cost of those games is always a consideration. Big, beautiful, heavy boxes full of countless plastic components, cards, tokens, sheets, dice, and rules are great. Unfortunately, they cost a lot more to manufacture and deliver. The price tag goes up and you have to spend a lot of money to play the game. But what if it wasn’t like that?

Red Juggernaut designs, develops, and tests all of its games as a complete package. We take a big, huge game with tons of components and test it internally first, then with external play testers. We call this the mega-game. Once we have a game that everybody loves, we break it into components.

 The core of the game is always in the basic product. This “base game” has all the concepts, features, and structure of the mega-game. It does not have all the components and it might omit some rules that reference those components. The base game is a full and complete game. You’re not missing anything. You also get to purchase and play the game at a lower cost. You can try out strategies, learn the rules, and delve into the mechanics of a fully-featured product.

 Ultimately, expansions will arrive. These products will add more components, including new sculptures, tokens, tiles, cards, and rules. If you like the concept of the expansion, you can add to the base game in a low cost manner. If a product has several expansions you get to decide, each time, if that expansion makes sense for the way you play the game. Are you ready for new strategies? Do you want more components? If so, you can purchase the expansion. If not, keep playing the game just the way it is. You may find you don’t need anything else to enjoy the game you already have. If so, that’s great!

 Ah, I hear some say, the costs of a single mega-game is less than a base game with expansions. I’m sorry to say, it’s sad, but true. Packaging the new materials does cost additional money. There are two factors that help balance that out a bit. First, you get to spread out costs over time, so, perhaps, the impact is not as bad as single big purchase. You don’t have to spend all your hard-earned cash at once so you can get a pizza to go with the game. Second, you get to review the game and expansions before spending money. If we, as the designers, don’t make the offering compelling, you don’t have to spend any more money. The burden to make cool new stuff that you want to purchase is always on the designers. If we fail to do our job, you’ll let us know with your dollars – by spending them with somebody else.

 In the end, we hope you purchase as many expansions as makes sense for your play style and budget. We want players to enjoy the entire vision of designer’s mega-game, but if you enjoy the base game, keep playing that and know that you’re playing a fully developed and tested game that will give you many nights of good gaming.

Copyright © 2008 Red Juggernaut, Inc.