YORKTON — Some board games of course emerge from other places of popular culture – for example the realm of comic books and graphic novels.
That is the case with Harrow County from designers Jay Cormier, and Shad (Eric Shadrach Miller), artist Tyler Crook, and from publisher Off the Page Games.
For background Harrow County was an American comic book series that ran from 2015 to 2018. It was created by writer Cullen Bunn and artist Tyler Crook, and published by Dark Horse Comics, describes Wikipedia.
“Harrow County began as a serialized prose story called Countless Haints, written by Cullen Bunn and released on his website. Countless Haints ran for ten chapters before it was retired. Later the story was repurposed as an ongoing comic with artist and co-creator Tyler Crook. The main character Madrigal was renamed Emmy, the time period was shifted from present day to the 1930s, and the location was changed from Ahmen's Landing to Harrow County.”
The graphic novels were well-received with the various collected works all rating right around four-out-of-five on Goodreads.com, a very good rating by site standards, so perhaps it’s not too hard to imagine how it evolved to become a board game.
So a bit about the game from the publisher.
“A witch named Hester was hung, burned, and buried under a tree. Some time later, the family of Hester come to Harrow County to destroy it, but standing in their way is eighteen-year-old Emmy who mysteriously has powers of her own.
“In the asymmetric combat game Harrow County: The Game of Gothic Conflict, players can play as one of the Protectors, trying to rescue townsfolk, or as one of the family, trying to destroy Harrow County. You can instead play as a third faction that originates from the surprise return of Emmy's twin sister, Kammi, who wants to rule Harrow County. Players activate mason jars to move their haints (undead creatures) around the hex-based board as they try to accomplish their missions. Combat is resolved using a never-before-seen cube tower that's built into the actual box.
“Finally, a third player can enter the game: Hester, the dead witch buried under the tree. She controls the roots of the tree and using the cube tower, Hester can infect haints on her roots, which causes a snake to be placed into its ear. That player can still control this haint, but now so can Hester. If Hester comes back to life, then she needs to eat the other legends to gain all her power back to win.
“In short, Harrow County is a thematic, tactical game of territory control and enemy elimination to determine the fate of Harrow County.”
To start it should be mentioned three-player games which are not co-operative in nature, generally falter at some point as it’s natural for two players to end up focusing on the strongest player. While tactically it is the thing to do, the strongest player will not enjoy the experience very much, so be aware that pitfall may await.
In this case Harrow County plays one-to-three.
Designer Jay Cormier explained via email how the game came to be.
“When MIND MGMT was being printed, I started thinking about what my second game should be,” he said. “I had this one game that I was designing with Shad Miller called Skirmishes and I thought it would make for an interesting second game.
“Since all our games are based off of comic books, I had to find a comic book that fit with the concept in our game. I met with Chris Schwiezer and showed him the game and asked if he'd be interested in creating a comic at the same time as I was making this game, and he said he was too packed with deadlines on other projects. But - he thought the game could fit within the world of Harrow County. I hadn't read that one yet so I devoured it! It was so incredible! The art is ridiculously fantastic from Tyler Crook, and the story evolves and surprises throughout. Cullen Bunn created the world and wrote the story, and I love that it has a satisfying conclusion too.
“So I pitched the game to them and they agreed to do it! From that point on we started to pour the theme of Harrow County into the game. It started as a very symmetrical game and ended up being wildly asymmetric! It had to be because in the story, the different 'factions' have different objectives, and that had to come through in the game!”
Cormier outlined that with any game he is involved in creating there are some very core goals:
* Create a board game that does the comic proud. We want to ensure the comic is well represented as we are fans of that comic. We are not interested in slapping on a theme and being done with it! We want to ensure that readers of the comic will cherish these games as they are an extension of the world introduced by the comics.
* Create an amazing game that features innovative concepts. We want our games to appeal to people that have never heard of the comic. We want to ensure each game we make brings something new that gamers have never seen before. For MIND MGMT it was the hidden movement mechanic in under 60 minutes as well as the SHIFT System (14 sealed packages came with the game!). For Harrow County we had a cube tower built right into the game box itself! For Corps of Discovery we came up with a new contraption to slide maps into for replayability.
* We want the game experience to be so rich that we motivate players to seek out the comic and read them. We want to grow the comic book readers out there as much as we want to sell amazing games!
* We want to give players tons of content! MIND MGMT has 14 sealed boxes with content that unlocks as you play. Harrow County has three factions, with 14 different Legends you can play as, and a third player - all in the core box.
Certainly the flexibility within the box is a huge bonus – of course assuming the game is one you like. As in all games, added options only matter if you liked the core experience.
And in that regard Harrow County is likely to be a loved or not game. The backstory and theme, and diversity of play will be something many will devour -- fans of the books who board game leading the charge.
But the things they love will be a bit too high a hill to climb for others in terms of falling for this one in a big way.
At its core Harrow County is a two player asymmetric game of area control. Players each have access to the same four actions, but they each activate them differently. The goal is to get to seven points, which they can do by controlling the centre hex (the brambles) at the end of a round, by killing their opponent's units, or by accomplishing their asymmetric goals.
The game will shine brightest two-player for most.
Players start off with a training game, and then move them into the full game where they have access to more characters, and a new faction.
A third player can play Hester, the dead witch. She plays completely differently and adds a new challenge to everyone playing.
There has been an expansion launched; Fair Folk Expansion where a fourth player can be added.
So what does Cormier like about the game.
“It has to be the cube tower built into the game box,” he said. “There is a literal hole in the top of the game box and right on the front of the box!! A cube tower is different from a dice tower. In a cube tower, there are ledges and baffles inside it, so some of the cubes get stuck and some come out the bottom. We use this to resolve combat - and it's wonderful!
“We started doing combat in a deterministic way. This means, just like in chess, when you land on a space with an opponent, you kill it. While it worked, it made the game puzzley and it didn't have the kind of emotional impact that we thought would be necessary for a game set in the world of Harrow County. So then we tried all sorts of ideas with dice, but we were never happy with any of them. We kept trying to find ways to mitigate bad dice rolls and couldn't find something that felt right. Then we thought about a cube tower! I had played Amerigo, which uses a cube tower to determine which actions, and how many actions, you take on your turn. When used for combat, it had some nice effects.”
If you liked the books and like games – well buy this one for sure, but it may not be everyone’s first choice, even though it largely provides what it promises.
