It was definitely like a blast from the past when I happened upon a Kickstarter campaign for Calakmul and realized it was from game designer Tony Ripley.
It was back in around 2010 when I last had contact with Ripley having reviewed his game Tacticum, an abstract strategy game I very much liked which employed unique dice as units in a game of ancient battle.
So Calakmul -- an actual Maya City/Kingdom that had territorial disputes and battles with the great city of Palenque, among others – is actually a series of four distinct games which comes in a handy travel tin.
“One day, you will rule by wielding the strongest influence in the kingdom. But for that day to come you will have to work hard and demonstrate your leadership, honor and quick thinking. These are the tests you must face, and a there is a challenger you must overcome,” noted the campaign.
Ripley says he has always been an abstract strategy game fan, “probably since dad taught me chess when I was pretty young. Of course some days you feel like luck games or light euros are all you can handle.”
For the Calakmul games, Ripley said a design contest got him thinking initially.
“Years ago, there was a BoardGameGeek challenge to make a game using one chessex dice cube,” he said. “That is when I first played with concept. Since I already had a desert game, I moved to the Maya jungles for theme.
“The second game, where both players are competing on the same pyramid really got better after play testing as I got ready for the Kickstarter campaign.
“After getting the two-player games worked out in Calakmul, I wanted to ensure a solo game. So I had the existing components and the clear concept of the first year of ruling. At first I got too into details like food, water and building materials; traditional resource management items.
“But then I was able to come up a level when I focused more on the idea of maintaining your territory and possibly expanding. Then some of the game mechanism I liked game together better.”
Ripley said he had a goal in mind that ultimately he feels he achieved in the overall design.
“Overall one of my early goals was to try and see if I could have a race, points, and combat game all using mostly the same setting and components,” he said. “Since I started the Daring Dice games series, I shifted to make sure there was a good solo game. . .
“Also, a key challenge -- make it fit in a tin! It is wild thing about components, theme, tin size, postage weight and playability all at the same time.”
So what does Ripley like most about his creation?
“As much as I enjoy where it all started from, I really like the immersive feel of the solo game,” he related. “The little territory map is like an old WWII map. Blind draw for the construction dice on the stelae can get nerve racking as it impacts the Doom tracker frequently. Otherwise I am happy that the two-player games which are short but engaging.”
Really how can you go wrong when you get four games in an easy travel tin that facilitates both solo and two-player action. This is just a neat little package that gamers are going to get a lot of play out of considering its compact format.
