Sit down to a boardgame with your friends and enjoy a night of fun. Next week you can play it all again, but what if each time you play the game it is subtly altered so you never play the same game twice? About 4 years ago, Hasbro went out on a limb and released Risk Legacy. It was the Risk game known to many, but this time around every game played physically changed the game. What if the green army wins one game and comes back with advantages the next time around. What if western Australia was nuked, a sticker was placed on the board, and that location will never be accessible again. Risk Legacy was a hit amongst the boardgaming crowd. The idea of a boardgame that evolves and permanently changes was out of the bag and now several new titles are coming down the pipeline.

Risk Legacy
I won’t go into the details of how to play risk (put your armies on the world map, roll dice to attack other players, try to be the last one standing – or in newer versions, score the most victory points by the end of the game.) Along with the base game was a set of secret envelopes that were to be opened only when specific conditions are met. This could include stickers to change the board, new cards to add to the deck. In some situations you might even rip up an existing card! Each “color” army has a record that tracks its performance and any rewards or advantages earned throughout the arc of the games played.

Pandemic Legacy
Rob Daviau (one of the creators of Risk Legacy) has now turned his eye to the cooperative game, Pandemic. It is an award winning game where players combine their efforts to eradicate three diseases on the world map. Each player is given a different role (out of a few possible) which provides them with a special power. Each turn, disease cubes enter the board and if a location ever has too many cubes it erupts into the adjacent locations, spreading the disease cubes further. Players cooperate in order to clean up the cubes (preventing them from taking over large swaths of the board) while also trying to gather up the needed resources to create a “cure” for each disease. If the players manage to cure all three diseases before they overrun the world, they all win. If not, they all lose.

Pandemic Legacy, releasing later this year, takes this formula (one of the most popular cooperative games around) and gives it a “Legacy” twist. This means that players play the game over and over again, slowly gaining (or losing) ground depending on what happened in previous games. To prevent a downward spiral of losing repeatedly, the game is set up so that the players are able to move onto the next scenario in the series after they attempt it a limited number of times. It also allows the game to “ramp up” a bit over repeated plays.

I think this is the key to enjoying a Legacy-style game. As the game is played, additional changes and complexities are added to give the game more strategic depth. Playing the game over a long series also helps to draw players into the overall narrative. A single game doesn’t just stand on its own. A bit more pressure is added to the mix, since success now will add a bit of benefit to later games.

(A promotional video about the upcoming game…)

Of course, the “elephant in the room” is that a single Legacy boardgame can only be completed once. After a series of play (perhaps a dozen or so), the arc of the game is complete and the experience is over. However, a dozen (or more) plays will provide one with at least a dozen or two hours of play – perhaps more, along with all the planning and discussion that goes along with such an ongoing game. People who put all their comic books in sealed plastic baggies in a nitrogen-filled room may not be the target audience for a game that requires tearing up cards. However, there is a certain “thrill” in knowing the game moves on and there is no going back.

Seafall
Of note, there is a third Legacy style game coming out in 2016. Rather than modifying an existing franchise, Seafall will be a game entirely based around the Legacy idea. The game will focus on what is often called a 4X style game. The computer version of Civilization is an example of this genre where players eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. In this case, players will explore the game board while also attacking each other’s ships. Details are somewhat sketchy but Seafall looks to expand on the exploration theme with succeeding games opening up even more areas to explore.

So, Legacy games are not your run of the mill boardgame, but they provide a unique experience in the world of gaming. When was the last time you played a game (PC, console, boardgame) where the game you played can never be played that same way again? It is a radical idea, and definitely stretches my personal boundaries (you want me to rip up my cards? put permanent stickers on my board?) However, it provides an ongoing (for awhile) shared experience that is hard to duplicate. While my boys are still a bit young, I’ve got Risk Legacy sitting in a prime spot on my shelf waiting for the day we can dive in and make some good memories together.

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