Monkofdoom

Thank you!

It was really that, a lot of testing.

Sometimes testing specific parts of the game, sometimes full runthroughs and eventually getting hundreds of other people to play the game too.

The other day I even did a "The Internet plays The City of Kings" and had the people in the chat controlling 1 character. That was an interesting way of testing how people thought about the various decisions.

With that said, I do have a lot of spreadsheets which I used to calculate all the possibilities. I know the best and worst cases in all scenarios and made sure to keep referring to these and testing them.

What's the worst thing that can happen in this situation: Ok, let's set that up and see what happens. What's the best thing that can happen in this situation: Ok, let's set that up and see what happens. And so on.

I've not received the money yet! But I don't think there will be much to spare. Manufacturing board games isn't cheap!

There were a lot of great parts but I think the freedom of creating whatever I wanted was certainly a great feeling. Knowing that whatever came into my head "could" be done, as long as I could find a way to validate it within the world.

I think the best feeling though was when I shared it with the world and everyone started asking questions and wanting to learn more.

Hey WobblyGobbledygook, great question!

The short answer is no. The only protection I ever took was asking a few people to sign NDAs when I was sending over artwork that I didn't want released to the public.

I believe there are many great ideas out there all the time and it comes down to the execution, which isn't something you can easily copy.

I believe The City of Kings is a great game due to the combination of mechanics, world and the overall experience I tried to give.

Having someone steal/copy any one of these points wouldn't cause me any damage, and I don't believe another person, or team of people, would have put them together in the same way I have.

That's the plan!