From dentist to board game creator
Block after block of Victorian homes, classy buildings and the rich history of Cape May, N.J., provided one Butler County resident with the inspiration to create a board game around that theme.
Cape May, the board game, was created by Eric Mosso of Valencia, and it began hitting store shelves in late November after being produced by Thunderworks Games.
On the box, a woman wearing yellow is standing on the gallery of a prominent lighthouse that looks over the historic city.
“I knew nothing about the town at all,” Mosso said. “I just knew it was pretty.”
During a vacation about four years ago, Mosso and his wife took a trolley tour of the city. As part of the tour, the guide talked about the history of Cape May. The guide included the tale of a great fire in the late 1800s, which encompassed about 40 acres of land. In the disaster's aftermath, a new period of rebuilding began and led to the city's wealth of Victorian homes and buildings.
In the game, the player has the opportunity to rebuild Cape May his or her way.
“I said to my wife, 'I'm going to make a game of this,'” Mosso said.
According to Mosso, the game was born from a passion that began during his childhood.As he matured and entered the workforce, he allowed that passion to fade as he trended upward in the world of dentistry. Mosso went on to co-own a practice, from which he is now semi-retired.He said about 10 years ago, he rediscovered his love for board games, as the industry began marketing games not only to children but to adult audiences, too.“It's not like Risk or Monopoly,” Mosso said. “They're really becoming more sophisticated.”Particularly, Mosso fell for a game called Memoir 44. The game simulates military battles, and it allows for diversity in its interchangeable game boards. The game supplies the rules and some basic boards, but players are encouraged to create their own boards and objectives.So, that what Mosso did — he created his own scenarios for the game and uploaded them to a website meant for collection and collaboration of these game boards.“People loved them,” Mosso said.Mosso tried his idea, which came in the form of a game called Renaissance, which he designed about eight or nine years ago. That one never got picked up by a game developer, but it did put him in the right circles with the right people, including folks at Thunderworks Games.
Before Cape May was pitched to its eventual publisher, Mosso needed a board, the mechanics and the goals of the game.About three years ago, Mosso drew his first board for Cape May. Spaces were drawn with marker. Around the edges, he pasted figures and artwork printed out from images found online.Mosso admitted he's not an artist, but said he has a knack for creating the mechanics that make the game playable and fun.Mosso opted for a game that focuses on a balance of economy and movement. A player travels around the board earning money and developing properties.Unlike the game with a top hat-wearing mascot, the goal isn't to accrue more money, it's to earn more points, which is done by developing more properties into Victorian-era homes and businesses.The game has a limit of 12 rounds, denoted by a wheel, simulating months and seasons of a year. And as time moves forward, random happenings arrive in the form of “event” cards.The earliest event cards were written on pieces of paper and cut to card size. The events listed upon them really happened in Cape May's history and are simulated in the game.“Every round you turn over an event, and they can either help you or hurt you,” Mosso said.Mosso said he also wanted to appeal to the bird-watching culture that exists in the city. He said every year, bird-watchers flock together for a grand contest to see who can spot the most species in a single day.For the birds, Mosso created collectible tokens featuring different birds that can be earned. The more tokens a player has at the end of the game, the more points they earn.After bringing all the different aspects together into a playable game, he used his friends, family and other board-game fanatics as game-testers. After a full year of tinkering, he was ready to pitch the game to Thunderworks Games.
Mosso said he arrived at a board game convention alongside other hopeful creators. He said as he looked around, it was clear some brought more to the table.He said some creators used a computer to draft designs, and others even had 3D-printed pieces. He was walking in with scribblings on paper and conceptualized figments for pieces.And yet, the people from Thunderworks Games said “Yes.”Mosso said he received a follow-up within days of the convention, and a deal was done a short time later.“I could tell they were excited about it,” Mosso said.Scott Bogen, a digital communications manager for the game company, led the development of Cape May. He said after the game came to their company, there was still some give-and-take in the original design.Bogen said the game was sent back to Mosso twice to re-evaluate some of the concepts or to rebalance some of the mechanics of the game.“Eric was wonderful to work with because he was very receptive of our feedback and our ideas,” Bogen said. “He fully embraced some of the changes we made to the game.”Bogen said a large effort was put into understanding and balancing the economic component of the game. “Balancing” is a term used in all sorts of gaming to describe the act of making a game fair. In other words, no one way to beat or play the game is better than the other.“We had to make sure all the purchasing decisions made sense and the cost of items were balanced across the board,” Bogen said.
As Cape May neared its completion, it was time to add the graphics, the art and the polish. Mosso said he couldn't be happier with the way the visuals turned out.“It's one of the best designed games graphically, I've ever seen,” Mosso said.The game today looks much different from the first draft. Bogen said they turned to artist Michael Menzel, a well-known figure in the board-game industry.“(He has) a bit of a softer style, more painterly style than some games,” Bogen said. “We thought it would be a good fit.”The artwork scrawls across the board from a top-down perspective with a slight angle to it that helps add to the visual as the 3-dimensional Victorian-style buildings pieces that sit atop it.All of the cards also feature individualized artwork in the same style, and many feature prominent or realistic versions of buildings that still stand, or once stood, in Cape May.“We think it turned out beautifully,” Bogen said. “We're just thrilled with the final result.”Beyond the visuals, Bogen said he also further developed the event cards, elaborating to give more context for the historical events and how they occurred. Bogen said he spent countless hours pouring over information online, in books and generally familiarizing himself with Cape May's history.“We wanted to add that flavor text to these cards,” Bogen said. “That required research.”The culmination of all this work resulted in a sellable game that hit the shelves in November.“Early indications have been that it has brought appeal. It's been really well-received. It has a unique quality to it,” Bogen said. “In the end, we just want to make games and have people playing them.”
Though he hasn't received word from any Cape May city officials about the game, Mosso said he did receive kind praise from the local library there.“There have been a lot of purchases from shops in Cape May,” he said.Mosso said he is thrilled to see his game on shelves locally too. A Pittsburgh business invited him to an event resembling a book-signing. Mosso presented the game, described the theme and discussed the mechanics to a room of about 20 people.There were 11 copies of the game on hand, and by the end of the event, there were none left.“At the end of the presentation, people were clapping,” Mosso said. “These people bought these games, and they wanted me to sign them.”Mosso said he's already been asked to come and present the game at other locations. As he promotes Cape May, Mosso continues to work on new games, as his first has only inspired more.“It's fun. It's a nice hobby of mine,” Mosso said.
