The history of the game Great Fire: London 1666
Late at night in a bar in 2007 after attending the greatest board game convention in the world – Essen Spiel – several of the UK Games Expo organisers fell into a discussion common no doubt to the many gamers who attend – ideas for board games. Most of mine and the others ideas lead nowhere, but I had a beginnings of a concept for a game involving some disaster and trying to survive it. The initial idea was far from a game about the Great Fire of London – it was actually about British soldiers trying to escape the collapse of their army at Isandlwana on the eve of the battle of Rorke’s Drift in 1879. That game never seemed to work, but whilst I was working on it the Great Fire of London popped into my mind and would not go away.
Ferrycon I
In early October 2008 I ordered a map from Amazon.
It was actually drawn in 1667 (the year after the fire) and showed the extent of the damage. Using this I sketched a very crude board on two pieces of A4 card.
I also produced hand drawn cards which the players would use to manipulate the fire. Using wooden counters picked up at Essen in 2007, the first Great Fire prototype was created in time for Ferrycon 2008. This term was coined by a friend, Pete Heatherington, after we both agreed to take early prototypes of our games on the cross channel ferry. As we sat down to play through the 90 minute crossing, a Welsh Male choir on board (and mostly at or near the bar) started to sing ‘Men of Harlech’. The first play test of Great Fire took place against this backdrop. (Incidentally Ferrycon has been repeated on our crossings to Essen and some battlefield tours we do and Ferrycon IV will take place during our crossing in October 2010. So if you see a group of men huddled round cardboard boards and wooden pieces on the Dover to Calais Ferry, come and ask to play.
Any initial play test will be naturally bumpy (especially if affected by being on a ferry tossing about or the distractions of close harmony singing) but showed potential and so on the drive through Belgium we continued the discussion and analysed the combinations of numbers of houses, districts and players that could make up the game. I was away and on my return from Essen I was ready to make a proper prototype.
Early Prototype
I was already familiar with a piece of software called Campaign Cartographer by profantasy and discovered that expansion files for it allowed the drawing of 17th century maps in the style of the cartographer of the time, John Speed. The First attempt at the game board and all later prototype ones used Campaign Cartographer. The first play throughs were at the October Wargames Association and my own Monday night home gaming group. The mechanics were holding up well but at this stage players got 2 pts for each house that survived and that was about it. It was still fun but it was obvious that we needed something to strive for in the game beyond just burning other player’s houses. Suddenly inspiration hit me in the middle of an after game debrief when I looked up and saw the game Risk sitting on my shelf and it occurred to me that we needed objective cards. So the first objective cards were made giving points if certain important buildings survived.
Midcon Version
Midcon is a friendly board game convention that occurs in November in Birmingham. It was a chance to twist a couple of arms and get an opinion on the game from the gamer. I actually ran 3 play test sessions that weekend. Embarrassingly, I made an error on the board and the date of the original map I copied from (drawn in 1667) was brought across so the version I took to Midcon had 1667 emblazoned upon it. This was spotted by Dave of the Halesowen board gamers. At least that boob could be quickly corrected.
By Midcon 2008 the board now showed objectives – as lightly shaded areas. However at this stage there were more than the 12 we eventually ended up with. I also had a number of other objectives than the 12 buildings such as whether the fire reached a certain map edge or the river BUT these were later dropped. We played around with many such ideas but found there was a high element of luck in what cards you got. At this stage the initial set up of the game was still very random and massive elements of luck could apply to where your houses ended up on the board. It was clear that a LOT of work needed doing to knock this game into shape.
Winter Play testing
By now David Norman of JKLM was heavily involved having played the game at Midcon. Some many dozens of emails later and the game started to tighten up. Over the winter of 2008 to 2009 David brought his analytical mind to the mechanics – but never dominating and always encouraging me to come up with ideas and concepts. It was quite a fun period as his group and mine were playing it a lot and ideas were flying all over the place. By spring 2009 we have a score track appearing, we have a map grid, we have 4 zones to the board to make for a more even spread of houses and the 12 objective had been settled upon. We also developed 3 sets of objective cards to ensure everyone got one near to the fire, 1 middling and one further out. We had also brought in Fire Intensify cards which would allow extra fires to be added to dying ones and Double Fire Move cards to allow unpredictability in how far fire could move.
UK Games Expo 2009, Essen, Midcon again and Dragonmeet
The game was now ready for exposure to the public again after 6 months development from Midcon. I now embarked on 6-9 months of hauling the game round cons and getting it played by groups in Birmingham, France, Germany and Manchester as well as running 4 sessions of it at Essen. The result was pretty good support and enthusiasm. These play tests though threw up a few minor issues and niggles. These were about the balance of objective cards and the use of demolition charges (or the tendency not to bother to use them) and fair the distribution of Fire Intensify or Double Fire Move cards. So, tokens were introduced for double fire moves, demo charges as well as additional victory points and placed on the board so as players moved fire over them they got access to them. Card stacks on the board were brought into make sure each player got the same chance to intensify the fire.
Finally by Dragonmeet 2009 what I felt was the final playtest version was revealed and went down well. So it was that the game was ready for Markus of JKLM to take on to production.
Publication
Now the publisher involved Andreas Resch an artist who took my ideas and produced production artwork such as this board:
The game is due out in October – hopefully in time for Essen Spiel in Germany and will be available through certain game stores.
Phew!
This whole process has been one hell of a ride and I am full of respect for full time game designers and those who make a living from this process. It takes a lot of time, many play tests and revisions to make a game. You have to grow a thick skin because you will get negative comments and not everyone will like your idea. But, I think eventually holding the finished product in your hands and saying “I am a Game Designer” is worth it.
Would I do it again? Well, I have this idea …
Richard Denning of Medusa Games is the designer of  Great Fire of London 1666.
Related Articles
No user responded in this post