Interviews

Talisman Tidbits: An interview with Carl Jackson of Nomad Games

Because he can never have enough Talisman

Talisman Tidbits: An interview with Carl Jackson of Nomad Games

You can tell a lot about a boardgame fan by her attitude to Talisman.

It's the perfect litmus test, you see. The easiest way to discover whether someone prefers dramatic games that are full of thrilling narrative twists, or deep strategy affairs (it's surprisingly hard to incorporate both drama and strategy into a boardgame).

Talisman, then, is very much a 'love it or hate it' affair.

So it stands to reason that Carl Jackson, design director and co-founder of Talisman Prologue and Talisman: Digital Edition developer Nomad Games, falls into the 'love' camp.

"I've waited a long time for a digital version myself," Jackson told me. "It was great to be given the opportunity to get involved with its creation. There was a lot of pressure, too, making sure we delivered something that players of a game that's been popular for 30 years would enjoy."

Jackson is clear about why he's such a fan.

"I've played it many times since 1991 and have grown to enjoy the 'over-random' nature," he said. "It's meant to be a fun experience and it really succeeds in that if you turn down your competitive side and just accept that the next step in your adventure might lead to becoming a toad! And the risk / reward balance in Talisman is spot on."

Given this game is supposedly entirely random, Nomad has done a great job making competent AI opponents for it. I wondered how they'd been developed.

"There's a huge spreadsheet of factors for all situations that provides modifiers for the AI's choices. To monitor what the AI thought was a good or bad idea, we played the game and watched what it did.

"Each time it made a decision, we paused the game to look at its reasons. If they were wrong, we changed them by tweaking the values in the spreadsheet. The very first time the AI cast Invisibility to sneak past the Sentinel instead of fighting it when it had no chance of winning was a great moment."

What most fans love about Talisman is its ability to 'conjure up' new fantasy novellas on every play. Vast decks of encounters, spells, and items ensure that it can take some surprising and memorable turns. Jackson, like most enthusiasts, has an impressive repertoire of Talisman stories.

"My favourite moment was playing with the Frostmarch expansion," he enthused. "There are two really fun spells in it: Toadify (which can turn players into a toad) and Hydra (which allows any spell to be targeted all other characters)."

"So, a player cast Toadify. I then cast Hydra and chose everyone but myself to be affected by Toadify. As luck would have it, every player rolled high and everyone was turned into a toad."

Storytelling

And thanks to his position on the team that delivered Talisman on mobile, he gets to hear lots other other players' stories, too.

"One guy was using the game as a bedtime story creator," he told me. "Playing it with his young daughter while trying to get her to sleep."

"He went to a woods space and drew a bag of gold card. For the rest of the game, his daughter kept saying she wanted to go back to the woods to see if they'd left any gold behind. Very sweet."

Enabling the mobile version to take care of the administrative overhead of the game means the stories can come to the fore.

"We've freed the player up to focus on what's happening to her character," Jackson told me. "The digital version plays much faster, so it's your turn more often. I think that helps you connect a bit more with what your character experiences."

And he shared an interesting tidbit about the sound: "The music was created by a long-time Talisman fan, which helps create an adventurous atmosphere."

Indeed, the audiovisual quality of the app is incredibly high by boardgame standards.

In place of the usual component scans, Talisman presents players with a gorgeously detailed recreation of the art from the original, polished for the digital experience. I asked Jackson how the team had managed to do it.

"We had access to all the artwork from the game in a digital format, so we've been able to present it to players in a way they've never seen before.

"With the physical boardgame, some of the art was obscured, such as the detail behind the scrolls on the board spaces. We've removed those scrolls so that the board is free of anything covering the art.

"I was able to spot things I'd never noticed before, such as the tiny man confronting the Sentinel, the dinosaurs in the hidden valley, and the monster in the river."

Colouring in

I was also astonished to note that in place of the grey plastic figures from the boardgame, Talisman Digital presents full-colour versions. Was that more digital trickery?

"No. The figures have been painted by our artist, Andy, who is a big Warhammer fan and has painted many miniatures in his time."

However excellent the presentation, it's unlikely to be enough to lure in the sizeable contingent of Talisman haters, who feel the game is overly long and overly random.

While Jackson obviously disagrees with their assessment, Nomad has been keen to offer a few 'helping hands' to the uninitiated in this new version of the game.

"We've added lots of ways to shorten games in the digital version. Plus, you can save an offline game and return later, so you can play a game in small chunks if you wish."

You'd expect that, of course, but there's more.

"Our game is based on the most recent 4th edition. It adds Fate, a major change that has addressed the 'over-random' issue somewhat by giving players the chance to re-roll the die if things don't go their way."

As you might imagine for such a well-established yet polarising game, Talisman has spawned a multitude of house rules to try and streamline the experience. And Nomad has seen fit to add some as options to the game.

One, entitled 'Race for the Crown', is a particular favourite with Jackson.

"The end of the game, when a player is on the Crown of Command and killing everyone off, can add another 20-30 minutes to a game's length in some situations, so that rule - making it a simple case of 'first one to the crown wins' - compels players to go for the Crown a bit sooner than they would otherwise have done."

Speedy

Yet for all the effort that's gone into speeding up the game, I did criticise this otherwise-excellent adaptation for not doing quite enough in my review of the game.

The interface just felt a bit slow and clumsy. So, I wanted to ask Jackson whether designing it had proved a particular challenge.

"The game does require a lot of player input, but that's mainly due to the rules of the boardgame," he replied. "For example, if you're playing as the Druid and you draw the Angel card, which gives you 1 life if you are Good, we need to have a step between drawing the card and actually encountering it, to give the Druid the chance to use his special power and change his alignment."

"Spell casting is another area that was very awkward," he continued. "Players aren't allowed to see other players' spells, so we had to work out a way to keep that secrecy but keep the game flowing.

"We have a feature where players can 'queue' a spell up so that it's ready and waiting for the next time it can be cast. I always knew that the spell casting was going to be the most awkward aspect of the design for the digital game, but I think we've done a good job."

Mechanics

Given the mechanical similarity between Talisman: Digital Edition and Talisman Prologue, I was also a little disappointed that Nomad didn't roll content from its previous game into the new Talisman Digital to create an all-singing, all-dancing digital version.

But Jackson explained that the studio didn't want to short-change people who'd bought the previous game.

"We were very aware that lots of Talisman fans were waiting for the 'full game', so they decided to not buy Prologue," he said. "We didn't want to force people who didn't want Prologue to buy it because we were going to add the next game into it."

So, after two successful games based on Talisman, what's the future for the team? The answer, unsurprisingly for such a Talisman addict, is more Talisman.

"The expansions for the original add some great new elements to the game, such as the Grim Reaper and a Werewolf roaming the board, chasing players," Jackson said.

"We'll be adding all of the physical board expansions eventually. The Frostmarch expansion is next. It contains some fantastic new features, such as alternative endings. We'll also be releasing individual characters every few weeks, including the Gambler and some old 2nd edition favourites such as the Ninja and the Pirate."

Matt Thrower
Matt Thrower
Matt is a freelance arranger of words concerning boardgames and video games. He's appeared on IGN, PC Gamer, Gamezebo, and others.