Ridgehead Games Blog

I call Fruit my first game, and by most definitions it is: it's the first tabletop game that I've taken from a concept with a theme and an objective, built a draft prototype and set of rules, tested and refined those rules, built a proper prototype, tested and played with other people.

But technically it's not the first board game I ever created. That honour goes to a little something called Car Arena.

I've always loved tile-laying games. I like all kinds of games, but there's something about laying down tiles that's inherently satisfying to me. And of the different kinds of tile-laying games, the unrestricted, boundless ones are the ones that I find particularly enjoyable.

While I do enjoy tile-laying games with a bounded playing area (as in something likes a game board with edges that restrict the extent of the tile placement), I think the sense of freedom and creativity that comes with an open tile-laying game is what sets them apart; at the start of every game there's just that empty ocean of space, waiting to be filled with whatever you want to create.

One thing I've always enjoyed about board gaming is looking at the state of the board after a game is finished. From the territories that have changed hands at the end of a game of Axis & Allies to the design of a stained glass window in Sagrada, there's something satisfying about finishing a game and looking down at what you and your fellow players have created.

This was a large part of the design objective for Fruit - my intent was not only to have a game that was fun (obviously), but also a game that would result in a satisfying end state. Now, even in the most relaxed game people want to win (without some kind of incentive there's no reason even to play), so the objectives that people are trying to achieve, and the routes by which they are able to achieve them, will shape the way that the end state looks. For a game about growing fruiting plants, that meant I had to develop a win condition and set of rules that would encourage players to create a plant that would look aesthetically pleasing at game end.