by Kristian Amundsen Østby

Creating Memories
Two years ago, I stood on the show floor at SPIEL Essen with my daughter Maria, watching strangers play a game we'd made together. That game was Gardlings, and it was hers as much as mine. It was her first design, my however-many-th. And seeing strangers enthusiastically play her game wasn’t just a proud memory for her. Anyone who’s been a shy teenager knows it can be a period full of insecurities, and an experience like this can be a valuable source of confidence.

This October, it's my son's turn. Aleksander is twelve, and this is his first game. He's genuinely excited about it, and hopefully the experience can be as meaningful and create just as fond memories for him as it did for Maria.

So, here's the story of how Buried Memories came to be.

It Started With a Mess of Tiles

I’ve been interested in game design for many years, and I’ve always been fascinated about games that are truly analogue. And I don't just mean "non-digital." I mean games that aren't tied down to a fixed play area, a board, or a grid. Games that are looser and more organic, and in a way break the fourth wall of games. Many dexterity games do this (like Jenga, Bausack, and Soccer). But it is not that common in regular board games, because it can be difficult to define clear rules for chaos and to convert analogue measures into discreet points.

One evening I found myself staring at a box of tiles I'd tossed in there at random, and thinking: could this mess be the framework for a game? You could only take tiles from the top of the pile, tiles that weren't covered. Sometimes you'd spot the corner of something interesting further down, and you could dig toward it, without knowing what you'd actually find along the way.


That felt like digging. And I've wanted to make a game about digging since I first played Dig Dug on my computer in the 80s.


The First Attempt (Which Didn't Work)
The early version had players start with basic digging equipment. You could take two tiles per turn, upgradeable to three or four. I loved the idea of unearthing a big, boring stone tile only to find treasure hiding underneath it.

Except the game didn't do much of that. It felt clinical. Predictable. There were no real surprises, no roller-coaster moments. Just a steady, repeated process. I wanted delightful drama, this was just dull disappointment.

So, the prototype went into my drawer of shame, which is where prototypes go to think about what they've done.


Enter Minecraft and My Son
Some time later, my son Aleksander and I were playing a Minecraft-themed board game (If you don't know Minecraft, it's just Dig Dug for Generation Z).

Partway through, he said something like: "It'd be cool if you could actually dig, like, dig through tiles or something."

It didn’t take long to retrieve the prototype from my drawer. We started tinkering with different equipment, different soil types. But the big emotional moments were still missing. The fixed draw just didn’t create drama.

One mechanism that is famous for creating drama is push-your-luck. I wasn't thrilled about making this into a push-your-luck-game. I've already done push-your-luck-games, and I don't like doing the same things twice. Also, the genre can feel very random. But we had an idea for making it feel different.


The Trick: Push-Your-Luck With No Required Luck
Tiles have two sides. Throw a pile of them into a box, and roughly half will land face-up, half face-down. This is an awesome and underrated feature of tiles (I actually explored this feature in my 2011 game Mammut).

Now, on one side of each tile, we put one of six “creepers” (like spiders, snakes and so on). On your turn, you can keep drawing tiles as long as you don't draw two matching creepers. Since half the tiles are already face-up, you're not gambling blind. You can see a lot of what you're risking. Play it safe and only take what's visible. Play it wild and go after the good stuff regardless of what's face-down. Or play it smart, and only take a risk when the reward is big.

It's push-your-luck where the luck is optional and you actually have a lot of control. That distinction turned out to contribute with exactly what I was aiming for.

We also decided the tiles themselves shouldn't be plain squares with symbols. They're have custom shapes, vases, statues, artifacts. Because digging up a chunk of a vase should feel like digging up a chunk of a vase, not like picking up a tile that says "vase."


The Missing Ingredient: Care
At this point the game worked, but something felt flat: it was a set-collection game, and early test players didn’t seem to care much about what anyone else was doing. Even though the game was interactive (how and where you dig certainly affects the other players), players didn’t pay attention to what the others collected. If you didn’t care what the others collected, the game didn’t feel very interactive. Everyone was mostly collecting their own stuff in their own corner of the table.

The fix was quite simple: put a scoring track on the table and make it a race to 50 points. Same underlying scoring, very different feeling. The moment test players could see each other advancing towards the finish line, they started paying attention to what they were collecting. This improved the level of experienced interaction. What tiles you picked up and left behind suddenly felt much more crucial.


The Envelopes
We had several cool ideas for different tile effects, but I wanted to keep the rules simple to make sure this was a low-entry game. However, the added variation from the new tiles was also very good.

We decided to divide the contents between five sealed envelopes. You unlock them one at a time as you play, each one introducing a new twist or tile type. We deliberately kept this short: You should feel real progress early on, and be able to unlock the full game within about 8-10 games.


The Art
Somewhere in the middle of all this, French illustrator and cartoon author Nathan Lemonnier agreed to do the art, and this leveled up the game. His art is distinctive and playful, in a style you don’t often see on board game boxes. And he didn't just illustrate what we'd built, he came up with its own universe, and gave the artifacts their own half-explained mythology. You're not just digging up "a vase" or an ancient artifact. You're now digging up strange memories. It also matched perfectly with the concept of the envelopes, as he could add theme and meaning to them, and the envelopes would tell a little story.


The Return to SPIEL/Essen
So, that's the game, built from a box of loose tiles, a Minecraft-related boardgame night with my son, and a lot of trial and error.

In October, we'll be at SPIEL Essen together, setting up the table, teaching strangers the art of combined archaeology and paleontology (contrary to common academic belief, these disciplines can absolutely be combined).

I did this with Maria two years ago for Gardlings, and it remains one of my favorite memories as a dad. Now I get to experience this with my son. Aleksander has already asked if he can explain the rules to people, and if he ends up explaining the game to you, even though he might seem a little shy, you should know that he is quite good at hiding his pride.