by Non Breaking-Space

My name is Non-Breaking Space, and I am the designer of Cross Bronx Expressway from GMT Games.

The design was born from a homesickness. I grew up in the Bronx, but by the time I started working on the game, I had not lived there for over a decade. I missed it. I still miss it. The sounds, the smells, the sights, the tastes, the people, the questions. Questions of place.

Working on the game drew me back to that place to answer those questions, and in the middle of them all was the Cross Bronx Expressway.

The Cross Bronx Expressway under construction in 1948
Finding the Framework

I started doing research for the game as a design challenge. Could I present a history of the South Bronx by showing the impacts that mid-century roadway projects like the Cross Bronx Expressway had on the area? Ostensibly the design was to be an economic game, but one which did not shy away from the social impacts urban planning can have. With this objective, I took the design through a few iterations exploring different mechanisms, from worker placement to 18xx, before arriving at the basis for the current model.

The game covers the six decades from 1940 to 2000 on a map of the southern section of the Bronx. Three playable factions — Public, Private, and Community — must work co-operatively to address the needs of the population of the South Bronx, while pursuing their individual goals over the course of this history. Under this framing, players have to navigate the historic forced displacement caused by eminent domain property removal to build the roadways, the post-war suburban flight and redlining policies of disinvestment this triggered, and the simultaneous impact of the biggest economic downturn the city experienced in the second half of the century.

Unlike many economic games, monetary returns are not the measure of player victory; instead the factions compete to shape the socio-economic picture of the area to reflect their asymmetric objectives. Will the South Bronx become a beacon of public service, a hub of private investment, or the hallmark of community activism?

The pacing of the game is managed through a card-driven mechanism pulled from the COIN series of games. Rounds of play are dictated by an event deck with a variable initiative order. Unlike COIN, during each event round, all of the factions make an action selection in initiative order first, then the round is resolved in a fixed action order. After eight event rounds, each decade there is a census round in which players score victory points based on the board state.

An early prototype of the game when it still used wooden disks for infrastructure. The "sequence of play" section towards the bottom right shows the fixed action resolution order: Act, Event, React, Plan.
Early iterations of the design looked like a COIN game. My prototype components mirrored those found in any of that series' boxes. This was the version of the game I showed to Jason Carr, head of development for GMT Games, who expressed an interest in publishing it. Surprisingly, his primary bit of feedback was to not let the mechanisms of COIN hold the game back from expressing itself.

As I thought about what the game needed to be as a product to truly express itself, two important things became clear: it needed to be a strong representation of the history, and it had to be presented in a way that was accessible to both gamers and non-gamers unfamiliar with that history. Players should walk away from a first play with the context to understand how their in-game actions reflected the history. To accomplish this required doubling down on the research to validate the model.

Author Robert Caro reacts to learning that there is a game about the Cross Bronx Expressway as he looks at prototype cards for Robert Moses and the Expressway. He kept the Moses card.
I had done initial readings of a number of New York histories during the first design phase. This included Robert Caro's The Power Broker, Kim Phillips Fein's Fear City, and Joe Flood's The Fires, amongst others.

Additional research went into the events, which by then had ballooned to almost 150 cards. The history in the game, as with many card-driven games, was anchored in those events. To achieve my objectives, however, the historical dynamics had to be well represented across all of the mechanisms. I aligned with developer Joe Dewhurst on this intent as we went into the next phase of design and development.

Modeling the History

The game's population model needed the most attention. It distinguishes itself from COIN because the population is not a pre-calculated value printed on the map, but rather cubes that the players interact with throughout the game. The population in those cubes are real people, including myself. The last thing I wanted was for the game to distort those impacts. Each of the mechanisms that interact with those cubes had to be fine tuned so that the sum of their impacts fit within a range relative to the history. If the game was meant to model history, the numbers in those pieces had to align with historical numbers.

To achieve this alignment, I had to pull census data. This sounds much easier than it was in practice. It turns out that over the sixty years covered in the game, how and what was captured by the census changed a lot. I remember spending days trying to understand a rather serious discrepancy, only to discover that column names had been swapped on a data table between decades. I ended up traveling to the National Archives to pull the records of those changes.

Eventually I was able to reconcile the difference and normalize the datasets into a shape that could support the game model. This meant for every decade I had population data for the seven community districts on the game map. With a little less consistency, I also had other metrics such as the demographics, health statistics, zoning, property data, and more.

A map of the Bronx showing blocks with properties in tax arrears for 1976
A map of the Bronx showing arsons by census tract for 1977-79
The population numbers were the key. With them, I could properly scale the cubes and use them to create the historical set-ups for each decade. From that baseline, playtests could be checked for how far they diverged from the historical numbers, with the mechanisms fine-tuned for better alignment.

Events played a key role in this fine-tuning, beginning with cutting over fifty cards from the game. A smaller set of fifteen cards per decade (ninety events total) made it statistically easier to manage the sway of impacts from a random selection of eight per decade during any single play. Choosing which cards to keep was hard, but at this point much of the refinement was data driven. I had standardized the actions in the event effects so their impacts could be aggregated and balanced uniformly. This also allowed each decade to be weighted to align with the history.

A simulator running 250k versions of a 1950s deck to see the range of effects on the different parts of the game
We did rounds of playtesting to see how player actions, combined with the event impacts, could steer the model. As the results coalesced around the census data, a secondary validation emerged. As players spoke about their play, the language used to describe their own actions was grounded in the historical dynamics. That was when it became clear to me that the game design was complete.

Mood board shared with the GMT art department as things started going into production
Developing the Product

Things moved next to presentation, which here means not just how the game looks, but also how the experience presents itself to users. I have enough colleagues and friends who are visual artists to know that I am not qualified to be called one, at least not professionally.

That said, over the years I have built up enough proficiency in the tools to prototype my own playtest graphics, often a few steps beyond a sketch, but also many steps below publishable art. Much like the passion meme, doing prototype graphics is my happy place. They help ground me in a design as I have trouble parsing meaning when things are too abstracted. Even more, they help define the physical space the game operates in so that component issues can be identified and addressed in design.

Playtest game on the dark mode version of the map
The prototype graphics that were in the initial announcements for the game probably set expectations in ways I did not intend. I loved them, but they were not meant to be the final look of the game. The dark theme feels evocative, but only for a particular period in the 1970s and 80s, which, while likely the most popular period in the game, represents just a third of the history covered. The mood of the "dark mode" map drew players closer to the ground, as if playing in the literal streets of the Bronx, which is not representative of their positions in the game at all. To make the experience consistent in its immersion, the art had to be reimagined.

The final game set-up to play the 1960s. Each district can be read as the data points expressed by the components.
I was pleased to work with Matthew Wallhead on the game's art. I was familiar with his work on The British Way, and his style was a perfect match for the direction I wanted the game to take.

The art needed to anchor the players in their positions, being somewhat removed from the population on the map. I wanted the game board to look like a map laid out on a planning table in a municipal conference room, with players negotiating to get their vision reflected in the final plan. Each decade can be understood as a planning session in which the factions are gathered to determine how the South Bronx will be represented in the city's broader Master Plan. Pieces placed on the map visualize the state of each district. As the component language becomes clear, the map starts reflecting the data behind the many charts I found reading the historical Master Plans and other archival documents.


A key component change that further distanced the game from its COIN inspiration was the shift from wooden discs to cardboard tiles. Tiles represent infrastructure that carry a lot of the mechanical weight in the game, both conceptually and physically. They "house" other pieces in districts, which in the earlier version was heavily abstracted by proximity. The shift to tiles provided space to physically hold other pieces. You can immediately see if a piece is being housed by noting whether it is on top of an infrastructure tile or not.

An early test of smaller tiles for the infrastructure. The placement of the "SOC" (social coalition) marker to the side did not fully convey the intention.
When the event card representing the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway shows up in game, it asks players to exhaust infrastructure. The exhaust action requires physically flipping a tile to its reverse side, which has no spaces for housing other pieces. This means that the pieces are physically "unhoused" by the players, making the impacts of the event tactile.

The infrastructure tiles that come with the game include space for all of the pieces they house to sit on top of them. When exhausted there are no longer any spaces, unhousing those pieces.
This physical connection with the actions and their impacts can be found throughout the game. The Private faction can use its hire action, activating one of their organizations in a district, to remove vulnerabilities by creating work for employees. The Public faction can bring in population from other boroughs in the city, then re-count the population housed in their infrastructure to increase their budget.

During the quota phase, unhoused vulnerabilities are rounded up and sent to corrections, which can become crowded, producing an overflow that gets tracked as disenfranchised losses to the penal system. These aren't just descriptions of the actions, but how they physically present themselves in the game. This physical connection helps reinforce the historical significance of the decisions being made.

As we did the work to standardize the actions for events, a set of icons was developed to help visually communicate their impact with the components. Combinations of these icons give indications of how the actions are resolved physically.

The icons do not replace text descriptions, but complement them with visual cues, so that players would have a quick reference for the impacts of actions at a glance. A reference guide to the icons is included in the player aids for each faction, and the icons are used with the descriptions of actions in the aid.

The icons are also used on the event cards, so that it is clear to the players how event actions can be resolved.

Faction player aids include all icons for the standardized actions used throughout the game
Matthew did a wonderful job on the layout for the event cards. Having spent so much time during the research phase of the design looking in the archives of municipal organizations, politicians, historians, and even Robert Moses himself, a common thread was that they all kept newspaper clippings. Sometimes the same clippings could be found across the collections. Many would have notes attached or in the margins, some with the envelopes they had been sent in, hand-written letters provided to contextualize. From these it was clear that the news always garnered reactions.

Similarly, I wanted to frame the events in the game as things the players would have to react to. Representing them visually as newspaper clippings helps to realize that.

Before and after versions of three events, where they are now presented as newspaper clippings and include the iconography to describe the impacts
Card backs for each decade stylized as the folders that hold the newspaper clippings on their front. The census card for each decade shows the steps taken during that phase of the game.
Only sixteen events are used during a standard two-decade single session play. Even playing the full campaign across all six decades will surface only 48 of the 90 events that come with the game. The full set of events, however, tell their own story through the decades, which is presented in the historical booklet that comes with the game. Also within those pages are some of the data points used for the game model. Census data is paired with the event effect data so that players can glimpse how the history can shape the play. This is followed by a set of quotes and narrative paragraphs for each event in the decade, making the booklet literally "A Historical Record" of the history captured inside of the box.

This all works toward the design objective of being representative of the history. The game is not meant to be played as a purely mechanical exercise. Everything about its presentation is meant to create an immersive space for interacting with the history.

To support this, the game comes with orientation guides for each of the three factions. This is the recommended way for new players to learn the game. The guides walk players through their first few turns, starting with scripted actions but moving toward making decisions on their own, leading into a first full decade of play. The guides serve to present the mechanisms of the game while providing the historical context to understand what they are meant to represent.

Each faction has their own orientation guide, which is the suggested way to learn the game
The guides are also solo friendly. Building a solo system that could deliver an experience as engaging as the multi-player game was essential for the product objectives. Joe Dewhurst put in a lot of work developing the game as a whole, but his work on the solo system truly brought that play alive. I had come up with a fairly broken bot that worked if I tried hard enough. Joe saw the vision and was able to refine it into a non-player system that could be used to fill in for any play count.

The key is a small deck of position cards for each faction. Each position has primary actions and objectives that drive their choices in play. In a single session, non-player factions will move through multiple positions, providing players with changing dynamics within game, as well as from game to game. As the system was being developed, it became clear that the positions were also a good way for players to understand the available strategies, so we made player versions of the positions as well.

The orientation guides provide background on each position, with notes on situations where it makes sense to use them and suggested approaches to play. They are always available as a reference to players, but we also created an optional ruleset for advanced play with the positions. Once players are experienced with the game, the positions provide tactical approaches, with additional ways of scoring. They also provide different perspectives for understanding the historical context for each faction.

All of this is done to present the history in a way that is both accessible and deep. The orientation guides onboard new players right into their first play, with only the player aid foldouts. The "Rules & Regulations" book is designed as reference when clarity is needed, but everything players need to play is available on the aids and contextualized in the guides. Once players are familiar with the mechanisms and arcs the game offers, the position cards allow them to explore the history from an assortment of approaches and perspectives. As exploration goes deeper, the "Historical Record" booklet is there to provide further context. Over time, sessions become informed explorations of the history contained within the box.

John Felkner's famous stencils near Charlotte Street in the Bronx
A Game by its Cover

This brings us to the box itself. I long had a vision for what the box cover art would be. The "Falsas Promesas" / "Broken Promises" stencils by John Felkner on a building near Charlotte Street capture what is at the heart of the game. That said, Felkner's art, impactful as it is, represents an outsider's view of the situation. For the cover art of Cross Bronx Expressway, I wanted to ensure there was an artistic expression that came from within.

Most people are not well versed in graffiti culture, but it is the art form that I was raised on. My local art gallery was the elevated number 4 subway line, where new pieces were being put on display weekly. A lot of attention is often given to mural work, where characters and scenes present a clear expression of street meets pop art — but there is also an abstract lineage of the graffiti art form, commonly referred to as "wildstyle". Like the work of abstract painters, wildstyle is often about using the combination of shapes, colors, and lines to present a whole that is more than the sum of its details. Critically, wildstyle is a lettering form, so pieces are usually one-word expressions, as much about their aesthetic presentation as their literal meaning. Commonly the names of the artists themselves are used so that the pieces are eponymous reflections of their artistic abilities.

What I wanted for the cover was a wildstyle approach to the name of the game overlaid on the image of the building, with Felkner's stencils image in black and white, the graffiti piece in full color. I reached out to BG183 from the TATS Cru because he is a legend. Like most artists, he is not limited to a single style, but his wildstyle work has always stood out to me, so I knew he would be able to capture what I wanted the cover art to express.

The result surpassed my expectations. As a representation of how the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway impacted the population of the South Bronx, BG183's piece speaks volumes, using the visual tone of the game itself. It is an abstract form that presents a strong first impression as a whole, but encourages closer inspection to parse the full meaning. This reveals details that only strengthen the artistic value of the whole.

Game on Charlotte Street in the Bronx facing where the building on the cover once stood
For many the Bronx is only a place they have heard referenced in the media, often with stereotyped connotations. The game aims to unpack the complex layers of the history of the area for those willing to go beyond initial impressions and find meaning in the details. The more players engage with those details, the richer their picture of the whole becomes. My hope as the game starts hitting tables is that players will embrace this approach that seeks to use the medium we love as a tool for presenting history in a way that is as informative as it is engaging.

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