by Ian Bach

Genesis of the Game

Three weeks before Dice Tower West (DTW) in March 2024, I had been thinking about how I could connect cards to each other horizontally.

As with many of my game design ideas, the idea for "Crawlers" — the original name for Map Masters — came to me during sleep. I awoke with this idea of cards with pathways that ran from one card to another:


Quickly I realized that the edges of the cards where the paths met had to be standardized so that any card would connect with any other.

Theme came next. What would be a good theme for a game that created paths across a small tableau of cards? Dungeon building and crawling seemed to be a logical choice.

Of course, the goal of the game came next. Dungeon delvers want to collect objects: treasure, magical scrolls, famous swords, etc. Some of the objects would help overcome obstacles within the dungeon: swords to defeat monsters, keys to open locks, magic scrolls to activate teleporting magic circles, ropes to traverse pits, etc.

As I rapidly scribbled into a diary for twenty minutes, the core of "Crawlers" came together. Using cards depicting sections of dungeons whose rooms and halls contained objects and obstacles, players could assemble their own dungeons, then traverse them. As they collected objects, they could overcome the obstacles and collect points for the most of a given item.

What follows are the next three pages in my daily design diary:


As I look back at these three pages, I am amazed by how well developed the idea of "Crawlers"/Map Masters was even at the beginning. The card anatomy showed almost all the key icons within the dungeons. The way that the cards could be connected to form a path and collect treasure is also clearly drawn. The major parts of the set-up and game play for the competitive game were remarkably mature as well.

Originally, the currency of the game was maps so that better cards could be purchased from the market. (I discuss how this changed in a later section.) Also, I had these two ideas that the deck size should stay constant and that the lower of the two scores from two hands would be your score for the pair of hands. Both ideas were scrapped, the first because it was clunky and the second because it needlessly complicated a simple family game. The deck ended up growing — some — and the convoluted scoring went by the wayside.

What follows is the development process for one card from my first rough diagram to the finished product:


In the evenings leading up to DTW, after work in the clinic, I would crank out a new set of nine cards. Why nine? That's what would fit on one page of the Excel spreadsheet that I use to design cards. Why Excel? I have used this to design games in the past. With cutting, pasting, a nine-card template, and clever use of shading, borders and icons, I could iterate cards rapidly. I know — the publisher was surprised that process led to the cards of the prototype. (See the second card from the left for an example.) I think Cédrick was politely incredulous!

Anyway, each night, I would make nine cards with different halls and rooms filled with items to retrieve and obstacles to overcome. My wife, Robin, wondered why I was spending so much time on them. I had three other prototypes for DTW that were better realized and pitch ready; why was I spending so much time making this rough prototype? I don't know what I said in response, and she does not remember. I think the design juices were flowing, and I wanted to get enough cards that I could reasonably test whether the concept would even work.

Without anything resembling a playtest, I went to DTW with 54 dungeon cards, four sets of nine-card starter decks, a small deck of feature cards, and two packs of sleeves in a Ziploc baggy. I might have thrown in a pen and paper for notes and to work out a score sheet. No rules except for what I had in the diary and my head.

When I arrived, I went to the prototype area and found it closed. I went across the hall, found an empty table, and pulled out the Ziploc bag. While I was working out the turn sequence and the number of cards per hand, a gentleman approached and asked whether I was playtesting a prototype. I replied, "Yes, but it's a very rough prototype." He asked whether I needed a playtester, then sat down. We played a few rounds, using our fingers to trace the paths through the cards and remembering items that we had collected and used. At last, he said, "I think you have a good game here. Of course, when you publish it, you'll write on the cards with dry erase, won't you?" I hadn't thought that far ahead, but thanked him for his suggestion. I would love to know who he was. Thanks to him, he came up with one of the most fun parts of the game! After all, what kid hasn't completed the maze on the back of a cereal box as they were enjoying a bowl of cereal?

I did not pitch the game at DTW nor did I do any more playtests as I had other games to test and pitch. I returned to Denver and continued to refine the game and crank out more cards. Just by myself, I playtested the game many more times refining the turn structure, the market, and the price of cards.

Pitching the Game

In September 2024, I took the game to B Con in Denver and playtested the game with a bunch of local designers. They enjoyed the game quite a bit! The image of them — serious designers drawing their paths on the cards, circling items as they went, crossing out the ones that they used, and crossing out the obstacles that they overcame — did evoke the image of kids after a sleepover, eating cereal and doing the puzzles on the back of the cereal boxes.

Later that day, I pitched a different game, "Lucky Nugget Saloon", to Sean Brown and the folks at Mayfair/Mr. B Games. They liked "Lucky Nugget Saloon", but Sean cornered me afterward and said that he really wanted me to pitch him "Crawlers". He had witnessed the game designers playing it earlier and saw how much fun they were having. Regrettably, I did not have time at B Con to show it to him, but we arranged a future meeting.

As I became more practiced at teaching the game, having a good player aid became important. I doodled the following in the design diary:


And this became:


Using the player aid, I found that I could teach the game in about five minutes.

In the meantime, I playtested the game with my kids and wife. They loved it! My son, Owen, wanted to min-max the mazes and would spend 10+ minutes trying to find the best path through the most convoluted mazes. My wife complained so much about his analysis paralysis (AP) that we added timers to some of the feature cards and gave a speed bonus to whoever completed their route first. My daughter, Olivia, became the Queen of Speed.

My oldest daughter, Hannah, would look at her brother's dungeon and bemoan the fact that he would work so hard on this beautiful and intricate dungeon loaded with items but not get a good score for all the work. I added the second item bonus as a way to reward Owen for his massive and convoluted paths. As you can see, my family contributed major rules to "Crawlers"!


Unfortunately the kids were off at college most of the time, but they would come back on weekends. Unlike some of my other prototypes, this was the game that they would ask to play! There was something about this game that scratched an itch, and everyone in the family wanted to play it!

A few weeks after B Con, Sean Brown and I met at a local Panera, and I showed him the latest version of "Crawlers". He loved it and wanted to show the game to his partner on the flight to Essen. As I did not have another prototype, we divided the main deck, the starter decks, and the score cards, and he took half the game with him to SPIEL Essen. I can just imagine them squeezing their dungeons onto the tiny airplane tray tables, dry erase markers in hand as they traced their paths. However, Sean's partner was not as excited as Sean was, and ultimately I did not sign with Mr. B Games.


A few weeks later, at a meetup at Do Gooder Games Cafe in Thornton, Colorado, I showed "Crawlers" to the amazing and prolific game designer Mike Fitzgerald. He has been a mentor to me, having helped me publish my first game, Merlin's Beast Hunt. We also co-designed Baseball Highlights: The Dice Game and Basketball Highlights: Crunch Time (the latter with Richard Yaner. I pitched the game to him, and he thought it had definite promise. He advised me to keep pitching it as he thought it would be easy to sign.

I continued to playtest and iterate until I had 72 dungeon cards that I thought were great. At the same time, I was working on the rule book, a player aid card, score cards, and an updated sell sheet. I planned to submit the game (along with four other prototypes on which I was also working) to the BGG.CON 2024 Unpub Speed Pitch Event. Benjamin Begeal, who was running the event, did not pick the game for the Unpub Event, but I still planned to bring it along and pitch it to publishers.

In November 2024, I attended BGG.CON in Dallas with six prototypes but focused mainly on "Crawlers". Having known Zev Shlasinger when he published Merlin's Beast Hunt with WizKids, I pitched "Crawlers" to him. He liked the game, and I planned to give him my one prototype after I had tried it with a few other publishers. In working the exhibitor's hall at BGG.CON, I ran into François Romain (designer of the awesome family party game So Clover!) at Captain Games, who said he was accepting pitches. After a thirty-second elevator pitch, we retired to an empty table and played the game. He was very excited, but he said that he wanted to show the game to Cédrick Caumont, his partner. Cédrick was quite busy that day, and we set a time for the following morning.

The next day, in a rather surreal experience, François pitched "Crawlers" to Cédrick in rapid fire French while I pointed at cards and smiled a lot since I do not speak the language. We then played six rounds, and both men were impressed and excited. They wondered about strengthening the arc of the game so that it would come to a climax with a boss-type battle at the end. The juices were already flowing!

Cédrick asked for a prototype as he wanted to play the game with others in his company who had attended the con. I was in a dilemma; I had already promised the one prototype I had to Zev. I told them the situation, and I explained that I might be able to create a second prototype as I had all my files on my laptop.

Not knowing how I was going to do this but determined to pull this off before the exhibition hall closed in three hours, I went to the FedEx store in the hotel basement to see what they could do. With the help of two wonderful (and patient) women, over a frantic ninety minutes we put together 120+ cards, four laminated score boards, and a rule book. I added three dry erase pens that I stole from other prototypes. (FedEx does not sell dry erase pens – a grievous oversight if you ask me!)

I bought three packs of sleeves from one of the booths in the exhibitor hall, and at the BGG Library, another generous woman gave me eight Ziploc bags. While attending a game design talk given by Eric Lang (my apologies to Eric but I am sure he understands), I got all the cards sleeved. I returned to the Captain Games booth and delivered the prototype still wet and glistening from the printers...then I gave my original prototype to Zev.

Unbeknownst to me, after the booth closed, the whole team at Captain Games played the game, and Cédrick said they all loved it. That night, they texted me saying that they wanted to meet to discuss signing the game. However, I never received the text — something about WhatsApp texts not always coming through. They sent a second text that said, "Please text back that you received the text." – which I did receive. Thinking that they were testing to make sure they had the right number, I responded that I had received it. Confused, they wondered why I hadn't been more excited about the offer to sign. They wondered whether I was being coy or doing something "American".

The following day, in a state of ignorance, I went to the Captain Games booth. I wanted to share an idea I had for the game that I thought might make it more marketable. François asked whether I had received the text and I said "Yes."

He asked, "What do you think?", and I replied, "About what?"

He clarified, "We played 'Crawlers last night', and everyone loved it. We'd like to meet with you to discuss signing the game!" I said that I had not received such a text. After showing each other our phones with the series of text messages, we came to realize that the first text from Captain Games had not gone through. We both had quite the laugh! However, with time and distance (and maybe a few good nights' sleep), I am mortified at how close this communication snafu came to sabotaging the game!

Of course, the story ends well. I told François that I would be very interested in a meeting to discuss signing the game. François texted Cédrick, and the three of us retired to a quiet corner of the hotel bar. After reviewing the contract, Cédrick pulled out a copy of Duck & Cover, the game that they had been promoting at the con and handed it to me, saying that this wasn't a bribe or anything — just a token of appreciation for considering the contract. With a smile, I replied, "I guess that will be $15 put against the advance." Not missing a beat, Cédrick said, "Well actually the advance was $15 more. We just didn't tell you."


Ultimately, I signed the contract with Captain Games for "Crawlers". Cedrick explained: "I know that you are trusting us with your baby", and he promised to do everything he could to turn my baby into an awesome game. As I was heading to the airport to fly back to Denver, I received a text message: "We've already started work on 'Crawlers'." Attached was a photo of Cédrick and three others at their booth at BGG.CON, with my second prototype on the table and everyone pointing at and discussing cards. I knew then that I had the game in the best of hands!

Working with the team at Captain Games has been amazing! As soon as they returned to Belgium, they got to work, transforming my prototype cards into true works of art. The mazes of each card remained the same, but the graphics for icons, walls, and floors became beautiful. I was blown away at how quickly they transformed the prototype into a finished product.


We did have some false starts, like trying to create bosses — cards with a special goal and obstacles to overcome — for the competitive game. At the end of the game, players would use six cards from their deck to try to overcome the boss. Most cards had multiple ways to generate large amounts of points. Each boss card was designed differently, and each player would get a different boss card. While this worked pretty well, playtesters complained that the bosses were unbalanced, complaining that others got the best boss cards. Ultimately, we had to drop the bosses, using them only in the co-operative game.

We changed iconography as well. When I pitched the game to Cédrick and François, the currency of the game was maps, not coins. Thematically, I envisioned players finding map fragments that they could use to purchase new parts of the dungeon in the form of new dungeon cards. When the Belgium team expanded the market to include fairy tokens and spell books, the map icons no longer made thematic sense.

Also, the barrels started out as treasure chests. However, playtesters imagined that the key could be used to open the chests. As this was not a feature of the game, we changed the chests to barrels to avoid any intuitive confusion. Now the barrels can hold things like gold coins, gems, or awesome beer from Belgium.

We had some great successes as well. Cédrick and the team at Captain Games worked hard on the market phase of the game and turned it into a game unto itself – a superb effort that finished out the competitive game. With fairy tokens and spellbooks, the market became a fascinating process of spending money gained from the previous rounds to customize each player's deck and starting position for the upcoming round.


One Game Becomes Two

Even before I left Dallas, Cédrick was inspired to take the core game components and turn them into a co-operative experience. Once he returned to Belgium, he started to lay out cards in a large incomplete checkerboard-like tableaux with a new boss card in the middle.


Players would take turns adding cards to the tableau in the empty spaces to form paths to the boss.


In order to defeat the boss, each path had to collect a specific resource: swords along one path, scrolls along another, keys on a third, etc.


Once all the resource paths were complete, the boss was defeated, and the players would celebrate a shared victory. If all spaces were filled without forming the requisite paths, the game would defeat the players. From this basic design, Cédrick and I explored all that this new game universe had to offer.

Thus began a wonderful collaboration: In Elizabeth, Colorado, I would design new levels and playtest, and in Waterloo, Belgium, Cédrick and the Captain Games team would come up with levels as well, while also further playtesting my levels and fine-tuning wild ideas that I had until the levels would just sing.

Additionally, they started to attach theme to the levels so that in addition to progressing in difficulty as players defeated levels, a story connected those levels. Out of this creativity came Jean Michel the goblin, who in his various incarnations is the boss on three levels. Captain Games and I also came up with other delightful characters like Karen the Fairy Queen, Vlad the Vampire, Kankra the Spider, and Houdini the Fog Mage.

Along the way, we came up with a one-page summary for the game set-up, how the player deck was constructed, boss cards and dungeon cards unique to a level, special rules, win conditions, and scoring. Thus, across the Atlantic, we could swap levels, playtest them, make changes, and ultimately be playing the levels in the same way. This worked so well that a cleaned-up version of the sheets found its way into the co-operative mission rulebook. What follows is "Jail Break" — one of my favorite co-operative levels – with the one-page worksheet on the left and the finished level in the rulebook on the right:


To date, this collaboration has led to thirty different co-op levels. We started with the tutorial level – Jean Michel – about a goblin that has terrorized the local village. We worked our way up to the dastardly difficult level – the Baroness – where using the Well of Gifts (which later became an Enchantress) helps players reshape the dungeon and return the crown to the Baroness. Most games end with the entire tableau filled and the last card placed determining the win or loss. Here's the end of one of the epic early playtests:


I lament that we can include only fourteen levels in the rulebook. I hope that means that promos and expansions are in the works...

One year later, I found myself back at Dice Tower West. François and I had traveled to Las Vegas to put in serious development work on the co-operative part of the game. He showed me the latest box cover — a two-sided affair with the competitive game on one side and the co-operative game on the other.


"Crawlers" became "Dungeon Crawlers", which was a better name...but one that Wizards of the Coast had already used, necessitating yet another change to Map Masters. François also presented me with an advanced prototype of the game with cards with high-end artwork, fairy tokens, and the latest score cards.

During the next four days, we played competitive Map Masters with friends and anyone else we could convince, including influencers, convention organizers, and even the wonderful folks at Envoy. Everyone loved the game! François also showed me the expanded (and better) market that included dungeon cards of all four values, spellbooks, and fairy tokens.


We also tested thirteen co-operative levels, refining and altering them until they were pristine. In this way, we vetted Cédrick's levels, including Jean Michel, the Black Ogre (Owen the Dragon), and Vampire Stones.

Additionally, we tested six more levels on which I had been working, all of which ended up in the final game. The Baroness playthrough was truly epic; throughout the game we looked like we were on the verge of losing, achieving victory only on the penultimate card! Throughout, François took notes and photos; we hoped Cédrick could imagine how the playthroughs went and where changes needed to be made. We also designed two new levels: "Long River" and "Jail Break: – my favorite level! While the week was exhausting, François and I took enormous steps to develop the co-operative game to the same high level as the competitive game!

Even after such a concentrated effort to work on the co-operative game, I returned to Elizabeth, Colorado, determined to create even more levels. Over the next two months, I made and tested thirteen more levels, some of which made it into the final game. Who knows which other levels will come to be?

Here is an excerpt from Cédrick's design diary for the "Wandering Knight":


He has drawn the boss card, which became Jean Michel 3 (Wandering Jean Mi level). The artifact became a compass to help guide Jean Michel back home, the barrels replaced chests, the crossed swords became a single sword, and the cross path doodle was transformed into a readable icon.

Originally, Cédrick wanted to do a co-operative campaign in which spellbooks and purchased dungeon cards could be carried over from one level to the next, but with playtesting, it became apparent that balancing and creating a logical progression in difficulty was already challenging enough. Yet another idea that ended up on the scrap heap of brilliant ideas...

Collaborating with Cédrick as co-designer on the co-operative mode of Map Masters has been a wonderful experience. In Dallas, after I signed the competitive game with him, the gears were already turning. When he sent me the original two pages of rules for the co-operative game and the first level, the germ of an idea had become a playable game. I will admit that I was a bit hesitant when I first tried it, but the co-operative game grew on me. While we never met in person to play a mission together, the transatlantic communication, the give-and-take, the refining and editing, and the exploration of a fun game design space were all things that I will value. Thank you, Cedrick, for your inspiration and leadership with the co-op mode!

My original game "Crawlers", a light-hearted family competitive game, was transformed into two distinct games: the competitive (Versus) and co-operative (Co-op), both of which are draw-and-draw games. Cédrick spearheaded this transformation and from both sides of the Atlantic, we made it happen. When Cédrick first proposed this, I thought he wanted to make an alternative game mode that would support a solo mode. Instead, his inspiration led to a second complete game using essentially the same components.

Introducing Map Masters to the World

The first thing I learned about the Captain Games team is that they are serious about marketing, very serious indeed. In Dallas at BGG.CON 2024, they were promoting their current game, Duck & Cover, in the most serious way possible: The whole team wore shirts and hats decorated in the brightest and loudest yellow ducks that I had ever seen. Everyone at the con knew exactly who was selling the cute Duck & Cover game.


In fact, after signing the contract, François leaned over and said into my ear, "For the debut of 'Crawlers', what do you think about dressing as dwarves?" This was particularly funny when you realize that François is a very tall man, towering over me and I am six feet tall. Of course, as of the writing of this diary, the Captain Games team has yet to reveal the plan for marketing at SPIEL Essen 25, but I have heard rumor of a massive inflatable dragon flying over the booth. I am sure that whatever the plan, it will get everyone's attention.

I do know that the Captain Games team took every opportunity to get the word out about Map Masters. Starting with the copious playtesting, numerous people saw and played the game in many countries. Cédrick and his team took the game to conventions in Europe and North America, including Spielwarenmesse (the international toy fair in Nürnberg, Germany), Festival International des Jeux (in Cannes, France), Dice Tower West and East, the Gathering of Friends, BGG.Spring, and the UK Games Expo, presenting the game to influencers, shop owners, reviewers, and of course the public. Getting the word out has been the highest priority!

Here's a photo of Gwen, Cedrick’s daughter, showing Map Masters at a European con:

Image: Spot Het Spel
Of course there were challenges, particularly when it came to making the game. From early on, one vital decision was whether to sleeve the cards or put a protective coating on them. The protective coating was more graceful but likely more expensive; the sleeves would be less expensive and easier to produce. Each option meant differences in cost and ease of play, as well as durability.

Ultimately, we went with the special coating. I have learned that the coating was put to the ultimate test — drawing and erasing on the cards, in the exact same location, hundreds of times, with the same result: they wiped clean. Additionally, the team had to test various dry erase markers to see which ones would last the longest and which would erase well.

Finally, in this day and age, no designer diary can escape the issue of tariffs! With 80% of all games made in China and with tariffs being as high as 145% for games being imported from China, approximately 150 board and card game companies have reported being significantly affected by the tariffs. Fortunately, Captain Games has many options and alternatives. With great diligence, Cédrick and his team finally found a factory in Spain. While there are still tariffs into the United States from the EU, these are much more manageable.

To quote the Grateful Dead, "What a long, strange trip it's been!" Actually, I should say that this has been a "short strange trip". In a world where games take years from original idea to a box on the shelf, Map Masters has had a remarkably short journey. From my original design diary entry to the release in Essen will be twenty months! Incredible!

This does not happen without the help of an enormous team of hard-working individuals. A heart-felt thank you to everyone involved in the making of Map Masters, including my wife Robin and my kids (Hannah, Olivia and Owen) for suffering through (too?) many early playtests. Both Robin and Olivia will join me in Essen to demo the game at the game fair! Thank you to Sean Brown and Zev Shlasinger, two amazing publishers who looked at the game before Captain Games, while also encouraging me through my ten-year maturation as a game designer. My profound thanks to Mike Fitzgerald who played both modes of the game and has been my mentor (and co-designer) on many of my previous published games. Even in early prototypes, he recognized what Map Masters could be.

A special thank you to François Romain who took thirty seconds to listen to my elevator pitch, listen to my full pitch, and play the game with his partner Cédrick. I fondly recall our time together at Dice Tower West as we feverishly developed many of the co-op missions.

The whole team at Captain Games has been amazing with which to work! Thank you to Adrien Journel, our fabulous artist. He found the right style that gave the game a lighthearted dungeoneering vibe that fit so well with the light-hearted theme of the game. Thank you to Gwendoline Caumont for her brilliant development and marketing and Eva Madenoglu for production work and Lumturije Krasniqi as production manager with François. There is no way that this game comes together without the long hours and single-minded dedication that this remarkable team of individuals has demonstrated.

Of course, a massive thank you to Cédrick Caumont for his Swiss Army Knife approach to Map Masters. At BGG.CON, he saw the potential game that my rough prototype could become. He spearheaded the co-op game mode and endured much testing of the levels that we developed together. He patiently answered my numerous (and often strange) questions. He put up with my nit-picking editing as we worked through the 64 pages of rules many, many times! Throughout, he has playtested with everyone and anyone and in the process has spread the word about Map Masters to the world! Finally, and most importantly, thank you to the hundreds of playtesters who played the game sometimes as a work in progress and gave valuable feedback that made Map Masters as good as it could be. You know who you are!

I cannot finish this designer diary without mentioning how the idea of family is so integral to Map Masters! My family endured many playtests, trying out numerous (often disastrous) rules and rule changes. They encouraged me in so many ways when I was down at being rejected by yet another publisher, and they came up with inspired ways to make the game better.

As for Captain Games, I feel as if I have been invited into their family from the moment the game was signed. I was assured that their family would treat my "baby" as if it was their own. Cédrick and François and their families playtested and marketed and made prototypes and did all the little things that matter so much when developing a game. In tribute to our families, many of the bosses were named in honor of our faithful family; for example, Owen the dragon (depicted below) is Owen my son.

Map Masters is a lighthearted family game with family-friendly artwork and gameplay that adults and children can both enjoy. While it has been a "short strange trip", Map Masters is the amazing game it is because of the teamwork of this giant family!

Ian Sebastian Bach