Based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Leder Games is a board game micro-publisher making exciting, asymmetric narrative games including Vast, Root, Fort, Oath, Ahoy, and Arcs. Games that are exciting to play as well as artistic and socially conscious.| Leder Games
Hey everyone! Josh here, designer of the Homeland Expansion. We’re getting close to the end of development, so I wanted to release another Print and Play. This will be the last one before release. This one is content-complete—it includes everything in the Homeland Expansion, the Squires & Disciples Deck, and the Homeland Hirelings Pack. Compared to the previous Print and Play, it now includes The Gorge Map, Marsh Map, new Landmarks, and new Vagabonds. That said, it’s still missing some...| Leder Games - Blog
Like many of our peers, we produce the vast majority of our games and accessory products in China and then ship them throughout the world. For us, the United States represents well over half of all of our business. The current tariff levels, if they hold steady or increase, will represent a significant barrier to our ability to operate our business as we have done in the past, just as it will for everyone in any industry that engages in international manufacturing, shipping, and sales. More| Leder Games - Blog
In the previous development diary, I talked a bit about how my desire for system expressiveness led me astray during the game’s design and development. Figuring this out took months of work. As I mentioned in that piece, I spent a lot of time reading playtest reports, teaching the game, and trying to figure out why on earth the many little systems that seemed so robust and interactive in isolation were proving to be less than the sum of their parts. I think part of my trouble is that I didn...| Leder Games - Blog
Here is the first part of two-part development diary that is long overdue. Be warned, I’m going to really get into the weeds of New Foundation’s development and try to describe what we’ve been tangling with. This post is going to get pretty detailed and most of it is going to be about a system I ended throwing away. So, be warned: a darling is going to be killed at the end of this book. More| Leder Games - Blog
For all of the new features that we are building into New Foundations, the expansion boils down to a pretty simple realignment of the game. Previously, most players would direct their entire attention towards winning. Each game culminates with a gigantic scrum, or, what folks sometimes call a “crab bucket.” I have no idea if this term is used affectionately, but I’ve often liked the image. Certainly the end of a game of Oath can feel like you are trapped with a bucket of pointy little c...| Leder Games - Blog
Hello everyone! Josh here, designer of the Homeland Expansion. Today we’re releasing the third print-and-play, including some stuff that you haven’t seen yet: the three new Hirelings and all of the Captains for the Knaves of the Deepwood. You’ll find all of that here. All in all, the project is right on schedule. On the design side, I expect a couple more months of serious development. I’ll release one more Print-and-Play when we’re all done, which will include the maps, landma...| Leder Games - Blog
Today we’re releasing a massive print-and-play kit for Oath: New Foundations. Just about every element seen in the previous kit has received some polish, and, if you haven’t paid attention to the expansion since the Kickstarter, this is a pretty good time to take a look at how the design is shaping up. More| Leder Games - Blog
Today, I’d like to talk about how the factions’ development has come along, highlighting what we learned from the first print-and-play release and further playtesting, and giving a sense of how I feel about their current state and where we need to go next. More| Leder Games - Blog
It's our pleasure to share with you all the official development kit for Arcs. Pretty much every icon and card template in the game (and the campaign game) can be constructed with the assets in this kit. If you've ever wanted to make some custom art for your favorite guild card or try your hand at crafting a plotline, you'll find everything you need here. In addition, we've included an InDesign file features most of the game's paragraph styles and a PDF that explains how to put the files to...| Leder Games - Blog
Throughout concepting the Homeland Expansion, the question loomed: "What's the other thing in the box?" In each big expansion, we try not to just add more of the same, but something fundamentally new. Riverfolk included our earliest attempt at a bot. Underworld had new maps along with a new piece type that would become the landmarks. Marauder introduced hirelings and advanced setup.More| Leder Games - Blog
Hey everyone, I want to give you a quick peek at the maps and how we’re thinking through them as we spin up their development. I’m so glad to see all the excitement for the Homeland Expansion, and I’m looking forward to seeing your reaction on launch day. The Homeland Expansion will be the second time we’re adding new maps to the game. It includes two new maps: the Marsh map and the Gorge map.More| Leder Games - Blog
Sickened by the enduring conflict, the Twilight Council hosts assemblies to end the war, bringing together all the Woodland from the lowliest mouse-in-a-sack to the mightiest hawk with a royal claim. The assemblies emphasize political connections over pure numbers of warriors, pushing the factions away from bloody battle and toward heated debate. As the Council progresses in their mission, they can declare edicts to change how the assemblies work, manipulating their enemies’ incentives and ...| Leder Games - Blog
Throughout history, diasporas have played a critical role in societies and their politics. Because of their precarious position, they have been used and abused by monarchs, empires, and hegemonic cultures, whether through labor exploitation, use as a political wedge, or scapegoating. So it’s about time that they got their due in Root, in the form of the Lilypad Diaspora. In case you’re not familiar with them yet, here’s how I pitch them:More| Leder Games - Blog
I started to ponder the expansion: what part of Root was I interested in exploring? Here’s what: Root is a living, breathing ecosystem because of the Woodland. The factions are not self-contained—they rely on the creatures of the Woodland to accomplish their goals. The Marquise works (and Overworks) the Woodfolk, the Eyrie enact their Decree through Woodfolk advisors and notables, and so on. You, as the faction leadership, are nothing without the Woodfolk. So, I first wanted to focus on ...| Leder Games - Blog
In the first diary I wrote for New Foundations, I described how many ideas for this expansion came out of the process of making Arcs. In the same way that Oath’s development had seeded Arcs’s design both thematically and mechanically, the development of Arcs had done likewise with New Foundations. This virtuous circle is pretty rare for me. Mostly I feel like I work against myself. Each game tends to be a reaction against the project I just completed. Oath and Arcs are perhaps the lone ex...| Leder Games - Blog
The early development of Oath was a very frustrating, protracted experience, and not something I’ve written much about. Partly, there’s not much to say. While the origins of the design go back very far, I only started working on the game that would become Oath (originally called Saga) during the year after Root’s release. For months, it bore hardly any fruit. With Root, I had benefited from a very clear design prompt from Patrick. Oath could be anything and was, consistently, amounting ...| Leder Games - Blog
It won’t seem like it during this campaign, but Richard Wilkins (aka Ricky Royal) and I have been working on Oath in one way or another for almost a year. I first got a text from Cole in late June 2023, just as summer school was winding down, asking if I would like to work with Ricky to co-design a new solo/co-op mode for Oath. I am fairly certain my response was “Hell yeah!”More| Leder Games - Blog
Tomorrow, we’ll be launching the Kickstarter campaign for the next Oath expansion. Today, I want to talk a little bit about how we think about our crowdfunding campaigns and how they have shaped the identity of our studio. I’m also going to write a little about an element of the Oath expansion which I think illustrates our approach.More| Leder Games - Blog
Back in the early days of Oath’s design, I made two structural decisions that I never really questioned. The first determined the size of the game’s deck, roughly how many cards were in play, and the general size of the game’s initial card-base (as well as its rate of change).More| Leder Games - Blog
When we were first pitching Oath during the first Kickstarter, I would often describe it as “a game that remembered how you played it.” This was less of a pure description than a kind of aspiration. My main task in those days was to find ways to quickly sum up what made the project special and to communicate its ambitions.More| Leder Games - Blog
When I first proposed Oath, I remember telling Patrick that I had no idea who the game was for. I had a sense of what I wanted to make, but I didn’t know if such a game would ever find an audience. Now, a few years later, I know who those folks are. And so, at the end of this month, we’re going to launch a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the development of an expansion for the game.More| Leder Games - Blog
Ahhhh the Coral Cap Pirates. They may currently be one of my favorite factions in the entire game, but the journey to get there was much rockier than any of the other factions. Initially they weren’t even pirates! When first ideating expansion material I approach it with mainly one question: “what do I think would be cool or funny to see in the game world we’ve created” And there is one fishy character who has captivated me ever since I first saw him in 2015… Tahm Kench from League ...| Leder Games - Blog
My biggest desire for the new 3- and 4-player factions was more interaction, things that mattered for more players at the table more often. Since each piece you place in Ahoy is a potential interaction point I knew they’d need to place more pieces. From a thematic standpoint I had been interested in exploring a Sea Monster faction and fortunately these things went hand in hand! A monster that grew and was so massive and dangerous that it would block sections of the map was my starting poi...| Leder Games - Blog
After playing many Blackfish vs Mollusk games I had become much more confident in the viability of alternative factions and felt like I had gained an even deeper understanding of how these factions worked with each other. For the two player factions it isn't only about having interesting gameplay, it's about being an interesting opponent that will force out interesting gameplay from the enemy. More| Leder Games - Blog
Getting to revisit Ahoy wasn’t an opportunity I was expecting to have. This may surprise many but when we originally published Ahoy it was intentionally developed for no further expansion. We wanted Ahoy's rules to be rock solid and dead simple to learn, this meant closing off a lot of design paths would allow for much crazier interactions. Opportunities where the design could spiral into several new things were often cut in favor of a cleaner core experience.More| Leder Games - Blog
Every project teaches you something and then taunts you with that knowledge—it whispers, you could always do that part better on the next project! Root taught me that it’s possible that good aids can do more than help players remember rules they already knew, but actually teach large parts of an intricate game: in tests, I often asked players to learn their factions just by reading their player boards, and it paid off. In a perfect world, people could sit down at the table and learn the...| Leder Games - Blog
The designer, Greg, has already written about the origins of Ahoy and his journeys on the open water. Today I plan to speedrun you through all of the development — that I can remember — that eventually turned Hyperspace Smuggler into Ahoy. So buckle up, we have a lot to cover! More| Leder Games - Blog
I’m so excited to get to reflect on the history of Ahoy this week! In the first part of this piece, I’ll go a bit more into the nitty-gritty of how the game developed between the time I first started conceptualizing and when I turned the prototype over to Nick for development. In the second part, I’ll share a bit about my own life and how it impacted the game’s journey.More| Leder Games - Blog
Initially, we had planned on building Arcs like Oath. The idea was that it would probably be a big box game, with tons of cards and a pretty hefty price point—likely around $130 dollars or more. The game was designed initially as primarily a campaign game, and I didn’t want to present it without that mode. However, over the past several months we have decided to split the game into essentially two product lines.More| Leder Games - Blog
Based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Leder Games is a board game micro-publisher making exciting, asymmetric narrative games including Vast, Root, Fort, Oath, Ahoy, and Arcs. Games that are exciting to play as well as artistic and socially conscious.| Leder Games
Root is a board game of woodland might and right. Stalk the woods as one of the Vagabonds, seize the initiative with the Eyrie birds of prey, rule over your subjects as the Marquise de Cat, or command the Woodland Alliance to create a new order. With creatures and cunning, you'll rule a fantastic forest kingdom in the ultimate asymmetric board game of adventure and war.| Leder Games
