Discarded

Game design involves inventing game mechanisms that later are eliminated and/or altered due to play test feedback.

In Codex Conquest, the following ideas were adapted and then eliminated: Italy taking the role of banker, objectives cards, order of operations cards, and reinventing Codex Conquest to be a deck builder-style game.

In March 2016, Chen designated that Italy would serve as the game’s banker, following the historical precedent the Medicis played as the most important banking family in Europe during the Renaissance. She also decided that objectives cards would help outline what players should do to win and order of operations cards would help show the steps required to play the game. But, as more play testing occurred, the banker felt like an additional complication and objectives and order of operations cards both became redundant once the rules were revised.

In July 2016, Chen removed these miscellaneous game components. However, players still needed clear operations to follow, objectives to win, and instructions on how to manage the score.

In November 2016, Chen received such extensive feedback from her fall play tests that she felt that it might be better to revise the game entirely. She settled on a deck builder-style game as that would help focus the learning objectives on the books themselves as the play testers revealed they learned more about history than they did about books. However, this direction was short-lived as she decided instead to perfect the game as it was and revise the history cards to reflect book history more specifically rather than to redo everything entirely.

In January 2017, Chen streamlined the rules yet again to reflect the need for clearly defined orders of operations, objectives, and bookkeeping.

Drafts:

Banker:

Objectives:

Order of Operations:

Deck Builder: