Warriors was designed by Alan R. Moon and Richard Borg, both veterans with a long history of successful games.
Warriors began as a Risk card game. Was that a request from Hasbro, or something you undertook on your own?
Richard Borg: Actually, Hasbro did request me to develop a number of card games for some of their more popular boardgame titles. I did a series of card games which included Stratego, Risk and some others but the direction by Hasbro marketing team changed and killed the card game line.
Which as it turned out, was not all that bad for me. Kosmos released Hera & Zeus (Stratego Cards) and during one of our development sessions in Florida, I showed Alan Risk Cards.
Alan R. Moon: As I remember it, Richard and I were talking on the phone one day about some ideas, and Richard suddenly said, "Hey, that would work great in for a Risk card game."
But I guess it's not suprising that Richard and I remember different things. When you spend most of your life thinking about ideas and games, it becomes very hard to remember the beginnings of things, especially after years have gone by.
It's even more complicated in this case, since Richard and I designed quite a few different Risk card games over the years. One of the first versions was going to be published by GMT as Busho for awhile, but Richard and I decided to withdraw that one since it is not nearly as good as Warriors.
Richard, you live in Florida and Alan lives in Massachusetts. Why did you decide to work together, and how did the process go?
Borg: We are good friends... and this friendship bridges many miles.
Moon: I've worked with quite a few different people. Sometimes the partnership works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the personalities are too different, sometimes our ways of working are too different to be compatibile, and sometimes things just don't gel.
When a partnership does work though, it's really fun, and overall I'd say it's a much easier way to design games. I know I can be a royal pain in the ass, but luckily Richard is one of the calmest and nicest guys around, so I'm thankful he's been able to put up with me.
Why didn't the Risk card game concept get pursued by Hasbro?
Borg: As (mentioned) before, Hasbro Marketing had a change of heart. This situation is not unique to Hasbro. I have had projects canceled at the last minute with other U.S. companies as well.
Sometimes the time you spend and the body of work is lost on such a project because the item was tied so closely to a company product license. For me in the case of Stratego Cards and Risk Cards the time spent is proving profitable.
Moon: Richard is diplomatic as always. I think Hasbro was crazy not to publish our Risk card game. It was basically Risk in 20 to 30 minutes. They could have put it in a blister pack right next to the board game in stores. I'm convinced it would have sold millions.
The good news is that after we revised it into Warriors, it's an even better game and it could be a big hit for Face 2 Face.
Once it was clear that the Risk card game wasn't going to happen, how did the game change?
Borg: We always knew the game concept was very sound and at one time even toyed with the idea of trying to license the card game rights for Risk from Hasbro. That process never went very far.
Over the years, the design did move away from the original concept. It seemed each time Alan and I got together to work on games and the design ideas came slow our conversation would drift back to Risk Cards. We created a number of versions with variety of themes.
When did you decide to introduce the fantasy theme?
Borg: I believe it was in early 2003, the concept once again all came together again during another long phone call. Alan actually first started working with a fantasy theme.
Why fantasy? We tried a number of others and with fantasy we could introduce the potential depth we wanted in the game play in stages.
Moon: The fantasy theme let us open up the game to all sorts of new possibilities. When you're dealing with fantasy, anything is possible. One potential future expansion would be to add a deck of spells that would effect every possible part of the gameplay.
How does the Dragon Hordes expansion enhance the gameplay?
Borg: Dragon Hordes provides players with additional decisions, adds another level of strategy and allows more players to enjoy and join in the fun of battle. But there is even more to come. In the next expansion each nation brings to the challenge of battle, its own unique power.
Moon: Dragon Hordes makes it even more fun to attack, because when you attack with a Dragon that has lots of fire, you aren't risking losing the dragon.
Many thanks to Richard and Alan for answering these questions.
