Devir Games chatted with designer Alberto Corral and illustrator/developer Pedro Soto, the two minds behind Michael Strogoff. 

Matt Hyland (MH):  Although Jules Verne’s Michael Strogoff is critically acclaimed, the novel is not very well-known in North America.  How did you come up with the idea to do a game based on it? 

Alberto Corral (AC):  My father always loved adventure novels from the 19th century, and thanks to him I discovered writers like Dumas, Cagliari, and Verne.  Ever since I felt the desire to design my own games I always thought that these adventure novels would be great themes.  While working with Xavi Garriga [Devir Games], I mentioned the idea and we agreed that Michael Strogoff would be one of the best representatives of the genre.

MH:  When you sat down to make the game did you have a framework in mind?

AC:  No, just the idea to make a game about the book.  Earlier I had designed Castaways based on the Crusoe novel and I felt like doing another game from classic literature.  Upon starting the framework, I began to think about what would be the best method of adapting the novel and meet all of the requirements such as level of difficulty, duration of the game, number of players, etc.  In this sense the creative process was much different than with Castaways, where I had total creative freedom.  It was challenging to simplify my designs to have relatively simple rules, but also lots of interesting decisions. 

Pedro Soto (PS):  My interaction with the game started about 5 or 6 years ago at the Cordoba International Games Festival, which serves as a meeting point of publishers, designers, and illustrators.  There, a discussion arose about how few games adapting classic literature existed and Xavi proposed we do a game about Michael Strogoff. Later I saw one of the initial versions of the game…it had great ideas and adapted chapters of the novel very well.  A bit later, owing to prior work I did with Devir, I was hired.  It was a joy to work with Alberto — he’s a very talented designer who puts a lot of emphasis on the theme, but still comes up with very novel mechanics. It took almost a year to finish the illustrations, because for me this was a special game.

MH:  They’re incredible!  Can you talk about the design process?  

PS:  My first part was documentation.  I looked at all of the Strogoff material I could...movies, the TV series, and several covers of the book.  Then, I incorporated elements of typical 19th century Russian designs.  The first paintings were for cards, and I opted to design the route cards (Siberia, etc.) inspired by carvings typical of the era.  

AC:  The process was long because I tried and discarded various ideas.  I always headed down the path making the game too complicated and showed a few prototypes of different games to the publishers until I got the green light.  We then polished the game with Pedro, who was a huge help because his ideas go beyond the artistic side. 

MH:  When you were younger, what were some of your favorite games?  Are there games specific to Spain that aren’t well known elsewhere?

AC:  I played traditional games with my grandparents like Parchesi, Dominos, card games…and later discovered others like Monopoly and Risk.  This carried me to modern board games. 

PS:  In the 80’s, Spain went through a great stage of the hobby when a lot of Spanish publishers promoted via television and sold multitudes of games.  Some of them were “adaptations” of other popular games that are remembered by my generation as the originals.  I especially liked games from the publisher CEFA because they had evocative illustrations. We played games like Misterio (basically Clue, set in a haunted castle with monsters), Alerta Roja (like Scotland Yard with secret agents), and En busqueda del Imperio Cobra (a fantasy game that was recently re-published and...well, some things are better left to memory).

Currently, I have a collection of more than 500 games, and I try to play whenever I can.  My work and family don’t leave me as much time as before, but I try to play on Saturdays.  The games that always end up on the table are Kingdom Builder, Viticulture, and Topoum, and we look forward to playing Pandemic Legacy.

Michael Strogoff launches October 2017 at Essen. 

Alberto Corral is an experienced designer, his work including the inventive Castaways. Pedro Soto is a prolific illustrator and artist. Recently he illustrated Devir’s Holmes: Sherlock & Mycroft. Both reside in Spain. Devir Games has offices in several countries, including a publishing department in Barcelona and N.A. headquarters in Seattle.