Gruntz

The Captains were a challenge. We finally hit on the mechanic of permitting them no attack ability, but allowing them to lead infantry in formation movement. Captains are also the only units capable of capturing the enemy flag, providing an alternate win condition.

AS SOON AS I SAW THOSE TANKS with their little magnetically attachable turrets, I knew I wanted in.

I had already been blown away by Carter’s ability not only to develop, design, and illustrate games, but also his skills with printing and laser cutting to bring professional-looking prototypes to life overnight.

In the short time I’d known him, I’d watched him unveil a series of highly ambitious prototypes, from a kung-fu inspired deck-builder, a tile-discovery haunted high school, and a grand worker-placement village simulator, all with professional polish. (And we may be hearing more about those games in the future...) It seemed like every week at designer day at Mystery Box Games a new prototype would emerge from his backpack. I had a couple immediate thoughts: one, this guy is really talented; and two, I bet he could use a partner. I had a gut feeling that by working together we could really bring one of these projects to the shelf.

That’s where Gruntz comes in. It’s quick, straightforward, and fun. With its tactile appeal and tactical possibilities, I knew we had something that could bridge the distance between brow-scrunching strategy and the simple joy of playing with toy soldiers. It’s like chess, but playful.

Gruntz started out with just three units: infantry, tanks, and planes. Tanks kill each other, planes kill infantry, and infantry occupy spots on the map to win victory starts. Three stars wins. Simple and straightforward. And that’s pretty much how it’s stayed …

Except that gameplay possibilities also mean game design possibilities. Soon we had trucks and transports and bombers and AA guns and flags to capture and fuel … my goodness the fuel. Do tanks need fuel to move? Or is it a bonus move? Can infantry use fuel, even though they have, you know, legs? How do you replenish fuel? Maybe there’s a fuel gauge on the board? Maybe this fuel token is just in the way and it belongs in the dustbin of discarded meeples?

The challenge was never to find new ways to interact with this little system, but ways to keep it contained. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t dabbled in game design can quite appreciate how many permutations it takes to arrive at ‘tanks move two spaces.’

Our guiding principles were that the game’s rules had to be simple enough to be communicated mostly through diagrams, preferably on one sheet of paper; the gameplay had to be intuitive; and the game had to be quick and winnable. We found it was easy enough to create a game that has a peak of battlefield blasting, then attrition sets in, and then it becomes a bit of a grindy stalemate. We needed a game that would push toward an inevitable conclusion under its own momentum — we didn’t want to resort to an artifice like a turn limit.

Carter found the most natural solution to this problem not by thinking outside the box as much as thinking about the box itself. By shrinking the board from a square to a rectangle, units no longer have to march toward the capture points but are instead deployed straight into the fight. Breaking out of these pre-conceived notions (i.e., chessboards are square) is so simple in retrospect but so elusive in the moment.

So that’s Gruntz. It’s quick and easy and fun. It’s got the satisfying click of magnets and clunk of wood. It’s cute. (Indeed, we wanted to make sure to keep enough cuteness factor to distance a toy game from real-life war). We’re pretty excited by it, and we think you’ll enjoy it.

Of course, we still have a ways to go. Do you want to enlist? You can playtest Gruntz for free on screentop.gg. Then we’d love it if you would jump on our Discord server to share your thoughts. We’re looking forward to launching our Kickstarter campaign in 2025.

Over and out.