Throwback Thursday #2: The Board Takes Shape

Last week I described a little bit of what went into the very first board. Two more iterations quickly followed that first version, and to my eye they are when the game really began to resemble its current self.

The most obvious difference with version 2 is how much more thematic it looks. The circular action spaces are now meant to look like craters surrounded by rugged terrain. Instead of a being arranged in a regular grid the craters are asymmetrically placed in five clusters, and their adjacency is now indicated by roads. A few of the craters have five spaces instead of three, and there are some tweaks to some of the technology upgrades on the tracks in the lower right. But other than this the game remained pretty similar to its predecessor. It's as though I thought of the crater theme and felt that was enough to merit a new board.

The third board no doubt arose after playtesting the second one a few times and discovering some problems with the crater configuration, or at least a desire to try a new arrangement. A significant addition is a fifth type of crater, the gray ones with only two spaces. For a long time these were referred to as "null" craters. There was no benefit for placing workers in them; they served only to make the craters beyond them less accessible. Notice the square protrusions on each space of the red military craters that first appeared in version 2. These were meant to signify something about the gameplay, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to draw them. What exactly they signified may be lost to time.

There's an interesting detail on the third version that I had totally forgotten about until dusting it off recently. (No, not the transport that looks like a some sort of marine mammal.) Notice that this is the first board with the game's title. If you look closely you'll see that "Craters of Titan" was crossed off, with "Craters of Callisto" taking its place. While I'd like to say this was change was informed by thoughtful thematic considerations, it was most likely the alliteration in the newer title that sold me.