This, a few years ago was a holt button topic, what is a legacy game. Pandemic Legacy just came out, and there weren’t that many legacy games available. I wrote an article back then about what games I wanted to see a legacy version of. You can find them back from 2017: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. I am going to try and pick different games than I have before, but let’s find five board games I would love to see a legacy version of. Now, some might be better as campaigns, and I’ll call that out, and I’m trying to avoid campaign games, but let’s get started.

Formula D

Formula D, if my last Malts and Meeples video had audio, you’d know is a racing game that I want to see a legacy version of. It is based off of a Formula 1 style racing and has a ton of different tracks. I think I have six different tracks for it right now. I can almost do a campaign right now. Right now, I can race all the tracks and assign points for how people finish. The better you do or more consistently you do, then you’ll win it all.

How I’d Make It Work

The legacy element is generally the most challenging for a game. How do you add in new things to make the game change and grow? While it doesn’t have to be a major player in the game, I feel like there are interesting things that could be added. There are a few things that come to mind:

• Adding in weather for changing track conditions
• Fighting over sponsorships
• Crew and driver upgrades

Really only the upgrades to crew and driver would give it a legacy feel to it. I think that you’d be able to use it as a campaign style game as well. You can play the legacy version learning and unlocking the new things as you go. But once you are done, all the drivers and crew have a generic non-upgraded side that you can use for a campaign, so you can race season after season.

Homebrewers

This one might seem a little bit odd because it’s a small and light game about brewing beer. The main mechanic, however, is engine building. And I think that it could lead to some clever legacy elements as you play, more in the style of Charterstone where the story is less important than the mechanics. The unique character powers and ingredients that you use would be the focal point of the legacy element.

How I’d Make It Work

I hinted at it already, it is all about the player boards and ingredient cards. You would be brewing through several years worth of competitions and there’d be basic stuff, like much equipment for brewing you had or what your basic special power is that are there from the beginning. Then there would be a few legacy elements to drive it.

• Ingredients
• Brew Set-up
• Special Power
• Judging

So the big three are those upgrading of cards or player boards. You could unlock better scoring for further into your brews by upgrading the cleanliness of your set-up. Or you could improve how your special power works so it is even better. And upgrading ingredients would give them a more powerful affect like giving you more money, moving up on a different track better or further, something like that.

But the game would be driven by the judging. Think of it as following the current beer trends. The judges one year would want all IPA’s, that would give you the most points, and maybe savory ingredients to add to the beer. But you’d get that one judge, the one who has their finger on the future pulse, who is also interested in stouts or fruit. That way you know what might be coming up for what to keep or plan for the next year.

Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade

Of course I found a way to put a roll and write game in here. I love roll and write games, but it was harder than it might seem. A lot of roll and write games are very abstract. Super-Skill Pinball is one of the roll and writes that is least abstracted. For that reason, it is easier to see how it could become a legacy game.

How I’d Make It Work

It is going to have to be completely about scoring the most on each board. And in the base game there are four boards, so would it just be a four game legacy game? I don’t think it would be. You likely won’t get your best score the first time around. So instead, I would make it 8 to 12 total games.

• Trick Shots
• Special Powers

The idea behind trick shots is that you can unlock shots that you are better at. Shots you do one time per game and generally will get you out of a stick situation. Think of hitting the same bumper twice. Something like that would build upon how you can play and score. But a one time power isn’t going to break the game completely, it’ll just enhance a ball.

The special powers, those are going to be a bigger deal. You unlock them as you play and then upgrade them. These are the unique player powers that will give you more options in what you can do. An ability might be something like “The Tilter” where you can avoid a tilt more times. Or someone could get a small tilt and they never have to worry about a tilt of a difference of 1, which allows them to micromanage their game more.

Eventually, the best combined score on all four boards is the winner, but if you win on a board you can still feel good about being the best there.

Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl

This game pits you against other players as you fight monsters, race against the game, and try to be first to unlock the secret of Chernobyl. And I think it’d be a cool legacy game. Mainly because there can be a number of things, story objectives, that you can play around with. This is like Pandemic Legacy in that way, instead of going for points, it is the first person to kill seven monsters at first, keeping it very simple. Then the story unfolds about what has happened and changed the lands until you are diving into the depth of Chernobyl, trying not to die, and eventually save the lands. Of course, keeping the competitive nature of the game.

How I’d Make It Work,

I gave some hints up above, but I like this one as an objective story driven experience. Whereas the rest might create story and moments as you play, they aren’t going to be as story driven. This one is going to have you doing more and more as you try and survive the harsh lands game after game after game. Of course, there are other legacy elements as well.

• Character Upgrades
• Changing Objectives
• Items You Can Keep
• Emerging Story

I definitely see there being a ton of story potential. But there is more than that. I always go back to making unique characters or character powers. In this case you choose the area to upgrade in. You upgrade stats, health, and of course give yourself more unique powers. You can be a better killing machine or ignore that to get better at delving into the ruins. To add in with that, you can upgrade how much you can carry between games, so can keep more items or different items that you find along the way.

Galaxy Trucker

This one is an odd one, but one that I think would be awesome to have as a legacy game. In this game you are building ships in real time to fly through space, pick up cargo, and sell it. All the while, your ship is being bombarded by meteorites, attacked by pirates and generally falling apart. The whole feel of the game is that you slap the ship together and see what happens and then repeat the process. Which sounds odd for legacy, but I think could work.

How I’d Make It Work

Like I said, this one is an odd one. But there do seem to be a few areas that you could turn this into a legacy game, one of the biggest is adding in captains. Captains are going to be your main way to upgrade your ship. You upgrade them, get extra energy for your engines, shields or guns, or maybe you can fit more aliens or people onto your ship. That’s the first big way.

• Unique Captains
• Unlock new ship tech/tiles
• New Threats

The basics of the game would stay the same, but it would just add in complexity as you go along. That is the hallmark for most legacy games. Since you are grabbing tiles as fast as you can, this would just unlock new tiles as you go. It’d almost do unlocks more like Risk Legacy you could go a couple of games without having something unlock but when certain conditions are met, like half the ship falling off or delivering 30 credits worth of stuff, new threats and tiles would get unlocked. Also like Risk Legacy, I’d just track winners, not points, so the person who wins the most wins the game.

Which Would You Want To Play?

I need to ask myself that question as well. Which one would I like to play the most as a legacy game. I think it is going to be Formula D, that game you could pretty easily turn into a campaign game already and I’ve had that thought for a while that it could work that way. But Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl is super high as well. I think from a story perspective that would be the best one from them all. I am mainly just shocked there isn’t a legacy racing game out there.

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