Hi all,
The original developer of this game, fafa-fr, has moved onto other things after making this great game and after multiple attempts to reach him, there aren't any signs pointing to his return to dedicate time to this project. Hence, I've decided to try and make an attempt to add some improvements to this game. I am by no means a PHP developer, but being a programmer I believe I know enough to add some code for new boards and a simple end-game enhancement since these changes do not mess with any actual functionality.
My goal is to add 4 new duchies and one end-game enhancement. They are as follows:
New Boards
- Duchie #11 (unofficial #) from CoB expansion #3 (2013)
A board created by Stefan Feld exclusively for the regional qualifying round of the German board game championship in 2013
- Duchie #14 from CoB expansion #7 (2016)
A board created by Stefan Feld exclusively for the regional qualifying round of the German board game championship in 2016
These 2 boards would be back-to-back for those playing the classic setup.
- Duchie #21 from CoB Special Edition (2023)
A new board included in this version of the game
- Duchie #22 from CoB Special Edition (2023)
A new board included in this version of the game
These 2 boards would also be back-to-back for those playing the classic setup.
There are many other boards for Castles of Burgundy, however they all officially introduce new rule sets. These include the 2011 expansion boards, the monastery expansion boards and the border post expansion boards. Due to their additional rules, I don't feel confident in my skills to edit the actual functional game code to implement these rulesets with their respective boards. There are 2 other boards in CoB: Special Edition that are simple base-boards. These are "rebalanced" duchies #4 and #8. However, that may get confusing if released with the original #4 and #8, hence I'm also ignoring those.
In summary, the 4 boards listed above include no additional rules and could live alongside the boards that are already published in this game. To me, these make them a great, simple addition to further iterate on this BGA release.
End-game Enhancement
At the end of the game, in the end-game statistics I want to add the board (duchie) number that was played. This would make it easier when viewing your game history to see which board the game was played on without having to click the replay button and load the replay of the game itself. I believe this garnish would help players more quickly study their past games on certain boards, etc.
Final Thoughts
The good news is, I've already signed up for BGA Studio, I've already gotten read-access to the game code, and I've already made all the additions to the code necessary to publish the above changes! The bad news is, this will be slowed down by process. Since the original developer is no longer active, and BGA has a skeleton staff for help in these types of situations, it will be slow going.
I have reached out to BGA studio multiple times, and will continue to do so in order to figure out what next steps I need to perform. Adding boards and enhancements is not so simple as the code change, as I believe any game changes require publisher permission and sign off. Once that is done then I need to figure out how to be given write/publish access to the project and understand how that process works, especially since the project is currently 'owned' by a developer who has gone dormant and is unreachable. All this to say this will likely take some time, even though all the code has been changed already locally on my computer.
I just wanted to provide this update for Castles of Burgundy fans who have been hoping for new boards and iterations on this fantastic game. Just know that at least one person is actively pursuing this goal and that the currently game will hopefully not remain stagnant forever!
Cheers!
The original developer of this game, fafa-fr, has moved onto other things after making this great game and after multiple attempts to reach him, there aren't any signs pointing to his return to dedicate time to this project. Hence, I've decided to try and make an attempt to add some improvements to this game. I am by no means a PHP developer, but being a programmer I believe I know enough to add some code for new boards and a simple end-game enhancement since these changes do not mess with any actual functionality.
My goal is to add 4 new duchies and one end-game enhancement. They are as follows:
New Boards
- Duchie #11 (unofficial #) from CoB expansion #3 (2013)
A board created by Stefan Feld exclusively for the regional qualifying round of the German board game championship in 2013
- Duchie #14 from CoB expansion #7 (2016)
A board created by Stefan Feld exclusively for the regional qualifying round of the German board game championship in 2016
These 2 boards would be back-to-back for those playing the classic setup.
- Duchie #21 from CoB Special Edition (2023)
A new board included in this version of the game
- Duchie #22 from CoB Special Edition (2023)
A new board included in this version of the game
These 2 boards would also be back-to-back for those playing the classic setup.
There are many other boards for Castles of Burgundy, however they all officially introduce new rule sets. These include the 2011 expansion boards, the monastery expansion boards and the border post expansion boards. Due to their additional rules, I don't feel confident in my skills to edit the actual functional game code to implement these rulesets with their respective boards. There are 2 other boards in CoB: Special Edition that are simple base-boards. These are "rebalanced" duchies #4 and #8. However, that may get confusing if released with the original #4 and #8, hence I'm also ignoring those.
In summary, the 4 boards listed above include no additional rules and could live alongside the boards that are already published in this game. To me, these make them a great, simple addition to further iterate on this BGA release.
End-game Enhancement
At the end of the game, in the end-game statistics I want to add the board (duchie) number that was played. This would make it easier when viewing your game history to see which board the game was played on without having to click the replay button and load the replay of the game itself. I believe this garnish would help players more quickly study their past games on certain boards, etc.
Final Thoughts
The good news is, I've already signed up for BGA Studio, I've already gotten read-access to the game code, and I've already made all the additions to the code necessary to publish the above changes! The bad news is, this will be slowed down by process. Since the original developer is no longer active, and BGA has a skeleton staff for help in these types of situations, it will be slow going.
I have reached out to BGA studio multiple times, and will continue to do so in order to figure out what next steps I need to perform. Adding boards and enhancements is not so simple as the code change, as I believe any game changes require publisher permission and sign off. Once that is done then I need to figure out how to be given write/publish access to the project and understand how that process works, especially since the project is currently 'owned' by a developer who has gone dormant and is unreachable. All this to say this will likely take some time, even though all the code has been changed already locally on my computer.
I just wanted to provide this update for Castles of Burgundy fans who have been hoping for new boards and iterations on this fantastic game. Just know that at least one person is actively pursuing this goal and that the currently game will hopefully not remain stagnant forever!
Cheers!
