by Philip duBarry

In 2012, the gaming world discovered an interesting little game called Guildhall. Designed by Hope S. Hwang and published by AEG, Guildhall had players forming sets from a selection of six types of guild cards. The hook: the more copies of a type you had, the more powerful that type's ability became. Finally, you would discard a set to claim a victory point card. The first player to 20 points won.

I acquired this game at some point and played it a number of times. It was pretty fun, and I especially liked how the sets gradually became more powerful, but left your tableau if you wanted to actually score them.

However, I found a few elements a bit disappointing. First, Guildhall featured a lot of sharp, direct (read: mean) interaction. The game allowed some impressive combos, but often you would watch an opponent steal a big stack of cards from you or otherwise ruin your plans. Also, it was quite a tactical game. There wasn't much use in coming to the game with a set strategy in mind as the very next play could change everything. Finally, you had only six guilds. This limitation was helped by a future expansion, but it still didn't lead to too many new situations. As a Dominion fan, I wanted to see unbounded emergent play with delightfully unexpected combinations and puzzles. I needed more.

During the next few years, I would enter a more intense season of game design. While I worked on many different games, I found myself thinking back to Guildhall and that simple hook. Finally, in May 2015, I got enough inspiration to begin sketching out a new game. I've always been a fan of history, so I would explore the Roman Empire in a game called "Citizens". (I was shocked that this name had not been taken on BGG; it since has been for a self-published game.)

In "Citizens", players would attract various types of citizens to their city. They would be born and die, move in and move out, but all the while they would be contributing glory to your magnificent city.

Mechanically, you would take one of the three pairs of cards on offer, then perform an action. The more of a type you had, the more powerful that action became. You would then discard the card used to perform the action. In this game, you would have no cards in hand; they would all be in your tableau, with matching cards stacked together. Since you would gain two cards each turn and (most of the time) lose only one, you would watch your city grow throughout the game.

Special building cards would carry symbols that interacted with many of the cards — and all of this would be fueled by many different sets of cards, of which you would need only eight per game.


So how did my game address my criticisms of Guildhall? First, this game would also have direct interaction, but I hoped it would be less severe. I tried to mitigate the sharpness by increasing the cost of doing something bad to other players. You could take a few cards, but you would lose all of your soldiers, for example. I also had many other cards that did not do anything bad to opponents or that earned only you points but did nothing bad to them. Some take-that would occur, but it would happen less often and be less painful.

Next, my game would also lean heavily on tactics. However, since the game state didn't change as often, you would be more able to plan ahead. I included many cards with endgame scoring. While you couldn't always anticipate which cards would come out and when, you could make some good guesses and plan accordingly. You could also think about card combinations based on which sets were in play, much like at the start of Dominion.

By the end of summer 2015, I had a prototype that looked nice and played as I intended. I sent a few emails to publishers and waited. In February 2016, I logged onto Twitter (back when it was awesome) and saw a tweet from Nevermore Games co-founder Bryan Fischer stating that they were looking for light- to mid-weight games. There were probably a few other stipulations, but at any rate, I emailed him right away and got an enthusiastic response! "Citizens" sounded like it fit the bill. Later that week, I mailed him a physical prototype.

A few days later, he wrote back, looking to offer me a contract — so exciting! We exchanged emails over the next two months, discussing various cards and possible new themes. Their then-recent Kickstarter hit, Chicken Caesar, was also set in ancient Rome, so they were looking to switch things up. I suggested using propaganda posters from 1950s-era Soviet Russia, and Bryan thought that sounded interesting.

However, at the end of April 2016, Bryan told me about a meeting they had about "Citizens" and the future of their company. It turned out they had several other games ahead of mine in the queue. While they loved it, they couldn't commit to it (and didn't want to lock me into a two- to three-year wait). I was disappointed, but I appreciated the candor.

Over the next year, I pitched a few other publishers and decided to pursue the change of theme. I wanted the game to stand out, and Soviet-era art might be just the thing. (This choice seems more unfortunate in 2024 than it did in 2017.) I changed all the names and art and added a few more sets of cards that introduced new mechanisms...and I continued to talk with Bryan. He ended up taking the new version to Unpub in 2017, and from this experience, he contributed a key insight: Remove the building cards from the main deck and place them in a separate deck. The building cards had never quite felt right, so this was welcome advice. I now had a new game called "Comrades".



This would not be a love letter to the communists, but a tongue-in-cheek satire and commentary on their callous attitude toward their citizens. I pitched this new version during the next few years, but nothing much came of it. In December 2018, Nevermore Games was acquired by Greater Than Games, and my opportunity seemed to melt away. I added the game to my "Fix or Abandon" list, and there it remained until 2022.

During the summer of 2022, I got a new breath of inspiration and decided to give "Citizens" one more shot. By then, the evil face of Putin and the Russian oligarchy could no longer be ignored. The game would be rid of its Soviet theme and go back to ancient Rome.

My breakthrough came with the realization that the building cards did not need to be in the game at all. Instead of having separate cards with icons, I would put the icons directly on the citizen cards — exactly what had been needed all along. I also offered players three cards each turn instead of two. I simplified and streamlined — and now the game was humming like never before.



I was not able to pitch the new game at Gen Con that year, but I did have an extensive list of publishers to contact. In September 2022, I emailed a short description of the game to Keith Matejka of Thunderworks Games. He responded enthusiastically, and within a few more days, had offered me a contract. "Citizens" was finally going to be published!

In April 2023, Keith took the game to Protospiel Milwaukee for additional testing. This went well, with issues and weird interactions being ironed out. Additional development by Harrison Dunn and the team at TWG smoothed out the balance and timing of actions. As for the theme, Keith wanted to try something different. Ancient Rome was not exactly special, and he already had several other titles waiting to be added to Roll Player's Ulos universe.


By May 2023, Keith had begun getting sketches for the art by the wonderful Diego Sá. Together with artist and graphic designer (and world-builder) Stephen Kerr, Keith created a story of sentient animals in the future advancing their unlikely civilization through technology and culture. This new game would be called Citizens of the Spark, a reference to the strange event that enlightened the animal kingdom. The bright colors and imaginative illustrations captivated the eye and conveyed the setting brilliantly. I was thunderstruck by the attention to detail and level of professionalism demonstrated by the TWG team.


The beginning of 2024 saw even more development and production, then the game successfully funded on Kickstarter in October, with production and fulfillment being completed during the first half of 2025. Gen Con 2025 saw the official release of Citizens of the Spark!

Even though the game has taken nearly a decade to be realized, I could not be more pleased. Even now, we are working on new cards to expand the universe, and I look forward to working with Keith more in the years to come. Thanks for reading about my game — I hope you enjoy playing it!

Philip duBarry