by Marco Canetta

An Unexpected Beginning

"Hey, Stefania, look at this image..."

This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
2021, January — Stefania (Niccolini) and I were at home in our small office, able to go out only for proven reasons because of COVID-19. I was looking for new ideas for a game based on dice and on a code to be deciphered. We had already made several prototypes of the game, but something was still missing. The game was probably too dry. Therefore, a fresh idea for restarting was needed.

Looking through histories and information regarding mathematicians (Fibonacci, Euler, etc.), I came across this picture of the Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem, which I already knew. Certainly, it was a fascinating puzzle, but I never thought making a game out of it would be possible...although the idea of having four characters (the Red Prince, the Blue Prince, the Innkeeper, and the Bishop) took us straight to the city of seven bridges and to a four-player game.

That day I did not find what I was looking for, but I found what I was not looking for. We abandoned the dice game for a while and started thinking about this new game opportunity.

And the game with dice still remains unfinished to this day...

The First Attempt

The basic concepts of the game were immediately clear:

• Have a meeple move across the city,
• Split the movement in several parts,
• Never cross the same bridge twice, and
• Have different actions to be performed, depending on where the movement ends.

The final goal was obvious, too: to obtain, before the other players, everything needed to build the eighth bridge. Additionally, at the end of the round, after moving and taking actions, if possible players had to return home to rest.


Soon we created a map based on a schematic representation of Königsberg's center. On the map were spaces for twelve buildings, each with its own role (as in many games):

• Church (gives VPs),
• Inn (provides characters, i.e., cards in four colors),
• University (with architects for bridge construction; again, cards in four colors),
• Town Hall (with political characters; once again, cards in four colors),
• Bank (money and bank interests),
• Sand Quarry (raw resources),
• Carpentry (raw resources),
• Stone Quarry (raw resources),
• Shipyard (for ship building),
• River Port (for sale of surplus goods),
• Notary (for purchasing lands and properties),
• Guild (for hiring workers and master builders).

In other words, there were twelve tiles (similar to the Carpentry in the example), with six superimposed tiles carrying a bonus action for the first player, and some cards.


The idea of tiles with a bonus for the first player to reach them remained in all subsequent versions of the game. These tiles (simplified) became the bird tokens in the final version of the game:

Front and back sides
Characters then were not so different from the final ones. (They already had a color, a hiring cost, and an effect.)


The so-called properties (examples below) were an early version of the "structures" of the final game. They provided fixed victory points (VPs), which turned into variable ones throughout development.


A grid at the top corner of the main board defined the relationship between money and VPs.


A new expert game (as usual, for us) was created, with several ideas that remained throughout the development of the game.

"I Won't Play It"

The first playtest lasted exactly zero turns.

Not a single action was performed as the game had too many pieces of information, too many things on the board to be evaluated. This would have hidden the most fun part of the game: trying to create the most efficient path without getting stuck somewhere. The prototype went directly in the box for paper recycling.

Some things, however, had already been defined:

• Five action cards with 3/2/1/1/1 bridges crossed,
• Tiles that provided bonuses to the first player taking that action,
• Cards in the colors of the four zones: the two islands and the north and south shores,
• A ship available for reaching another part of the map without crossing an already crossed bridge, and
• Building/property cards.

Since cards seemed the easiest element to manage and the most versatile to create variability, we decided to reduce tiles and cards to ten decks of cards.

Version 1

Let's refer to the first iteration of the design we did play as "Version 1". Here's an example of the five action cards of the Red Prince:


It was not complicated to create the first deck of cards. Information was reduced to the essentials: a cost, a color, and something to be received by the player, whether as a one-shot or as income each round.


It had also already been established that at the end of each round after four turns, there would be a reward for the crossed bridges and for returning home.


However, some aspects of the game were still undefined, such as how to track the obtained resources. Were physical resources needed, or would a track be sufficient? Which strategies were available to get points, other than crossing bridges and achieving goals?

The game flow was now acceptable, but part of the purpose was still missing, and the cards were not so varied.

Version 2

With Version 2, we were approaching a good version of the game. The decks had been defined; effects depending on the crossed bridges had appeared in the decks, as well as bonuses distributed on the map for the first player taking a certain card in each round. (These bonuses would become the "birds" in the final version.)


The map, compared with the previous one, was cleaner and showed only the essential pieces of information: ten spaces for the cards and ten spaces for the related bonuses (on rectangular tiles, as shown below). In particular, bonuses remained more or less the same from that version to the final one.

Top: the original look; bottom: the final version
The grid with money and VPs disappeared, replaced by this investment track that was already close to the final one.


Top: the version 2 track; bottom: the track as published
The same can be said for the ship, which was no longer built by players as in Version 0; instead it became a shared token that played exactly the same role as the balloon in the final version.


The fifth card color appeared, and while for now, costs were all the same, later this fifth color would become the cheapest one since it doesn't provide VPs.

The five colors of the cards, with effects that depend on bridges crossed, remained until the final version, which looks this way:


Since during tests players would sometimes get stuck, we introduced a sixth action card ("No action") that provided no movement and no action — just a way to recover money and skip the turn in a less penalizing way. Furthermore, small bonuses were added to the cards with a single crossed bridge.


A rough version of the player board appeared. Maybe it was a bit complex, but in fact the contents were not far from the final version.


Empty spots were filled during the game by means of small tiles such as these:


The symbols represented the intervention of architects and engineers, and they were simplified and turned into decoration in the final version:


Version 3

With Version 3, we came close to the final version.


The player board looked quite similar to the final one, at least conceptually. There were still five rounds to be played at that time, but that number would soon be reduced to four — enough for a good playing experience.

Finally, the churches came into play, providing VPs at the end of the game:


Churches were an early version of the "Favor of the Queen" tiles in the final game:


The project, however, went through long breaks because in the meantime we had to develop Zhanguo: The First Empire in 2022, as well as two additional prototypes that we would bring to SPIEL in 2023.

Version 4

In the end, further refinements were made.


Starting cards for creating asymmetric starting conditions were introduced, along with bridge goals that defined targets for the resources:


These were transformed into bridge goal tiles in the final version:



Bridge goal cards, on their backs, have the upper and the lower part of the bridge, so when you fulfill both cards, a complete figure is created — and a bonus church card gained!


The concept of gaining something when fulfilling two different goals has been retained in the final version, where bridge goal tiles are paired on the tree board.


We were ready to attend the game fair in Essen...

SPIEL Essen 23

SPIEL Essen 23 was the first big fair we attended since 2019 — and while showcasing Zhanguo: The First Empire at the Sorry We Are French booth, it was obvious and quite natural to present this prototype to the SWAF team, with whom we already had worked well together.

The positive response from France came quickly. Between October, November, and December there was an intensive exchange of emails and calls, with Version 4 being modified several times.

The collaboration with Matthieu Verdier, who is not only a well-known author but also an excellent developer, led to many new ideas as well as a new setting in an enchanted forest where animals are helping in the construction of the eighth bridge.

Version 5

Version 5 is the result of the work carried out in close co-operation with Matthieu Verdier. Among the new features were the ability to improve actions and to build new houses simply by having a set of five cards in five colors. (In order to build a house on the main board in the previous versions, you had to get a specific small building card.)


Action cards became double-sided tiles, with a basic side and a golden upgraded side, and in the end, the "No action" turned into "Visit the Queen".

For the prototype, we temporarily borrowed images from a well-known game:


The player board reached its final form, apart from a few fine tunings on bonuses and VPs:


The crossed bridges were still marked with sticks similar* to the rails of Railroad Revolution, although they became paws in the final version.

* Okay, these game pieces are known everywhere as the roads in CATAN...but at our home, CATAN arrived after a lot of games played of Railroad Revolution.

And the main board took almost its final shape:


The Solo Mode

Given Zhanguo: The First Empire's solo mode, which according to several comments seems to have been liked and played, the game now known as Kingdom Crossing also needed a solo mode.

This was specifically my task. In the division of roles, creating the automa falls on me, while Stefania is usually in charge of writing rules and background histories. What the automa should have done to simulate the presence of a flesh-and-bone player at the table was clear:

• Take cards together with bonuses (the birds), if possible, and
• Sometimes visi the Queen and move the balloon.

In my opinion, these things would be sufficient to place "obstacles" on my path toward a good score.


Before submitting the prototype to SWAF, I already had a draft version of the solo mode — not a real automa, mind you, just a way to play solo. I had just five cards identifying the cards to be removed from the map, and since I was introducing an automa, this new version would require further development.


The decision was to use tiles identifying specific positions of cards on the game board, with one tile per position, so in theory ten tiles, plus one tile related to the Queen and to the balloon, would suffice — but crossing bridges according to a predefined pattern would have unnecessarily complicated the automa, without improving the game experience. Better a simple "vacuum cleaner" effect. Therefore, the automa didn't use bridge tokens (paws) and didn't follow a specific path.

The final concept turned out to be simple: Each turn, two tiles are revealed, and if they indicate cards, the relevant cards are taken by the automa.


To modulate the difficulty, I also introduced three "do nothing" tiles, indicated by a sloth.

Depending on how many "do nothing" tiles are used, the game varies greatly. If all three "do nothing" tiles are used, the automa will be relaxed, and most likely it will not be hard to win. Without "do nothing" tiles, cards and bonuses disappear at lightning speed, and the automa becomes almost unbeatable. (Experienced players will probably be able to tame this level; unfortunately, I'm not among them.)


The next step was to decide how the automa should use the cards. In order to keep it simple to be managed, the automa does not cross bridges, does not use money, and does not have a marker on the investment track. Therefore, many cards and birds' effects would be meaningless to the automa. Better to simply associate each card with a step on the relevant resource track. If the resource marker goes beyond an empty space for statues or flowers, it is filled immediately. In this way a potential scoring is created in a simple way.

In addition, progress on resource tracks allows the automa to meet objectives. Five out of six bridge goals can be met by the automa: those related to resources, those related to houses/structures, those related to decorations, and those related to birds. Only the goal related to the investment track is definitely ignored by the automa.


Since the automa might not optimize the Favor of the Queen tiles, I decided to assign a fixed value to each tile to make them easier and faster to evaluate.

Finally, the automa needed a name. It had not been difficult for Zhanguo: The First Empire to identify Li Si as the opponent to beat. Here in Kingdom Crossing, the interaction potentially takes place in two places on the map. Therefore, I thought of a pair of "mischievous" beavers who appear almost unpredictably here and there on the map and often get the precious birds before me. In the end, the names for these two opponents were unintentionally suggested by a young French friend of ours, Raphaël ([Matthieu's son), who still couldn't pronounce Stefania's and my name correctly, so he limited himself to a simpler Paco and Paca. Thank you, Raphaël, for your contribution to this project!

The Final Touch: Background History and Fontelucente

The brief background history has been written by Stefania together with the SWAF team. The names used for identifying the places and the river were not always fantasy names. One in particular, "Brightspring", came from the Italian name "Fontelucente". (They have more or less the same meaning, even if the Italian term is more evocative.)

Fontelucente is not exactly a fictional name. There is a small place on the hills surrounding Florence with this name. There you will find neither beavers nor bridges — just trees and a small church where in 1995 Stefania and I got married. Therefore, this game that's been beautifully illustrated by David Sitbon will be a sort of gift for our 30th wedding anniversary...


SPIEL Essen 25

The game will be officially presented at SPIEL Essen in late October 2025. For us, it will be a good opportunity to meet again many friends from various parts of the world and — why not? — to find new ones. We will be at the SWAF booth on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday afternoons, waiting for you. See you there!

Marco Canetta