by David Ausloos

Game ideas seem to sneak up on me more and more during that fuzzy, dreamlike moment between sleep and the rude awakening of an alarm clock. And so, one such morning, somewhere between sleep and consciousness, I was visited by the idea for a game set in a small, pleasant universe of mountains and grassland where you build roads to form a logistical network.

Aware of the fragility of such ideas, how they tend to evaporate somewhere between brushing your teeth and burning your toast, I immediately started scribbling the premise for what would become TwinStar Valley. By the time I left for work, I had amassed ten pages of handwritten notes. Most of them were probably undecipherable to the average human, but thankfully years of experience decoding my own breakfast-table hieroglyphs saved the day.

This initial rush of inspiration is my favorite phase in designing. It's raw, wobbly, and extremely vulnerable — like a baby deer on roller skates — but also bursting with infinite possibility. Nothing is set in stone. The world hasn't told the idea it's impossible yet.

By noon, I was already crafting a cardboard version of this dream, using a primitive tile design I whipped up during lunch break. With a rumbling stomach and caffeine for blood, I decided the game needed a touch of Japanese charm. This was partly inspired by my love for Japanese game design and aesthetics, radiating a simple tranquil beauty. I envisioned a gentle world of meadows and flower fields blooming in soft, pastel colors — anything but the grim purgatory that economic games tend to live in.

Yes, let's name the beast: TwinStar Valley is an economic game. But from the beginning, I saw it as a mission to avoid the genre's usual pitfalls: overly complex rules, visuals that scream "corporate accountant", and gameplay dry as sand. I wanted to make an economic game that could charm a wider audience — inviting, but not fluffy; light in feel, but not in depth.

The first prototype in a minimal style
The next few days, I put together a template for the modular tiles that would shape the valley. Over the years, you start to develop a kind of game designer spider-sense for these things, like knowing exactly how many hexagons will feel right without overthinking things.

I threw together a bare bones prototype, not really expecting it to work straight away, let alone sprinkle a bit of tabletop magic. To my surprise, when I started solo testing the first draft of the system — laying down routes on the playfield towards mines that could be, well, mined, and connecting everything up — it immediately felt natural. Like the game had been hiding in the drawer all along, waiting patiently to appear. At times, it was as if the logic of the rules organically grew out of those early, innocent moments of fiddling with a few mismatched wooden bits I'd scavenged.

Before my eyes, a small universe began to assemble itself on the table: a miniature realm of ambitious little companies, locked in a fierce race to build the most efficient network and make glorious cardboard profits.

Early version of the action-selection system
From the get-go, I was aware this game system would stand or fall with two core mechanisms: action selection and a fluctuating market.

This first system would need to be unique, and I had this idea of the organic growth of the routes in the playfield being mirrored on the action-selection board: a grid where players placed action discs one by one, activating the action listed in the square. Each new action disc placed would need to be placed adjacent to an already positioned disc, so players would create an actual route on the grid of actions, with possibilities to branch out in different directions to reach specific actions. More dramatically, they could block each other's paths toward a desirable option in the distance.

While it would take one year to perfect the balance of actions in the grid, the feeling this system generated proved its addictive nature right from the start.

The way this mechanism presented itself to me is typical of how I approach game design in my more recent projects, starting with Dreamscape: I take wooden pieces, place them on the table along with paper and a marker, and start playing around, drawing sketchy ideas, and moving the pieces about. At one point, something begins to feel "right", based on an instinctive feeling you seem to develop over the years, both on a mental and tactile level.

The next step in the prototype's development, still using a minimal approach
The fluctuating-market mechanism that would simulate an actual economy in which the value of mined resources would rise and fall also started working well early in development. That said, as smooth as the chassis for this machine was built, actually balancing the actions and options under the hood turned out to be a considerable challenge.

At this point, I stepped out of the safe little echo chamber of solo-testing and entered the wild frontier of actual human players. This marked the crucial second phase, where you get to observe how real people interact with the system. For a game designer, this is the most vital phase in development — in this case, a step that truly shaped the game into a waterproof system that supports different playstyles.

It was fascinating to see how each group played a different game when I presented the proto at game fairs. Some groups carefully built their little empire step by step, avoiding too much clash with the competition, while other groups approached it as a fierce competitive battle for dominance of every single route and building. What I learned in this stage was the essence of extremely interactive games: the work as an inviting open playground that is shaped by the players and their playstyles.

One of the tiles forming the playfield, then and now
Each action you peform in the valley has impact. Even the first choice to either place pieces to claim a crucial route in an interesting area or alternatively immediately build a workshop — the building where mined gems get polished to sell for more profit in the market — is a tough dilemma. In everything you choose to do, you need to consider the other players and their possible intentions: Is Mike going to reach that mine first and create an outpost to dominate the refinement of blue gems, or will he instead go for that upgrade action straight ahead to boost the delivery options of his van?

One of the two action boards, then and now
One of the key concepts of the game, which forms the underbelly of the system, is the idea of "co-building".

Early on, I knew TwinStar Valley needed an economic system that allowed players to be motivated to contribute their own pieces to routes in the playfield partly built by other players. Basically, players can potentially prevent others from claiming a complete route by adding route pieces to this route. As a result, each time a rival player uses your route pieces, moving from location to location, you receive income from this user.

This has two specific effects: It motivates players to participate in the growing network of routes, and it generates lots of satisfying moments when on another player's turn you can earn income. This system ensures all players are involved outside their turn, greatly reducing any feeling of downtime. Everything a player does in TwinStar Valley directly affects the other players: creating new connections, earning players income when they use routes and buildings, and manipulating the market prices. This core of constant interaction is the driving force of what makes TwinStar Valley a shared experience rather than an individual optimization puzzle.

At this point, I was developing an advanced option to add an additional layer to the game: contracts. These could create a whole new level of things to consider, making for tough dilemmas over whether it would be more beneficial to go for a straightforward lucrative mine with valuable gems or fulfill the conditions of a valuable contract that lures you into a different approach for victory.

I introduced the game to my trusty playtest team, who are not afraid to offer harsh criticism. Their input cannot be underestimated. Each session made the game grow. Sometimes I took a few weeks off, allowing my mind to ponder a hurdle that we came across. I learned that time is my best friend in these matters, allowing me to subconsciously craft a solution that suddenly pops into my mind, usually early in the morning.

As the design refined, I made sure the core and its charm stayed intact. Often it is tempting to keep adding ideas, so I made sure that the system kept its elegance.

Late-stage proto
As the game system developed, so did the theme. After a meeting with the publisher, Jumping Turtle Games, we decided to leave the idea of "mining" behind us in favor of growing fruit as that felt a better match with some of the concepts. The fact that this change rendered the visuals even more colorful was an added benefit of refining the theme.

When I made a trip to Norway that summer, everything seemed to fall into place; the landscapes that I saw there became a direct inspiration for landscapes I created for the tiles forming the playfield. In Norway, there is a strong belief in the guiding power of stars in the night sky. This concept is embedded in Nordic mythology, and it seemed therefore appropriate to use these stars as symbols for hope, symbols cherished by the founders of the project presented within the game: the building of a small ecological community inside the valley. And so the name "TwinStar" was chosen for our beautiful secluded valley.


After two years of intense development and enough coffee to keep a small village awake, I find myself in the production phase. That once-fragile cardboard dream held together by hope, duct tape, and sheer determination now sits proudly in front of me as a real, actual production copy. Soon, I'll be able to share this little universe of meadows and local markets with the world. TwinStar Valley is ready to wander its way onto gaming tables everywhere, hopefully spreading its peculiar cardboard charm to anyone who dares to enter its realm.

And yes, in their own quiet way, those twin stars of hope have come to hold a special meaning for me, too. They shine as symbols of the small moments of enlightenment while I was crafting this little world. Soon, this valley of gentle meadows and bustling markets will be tucked neatly into boxes, ready to journey out into the world, waiting for curious hearts to open them and discover the magic within.

David Ausloos