Designer Spotlight - Vital Lacerda
Spotlight is a new series that will help to showcase awesome creators in the tabletop community who we at Quackalope love and want to see succeed just as much as ourselves.
It’s a chance to see the industry from a new perspective and give a virtual hug to some of the wonderful people that also remind us how great board games are, how thrilling roleplaying is, and how exciting the tabletop industry is on a day-to-day basis.
In the pantheon of tabletop designers, one name looms large in the realm of hefty Eurogames—Vital Lacerda. He’s one of several prolific designers responsible for multiple entries in the top 100 of BoardGameGeek.com’s authoritative list.
Hailing from Portugal, Lacerda began his career in advertising but entered into the world of game design with his first tile Vinhos in 2010. Despite the widespread love for the popular Viticulture, there are some who consider Vinhos as the preeminent board game about wine. And a decade later, Vital Lacerda has grown his catalog with some incredible contributions to the heavy Eurogame genre.
Body of Work
Since his “arrival” ten years ago, Lacerda has released hits like CO2, Kanban, The Gallerist, Lisboa, and On Mars. He’s got other titles to his name but the heavy Euros are the most popular.
Of those six games mentioned, three of them are in the top 100 BGG games and two more are in the top 200. With the recent release of Kanban EV in 2020 though, it’s possible that the designer will claim a fourth top 100 spot before long.
His name is synonymous with contemplative, crunchy Euros…
They take multiple hours to play, are illustrated by the immaculate Ian O’Toole, and are published by Eagle-Griffin Games.
The games straddle a fine line between intuitive and dense. The majority of his repertoire involves players taking a single action per turn—for instance, moving a single worker or playing a single card—and then letting that one decision blossom into a vibrant decision tree. It can leave less confident players overwhelmed, suffering from analysis paralysis. A player may move a worker to a location space then have to choose between the 15 distinct variations that location provides for the action.
But no matter the setting of the game, players can expect every move to make sense within the thematic world. Whether players embody their inner astronauts in On Mars, vintners in Vinhos, or the nobility in Lisboa, the theme-drenched actions of the game will make for a compelling experience nonetheless.
Games on the Way
Vital’s upcoming work will align nicely with his previous work. The designer has two eagerly anticipated projects coming to Kickstarter during 2021. The first is an expansion to his 2020 game On Mars while the second is a brand-new title, Weather Machine.
Lacerda himself disagrees with the title description of On Mars: Alien Invasion – A Somewhat Cooperative Expansion. As far as he’s concerned, the project is an extension rather than an expansion.
He is adamant about the semantic difference because he believes “On Mars doesn’t need an expansion.”
The publisher, Eagle-Gryphon Games, requested another product for On Mars and Lacerda delivered. Alien Invasion won’t expand or increase the competitive nature of the base game’s gameplay. This product is simply another, different way to play the game. And Vital “designed it with that intent.” The product will come with four cooperative chapters that offer new ways to play the game, as well as a race of Martians to survive against.
With this cooperative extension of the base game, Lacerda notes, “I am providing players another way to play a game I really like.”
Weather Machine, on the other hand, is a whole new animal. Players work as scientists—studying weather, publishing research, and constructing both personal prototypes and government-owned machines to mitigate extreme weather patterns.
This, first and foremost, is a worker-placement game—one that Lacerda likens to several of his other games.
He draws a comparison to Kanban as both have “very clear goals.” Kanban asks players to produce automotives in a factory. Weather Machine requires players to produce research and build prototypes to fix the weather. Lacerda is always trying to “make a new twist on worker placement.”
This time around, though, the designer put more nuance into the decision-making process that faces players.
Players now have the ability to select both actions at each location space by paying additional permits—the main resource in Weather Machine—or take only a single action and gain a number of permits. After having a chance to play the Tabletopia prototype of the game, this additional layer indeed increases the complexity and the opportunity that exists in the game. Success is predicated on solving the optimization problem each new play presents. There are more intricacies for players to explore and exploit, adding to the richness of the experience.
Lacerda also draws a connection between the themes of Weather Machine and CO2. He notes that “The message is the same [because] players need to save the weather that we have ruined.”
There are marked differences, though. The steampunk aesthetic of Weather Machine douses the game in a very different light than the dire warning of a climate crisis from CO2.
So, it looks like we have a lot to look forward to from Vital Lacerda this year. The On Mars extension-expansion-game and the upcoming Weather Machine will hopefully provide the same familiarity and enticing complexity that we have seen from Lacerda in the past.
Lacerda works with the design belief that “My best game will be the next one.”
We love that philosophy and if he’s able to achieve that, then we’ll be able to reap the rewards of it.
*Quotes taken from an interview with Vital Lacerda conducted on 04/05/2021.
Quackalope is what it is today because of the awesome tabletop community, but we’re not the only ones here in the space.
This is why we want to always show off the great work that other creators are putting out there. If you haven’t played any games from Vital Lacerda, then check out his BGG page to see all of the designs under his belt.
What other creators do you want us to talk about? Let us know in the comments!