Designer Toby Sarnelle Talks New Flip And Write Board Game Tend

Ahead of its launch on Kickstarter, I got the chance to playtest the upcoming Tend board game with the game’s designer Toby Sarnelle. After playing an in-person playtest of the spectacular new sci-fi game produced by IV Studio, we spoke at length about the game, his design process, and how it feels to bring his first tabletop board game to life!

What Is The Tend Board Game?

Sarnelle described Tend as, “A crunchy farming flip and write game that evokes the feelings of classic farming video games like Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley.” And this truly was the experience I had playing the game. From fishing in the lake to mining for ore, growing strange alien plants, and giving gifts to my neighboring players, Tend felt utterly satisfying in this regard. 

“Players play as homesteaders on an alien world,” explained Sarnelle, “and will be using shared action cards from an evolving deck as they try to gather a diverse selection of goods to send back home for analysis.”

The Designer's Journey

As we played through the game using a prototype more gorgeously designed and produced than some games currently on shelves, I wanted to go back to the start and hear about Sarnelle’s history as a designer. “I started my game design journey 15 years ago at Stardock Entertainment, working on PC strategy games,” Sarnelle explained. He initially started as a marketing web developer, but soon showed design aptitude which launched his career as a digital game designer. 

As for board game design, Sarnelle said, “I've been designing board games for fun in my spare time for ages. Back when I was working for Two Dots, I developed a number of board game prototypes that I would bring in to playtest with my co-workers, one of which was Tend.”

Inspirations For The Tend Board Game

I wanted to know from where the initial spark for Tend came. For Sarnelle, it all started around 2019 with the rise in popularity of Roll and Write games. “I had gotten really into Roll and Write games and played a bunch of stuff like Cartographers and Welcome To,” said Sarnelle. “I decided it seemed like a really fun type of game to design. I always find that designing with some constraints leads to interesting stuff.”

One of the most exciting constraints of Tend is the way you never get to store resources you gain from turn to turn. No matter what resource you gain, you’ve got to put it immediately to work, or score it for points. But what was it about farming games that excited Sarnelle? “Farming games have such a nice progression of upgrades and expansion,” he explained, “they would make for a really good progression system for a Roll and Write.” 

“Years later, by the time I started working on Tend fully, I had also played Three Sisters and Hadrian's Wall, both of which helped show me some cool stuff you could do in these types of games. I think after playing the Stardew Valley board game is when I really decided I wanted to fully finish the concept, it had some really cool stuff in it but for me didn't really scratch that itch I had from playing games like the Stardew video game and Harvest Moon.” 

Echoing Sarnelle’s earlier statement that Tend is “crunchy,” the game includes plenty of interlocking mechanisms that lead to a seamless, satisfying play experience. But what’s it like creating and balancing a game like this? “It's an extensive process designing something as in-depth as Tend,” Sarnelle explains. “But the bigger challenge is actually trimming back the design to something manageable.”

“I love crunchy games with lots of moving parts, making sure that they don't end up too complex for people to wrap their heads around is my biggest challenge. For Tend, it really started with the core pieces of classic farming video games combined with this idea of a Flip and Write where the deck of cards you're playing with is being built over time.”

“I then usually throw as much junk in there as I can think of that could be fun, and then start playtesting to see which parts feel good and which parts aren't working.” Sarnelle explains that he’s a big proponent of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. “From there you just start cutting things that aren't working and adjusting like crazy.”

Tend Makes Its Debut

So now that the game is on its way to the public, what has it been seeing everything become more real? “This experience has been incredible,” exclaims Sarnelle. “The team at IV Studios are an absolute blast to work with, they have contributed a ton of great stuff to the general design of Tend and are incredible at all facets of creating a board game.” 

“From a visual and creative standpoint I basically let them do whatever they thought would be best, as they have a great eye for art and component design, and they continuously impressed me. We worked together constantly to make sure we kept the game understandable and playable while also being gorgeous and letting the visuals work with the gameplay for the best possible experience.”

“The excitement when that first prototype arrived at my house really cannot be overstated, it was an incredible moment.” One of the things that’s most exciting about the physical production of the game are the stamp markers you use to mark off the goods you store in cargo, and the scratch off cards used for forestry and mining. It’s these components that are some of the things Sarnelle’s most excited for gamers to get their hands on.

The Joys And Worries Of Bringing A Game To Life

With the launch of Tend happening now on Kickstarter, I wanted to know what’s going through Sarnelle’s head. What does it feel like to have a project he’s worked on for so long finally get out there? “I’m SUPER excited,” said Sarnelle. “Honestly, I was initially nervous a month or so ago. Any time you make anything there's always this feeling of dread of ‘what if people don't like it?’ Obviously I feel like the game is good (or I wouldn't be making it), but after playing it across hundreds of iterations over many years you get to the point where it can be hard to really judge how fun it is for a new player.” 

“You get worried it will be hard to understand or that other people won't enjoy the things you like (this stuff is especially amplified when you're working on it solo for so long). When we started to get some first impressions back from content creators that were positive though, it really put that nervousness to rest. The only nervous energy left now is the sadness that I won't be working on it anymore soon once it's all out there and done!”

Advice For Aspiring Designers

Finally, I wanted to know Sarnelle’s advice for people interested in designing their own games. “My biggest advice always for getting into any sort of game design,” said Sarnelle, “is to play and design a lot of games! When you are playing games try to keep in mind what you're enjoying from them and why (don't be afraid to take notes if it helps you).” 

“Board games are great because anyone can make them with basically no technical knowledge required and very few resources. If you have an idea, write it down and draw up some components and try it out! Don't be afraid if it's not all fun initially, just get something you can play and see if any of it is fun.” 

“Don't be afraid to cut things that were core to your initial idea if they aren't working, focus on whatever feels fun and keep iterating. On a more technical level, once you find something you like I highly suggest organizing your game's data in spreadsheets and using a tool like component studio to make iteration quick and easy.”

Thanks to Toby Sarnelle for taking the time to run us through such an enjoyable playtest of Tend, and for taking the time to speak to TechRaptor at length about the game! To learn more about Tend, and get in on the ground floor of the game, head over to the Tend Kickstarter.