Imagine a game of Great Western Trail. You are back on the familiar trail. Last time you passed this spot, you only wanted to get your cattle to town as quickly as possible. This time, you have a building beside the trail, a few different cattle cards in hand, and a newly hired worker who makes a previously impossible plan feasible.
The forks in the trail are still there, but you want to make one more stop.
Now look at another table. In Maracaibo, your ship follows its route. A port ahead offers a reward, while farther away there is a quest you want to complete. As you plan a leisurely passage, another player moves faster. You begin to wonder how much time this round really has left.
Both games are designs by Alexander Pfister. They make another circuit feel familiar, then leave you with a question. When I come back, how will I and the route have changed?
1. The Child Who Took the Other Players’ Turns
In an interview with MeepleBR, Pfister recalled growing up in a small town. As a child he wanted to play board games but could not always find partners, so he simulated the other players himself. Later he brought friends into the hobby, gradually forming a small group. Moving to Vienna to study gave him more opportunities to meet people and play.
He had designed games for himself and his friends since childhood. Only after meeting other designers in Vienna did he seriously consider getting an idea published. He said that several more years passed between those first attempts and the publication of his first game.
In a 2017 interview with Zatu, he introduced himself as a Vienna resident working in finance. He also recalled frequently playing Acquire as a child and modifying its rules. He studied economics and was interested in nineteenth-century economic life in the United States. These facts tell us what he encountered, while leaving us to discover what his games would become.
What interests me most is that childhood practice of taking different players’ turns. It means believing in one route for a moment, then moving to the other side and asking what openings it leaves. A plan that looks complete during your own turn can change immediately in another person’s hands.
Many creators modify games they enjoy. Pfister’s recollections begin there too. First you treat rules as something you can adjust, then gradually discover how one change affects the decisions that follow. The complete development paths we now find in his game boxes were once prototypes someone sat down to test, taking each side in turn.
2. Before the Cattle, a Route That Could Grow Buildings
Great Western Trail did not begin with a fully formed cattle-driving scene. Pfister explained in interviews that its core was a shared route along which players could build, with buildings offering richer actions as the game progressed. Oil and gold mining were considered early on, before cattle driving became the more suitable theme.
In another interview in 2016, he described the starting idea as a circular path and gradually increasing possibilities. Players could initially use neutral buildings, then construct their own and hire different workers to improve cattle buying, construction, or rail development.
To me, the game’s circuit also provides a way to learn. On your first visit to a place, you need to understand what that stop lets you do. After several trips, you begin to notice which actions connect, where your own building would fit, and how the cattle in your hand can support your next delivery.
If a map offered only an endless succession of new destinations, players might constantly be learning new things. Returning to a familiar place gives you a comparison. Something you could not afford last time becomes possible. A step that once seemed unimportant becomes worth a detour because your cards and workers have changed.
That is my interpretation. The familiar trail makes change tangible, and growth gains a past against which to measure itself. You can recall your first passage and decide what you would like to add on the next trip.
Everyone moves within this structure, keeping pressure on the shared table. You want enough time for your plan to develop, while other players decide where to stop and how quickly to move. A seemingly repetitive trail ultimately acquires different rhythms from the people travelling it.
3. Putting a Choice Before Other People
Pfister also works at another scale. Broom Service, which he co-designed with Andreas Pelikan, won the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2015. Their jointly credited Isle of Skye won the same award in 2016. The publisher’s news for the former and official material for the latter preserve those two years separately.
Discussing Broom Service, Pfister particularly noted the emotions involved in judging which roles other players would choose. He described it as highly interactive. The publisher’s award announcement likewise highlighted the choice between a riskier, more rewarding action and a cautious one.
Isle of Skye brings that attention to other people into pricing. After drawing landscape tiles, players price the ones they intend to offer. Whether someone else is willing to buy determines where those tiles go. Terrain you value may have a completely different value to another player’s landscape.
I find that this judgment feels different from calculating a development route. You can work out how many points a tile might bring you, yet cannot simply assign the same price on behalf of the person opposite. When it is their turn to decide, they are considering your money, their own land, and the scoring conditions in this game.
As the official introduction explains, Isle of Skye uses only some of its scoring tiles each game, requiring players to adapt. Whether a landscape tile fits is the beginning. Why you need it this time, and why someone else might need it, gives the price its weight.
These collaborations also remind me to notice the people working alongside a designer. Pfister explores cyclical development in his own designs, and with Pelikan he can make a compact choice of role or price into a moment the whole table waits to resolve.
4. Sailing to Port and Carrying a Story into the Next Game
Maracaibo puts development along a sailing route. In the official rules, players take actions along the way and improve their ships. They can also choose a campaign mode, in which story cards and legacy tiles change later situations and introduce new quests and opportunities.
Compared with Great Western Trail, I am especially interested in how players handle temptations along the route. Having something available ahead does not mean you should stop there now. You have development goals of your own, and you also need to watch how others are bringing the round forward. A seemingly ordinary stop becomes important when an ability or quest makes use of it.
This planning can connect with a story across games. The rulebook explains that the campaign archives certain states and brings them back in later games. When the box opens again, players encounter new relationships between locations on a foundation they still recognize.
Discussing Maracaibo’s development, Pfister mentioned reducing its length from five rounds to four and streamlining elements including combat. In a separate interview, he expressed his interest in narrative games and included Newdale and Maracaibo in that direction.
I see him managing two rhythms through these choices. Within a game, players want their abilities to take shape. Across games, a story needs to give them a reason to begin again. Development needs enough time for earlier investments to be felt. A timely ending can leave players eager to try another route.
The story may reside in a new quest at a port, or in how you arranged your ship and actions this game. Some players continue with the plot, while others remember the opportunity they gave up to sail faster. Both memories can bring them back to the table.
5. Giving Important Decisions Room to Happen
In a 2020 interview, Pfister said he liked strategy games lasting around one or two hours and containing important decisions. He often begins a design with mechanisms and looks for a theme early. As a design changes, its theme can still change too.
Set this alongside the development of Great Western Trail and the work becomes concrete. A circular route already interested him, but he still needed a setting in which repeatedly travelling the same path would feel natural. Cattle driving gave departure and delivery a practical basis, connecting development with a journey players could understand.
My interpretation is that he cares whether players can explain why they want to act a certain way this round. Buying cattle, hiring workers, and constructing buildings can each have a function, but within a game they ultimately need to become connected parts of a player’s own plan. As more actions become available, their relationships need to stay clear.
From simulating several players himself, through testing prototypes with friends and designers, to collaboration and revision during publication, his experience has also kept returning to choices. An idea worth keeping needs to meet other people at the table. A route’s appeal is tested when someone wants to follow it to the end, then come back.
Next time you reach a familiar building in Great Western Trail, you may no longer remember how long you paused there on the first circuit. But you will know that there is something new you can do on this trip. Perhaps another circuit will let you find out what happens when those actions come together.
【chengcheng’s Discussion Topic】
Do you prefer to commit early to a development route in strategy games, or change your plan as you go? Has a location stayed on your mind because you thought, “Next time I come back, I’ll be able to do it”?
I’m chengcheng. See you in the next Designer Story!
#DesignerStory #AlexanderPfister #GreatWesternTrail #IsleOfSkye #Maracaibo
Sources and Further Reading MeepleBR interviews Pfister about his experience and design Pfister’s 2017 interview on economics and Great Western Trail The circular route and buildings in a 2016 interview Ravensburger’s announcement of Broom Service’s award Lookout’s official Isle of Skye introduction Lookout’s Isle of Skye publication material Maracaibo’s official English rulebook Pfister discusses his work and narrative games with Spielstil