James Hewitt has an impressive CV. I reel him off the list of games he's designed (Blood Bowl 2016, Adeptus Titanicus, Silver Tower, Gorechosen), and he insists on adding a few more (Necromunda, Betrayal at Calth). His decades-long career in the tabletop game industry is iconic, and if you've played a Games Workshop boxed game released between 2014 and 2017, he probably had a hand in it.
While most players will recognize him for his stint in the Workshop, Hewitt's work on Hellboy and Blitz Bowl is equally as lauded. After coming on board with Modifius as a contractor to work on an adaptation of the hit video game's brawler-based Fallout Faction, he's now working four days a week in-house on its games. I sat down with him to talk all things Warhammer and Nuka-Cola.
“I never consider any game I've worked on to be finished,” Hewitt tells me via video call. He explains that there is a point when all your changes and tweaks offer diminishing returns, and are better than perfect. This is doubly so when working under tight deadlines at companies like Game Workshop, and with the exception of Adeptus Titanicus, Hewitt didn't take long to complete his creations. He created Gorechosen in just two weeks between returning from some vacation and switching roles within the company.
Hewitt had more time on other projects, but the success of Blood Bowl put the spotlight on the Specialist Games team he was a part of, and suddenly their lengthy game testing and relatively quiet environment became frantic and hectic.
He's been away from Games Workshop for seven years now, and his experience at Modifius is already proving a tonic for that frantic design process. Fallout Factions: Nuka-World will be the first game it hits the shelves as soon as it drops. This time, he will be there to support his child as it progresses rather than watching others thrive.
“With Factions,” he says, “was the first time I'd gone to develop a game I'd designed. Looking back at Games Workshop, the first thing I did there was Betrayal, which was the Horus Heresy tactical, team-based combat thing. It was kind of throwaway, like they wanted a game and I could put it in a mini box. I'm designing a game.” And so I'm really proud of that, and I would have loved it if the series had continued with that set of mechanics, and changed it differently each time.
“Blood Bowl I did a little bit, but it was mostly pre-release and I moved on to other things. Necromunda I designed it and then left the company. Titanicus, there was a big delay because it was going to be resin and then it moved to plastic so it was redesigned. It was originally supposed to come out when it left Necromunda and then it changed.
“I keep seeing these games that I design, and then other people pick them up and do cool things with them. That's cool in itself, but it's very satisfying to be here and, with Guts, we have all these plans and I'm here to help them move forward.”
Built like a Necromunda, similar to the Blood Bowl
Factions is an interesting game because it is meant to appeal to many people. This is a fighting game for Fallout fans who have never played with miniatures before, it's accessible in its rules and campaigns, it reflects that iconic Fallout style. You have about a dozen models you can upgrade between missions, bottlecaps and special stats, chemicals and deathclaws, but they may not work the way you imagine.
From a gameplay perspective, Fallout Faction began life as a “Necromunda/Kill Team type game” to act as a foil to Modiphius' dense, grainy Fallout game, Wasteland Warfare. However, Hewitt's interpretation of League game mechanics is reminiscent of the Blood Bowl.
Balancing mechanics mean you can upgrade your squad of wreck attackers and not worry about being overpowered against a new player. Similar to the lure of Blood Bowl, if your roster is below your opponent's, you can buy your local Commonwealth Merchant to stock up on Steampacks and RAD to level the playing field.
Games should be short, about half an hour in length, and played on a 2'x3' board. Setup is quick, and gameplay is as frenetic as it is fun. It sounds perfect for an evening at the pub, and tournament play can be even more exciting.
Hewitt stresses the importance of nailing the “vibe” of a game, especially when adapting an existing board game or IP. Translating mechanics, even from digital to tabletop, doesn't always work in a new medium. Hewitt has learned this while adapting dozens of games, from Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower (based on Warhammer Quest and Hero Quest), Hellboy (well, based on Hellboy), and Blood Bowl 2016 (you know where this is going), a process he refers to as “game archaeology.”
While Modifius has many remote employees, Hewitt and seven key members of the design team work from an office in Nottingham. “When you're working on a board game or something, it's easy to go around the table and try things out,” he explains.
Despite this, he always turns to video games when deciding on factions. “I've got different saves in Fallout 4 where I can go and look around for cheats to travel there, or go to the weapon crafting table and roll up some guns so I can see what we do in the game.”
Hewitt says Faction is up there with Titanics as his favorite game he's ever designed (he says), but it doesn't strike me as a coincidence that the two games he took nine uninterrupted months to design are his favorites. The process seems less stressful, the design can afford more iterations and testing, and the end result is more polished as a result. Who would have thought of it, allowing your designers enough time and resources to result in better products?
- issued
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June 26, 2009
- ESRB
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m
- developer(s)
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Cyanide Studio
- Multiplayer
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Local multiplayer
