GAME & LEVEL DESIGNER

Calcon 2024

Already when we started designing, we had daydreams about putting together a tournament for our game, and fast forward half a year, and here we are.
Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get our printed cards in time, so instead, we held it with our print-and-play version.

The event took place in Kalmar, which every year organizes a convention for board games and similar hobbies. Myself and Robin have attended this event many times in the past and knew it would be a good place to introduce players to Bauer for the first time.
 

The Structure

Since we had no idea what the interest would be, it was very hard to plan the structure. I knew I wanted everyone to play at least 2 games of Bauer so that they got to meet each other and feel that they had more than one chance to make it to the finals. I sketched out 14 different scenarios depending on player count.

​

Time to Play

In the end, we ended up with 11 brave souls to fight for the first-ever Bauer crown.

These players were divided into 3 tables and played their first match. Luckily all of them had at least one game of Bauer played before the tournament with the most experienced players reaching double digits.

​

After the first match was settled, we moved the three winners together to form a new group called the A-group. The other 8 were divided randomly into two new groups, B and C. Everyone now got to play their second game, and The 2 best players from the A-group together with the winners from B and C made it to the playoffs.

​

Playoff

The playoffs consisted of Magnus, Anton, Emelie, and Hampus. All ready to give it their best for the 2 final spots. The game got very tense and ended with a final score of:

Magnus - 34

Emelie - 38

Anton - 34

Hampus - 22

Qualifying Magnus and Emelie to the finals.

​

The Final

The final was played with 2 matches back to back and then adding the score together to determine a winner.

We designed Bauer for 2-5 players and trust me when I say, it plays excellent at 2. Playing at 2 gives the players a lot more information about what their opponent is up to and since none of our finalists had ever tried it before, I was extra excited to see how they would do.

They exceeded my expectations by drawing their first match 29 to 29 showing everyone why they were the finalists. This also meant no one was in the lead for the final game, and anything could happen.

​

In the final game, Magnus took advantage of the fact that Emelie picked up an early Skogrå and did everything he could to feed Emelie with as many theme tags as possible. This proved to be a winning strategy making Magnus the first-ever in the world to take down a tournament of Bauer.

Final score

Magnus - 29 + 47 = 76

Emelie - 29 + 34 = 63

Conclusion
Seeing players take on Bauer and try their best to win was amazing. We the designers are all competitive gamers so knowing our game works in a tournament setting just as well as in a casual one, felt great.

​

Highlights

Some of my favorite moments were seeing the players understand the value of knowing which cards might come back and form a strategy around it. Also seeing how the Danger cards impact the game differently depending on the number of players making them the most scary at a 2 player game.

​

For me the card of the tournament is Tjovik. this little guy proved to be very strong when the stars aligned giving our champion 10 (!) points in the final game. But trust me when I say, getting double of all theme tags is not an easy task.

​

Signing of

Thank you for reading, and if you played in the tournament I also want to thank you for participating and hope you found it a fun experience.