26th August
NOMAD GAMES CELEBRATES ITS 11th BIRTHDAY
Hello everyone!
This year officially marks 8 years since we launched Talisman: Digital Edition onto Steam! It also marks 11 years since Nomad Games officially became a company, so we’re definitely in a nostalgic mood. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work on Talisman over those years, and we wanted to look back at some of the biggest milestones and accomplishments with the game that helped us get our start!
For anyone that doesn’t know the original history of Talisman, it was originally released in 1983 (nearly 40 years ago!) and was published by our good friends at Games Workshop. However, our story with Talisman starts a little bit later than that…
Getting the licence
Back in 2011, our original founders were all working at THQ UK! Don (our CEO) was over at a games show in America, demoing some of their games and chatting to various people in the industry. It was during this event that sadly THQ announced they were closing the UK studio, much to the surprise of folks who were in America at the time! So with the news that their old studio was closing, the founding members of Nomad realised quickly that they needed to figure out what their next steps would be.
Luckily, the head of licensing at Games Workshop at the time was also at the show, so he and Don got talking about ways they could carry on with the studio. We’d already worked on Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team at this point, so we’d developed a good relationship with Games Workshop. After some good discussions, the idea of taking up the Talisman licence for a digital adaptation was suggested, and the rest is history!
So for us, Talisman came along at the perfect time - we were able to put together a small studio out of some of the folks who were let go by THQ UK closing. If we hadn’t found out about the studio closure at just that moment (and if Games Workshop hadn’t offered us the Talisman licence!) who knows where we’d be now.
Talisman: Prologue
But before Talisman: Digital Edition became a thing, we released the official prologue… oddly enough titled Talisman: Prologue! Originally announced and then released in 2012, little did we know that Talisman: Prologue would be the first step along the long journey that we’ve taken over the last 10 years.
When we first sat down to discuss how we were going to release our digital adaptation of Talisman, we knew that for the full multiplayer version of Talisman would take us a long time to make - we only had 5 people working at Nomad at this point! We were also super aware of our financial situation - we literally couldn’t afford to take years putting together a game if we couldn’t keep our studio afloat long enough to release it.
So we wanted to release something that would both show that we knew what we were doing with Talisman, but also help keep our new company afloat. And from that, Talisman: Prologue was born! We also learned a lot from developing Prologue that went on to inform how we designed Talisman: Digital Edition, especially in the form of feedback from the more dedicated and experienced Talisman fanbase.
We knew we had a lot of legacy to live up to, by taking on a much-loved older board game - we’re still massively appreciative of the chance that people took on us through Prologue!
Talking to the original Talisman designers
Once we had an early version of Talisman: Prologue up and running, we knew we should get in touch with Robert Harris - the original designer of Talisman. So we sent him over a copy of the game, and were massively pleased to hear his positive feedback on it!
Following on from that, we arranged for him to come visit our tiny studio to talk about the game, his ideas and original vision for Talisman. Not only was it super insightful to be able to talk to him, understanding his vision and goals for Talisman has helped us keep the spirit of the game alive when designing our own expansions too.
To Robert, Talisman isn’t really about winning. Instead, it’s about the journey that you go on and the encounters and experiences you have on that journey. Seeing the game in that light really opened our eyes to what people want from Talisman when they play it.
Steam Greenlight
Back when we originally brought Talisman: Digital Edition to Steam, Valve had a system called Steam Greenlight where developers could submit their games to be approved by the community. Those who’ve been playing PC games for long enough should remember it!
Back then, we were still new to publishing and Steam in general, so understanding the rules around what kind of games were and weren’t picked was hard for us to wrap our heads around. No matter how many people gave Talisman: Digital Edition a thumbs up, we seemed to just be stuck waiting with no idea when we’d get approved! We managed to drum up a lot of interest in Talisman: Digital Edition through the Greenlight program though, which definitely helped us push the game even more at launch.
Eventually, we did get that magical email from Valve confirming that we could launch on Steam, so we all went down to the pub to celebrate in traditional British fashion. We’re happy to say that the current system that Valve uses to get new games onto Steam is much friendlier - we remember having massive difficulties planning anything because we didn’t have anything to go on!
Adapting the original expansions
Once we’d properly launched Talisman: Digital Edition, we knew that we’d only just set the groundwork for what was to come. And so, we almost immediately got to work on adapting the original physical expansions that had been released for the 4th Edition of the game. It helped a lot that when we originally made Talisman: Digital Edition, we already knew we wanted to make all the different expansions - we could design the base game with that in mind.
However, something we weren’t prepared for was the amount of complexity that you can quickly pile onto Talisman: Digital Edition when you add more expansions. Each expansion introduced new mechanics, new cards for existing cards to interact with and new characters to test. Thankfully, by this point we’d expanded our team enough to support all this new content!
Working with Games Workshop
As we mentioned earlier, even before we worked on Talisman: Digital Edition, we’d worked on Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team with Games Workshop - so our relationship goes back a good long while! And since we signed that original contract back in 2011 to make the digital version of Talisman, we’ve worked closely with those lovely folk over at Games Workshop over the years. One of the biggest reasons we were able to get the licence for the digital version of Fury of Dracula is through the strength of what we’ve done with Talisman!
From being included in Games Workshop events to just general support from them, we owe an absolute ton to our friends over there. We know that Warhammer is their flagship property (and with good reason, people love a Space Marine!) so we never expected them to throw their weight behind Talisman like they have, but their support for the game and for us has been stellar. We also have had the opportunity to visit their offices here in the UK a good number of times, and we’ve always been blown away by the sheer number of models and figures there each time!
It’s safe to say that without the support that Games Workshop has given us over the years, we wouldn’t have been able to keep the game of Talisman as alive as we have for all the Talisman fans out there.
Our experience with the Talisman community
Since we originally announced Talisman: Digital Edition to today, we’ve been constantly amazed by the dedication of the Talisman community. From figureheads in the community like Talisman Island to the Steam forums, we’ve received feedback, ideas, house rules suggestions, fan art and praise since day one.
In the early days of Nomad Games, we have many fond memories of going to conventions and events to show off the game and having people approach us to let us know just how much they loved the physical board game, and how excited they were to see us bringing it to more people! The crossover between the people who love the physical game and the digital one is also great to see - last time we ran a survey of Talisman players, we found that just under 50% of the people who filled in the survey owned both the digital and physical versions of the game.
Of course, it’s not all been smooth sailing - we’ve made a fair few missteps and have had those pointed out for us! From the community picking up bugs and issues that we’d not yet spotted, to translation issues that our non-English speaking fans have pointed out, we’ve tried our best to keep up with it all!
Talisman: Origins
While we originally released Talisman: Prologue as a way to tide over both fans and our finances until we could fully release Talisman: Digital Edition, the idea of a single-player Talisman adventure is something that has resonated with us very strongly. So in 2018, we decided it was time to actually make that idea into a reality! By this time, the Nomad team had grown quite a bit from our small starting size, so we could bring in ideas from all over the company.
Programmers, artists and QA testers all helped us craft the adventures that you can play in Talisman: Origins, with Games Workshop trusting us to expand on the lore of Talisman through the game. It’s still wild to think that back in 2012, we were making a single-player Talisman experience just to make sure we could keep afloat. Then, 6 years later we were making another single-player game, this time with a team that had quadrupled in size, being trusted to handle the intellectual property of one of the biggest companies in the gaming space.
When it came to actually making the game, we were able to take on board the advice and feedback we got from both Robert Harris and the wider Talisman community. We started to plot out the kind of stories we wanted to tell, the experiences we wanted to offer and how exactly we’d get the game to work. We’re still massively proud of the fact that we got to make a mark forever in Talisman history, and expand upon the rich lore of the game for the first time ever!
Digital Exclusive Content
Back in November of 2018, we released The Cataclysm Expansion for Talisman: Digital Edition. Finally, we reached a point where we’d adapted all the physical expansions that were available to adapt! After all our interactions with the Talisman community however, we were well aware of the appetite people had for more content. If people wanted more Talisman expansions and we had the means to do it, we decided we should!
Of course, the first step was approaching our friends at Games Workshop - adapting existing content was one thing, but creating our own content was a whole different thing! Luckily, they agreed to let us create our own expansions (with their approval!) So we sat down and began the process of designing digital exclusive content that took advantage of the fact we could do things you’d never be able to do in the physical game.
A number of ideas were bounced around, until we settled on 3 different expansions we could do: The Ancient Beasts, The Realm of Souls and The Clockwork Kingdom. Almost all of these expansions came about from a core idea (crafting, staying alive after death etc.) that we then expanded into a full expansion. It was a tough challenge to make sure these expansions felt like natural inclusions to Talisman, and we’ve been super appreciative of the player feedback we’ve received on each of these expansions since launch.
The Future of Nomad
So that’s it for our look back on the origins of both Talisman: Digital Edition and Nomad Games! It’s been a rollercoaster ride of 11 years, and we can’t wait to see what we’re like in 11 more years' time. We’ll probably be working on Talisman 7th Edition in full motion VR by then!