Rebel Princess: Developing a Modern Classic

by Jay Bernardo September 27, 2024

Rebel Princess: Developing a Modern Classic

Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition will be released at retail on October 2nd, so we thought sharing our development process would provide an interesting read. An abbreviated version of this article first appeared in Casual Game Insider #48 Summer 2024. Here is the article in its entirety before being edited down for space.

Once Upon a Time…

There is an undeniable charm to Rebel Princess.

I grinned from ear to ear when a friend first taught the game:

We’re all princesses at a 5-day all-girls party, but those pesky Prince Charmings have snuck in. And now, we’re doing everything we can to avoid unwanted marriage proposals and be the only single princess by week’s end. Who among us will be THE Rebel Princess?

Everyone at the table was immediately hooked.

We weren’t the only ones. Rebel Princess is now in Korea, Japan, Ukraine, France, and Germany. It was not only nominated by the Board Game Geek community for a Golden Geek Award but Rebel Princess was nominated BEFORE it was officially released in the United States. Very few games can pull that off—undeniable charm.

We immediately picked up the English rights for Rebel Princess from the original Spanish publisher, Zombi Paella. However, once the legal work was done, we only had a few weeks to develop our version of the game if we wanted the game out by Gen Con 2024.

Developing a Modern Classic

Developing your own game in house is quite simple; it just takes a lot of time and meticulous playtesting. Developing someone else’s baby is always a delicate process. 

We wanted to respect the designers’ original intentions, the artist and publisher’s hard work, and both please and entice the existing fan base.

With only a limited time to complete this endeavor, we couldn’t afford to walk that razor’s edge; we had to run. But missing our deadline was not an option.

We established two hard guidelines to help streamline our process.

1. Is it in the spirit of the game?
2. Does it make the players’ lives easier?

 

More Princesses

Increasing the princess count from 10 to 12 would both entice the existing fan base and allow for a faster setup as players would no longer need to draft princesses in reverse turn order. Now, players get two random princesses, choose one, and return the other to the box. Having 12 princesses allows us to do this for 6 players.

Which two princesses caused some internal debate for us. Perhaps it was Kevin’s new haircut at the time, but Rapunzel resonated well with everyone. Who wouldn’t want to see Alfredo Cáceres illustrate Rapunzel and her gorgeous hair?! He did not disappoint.

 

 

What’s in a Round Card?

Round cards were labeled “a” to “u” so adding “v” to “z” felt natural. It’s safe to say everyone on the Bézier Team suffers from Completionist Syndrome. 

For ease of play, we also rearranged the round cards in terms of difficulty, with “a” being the easiest and “z” being the most difficult. We felt it would be best to guide players’ through the Round Cards and not have them stumble upon a rather difficult round for their first outing.

The original game had two round cards without any rules: “Once Upon a Time…” (round card a) and “Invitation” (round card b). We felt that the North American market would only need one blank round card. 

 

 

The original Zombi Paella release also had to contend with having several languages on the one card. As we were only developing in English, we had enough space to include round rule summaries on all the round cards; players would no longer need to reference the rulebook.

We also increased the size of the round cards because nobody likes reading small font; we’re old. We also found that players would accidentally shuffle a round card or two into the deck and on occasion, a round card would be dealt to a player. Boo. Tarot-sized cards to the rescue!

Sugar & Spice & Punchboard

Upgrading the Princess Cards to thick punchboard tiles was a clear choice. This prevented players from shuffling their princess cards into the deck, which happened far more often than we liked. Also, the tactile feel of flipping your princess tile over and hearing that punchboard snap on the table is just so gratifying.

Now all three “cards” (princess, round, and suited) were different sizes and could easily stand out on the table. 

The added bonus to this was that the original Carmesina promo princess could also be upgraded and receive an actual mirror in the punchboard tile!

The reveal of “You’re the promo princess!” at Gen Con had gamers grinning ear to ear.

Lunar Marksmanship

Rebel Princess is based on the classic card game Hearts. Funny how in this game, Princesses are breaking hearts.

Yet the biggest critique of Rebel Princess was its lack of a “shoot the moon” mechanic, so we added one. We initially called it “Belle of the Ball,” but it didn’t hold true to the spirit of the game of fiercely independent princesses. “Rebelle of the Ball” wasn’t direct or punchy enough for us.

“Rebel of the Ball” had a nice ring to it, and we couldn’t resist a good pun. (It’s our weakness.)

Shaving Seconds

Rebel Princess is five rounds. While five rounds feels perfectly natural for us; however, due to the approachability of the theme, we wanted to keep the gameplay as approachable as possible. That meant cutting playtime wherever possible.

Adding numbers in the bottom right corner helped speed up the game as players no longer needed to reorganize each card in their hand. We had thought of adding numbers in all four corners as a kind gesture towards left-handed gamers, but having all four corners filled with icons took too much attention away from Alfredo Cáceres’ lovely artwork.

We shaved seconds everywhere we could, which was another reason why we upgraded the princesses to punchboard, increased the round cards to tarot-sized, and included the round rules on the round cards.

 

The Fault is not in the Stars but in the Rulebook

The most difficult task was the rules.

Rulebooks can make or break a game. In the eyes of awards, the general public, and the gamers.

Judges of the Spiel des Jahres, the most coveted award in board gaming, have blatantly said that if a board game has a bad rulebook, they won’t even consider it for the SDJ award.

Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition has a 28-page rulebook, which is monstrous for a simple card game. However the lion’s share of those pages are indices systematically breaking down every edge case we could possibly find. We played every day during our development window. 

We’re confident we got more than 99%, but there’s always that last 1% that you never see coming. You can never playtest a game more than the market. Sooner or later,  you’ll have to publish the game and hope for the best.

 

Happily Ever After

The princesses avoided marriage. 

The princes left heartbroken.

And gamers left Gen Con with glowing reviews of Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition.

All eight of us at Bézier Games are extremely proud of the work we were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. This is by every sense of the word and imagination a Deluxe Edition, but I have come to think of it as a tangible “Thank You” to the card gamers of the world for being awesome—because you are all undeniably awesome.

Gamers naturally become stewards not just of a cultivated collection of board games but also stewards of amazing tales and shared gaming experiences. Being able to develop and bring to market a game that will deliver those memories in spades (albeit with a few broken hearts) has been a pleasure and an honor.

Good gaming, everyone. Have yourself an epic weekend.

Jay Bernardo
Marketing Manager, Bézier Games

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