In the Shadows was born in a whirlwind. We (Chris, Dan, and Joe) created the game for the inaugural Consim Game Jam in October 2020. We were tasked with designing an original game using the existing components from one of the COIN series games. And, if that wasn’t challenging enough, we only had 72 hours to do it!

Amidst the swirl of creativity, we desired to design something that told the story of the French Resistance within the framing of a Lunchtime Game. In the game you will play as either the Resistance or the Occupation in a fight over the hearts and minds of the French People. In this article we will focus on the Event cards and the importance of the regional Suits.

Event cards are the main drivers in the gameplay of In the Shadows. Each Turn begins with an Initiative Phase where both players simultaneously reveal one of the two Event cards in their hand. The player with the higher number of Action Points (AP) on their card will choose who acts first. In the event of a tie, the Suit on the top of the Resolution discard will decide who acts first. If there is no Resolution discard, then the Resistance player will decide.

Play then moves to the Action Phase where the Event on the card will be resolved. One of the key components for us in the design was making sure that every Event would be played during a game. So, the Event will be taken by either the Resistance or the Occupation player based on the color (red or black, respectively) of the title bar on the Card. Now that we have a basic understanding of the Event cards, let’s look further into the different Suits and how they help tell the story of In the Shadows.

The Resistance movement was not a monolith. Isolated networks of varying sizes with different ideologies were all vital to the fight against the occupying forces. From the beginning, this was an important part of the history that we wanted to represent in the game. In the Shadows relies on three different Suits (the Cross of Lorraine, the Victory Cross, and the Iron Cross) to determine the cost and effectiveness of your Actions. This is meant to represent the challenges to coordinating between different networks and resources mentioned above.

We modeled this in In the Shadows by putting a Suit with a number of Action Points (AP) next to it on our Event cards. Players will use AP from their card to perform Actions on their turn. If an Action being performed in a Zone requires a matching suit, it will cost 1AP more if the Zone and Event card are different suits. Movement actions never require a matching suit. The Iron Cross suit is considered matching in all Zones. All other Suits only count as matching Suits for marked Zones.

How does this help to drive the narrative in the game? Imagine you are playing as the Occupation and you flip a red Resistance 6AP Event card. The lowered cost of your Arrest and Uncover Actions in the red Zones could represent a surveillance program that has tracked down a Resistance cell in Paris. But, maybe there is a more pressing issue in Lyon (the blue Zone).  You could take actions there, but it will cost more resources because you are operating outside of your reliable network.

Modeling something as complex and emotional as the French Resistance is a challenging endeavor. For In the Shadows we really wanted to allow players to experience the desperate nature of the conflict. To feel the tension of tenuous networks and the importance of managing your precious resources. Of course our Event deck doesn’t cover every significant moment in the French Resistance, but our hope is that it provides a window into why their struggle is such a foundational part of the history of WW2.

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