Back in 1849, Placerville was a rough-and-ready mining camp known as Hangtown, for exactly the reasons you might guess. Word is, the stump of the old hanging tree still resides in the cellar of a bar on Main Street.
So when Placerville board game enthusiast — and artist and musician — Jonathan Pac “Jonny Pac” Cantin decided to design a game based on his hometown’s colorful history, the designer started in the archives of the El Dorado County Historical Society.
A year’s research and a three-week Kickstarter campaign later, Hangtown — the game — evokes a Wild West frontier, where players’ fortunes depend on a flash in the pan, mining towns rise overnight and a final shootout awaits dastardly villains.
The action plays out on a game board with cards and pieces whose design and heft is closer to that of European or Euro-games, than Parker Brothers. We’re talking meeples, people. Or rather “meeples people” — wooden, human-shaped playing pieces — and games that rely on strategy, not luck.
If all goes as planned, at this very moment Cantin’s Kickstarter backers are unpacking boxes of game boards, pioneer meeples, tokens and cards depicting historic Hangtown locations, including the Gold Bug Mine, Pearson Soda Works and Studebaker Wheelbarrow Shop. They’re choosing pioneer characters — and if they’ve sprung for the Tailings Pile Expansion Pack, those roles include desperado, deputy, madam and more. And they’re madly plotting strategy, because this is a game, Cantin says, in which you’re “playing the player.” Each move involves secret decisions, a sudden unveiling and simultaneous action.
Naturally, we had questions.
Q What kind of research went into the game?
A I grew up here, did the field trips to Sutter’s Mill. I joined the El Dorado historic society, and they allowed me to go into their archives, but I did most of my research online. There are PDFs of old property titles, places that burned in the fires of 1856, then were rebuilt and changed hands three times over.
Q This isn’t your first experience in game-building. Walk us through the process.
A I made the first game out of construction paper, Sharpie markers, dice, things I had around the house. Then you play-test: You sucker a bunch of your friends into trying it, then fix it. Finally, it looked good enough to bring it to game conventions and drop it in front of seasoned gamers. The last six months were devoted to sorting out the manufacturing process, the depth of the cardboard, the color calibrations.
Q We were admiring your little wooden pioneers. What’s in the game box, and how do you play?
A There are a lot of parts: Wooden pieces, all custom-painted with an old-school feel, a board, dice, a few hundred cards, little cardboard tokens that represent gold and silver. The mechanics — how the game plays — isn’t lifted from Monopoly or anything like that. One of my big goals was to create a game experience that was unique, tying the theme of my hometown, Placerville, the Gold Rush era, into it.
Each player has to secretly decide what they’re going to do on a given turn — look for gold, build a building. And the more people that choose a thing, the worse that thing becomes. It’s boom or bust.
Q Plus a shootout at the end?
A Well, of course.
HangTown, the Game
Designed for 2 to 6 players, ages 13 and up, Hangtown the Board Game ($49) will be available later this fall at the Placerville News Company, the Cary House Hotel, Robinson’s Pharmacy and Main Street Music in Placerville, and online at hangtown.weebly.com and www.funagain.com.
