A legacy game is a variant of tabletopboard games in which the game itself is designed, through various mechanics, to change permanently over the course of a series of sessions.
. . . Legacy game . . .
Game designer Rob Daviau claims to have come up with the idea at a work meeting after jokingly asking why the murderous characters in Clue are always invited back to dinner. Realizing that each new game resets, Daviau thought about what it would be like if everyone would remember who the murderer was, and he pitched the idea of a Clue legacy game to Hasbro. While that idea was rejected, Daviau was later asked to use the mechanic in a new version of Risk. Risk Legacy was released in 2011 and was his first game to use this format.[1][2][3][4]
Daviau followed up with an award-winning[5]Pandemic variant, Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, which was released in 2015 to positive reviews and praised as a leap forward in modern board game design.[4][6][7] Daviau continues to develop legacy games and co-developed a mechanic, the Echo System,[8] to retain permanent changes through subsequent games in a franchise.[7]
Daviau cited his work on Betrayal at House on the Hill (which was later adapted into a legacy version) and Trivial Pursuit: DVD – Lord of the Rings Trilogy Edition as predecessors to the legacy idea. The latter was designed in such a way that pre-programmed games sorted the cards by difficulty. This caused some vocal backlash as the game was perceived by many to have a more definite end than other versions.[9]
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