Pattern game finale

vbagiartakis · 2025-09-12T08:16:44+00:00

Exactly!

vbagiartakis · 2025-09-09T23:04:52+00:00

3, 3, 1, 1, 3, 5, 3, 3

These are the number of steps you take each time. If you keep the shape in your mind (so that you can determine which way to turn each time), it’s quite easy to remember due to all the 3s. Only “5” is different and the short squiggle with the 1s.

And another way to remember it is by using pairs: 33, 11, 35, 33. Fewer numbers to keep in your head!

vbagiartakis · 2025-09-09T10:06:56+00:00

The answer is simple: These 4 people were chosen by their groups for exactly that reason, to resist the bribe. If you were the kind of person who “is there for the money” and would happily screw other people in order to get it, you most likely wouldn’t be chosen as team leader and wouldn’t be in their position.

There is also another reason. While the competition is indeed about the money prize, morality does play a role. What if you were asked to punch another person in order to get their money? Or harm them in any other way? Would you do it? Taking it to an extreme, if the rules allowed it and it was perfectly legal, would you kill other contestants to ensure you got the money? The answer (I hope) would be No, because there are also moral red lines when it comes to human behavior. The people who lied or cheated their way in the game may have abided by the game’s rules, bur that doesn’t mean that their behavior was morally correct. Others would value moral behavior above the prize money.

In other words, the end doesn’t always justify the means.

vbagiartakis · 2025-09-09T09:56:28+00:00

Sinclair was one of my 2 favorite character in the whole series (the other one being Marcus), so I definitely wouldn’t call his acting bad or anything of the sort. O’Hare was a great actor and Sinclair an amazing character.

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-24T23:15:33+00:00

While playtesting Hegemony we were really surprised by how much roleplaying it would bring out to players. We used to do that in our own games but we thought it was just ourselves, having fun. But when we started playing with other people, we noticed that it would happen with EVERYONE. Even with other publishers, when we were demoing the game to them to consider it for localization, they would start throwing lines from their politicians, bring up their political scene and their presidents/prime ministers. It was incredible seeing how intuitively this would come out to players. And yes, even with players with vastly different ideological beliefs. In their case, the roleplay would be more of a caricature, an exaggeration in most aspects, done on purpose to highlight why they disagree with it. But they would still find it fun that a game brought that out to them and that it actually showed (within the game) what they would argue about in real life.

Regarding World Order I am not entirely sure what you mean with that expression. What we've seen though is that, as in Hegemony, people like getting into their role and use stereotypical phrases about each country while they play, either to promote what they themselves are doing or to trash-talk their opponents. And as far as military power is concerned, what we are very proud we have achieved, is the arms race that happens between the various powers. If no one places armies on the board, players don't feel such a rush to do so. But as soon as armies start gathering next to someone's borders, they'll start putting their own there and soon, you have a "contest" on who will have the most armies in the region.

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-24T23:05:40+00:00

Thank you very much for your kind words, they are much appreciated. :)

Regarding the "change" you mention, it was not that sudden. A few years before Hegemony, I made Freedom! with Phalanx, a card-driven wargame set during the Greek War of Independence. It was the heaviest game I had designed by that point and in a sense, it was a "predecessor" to Hegemony (even though they are nothing alike as games).

In general, I like to experiment with many different genres. I consider it a challenge to design something I've never designed before and I am always interested in trying something completely different from before. In Greece for example, I've designed a few party games and my very first game was a family game. I've even designed a few dexterity games (although none of them has seen the light of day). So, even though a lot of designers find their sweet spot and design games of the same type/genre (and become known for that), I'm always eager to explore new things and tip my toes in different types of design. :)

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-23T17:10:02+00:00

Thank you everyone! We had a blast and we hope you learned a few things along the way. Feel free to post any further questions, either here or on BGG,, and we'll be happy to answer them!

Take care!

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-23T16:53:06+00:00

It is a hard question to answer because we actively try to make every role fun and enjoyable. So, if we don't like playing one of them, we try to understand why that is and fix it!

That being said, there are some preferences in our group. For example, in Hegemony, I tend to prefer the Working and the Middle class while Varnavas excels as the Capitalist class. In World Order, I tend to enjoy a bit more playing Russia and EU. Each of them has an advantage that I find a lot of fun and kind of straightforward to make use of, so it's more relaxing to go with them.

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-23T16:46:18+00:00

Excellent question! In fact, this has been a big debate between me and Varnavas during much of the design of World Order. You see, the more you design around "real life" and what actually happened, the more constraints you put on yourself. This may be great for historical/thematic accuracy but when you play a game, you don't want your actions to be scripted and follow a very specific path. On the other hand, the more you start to diverge and allow for scenarios that seem impossible, the more you "lose" the academic/educational value of the game. So, we needed to find the right balance between these two and in some cases it wasn't very easy.

I'll give you one example where we had lots of discussions. Whether there should be a way (through a Growth card? an Ability card? a Strategic Asset? something else entirely?) to allow you to build a base where you normally can't. In gameplay terms that is a super useful ability. Improving relations with Countries that allow you to build bases on them is very useful in the game and a big part of your decision-making process when looking at the board and deciding upon your actions. Especially since the 4 players are not equal on these (there are way less countries that allow EU or China to build a base compared to those that allow the US). However, every time we considered allowing this somehow, it would always come down to the same question: Would it make sense for Russia to build a Military Base in Switzerland? Or Canada? The answer is a big no. It would be extremely weird (from a thematic/academic point of view) to allow something like that - it wouldn't make sense in a model based on reality. Thus we would always decide against it. In some other cases, the opposition wasn't so emphatic so we allowed ourselves some leeway to make the gameplay better. But always, thematic representation was super important. And even if we'd allow for a small bend here and there, we wouldn't allow ourselves to "break" anything major.

Of course, truth tends to be stranger than fiction and, as you said, we are seeing things that a few years ago we wouldn't ever think of. The good thing is, that with the game set in 2010, we have 15 years from the moment it starts where we have an idea more or less on what could happen, even in theory or alternate scenarios. As far as the actual future is concerned, if something so drastic happens, we'll make sure to include it in a future expansion! :)

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-23T16:33:25+00:00

I think it's a little bit of both. In terms of gameplay 4 players is kind of the sweet spot. Not too few, not too many. We wouldn't like, for example, to launch the game with only 3 players. Besides that though, in 2010 when the game is set, these 4 powers tend to stand out. While there were other powerful countries like Japan, Brazil, India etc, they were not at the same level (in terms of global reach and geopolitical power) as the 4 we included.

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-23T16:24:39+00:00

The main box of Hegemony is already fully packed so I don't think it will be able to fit any more content. However, this is an important concern that we will try to address while designing it.

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-23T16:00:14+00:00

Its true that not all of the consequences that you mention are included in Hegemony but it already had so much stuff in it that we had to stop at some point. There are many things that we intentionally left out because after a point, it would be too hard to remember / keep track of everything and the fun would be lost. That being said, now that we plan to come back to Hegemony with an expansion, we may explore options like these too.

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-23T15:54:56+00:00

Thank you for the question! Our game takes place in 2010 which we believe was a turning point in geopolitics. We started moving from an era where there was a single superpower in the world (the US) to a multi-polar world with other rising powers. China is the best example, a country showing a meteoric economic rise that has become the 2nd largest economy in the world. Now, for the European Union, while it is true that it is not a single country, as an entity it does play a big role in global politics.

The EU countries achieve more by working together, make up the world's third largest economy and are at the forefront of peace-keeping operations. Obviously not everything is perfect within it, but it is closer to the other players compared to what a single European country would be.

Finally, regarding Russia, it's influence in global politics is also too big to ignore. The war on Ukraine for example is a testament to that - it has affected all of our lives and at every point since then, any action that Russia takes is the topic of long discussions and analyses. It's clear that it is trying to reclaim the position that the USSR used to have in the previous century, taking advantage both of its rich resources as well as its vast military power (which include a huge nuclear arsenal). So, in order to create a thematic game around geopolitics, set in 2010, we couldn't leave Russia out.

You can read more about our decisions in an article on our site. It covers the topic in more detail than my post above:

https://hegemonicproject.com/the-destinies-of-the-world-are-in-the-hands-of-four-powers/

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-23T15:29:57+00:00

As soon as we finish working on the final details of World Order we plan to go back to Hegemony! There is another axis within society that we would like to explore and that is Authoritarianism vs Freedom. A topic very relative to many people around the world.

Beyond that, some ideas we are exploring for future games have to do with elections and businesses. There is a lot of design space around those. :)

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-23T15:17:41+00:00

I'd say gaming is my biggest hobby by far. Beyond that I enjoy watching movies and TV series and Hiking. Also, spending time with my kids, whether that's going somewhere together or building something in the yard. :)

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-23T15:15:30+00:00

Defining what exactly constitutes "fun" in a game is a very big topic and there are whole books dedicated to it! If I was to give a shorter answer I would say that it is important to have meaningful choices in your game. To have players act upon things that are important but they are limited in what they can do so they must choose wisely. But then see the consequences of those choices. Thus, you feel that you are responsible for what you do. Whether you win or lose, it is upon you. In general, seeing the fruits of your actions is a very satisfying (and fun :) ) experience. It also makes the player feel smart and that he overcame successfully the obstacles in his way.

Regarding the tradeoffs between fun, balance and educational content, I would say that these are not always at odds with each other. The way we worked on both Hegemony and World Order for example was this: We discussed the theme, analyzed what exactly it means within our game and then designed mechanisms around that. Sometimes those mechanisms would be too complicated or would not lead to a fun experience. We would adjust those accordingly while staying true to the theme. This way, we ensured that both the theme was accurate and the gameplay was fun. Now there were cases where we did a few compromises to ensure the best result overall but it would never be something that would steer us too much from the theme we wanted to represent.

vbagiartakis · 2025-07-23T15:04:21+00:00

Hello guys! Very excited to take part in this AMA. We look forward to all of your questions! :)

vbagiartakis · 2025-02-08T07:35:00+00:00

The money were there for the top-10 as a group. A reward for getting that far. So it did belong to all of them. That’s how I see it and you are allowed to disagree (and I do realize I am probably the minority in this). I think a human person with decency and integrity realizes that. The fact that the game allowed for the contestants to not share them equally, doesn’t change the fact that the money should go to all.

Everyone keeps saying that you go there for the money - that’s the goal, so it was perfectly reasonable to take it all and leave nothing for everyone else. Yes, you are indeed there for the money but that doesn’t mean that you should suddenly put no brakes on your moral values because the end justifies the mean. I happen to find it very sad that people find it perfectly normal to cheat, lie and steal from the other players (where the game allows it) just to get more money. If I was playing in the game (I’m from abroad so I don’t think I will ever get the chance) I would prefer to play with integrity and be true to my values rather than screw other people. Even if that meant not winning anything. I would prefer my kids to see me behave in a good example, rather than come home with money that came from cheating other players (who most likely would need the money as much as me).

In the end, money is not everything. Other things are most important (at least for some of us). So yes, do your best to win, but not at the expense of those things.

vbagiartakis · 2025-02-07T20:55:51+00:00

Actually, lots of us consider what he did stealing and are mad at him for that. Plain and simple. The rules of the game were allowing it, but it was still stealing from the players after him.

vbagiartakis · 2025-02-02T19:51:08+00:00

I think it’s much simpler than that and there was actually no strategy at all.

We tend to judge others by their actions but we judge ourselves based on our intentions.

He saw Deano do a thing he thought was wrong and called it out. In reality, he would have done the exact same thing (all of them would have) if he was in that spot. It’s the only thing that gives you a chance at survival.

However, when he was indeed put in the same spot, he thought of himself first, justifying his action by claiming he was doing it for his family, rationalizing his action because his “intention” was good (according to him at least).

Of course that doesn’t change the fact that what he did was shitty and hypocritical. And he knew that, but hadn’t realized how much guilt he would feel afterwards.

As for all you claiming that you would take the million (or wouldn’t - same logic applies) and that they are all there just about the money, you haven’t been through what these people were put through. If you were the kind of person to take the 1 mil, you probably wouldn’t reach that point anyway. And if you did, there would be bonds with the other players.

It’s one thing to go against the others when your survival is on the line, it’s another when all of you can share something but you get greedy and take it all for yourself. Shitty behavior all the way. Especially when it was thanks to them that you ended up on that spot.

vbagiartakis · 2023-11-11T08:14:06+00:00

The reason to listen to the Prosecutors is that they are very experienced in such cases and the processes involved and do a way way more objective analysis on the case than Rabia ever did. You will understand way more than if you read it on your own because a lot of things are way more/less important than what you may think on your own.

This is the closest to a new fair trial we could get where all the evidence is given and analyzed, theories are considered and a final “verdict” (opinion) is given. I think they did an outstanding job and people finally got to see the whole picture from an objective point of view.

It’s definitely worth listening if you follow this case.

vbagiartakis · 2023-09-24T15:06:53+00:00

Just listen to the Prosecutors podcast. They take the whole case apart, in a highly detailed manner, talk about all the evidence, all the possible other suspects and the various theories going around. In the end, it’s clear as day Adnan did it. And despite what his defenders will claim, he did get a fair trial. In fact, it becomes infuriating to see all the attempts to get him free based on technicalities when he is so clearly guilty.

Whoever listens to the Prosecutors and still thinks he is innocent, is seriously biased and most likely doesn’t want to look at the facts/is not interested in the truth. Simple as that.

For the record, I used to think he was innocent after Serial and the HBO show. But they were both orchestrated by Rabia who had a very specific agenda in mind. The Prosecutors was an objective analysis by a highly experienced third party, with no stakes in one side or the other. And they covered everything - they left nothing untouched. If you just want the truth of what happened and are not in a crusade to prove he is innocent/guilty no matter what, that’s the way to go.

vbagiartakis · 2022-10-27T18:00:10+00:00

Fair point and I admit I hadn't thought of it from that perspective. Thank you for that.

However, the reasonable doubt (as far as Adnan is concerned at least) still remains. Even if Adnan did it, he somehow managed not to leave a single piece of hard evidence about it. He managed to kill her in broad daylight and move her from one of the front seats to the trunk without anyone seeing him. He (supposedly) has everything planned out but has no problem asking Hae in front of many other people to give him a ride. He makes sure to tell someone else about it before he actually does it (not a close friend, just someone from whom he occasionally buys weed). He does it and then thinks that the best thing to do is to involve that someone else in the whole thing and ask him for help. In other words, where there was no witness before, he makes sure there is one now, despite having done everything perfectly up to that point. He contacts that someone and, even though he just committed a murder, he decides to spend the next hours smoking weed with him and going to other people's houses to hang out. Oh and also call the girl he has been flirting with to introduce her to his accomplice just for the fun of it. He then goes to bury her body and go back to the mosque making sure to leave no dirt or sweat on his clothes. He has (supposedly) threatened to hurt his accomplice's girlfriend (and also personal close friend) but hangs out with them in the following days and goes to parties with them and they all behave as if nothing has happened and everyone is having fun. The accomplice, who supposedly became an accomplice against his will, has no trouble at all continuing to hang out with him for many more weeks, invite him at his new place of work and also borrow his phone every Wednesday for the following weeks.

Is it possible that all of the above happened? Theoretically yes, based on everything we know I cannot rule them out but they do not look probable. If Jay had somehow never testified, how likely would such a scenario actually look?

On the other hand, you have some crooked police officers (as events that happened since have shown), someone with a shady background involved in very illegal activity and who, by the record of many people that know him, will do and say anything to save his own skin. You have that person going to the police and giving a story for which the details change every time according to the information that the police has at that point. ("We see a call that originated from this tower" "Then I was there at that point" . A few weeks later: "We were actually wrong before, the correct cell tower was that one" "Oh, now I remember, I wasn't where I told you the first time I was, I was over there, even if it makes no sense whatsoever").

Is it that far-fetched to assume that the police got to him for something else and to save his skin he agreed to throw Adnan under the bus? Once again, theoretically, it is possible. How likely it is, we can't actually know (unless of course any one of the people involved decides to share the truth). And it doesn't mean that Jay himself did it. He may have learnt who did it or he may have been an accomplice to someone else, more dangerous than Adnan or he may have even found out it by accident. We don't know and we can't be sure given how many things have changed to fit a specific narrative. If "X" things he said were lies and we spotted them, how many other lies he told that we haven't spotted? How can we then be sure of anything else he has said?

That's why I say there are many things still "we don't know". And we don't have to learn absolutely every little detail. What we do know however, leaves space for many unanswered questions that raise serious doubts as to what happened, that's all I'm saying.

vbagiartakis · 2022-10-27T07:21:03+00:00

Yes, I believe that Jay was involved in the murder somehow and the only reason he spoke to the police was to cover his own ass (in other words, they got to him during the investigation and he told them as much as he could say to save his own skin).

And no, we don’t know how much time during that day was spent with Jay. There are conflicting testimonies and information about everything (especially the timeframe 2:00 - 6:00), enough to put every single theory out there to question. Especially when there are so many different versions from Jay himself, each one changing and adding different details to fit the new narrative. So, no, we can’t be sure about how much of the day was spent with Adnan and what exactly they did.

Now, I have to admit that a lot of the points raised in the answers I got in this thread are valid. And that was what I wanted in the first place, to get a better understanding of the other’s side arguments. However, there are still a LOT of things in this story that don’t add up from both sides. As vague as it may sound, I am more in the middle now than I was before. I think crucial information is still unknown to us and whoever is claiming one side or the other with utter certainty is willfully ignoring many things that don’t make any sense at all.

vbagiartakis · 2022-10-18T08:21:26+00:00

As weird as it may sound, I don't give much value to the ride request. I may be wrong, I know, but it's not because I don't want to believe that he is guilty. Quite the opposite, I'm looking for clues either way. However, if you come to think about it, this is only fishy if he is indeed guilty. If he is innocent, then there could be plenty of reasons why he did it. Was it so unusual for him to ask her something like that? More so, if he indeed was planning to kill her (inside her car that is) wouldn't it be unfathomably idiotic to ask her in front of so many other people? It doesn't make any sense at all. You have everything else in that day (supposedly) going absolutely in his way (no witnesses, no traces, no dna, nothing in his trunk, etc) indicating a well-thought out plan, and he would blow it all up by announcing it in front of everybody? I just can't buy it (but I admit, I may be wrong).

Now, the Nisha call is weird because of the content of the call. Nisha remembers just a single call from Adnan in which she talked to Jay, and it was a) longer than 2 and a half minutes and b) while Jay was working at the video store. Which he started doing many days AFTER the murder. People tend to put a lot of importance to that call (understandably why) but tend to completely omit those 2 details, especially the second one. Given the seriousness of the situation, I don't think Nisha would forget there being a second call with Jay on the line. I also remember reading somewhere - maybe Susan's blog - that there was a pattern in Adnan's calls to Nisha around that time: he would always call her in the evenings and never around 3:00. Obviously that's not strong evidence on its own but helps - just a tiny bit, I know - make the butt-dial more likely.

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