Nathan Hajek

Journey’s in Middle-Earth is a cooperative adventure game with deckbuilding at it’s core.

Player’s take on the role of a major character from Middle-Earth (Aragorn, Legolas, Bilbo, etc.) and explore and fight their way through adventures.
During the campaign, players use their experience to adjust their decks, choosing cards that define their role in the party and reflect the choices they’ve made. The outcome of each adventure affects both the story and cards available to you, and while many Adventures have fail-forward mechanics and narrative, there are critical points at which a loss means you lose everything and need to begin again.

Characters are designed to vary greatly in ability and style, allowing players to engage in the same core loop while specializing in specific mechanics or subsystems that appeal to them or are needed in the party.

Each character has a few cards that are specific to them, a core to that character’s identity and experience. They also have a few cards that are shared with others (i.e. every human has the “Gift of Men” card and every Hobbit has “Simple Desires.”) All card are highly thematic and steeped in the lore yet approachable to the common movie fan.

At the tail end of the product line, Nathan led the design of the Hybrid Classes. This new type of class allowed a hero from one archetype (a high-level content division, like Regions in LoR) to access class cards from a different archetype. Each Hybrid Class took the strengths and weakness of the heroes of one archetype and alchemized them into a new way to play the existing classes of the other given archetype.

The planning was extensive, considering the host of new possible combinations between every existing hero and class. Less popular heroes and classes were given special consideration, seeking to offer new life and synergies to the stale content.

 When the Road to Legend app launched, dozens of expansions already existed for the core experience. Core systems for the new mode and additional content were created for every existing expansion, promoting and rewarding the user for a large collection. 

 All heroes and classes were implemented into the new design, adjusting some existing abilities as needed. Unique interaction and opportunities for certain heroes and classes were also woven into the campaign, offering opportunities that had not previously existed for players to explore the lore and world of Terrinoth.