Martin Wallace is a name that often appears in board gaming discussions, especially when it comes to economic and strategic designs. His games share a common identity, yet they stand apart from many other titles on the market. One of the hallmark features that sets Wallace’s games apart is his signature mechanism involving loans. Unlike many other games where you have to earn income gradually, Wallace often allows players to take loans even on their very first turn. This early cash injection is a gamble — you get money now but face penalties later — and it creates a dynamic decision space that accelerates the game’s pace.
Loans: Early Risk for Later Reward
Most games expect players to grind through early rounds, slowly building income before making major moves. Wallace flips this expectation. In his games, you can choose to take loans early, betting on yourself that you will turn this borrowed cash into a bigger payoff down the line. This creates tension and excitement from the start, as players weigh the benefits of immediate spending power against the costs of future interest and missed opportunities. This loan mechanic is surprisingly rare in other games, which is puzzling because it adds strategic depth and helps avoid the slow early-game drudgery so many games suffer from.
Exploring Martin Wallace’s Portfolio
Martin Wallace has designed 69 games, many well-known in the hobby, though only a handful have been played widely outside of enthusiasts. Among these, Brass (2007) stands out as a defining masterpiece. This game perfectly encapsulates the elements that make Wallace’s work both unique and consistent.
Brass: The Pinnacle of Economic Design
Brass is often regarded as Wallace’s best work and a classic in economic game design. It weaves together several innovative mechanics that create a rich, interconnected experience:
- Loans: At any point, players can take $30 in loans to fund actions, knowing this will reduce their income later. The strategic decision of when to take loans adds a layer of risk management rarely seen elsewhere.
- Distant Market: Brass features a “distant market” mechanic where players race to utilize limited market opportunities. This adds uncertainty and strategy, as players must decide when to sell resources or connect to ports to maximize profits.
- Shared Infrastructure: A fascinating aspect is that players share access to buildings and resources like coal, steel, and transport networks. Players must decide whether to allow others to use their infrastructure, creating an interdependent economy where cooperation and competition coexist.
- Dynamic Market Pricing: The game’s market fluctuates depending on supply and demand. If a resource becomes scarce, producing it yields higher rewards; if oversupplied, it becomes cheaper to buy. This creates a player-driven economy that reacts to actions on the board, keeping gameplay dynamic and engaging.
- Variable Turn Order: Unlike many games with fixed turn sequences, Brass changes player order based on spending, with the least spending player going first. This adds strategic planning around timing moves and managing cash flow to control when you act in subsequent rounds.
- Mid-Game Scoring: The game includes a mid-game scoring phase that encourages players to build an engine early on. Although the scoring itself isn’t high, it forces careful positioning and preparation, keeping the gameplay tight without dragging the game out.
Despite these strengths, Brass also showcases some of Wallace’s common pitfalls. Its rules can be complicated and sometimes confusing, with details about building connections and resource purchasing often misunderstood by players. Additionally, the theme, rooted in the harsh realities of industrialization, includes uncomfortable historical elements such as worker exploitation and pollution, which may be off-putting for some.
Brass: Birmingham vs. Brass
Brass: Birmingham (2018) builds on the original with added complexity, introducing new resources and more variable setups. Some players appreciate this added depth, but others feel it dilutes the tight decision-making that made the original so compelling. The darker graphic design of the newer edition is also a matter of personal taste.
Other Wallace Games: A Brief Tour
London
London simplifies many Brass elements, offering a shorter, lighter experience. It keeps loans and a dynamic market but trims complexity. Unique features include a “poverty” resource that is player-relative and a flexible game end, where players can choose to speed up or slow down the conclusion. While it lacks the depth of Brass, it works well as a quicker introduction to Wallace’s style.
Tinners’ Trail
Tinners’ Trail adds complexity with auctions, mining upgrades, and resource markets. While it has interesting decisions about whether to mine immediately or invest in improvements, it didn’t resonate as strongly, possibly due to its auction mechanic being heavily player-dependent.
Steam and Age of Steam
Steam and its simplified version,, Ste,am are train-themed games focusing on route building and auctions for turn order. Age of Steam is known for its tight gameplay and strategic depth, while Steam offers an accessible entry point. Auctions for turn order create interesting tension, rewarding players who value going first highly.
A Few Acres of Snow
This war and deck-building game pits English and French forces against each other with Indigenous players caught in the middle. It introduces a unique siege mechanic and deck-thinning, blending area control with card management. While it has minor rule quirks, it offers a smooth experience with a fresh twist on deck builders.
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork
This game divides opinion. With 132 unique cards and secret win conditions, it’s innovative but often feels random. The ongoing undo-redo gameplay can drag, making it less appealing to players who prefer strategic consistency.
Wildlands
Wildlands ventures into fantasy dungeon battles, but it was less successful, feeling like an overblown game of tag. Many prefer other tactical asymmetrical games in this genre.
Common Themes in Wallace’s Work
Wallace’s games often fall into several categories:
- Economic Games: Focused on industrial England and economic growth, often with loans, dynamic markets, and shared infrastructure (Brass series, Tinners’ Trail, London, Anno 1800).
- War Games: Card-driven games with historical or fantasy themes, generally more niche and with mixed reception.
- Train Games: Variations on route-building and auction mechanics, with loans and turn-order bidding (Age of Steam, Steam).
- Area Majority and Asymmetry: Games emphasizing control and asymmetric powers with chaotic elements.
Martin Wallace’s games offer a rich design philosophy combining early risk-taking through loans, dynamic player interactions, and complex economic modeling. While some elements can be fiddly or thematically challenging, his games reward players who enjoy tight, strategic play that evolves with every turn. For those interested in economic strategy and nuanced decision-making, Wallace’s games provide a unique experience that balances familiarity with inventive mechanics.
Martin Wallace’s board games hold a special place in the world of economic and strategic gaming. His work is known for having a distinctive style that feels both familiar and fresh. One of the most interesting features in his designs is how he uses loans to shape the game experience. Instead of requiring players to slowly build their income over several turns, Wallace often lets players take loans right from the start. This early access to money creates a unique tension because while players gain immediate resources, they also face penalties later. This system speeds up gameplay and creates a constant balancing act between risk and reward.
Loans: Early Risk for Later Reward
Most strategy games make players grind through early rounds with limited resources, encouraging slow growth. Wallace breaks this mold by allowing players to borrow money right away. Taking a loan early means getting a cash boost but paying for it later in interest or reduced income. This mechanic pushes players to think carefully about when and how to take risks. The pressure to use borrowed money effectively adds excitement from the very beginning and helps avoid the slow, uneventful starts common in many other games. This design choice stands out because it increases strategic depth without adding unnecessary complexity.
Exploring Martin Wallace’s Portfolio
Martin Wallace has designed many games, with 69 titles to his name. While only some have gained widespread popularity, a few key games highlight his design approach very clearly. Among these, Brass (2007) is often seen as his signature masterpiece. Brass perfectly illustrates the economic complexity and player interaction that define much of Wallace’s work.
Brass: The Pinnacle of Economic Design
Brass is a deep economic strategy game that combines multiple innovative mechanics. One of its defining features is the loan system. At almost any time, players can borrow money to fund their actions, but this comes with a cost later on, forcing them to carefully manage debt and income. The game also introduces a distant market where players compete for limited opportunities to sell goods, adding a layer of urgency and competition.
Shared infrastructure is another standout element. Players build factories, canals, and railways that other players can use, which creates an economy where cooperation and competition coexist. The availability of shared resources like coal and steel further deepens strategic choices. Additionally, the game features a market that changes prices based on supply and demand, making the economy reactive to player actions.
Brass also uses a variable turn order based on spending. The player who spends the least acts first in the next round, encouraging thoughtful timing of moves and resource management. A mid-game scoring phase rewards players for their early engine-building efforts, keeping gameplay focused and preventing stagnation.
Despite its brilliance, Brass can be challenging to learn. Its rules are detailed and sometimes confusing, especially around building connections and resource management. The industrial-era theme also involves historical elements like worker exploitation and pollution, which may be off-putting for some players.
Brass: Birmingham vs. Brass
Brass: Birmingham, released in 2018, builds on the original by adding complexity and more resource types. Some players enjoy the additional depth and variability, while others feel that it slows down the tight decision-making pace of the first game. The darker, grittier graphic design of Birmingham is another change that divides opinions, as some prefer the cleaner look of the original.
Other Wallace Games: A Brief Tour
London
London takes the economic concepts from Brass and streamlines them into a lighter, quicker game. It retains the loan mechanic and a dynamic market but cuts down on some of the complexity to make gameplay more accessible. London introduces a unique “poverty” mechanic that changes relative to player actions and offers a flexible game end, allowing players to speed up or slow down the conclusion. While it lacks the depth of Brass, it serves as a solid introduction to Wallace’s economic design style.
Tinners’ Trail
Tinners’ Trail is a more complex game involving mining, auctions, and resource upgrades. It challenges players to decide between immediate mining rewards and investing in future improvements. The auction mechanic plays a major role in determining player order and available actions, but the heavy reliance on player interaction through auctions made the game less popular among some groups.
Steam and Age of Steam
These train-themed games focus on building railway routes and use auctions to determine turn order. Age of Steam is known for its strategic depth and tight gameplay, while Steam offers a more approachable experience. The auction for turn order adds tension and encourages players to carefully consider when they want to act, balancing the desire to go first against the cost of bidding.
A Few Acres of Snow
A unique blend of war and deck-building mechanics, A Few Acres of Snow pits English and French forces against one another with Indigenous players caught in the middle. The game features a special siege mechanic and requires players to manage their decks carefully by thinning cards over time. Though it has minor rule quirks, it offers a smooth and innovative take on area control and card management.
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork
This game divides opinion due to its complexity and randomness. With over 130 unique cards and secret victory conditions, it offers a lot of variety but can feel chaotic. The undo-redo style of play means rounds can drag, which might put off players who prefer more consistent and predictable strategy.
Wildlands
Wildlands attempts a fantasy dungeon crawl experience but was less successful, feeling more like an extended game of tag than a deep tactical battle. Many fans of tactical asymmetrical games prefer other titles in this genre.
Common Themes in Wallace’s Work
Wallace’s games often focus on certain core ideas. Economic themes dominate much of his work, frequently set in industrial England with mechanics like loans, shared infrastructure, and dynamic markets. War and train games also feature prominently but often serve niche audiences. Many of his games highlight asymmetric powers or area control, adding chaotic or unpredictable elements that challenge players to adapt constantly.
Martin Wallace’s design philosophy centers on creating economic and strategic games that balance risk, player interaction, and evolving gameplay. His signature loan mechanic encourages bold decisions from the start, and his use of dynamic markets and shared resources adds layers of depth and tension. While some of his games can be complex or thematically challenging, they offer rewarding experiences for players who enjoy thoughtful, strategic play. Wallace’s unique blend of familiar mechanics and innovative twists makes his games a standout choice for fans of economic strategy.
Martin Wallace’s games are often celebrated not only for their economic themes and unique loan mechanics but also for the deep strategic choices they offer and the complex player interactions they encourage. His designs typically require players to constantly adapt to shifting conditions on the board while managing resources, timing, and competition. This combination creates a compelling blend of tension and opportunity, making each game session feel dynamic and engaging.
Strategic Decision-Making at Every Turn
One of the most remarkable features of Wallace’s games is the way they demand thoughtful decisions from players throughout the entire gameplay. Early choices about loans, investments, and positioning ripple through the game, influencing options later on. Players cannot rely on a single strategy because the board state and other players’ actions change constantly.
The loan mechanic itself forces players to assess their risk tolerance. Taking a loan early means gaining immediate power but at the cost of future income. Deciding when and how much to borrow becomes a critical part of the game’s strategy. The tension between short-term gain and long-term sustainability is a hallmark of Wallace’s economic games. Players who misjudge this balance may find themselves struggling to keep up, while those who master it can build strong economic engines.
Timing is another crucial element. Many of Wallace’s games, such as Brass, use variable turn order or bidding to decide who acts first each round. This adds an additional layer of strategic depth, as players must plan not only what actions to take but also when to take them. Acting early can secure scarce resources or market opportunities but often comes at a price, either in money spent or missed information about other players’ plans. Choosing to wait can offer more information but risks losing valuable chances to act.
Player Interaction: Competition and Cooperation
Player interaction in Wallace’s games is rich and multi-faceted, combining direct competition with subtle forms of cooperation. In many titles, players share access to infrastructure, resources, or markets, which creates a network of interdependence. This shared system means that players must not only advance their own position but also consider how their moves affect others.
For example, in Brass, players build canals, railways, and factories that everyone can use. Deciding when to build or upgrade these assets involves thinking about how much to allow others to benefit and when to block competitors. Sometimes it can be more beneficial to help an opponent’s infrastructure if it creates a more valuable market for yourself, while other times cutting off access can slow down rivals. This tension between cooperation and competition deepens the game’s strategic possibilities.
Market manipulation is another key form of interaction. Resource prices fluctuate based on supply and demand, and players can influence these prices through their buying and selling. Timing sales or purchases to exploit market conditions requires careful observation of both the board and opponents’ moves. The dynamic market also means that no two games play the same way, as player actions continually shift the economic landscape.
In addition to shared resources and markets, some Wallace games feature auctions or bidding for turn order or special abilities. These mechanics heighten player interaction by forcing direct contests for priority and control. The constant competition over scarce assets keeps all players engaged and creates moments of tension and surprise.
Balancing Complexity and Accessibility
While Martin Wallace’s games are known for their strategic depth, he also strives to balance complexity with accessibility. Many of his designs streamline certain mechanics or provide flexible rules to accommodate different player preferences. London, for example, simplifies the economic themes of Brass into a more approachable format, while still retaining the core strategic choices and loan elements.
Wallace often includes mechanisms to prevent gameplay from becoming bogged down or overly complicated. Mid-game scoring phases, variable game lengths, or adjustable setups allow groups to tailor the experience to their liking. These options help maintain player interest and avoid fatigue during longer sessions.
That said, some Wallace games can still be challenging for newcomers due to intricate rules or layered mechanics. Learning curves can be steep, and understanding the nuances of market behavior, infrastructure sharing, and timing often requires several plays. For players willing to invest the time, however, the strategic richness rewards patience and study.
Themes and Historical Context
The themes of Wallace’s games often reflect historical periods and economic developments, especially focusing on industrial England. This setting provides a backdrop for the economic mechanics and gives players a sense of immersion in a transformative era. The industrial revolution theme also explains the presence of loans, infrastructure building, and market fluctuations, making the mechanics feel integrated rather than arbitrary.
However, the themes are not always purely celebratory. Some games acknowledge the harsh realities of industrialization, including worker exploitation, environmental impact, and social inequality. These elements add depth and provoke reflection, though they can also make the theme uncomfortable for some players.
Other games branch out into different genres, such as war or fantasy, but still maintain Wallace’s emphasis on strategic planning and player interaction. These thematic shifts show the versatility of his design philosophy and his ability to adapt core mechanics to various contexts.
Examples of Deep Strategy and Interaction in Wallace’s Games
Brass: Economic Engines and Network Building
Brass’s core gameplay revolves around building and upgrading a network of industries and transport links while managing loans and market conditions. Players must carefully decide when to invest in coal mines, iron works, or cotton mills, all while competing for limited locations and market opportunities.
The shared use of canals and railways means players must evaluate how much to facilitate their opponents’ progress. Strategic blocking or enabling of routes can turn the tide of the game. Managing loans to fund expansions or upgrades adds another dimension of financial strategy.
London: Managing Poverty and Growth
London introduces the concept of poverty as a resource that players must manage. This adds a moral dimension to decisions, as players can invest in reducing poverty, which impacts their reputation and end-game scoring. The flexible game length allows groups to adjust the experience, encouraging both shorter and longer plays.
The game’s market and loan systems are simplified versions of Brass’s, making it easier for new players to grasp while still requiring careful resource management and timing.
Age of Steam: Route Building and Auctions
Age of Steam emphasizes route planning and auctions for turn order. Players compete to build efficient railway networks that connect cities and deliver goods. The auction mechanic for determining turn order forces players to weigh the benefits of acting early against the cost of winning the bid.
Interactions revolve around controlling critical routes and blocking competitors while balancing the expense of construction and maintenance.
The Appeal of Martin Wallace’s Games
What makes Wallace’s games so appealing to many players is the way they combine economic realism with strategic tension and meaningful player interaction. They require players to think several steps ahead, weighing risks and rewards continuously. The use of loans, shared infrastructure, dynamic markets, and auction mechanics ensures that no two games play out the same way.
Players who enjoy carefully managing resources, timing their moves, and reacting to others’ strategies find Wallace’s games especially rewarding. They offer a challenge that goes beyond luck or simple tactics, demanding planning, adaptability, and negotiation.
Conclusion
Martin Wallace’s designs stand out for their rich strategic depth and complex player interactions. By integrating loans, dynamic markets, and shared infrastructure, he creates gameplay that feels alive and ever-changing. The balance of competition and cooperation, combined with flexible complexity, allows a wide range of players to engage with his games on different levels. For those who appreciate thoughtful economic strategy and meaningful interaction, Wallace’s games remain a compelling choice, offering unique challenges and memorable experiences.