by Julian Steindorfer

Where and when does this story start? Let me try to untangle the thread and tell you how Fadenfroh* came to be. *(a German word creation merging the words “thread” (Faden) and “colorful” (farbenfroh).

Does this story start in June 2025 at the Austrian Game Design meeting? I walked by Alexander Pfister's table and saw a game I had never heard of before, even though we playtest together every week.

Could the story start in 2024 when Jordy Adan (Cartographers, Fliptoons) and Alex have their first playtest of their game together after working on it since 2019?

Maybe it starts already in 2015 when I sink my axe (rule) into the prototype that would later become the Kennerspiel des Jahres 2016 winning Isle of Skye, that Alex co-designed with Andreas Pelikan.

No matter where the story starts. It jumps right into action after my first playtest a week after I saw the game on Alex's table.

It's 11pm on a hot summer night a few days after I have seen the game for the first time. Most other designers had already left our weekly game design meeting. Alex and I sit down. He pulls out what can only be described as a creative collage of sleeves. The start player marker is missing; he improvises with a glue cap. Who needs a fancy prototype, sell sheet or pitch video, when the gameplay is awesome?


Alexander Pfister and the glue cap in June 2025
Alex keeps the glue cap but I leave with the prototype in my backpack. Five days later the contract for the game is signed. Not offered, signed. It's true love at first play.

From now on Jordy, Alex and I meet for digital playtests at least once a week. The game is already done, but there is always room for pushing further. Meanwhile we start brainstorming. The designers would like to keep the historic theme based on the tapestry of Bayeux, but I have a clear vision.

Fadenfroh is a simple tile laying game (actually it´s cards) with an interactive selection mechanic and the ABCD scoring system many of us have fallen in love with. Given the commercial success and critical acclaim of the two “parent” games, Isle of Skye and Cartographers, I want to make sure that the game is as accessible as possible. Inviting new players into the hobby and showing them the beauty, elegance and finesse of modern board games is what we have tried since 1 More Time Games released Riftforce in 2020.

In its core Fadenfroh is an abstract game, but with a very thematic and fun mechanic, that allows players to circumvent the placement rules of the cards in the game. So it´s only logical that my thoughts drift towards Azul and Splendor, games that changed how I see abstract games. They don't have to be cold, black and white. It´s possible to develop and package a brutal and elegant game into a warm, beautiful and inviting product. Castle Combo and Faraway enter my mind from another angle, by showing how much gameplay you can pack in a small box while still keeping the playfulness and making sure that gaming stays affordable even in times of economic hardship.

Influenced by all those games, we discuss and try themes that support the mechanics and the reading of the game state, one of the most important things in any (tile laying) game. Julia Beutling joins the team as our illustrator soon after and makes sure that beauty and usability are always interwoven. Fadenfroh will be her first game we actually release, after being the third that she illustrated for 1 More Time Games, but that is a story for another day.

The first quotes from the factory land in my mailbox and solutions need to be found. How can we limit certain components to create room for the deluxe treatment I want the game to have? What should the glue cap from my first playtest become? Strom Manufacturing (you may know their excellent productions from Gloomhaven or most of CMYKs catalog) steps in and helps whenever I get lost in what's possible and what´s affordable.

How far can we go? Wolfgang Warsch one night puts his game Figment on the table. Now I know that I need the same chunky whiteboard tokens for our game. The central selection mechanic of Fadenfroh has so many “who blinks first” moments, which would profit from something to clinch to and nervously play with (like we all love to do it with poker chips or other heavy coins).

Click, Clack, Click, Clack. The tokens fill the room with their sound. While the production cost piles up on the other side of the scale. Deluxe components cost deluxe prices. Recent years have seen prices rise everywhere but we want the game to be affordable for as many people as possible. As a small indie publisher from Austria, we can't calculate with the economics of scale the big publishers can. We only have one wheel to adjust and it´s our own profit margin.

Running a company can be an awesome thing, but it also means that you need to take risks. Every big decision asks the question: Do I believe in this? Because how should anyone else believe in your games if you don't do it yourself? And as I mentioned above. This isn't a story about believing. It's about love.

Love is powerful. It lets you do the things you can tell stories about. It creates moments and connections. Love takes over the wheel and drives away from our profit margin directly into UV printed wooden discs you usually only see in crowdfunded games.


From left to right: greyboard tokens (unknown), wooden discs (generic), greyboard tokens (Fadenfroh test), whiteboard tokens (Figment), UV printed 5mm wooden discs (Fadenfroh final)
But let's slow down. Until those wooden discs start competing against other materials we still need to figure out the theme. We discussed all kinds of settings, crafts, and arts. Some come with great titles attached, others just show the beauty of Austria, Germany, or Brazil, the three countries where Alex, Julia and Jordy are from.

Weeks pass by. Theme is not the only challenge. Fadenfroh is a very unusual tile laying game. Most other tile laying games that feature some kind of set collection, use 1-3 backgrounds with different icons that are unique to the background or all belong to one category. Alex and Jordy wanted more. They needed nine different icons in three categories, some extra icons and all of them should work on three different backgrounds while still being easy to distinguish (and looking beautiful).

What follows are weeks of sketches, sketches and more sketches. Right away Julia builds a test card display so that we can always look at all icons and backgrounds interacting with each other in the way players would see them in front of them. It only takes us 113 different versions of those displays until we are happy. Somewhere between all those versions we accept that the theme of threads, garments and stitching just makes the most sense.


Three out of 113 different displays that Julia Beutling created
We try different approaches. Julia shows the wide range of styles she can excel in. For one version we combined three different techniques to “paint” on garments. I still remember the night when we finished it and I thought we finally nailed it. The following feedback proved me wrong. One of those moments where you have to accept the journey.

You fall down and you stand up again. Making games is hardly ever a linear process. You start somewhere. Then feedback and a lot of good and bad ideas happen. We listen and we learn. A few versions later we have picked the technique that most people can resonate with: Embroidery. The circle closes itself. From Bayeux over historic gardens through ([o]Top Secret - so we can maybe do a game with this theme in the future[/o]) to finally arrive at needle and thread again.

What did we lose on the way? A lot of historic ballast, horses, knights, kings and wars. Instead we found a small garden in the middle of summer. Full of dewy berries, cute animals and colorful flowers. Julia's mother Bettina, my business partner's mother-in-law Mika, and our graphic designer Andrea Kattnig (all three of them very versed in different arts and crafts connected to fabrics and fashion) make sure that we get things “right”. At least as right as you can be when putting a theme onto an abstract game. I am looking at you Mr. Thimble formally known as glue cap.


Alexander Pfister and Mr. Thimble in September 2026
Throughout the art process I start thinking a lot about the highly complex and creative works of craftpersons that have been declared a past time, reduced to their function or seen as decorative without being real “art”. My grandmother comes to my mind as she used to be really talented with needle and thread. In the last years of her life she was still climbing mountains in the Austrian alps and creating bobbin laces: A form of textile art so complex that even a playthrough of the heaviest Pfister games seems like a stroll through a garden.

My family helps me to find some of her works and Julia manages to turn them into a small illustration for the side of the game box that now pays homage to my grandmother and all the other people who enrich our lives with their craft art.

There is so much more to say, but …

I lost the thread.

Hopefully, you got at least a small and very personal insight into how Fadenfroh came to be.


Bobbin lace pattern by my grandmother