Deck the Halls

A review of Halls of Hegra designed by Petter Schanke Olsen and released by Tompet Games. A review copy provided by the publisher.

Intro

Halls of Hegra tells the story of some 250 Norwegian volunteers stalling the onslaught of German forces since nearly the very beginning of the Norwegian campaign. For over three weeks the defenders held the Hegra fortress, where they repelled Wehrmacht attacks against all odds until surrendering on 5^th May, 1940.

The game delivers a solo experience, where the player takes the role of the commander of the Hegra defence forces. If you think this means moving counters, assessing line of sight, counting die roll modifiers and such, well, you would be wrong. As the commander of the small fortress garrison, you will have to consider many other things. Supplies – what can you get to the defenders to improve their chances? Medicine – how can you organize the treatment of the wounded? How many will you send take the guns?

Commander’s work desk

The decisions are plenty and they zoom out from the actual fighting. Instead of the detailed military engagement, you find a more abstracted worker placement. However, this also liberates the designer to tell a broader story. Instead of focusing only on fighting, the player has to carefully manage priorities. It is not only about stopping enemy attacks that are modelled as waves of soldiers moving on the fortress. To paraphrase Wallace Stevens:

And the waves, the waves were meeples moving,

Marching and marching in a tragic time

Below me, on the asphalt, under the trees.

The first of the waves

Halls of Hegra is also very much about making sure that the defenders do not collapse due to injuries or the lack of supplies. What is the most important, though, is that this apparent euro-y approach does not diminish the theme of the game or make the mechanics disjointed from the theme. On the contrary, it helps the game to tell the full story of the battle in a gripping way.

Everyday I’m shoveling

I would argue that narrative is the strongest element of the game. The game ensures this by several means. First, it is through dividing the game into five distinct parts. The play begins with Mobilisation, the player recruiting the defenders and picking the volunteers. Then, when you think you still need more defenders, it’s the time for the first attack, followed by two stages of siege, and then the last stand. Each stage modifies the game process / mechanics in a way that reflects the narrative. As the enemy forces come, air raids begin, the artillery arrives. It becomes more and more difficult to get supplies. Your injured volunteers suddenly need to wait in line for treatment because there are insufficient hospital beds.

The second element that makes the game immersive is the scope of actions that you can focus on. First, you have a range of options from sending your defenders to defend the walls, firing artillery, carrying out supply runs, doing maintenance, or working in the infirmary. However, the smaller decisions, are also very thematic even if they seem mundane. Maybe it was because I received the game and played it in winter, but shoveling the snow resonated a lot. Or maybe it was because the mundaneness of the action name contrasted so much with its effect in the game. Giving space to these tasks that seem small in a grand scheme of things ensures that Halls of Hegra is a complete story, and every defender gets a spotlight. All these ‘everyday’ tasks must be done to ensure that defence is at all possible. As in history, so in the game.

Shovelers ready

All these design decisions make Halls of Hegra very much a narrative drive game. Yes, you get to place the workers, but what you get from it is first and foremost a story rather than an optimized engine. For a solo game this is key in involving a player and keeping them in-game. Not for some math but for history.

Is it all lost anyway?

Looming over the board a player can first get the impression that the defence might go well. The enemy is still not there, there are plenty of courses of action (if something goes wrong there seems to be many different approaches to take and remedy it). Yet, over time new stages bring more of the German soldiers. It becomes more difficult to carry out the actions – patrols limit access to supply, guns jam. The feeling that a surrender is quite likely increases.

I can’t say that I am very successful…

Putting the player in the position that historically ended in surrender due to overwhelming odds puts a designer in a difficult position. The valiant defenders of the Hegra fortress knew that they were the last ones to continue resistance in southern Norway. Provisions were also running out. In this context the defence seems to have had no other paths. Holding the Germans for so long was already a feat in itself. However, from the game design perspective this is a challenge.  First, the game must give hope to the player to win. Second, it may need to redefine what victory means in a situation such as the one in Halls of Hegra. Third, the symbolic victory of the Norwegian defenders is certain even with surrender, and symbols can be very powerful.

German artillery arrives

The design here includes a possible outcome of a German retreat, which historically was unlikely. At the same time, it is sufficiently vague to not imply what this would mean in the longer term. The question remains open of if this would be just a short respite (and likely, a second stand would take place outside the scope of the game). At the same time, I wish the design looked more into the symbolic space of the battle and its outcome. However, this is also something a player can fill-in themselves.

Lessons to learn

As usual, I would also like to share some thoughts on the educational use of the game, as playing anything, a thought is always somewhere in the background – what could the game teach? Obviously, as a solo game Halls of Hegra may be difficult to bring to the classroom and get everyone involved. Yet, it could prove helpful.

In a class where students develop their own game prototypes, Halls of Hegra could well serve two primary functions. First, it illustrates so well how a narrative can be built. If students are developing a game that is also primarily focused on a story, it would be a great example – a prelude, a culmination, and an epilogue, all included. Even if it’s a solo experience, the way it builds tension and makes the player care about their defenders is an excellent reference point.

Second, serves as a good lesson on how the game can deal with topics, where one side (even if it is non-player controlled in the game) had a disproportionate advantage. And still, a player in that disadvantageous position remains involved in the game. This may well lead students to a discussion on the concept of victory in historical games and it can be interpreted. What does it mean to win, if all you do is fight against the odds? How much optimism can be allowed if it would be a very unlikely counterfactual? This could spark further discussions on historical topics with highly uneven situations. For example, how could victory be defined for the Baltic resistance against the Soviets movements after World War 2? What would be possible achievements in the physical and the symbolic spaces? Halls of Hegra would be a great reference point to build a discussion on.