On not-so-rare occasions, I get to play board games before they’re fully polished. There’s something about seeing a game struggle through its growing pains, watching its knobbly limbs grow lithe and athletic, its protrusions smooth and frictionless, that recalls editing a novel for publication or appraising frames for the final cut. Most of the time, this process is a hard one. “Murder your darlings,” Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch said of an author’s finest phrases. Cut them down to size. That’s what it takes to make something great.

Only I’m not convinced we don’t sometimes murder a little too liberally. Sometimes I’ll play a finished game only to discover that the essential soul that made its earlier incarnation worth experiencing has been killed along with the wobbly iconography and degenerative action states. Somewhere in the process, development has sanded down the knobs and protrusions — and left little more than a burnished stick. Good for a walk, perhaps, but not especially notable.

Which brings us to Braided Skies, created by Dan Germain and Stonemaier Games.

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