How NOT to design a MODERN board game
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- Опубликовано: 28 май 2024
- In this video I list ten untouchable mechanisms and features. Designers - do not put this outdated stuff in your games. You do want your players to have a GOOD time, right?
I’m not here to criticise and condemn older games. These were the building blocks from which our wonderful, extraordinary, rich ecosystem of games evolved. Designers of the past deserve our respect. But that’s not to say they didn’t make mistakes.
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The journal provides a multitude of reflective tools to help you develop as a tabletop game designer. This is not a playtesting journal. That is to say, the journal is not focused on one specific game or project. It is focused on you. You are the project.
The journal is broken down into logs, with prompts to guide your reflections.
You will be guided to reflect on:
- Your own definition of success
- Your gaming preferences and those of the market
- Games you have played and what you learned from them
- The people who support you in game design
- How you support other designers
- Your design ethos
- Your goals and ambitions
The journal contains a selection of tools to help you analyse your prototypes in development.
- The Hook Generator - to help you create concepts which will catch attention
- The DARE Model - to help you prioritise your ideas
- The Ladder Model - to help you determine how engaging your game is
- The Idea : Execution Matrix - to help you determine how likely your game is to achieve commercial success
- Player Journey Maps - to help you identify the pain points in your games
These tools are all based off of models and matrices developed and discussed on the Adam in Wales RUclips Channel. If you would like more information about any of these topics, there is a huge amount of information within that channel.
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0:00 Introduction
2:48 Game Designer Journal
4:49 Player Agency
13:02 Event Decks
16:45 Exact Rolls
18:12 Move Backwards
19:41 Swap Places
21:09 Miss a Turn
23:07 Runaway Leaders
25:56 Reference Tables
28:25 Limited Player Count
29:38 Component Quality
31:28 Roll and Move
32:49 Take That
33:50 Memory
34:52 Player Elimination 
Игры
I now want to make a game that uses nothing other than all of these mechanisms together to see what happens :D
Well, Milton Bradley made an enormous success of that for a century! :)
Just play DnD then
@AdaminWales before they were absorbed by hasbros and drowned of all unique creativity in favour of consistant earnings.
Aside from no one buying your game, just make it a deck of cards consisting of boring activities like "You watch grass grow" and one "You Win" card. There's a die to roll to skip that many cards in the deck. No one holds any cards in their hands. It's just a card flipping game where everyone sees the You Win card appear in the discard pile and wonder how much longer the game is going to drag on.
Congratulations, Battletech
I think a lot of people miss when talking bad mechanics that seem to never die is the gambling aspect.
Most skill destroying mechanics that make games bad can scratch the same dopamine itch as gambling. It can be perplexing to warch from the outside, but many people genuinely enjoy the rush of winning a game by illusion of control while still being able to dismiss defeat as bad luck.
Games for children serve the purpose: learning turn-taking, good sportsmanship, numbers, cause and effect, social skills, fine motor skills, all manner of things. Not to mention imagination-my friends and I would play Life all night long on sleepovers, even after outgrowing the basic game structure, telling stories about our tiny peg families while (for better or worse) subconsciously learning about how a bit of luck will change a life’s path. We learned the fundamentals of game playing and learned to enjoy them! Upward and onward from there 🙂
I LOVE games for children :) I made a whole video about them:
How to design a board game for CHILDREN *Top 10 Mechanisms*
ruclips.net/video/LN0aEU1a9fI/видео.html
Advances have been made in designing for children, just as they have for adult designs.
Like you, I loved playing Game of Life as a kid. I’d have no worries about my child playing it today if they wanted to. There are MANY better children’s games out there though. Perhaps none have done this theme as well as Game of Life though, and it is an appealing theme to kids/families for sure.
I’ll be sure to watch the video-I must have missed that one!
The lack of agency and/or randomness mitigation in games , as well as lack of compensation for when randomness favors certain players, can make one appreciate the agency and silver linings in life better
Considering that Battletech is almost exclusively "roll 2d6 and consult one of a billion tables," and it's currently the most popular it's been since the 1980s, I've gotta strongly disagree with the notion that tables are some outdated relic that nobody wants to use.
Good point, there is solid amaunt of popular games that uses tables for stuff (especially for automatic enemy actions), and there is board games cousin tabletop wargaming(games like batletech, bolt or most of warhamer brand) wich are bild around consulting tables
I would argue this is very much the subject matter itself, and successful licensed product increasing the awareness, rather than "amazing game design". Consider the amount of chit and counter games that use tables for resolution that aren't getting attention from these same folks... there's no wild Crimson Skies resurgence. More than anything it feels like "mechs + 3d printer go brrrt + screw games workshop" all aligning with public awareness caused by video games or just walls of new plastic mechs in many hobby shops, and the old guard were there to shepherd new dudes over.
Though with only a handful of charts that are mostly embedded into the record sheets, it's far from the worst example of charts in an old school hex and counter wargame.
I haven't played the game, but almost all games are more popular now than they have ever been, so it makes sense that games would have lots of players playing nowadays, even if they use bad game design.
Except hex and chit games are unpopular
This sounds like exactly what he's talking about. There are communities that still play older style games - but it's not likely die-hard battletech players, or players who don't already love battletech for that matter - are on the hunt for a new lifestyle game using 2d6 table lookups.
That said, while I think it is USUALLY going to be a mistep to use outdated styles, sometimes innovation can still come from refreshing something from the past.
Excellent advice.
I have twins. One loves the luck of dice rolls and card flips. The other cannot stand losing because of something completely out of their control (and not necessarily the opponent’s doing). It makes for very good play testing feedback. 😅
You’re lucky to have your own little playtesting group right there!
For those who like to skip the excessively long intro, actual video starts at 4:05 your welcome.
Yeah, almost lost interest before that. Weird how many presenters spend so much time saying obvious or unrelated things, when they could just be getting to their points.
I honestly thought you must be exaggerating or skipping something, but no. That's genuinely how long it takes to get to the video.
@@RockstarRacc00n It's as if we can't read titles. STOP TREATING US LIKE IDIOTS!
@@AlixL96 yup...i sat through it so you didn't have to. I'm surprised i lived LOL
You don't use SponsorBlock yet?
Let's be honest, the lack of player agency in those really old (as in 3000 year old) games, was probably so that you could win against the prince and keep your head... most of the times.
The idea of a monarch getting violent over losing a game is overblown. Sure, there were plenty of them who were crazy, but most would've taken a loss with grace.
@@jakel2837 I don't think you can really know either way. So much has been lost to time and yet more remains than one person could learn about.
More like, those games were viewed in a different philosophical frame. Lack of player agency in certain games represented the whims of gods or fate.
@@jakel2837 I imagine it's more the underage princes that cause problems than the adult monarchs. Just imagine the most spoiled brat you've ever known with legal immunity and a free license to punish anybody he feels like...
Not that all princes were like that, but it was definitely a roll of the dice whether one was that kind of brat.
I think one very important aspect of mechanical design, especially in games with player elimination, is progressive destabilization. Your game should begin with lots of catch up mechanics and positive sum interactions so losing players can remain in the game with some hope of winning, and end with lots of snowball mechanics and zero or negative sum interactions to finish off losing players quickly and humanely and pick a winner in fairly rapid succession so that the game can be over
Clank is a good example of a great player elimimation mechanic. There's a bag with lits of cubes, players add cubes of their colour as the game progresses, and every so often there's an event to take X cubes from the bag. If your cubes come out, you take that much damge, eventually you may die. When you are dead, on your turn this event triggers and you take out more cubes every time. On the 4th time that happens (on a dead player's turn) everyone still playing dies too.
Or just don't have player elimination 🤷🏻♂
@@stevieinselby
I'm currently considering a mechanism for a game I'm working on where player elimination is technically possible, but has a heavy disincentive. That being the eliminated player's character curses yours and that player gets to spend the rest of the game making your life hell as the curse takes effect. In game of course.
@@stevieinselby or shorten the game/round like Love Letter
Exactly, and monopoly, which gets slammed in this video, is actually pretty good at this if you follow the rules and are free with trading properties amongst the players
A friend of mine loves the DC superheroes Deck Building game. So much so that he would constantly pester me to try it (me being a big fan of deckbuilders ordinarily). For three games, during the other players turns, I would be forced to discard more and more cards, so that when my turn came around, the only option I would have...is to draw cards and end my turn.
He still doesnt understand why I dont like that game, and wont play it.
Ah yes my favourite kind of card games to hate, the ones where the optimal way to play is to force your opponent out of options (and enjoyment). Only one player is supposed to have fun!
Looking at you, Yugioh!
DC Deck Builder is a favourite of mine when you are playing a cooperative Crisis expansion. It’s surprisingly very fun and addictive when you are all working together to take down super villains and the theming works better as a cooperative in my opinion.
I love deckbuilders where the first guy that moves gets to stunlock the other player with no hope of recovery. It's basically a coin toss with an extended cutscene afterwards.
Oh wait, I actually hate deckbuilders. I wonder why that is...
@@trustytrest deckbuilders are fun when the opponent is an AI
Another bad game mechanic: Games with a limited number of times that it can be played before players run out of the specialized paper it comes with. In terms of app-linked games, those are the games that really should have apps associated with them. That way players can "write" on a digitized version of the paper and not waste the 25 sheets that the game comes with. Also, the sheets should really be coated with a material that can handle something like a dry-erase marker that easily wipes off so they can be reused over and over again. Or the sheets are where chips/markers are placed to indicate what would have been written.
The game mechanism doesn't require limited sheets and a pencil any more than it requires laminated sheets and a wet erase marker. That's entirely part of product design and does not impact the game rules. And of course you're welcome to laminate the last sheets or even the first ones if you never want to throw any in the recycling bin.
photocopy or printable files for the sheets would be nice
Games that require an app have an inherent expiry date. When (not if) the app stops working, the game is unplayable. When you get to the last sheet of paper, you can just make copies of it.
Battleship is not as bad as you suggest. Sure the FIRST turn is a blind guess but after that you should have some kind of strategy or prediction of your opponents habits
It is literally all blind guessing because there's no tactical advantage/difference in placement of ships at all.
@@Pyropankake455 wrong but most of the strategy is in your search patterns not ship placement. Unless youre simpleminded but you CAN play any game without a strategy if you dont bother thinking
@@jeice13 just because there are optimal search patterns doesn't mean it's any better, there's still too much rng
@@Ghorda9 literally contains zero rng. I dont know what else to say, you could not be more wrong
@@jeice13 how is there no rng? the whole game is just educated guesses with the first being completely blind
I feel like Jail in Monopoly is kind of a bad example when it comes to negative, skip-turn mechanisms, because you can always pay $50 to leave, and the recontextualization of it in the late game where you want to stay in.
The core of my objection to it is that it puts one player in the position of “not playing the game”. Whether that’s for a positive reason, or negative reason, it’s not usually a great design choice to have one player sitting out.
I've always played the (house?) rule that you can't collect rent whilst in jail
@@tombrandis2866itisw more realistic today anyway.
Monopoly has so many flaws ... one of them is that the optimal strategy is often counter-intuitive, and Jail epitomises this. Most players want to get out of jail as quickly as possible, because jail has so many bad connotations and it feels like you aren't taking part ... but in many cases, players are better off staying in jail as long as they can, especially in the later stages of the game, at least they are if people play by the official rules which many don't (eg, I had always played that you couldn't collect rent when in jail, and it was only much more recently that I found out that isn't a rule, which turns it on its head). While the optimal strategy shouldn't be so blindingly obvious that no-one would do anything else, equally it shouldn't be so counter-intuitive that you have to really geek out on RUclips to find it.
@@stevieinselby Monopoly was designed as a Georgist teaching tool demonstrating why landlords are bad. With that in mind, all its flaws make sense.
Still sucks to play tho.
You can use event decks as a manually triggered thing. For instance, a player can choose to pay some amount of resources to draw the top card of the event deck. It's an optional decision to take a risk at that point, which makes it more fun. It can essentially function as a hail mary.
Potentially also from the other end as a risk factor for being too greedy. You can do X safely, or you can do more than X with a chance of doom.
Or make its contents come entirely* from player choice, like Through the Ages does
*well players do randomly draw the options they can place, but they're fully aware of which cards they put in, and they always have options
I worked on a roll and move as a developer a year or two back, and it opened my eyes to how completely valid, and potentially very enjoyable roll and move can be in a modern game. It was called Damnation: The Gothic Game. I was happy with how it turned out, the 'bumbling' nature of roll to move could be very tense since you can be stood behind someone with an axe in your hand ready to strike, having setup your cards and position so any roll from 1 to 5 grants the kill, then you roll a 6 and decie to steam off after another character. I think it works really well.
I agree - when it’s done well, it can be really tense and exciting :)
Shadows of Brimstone uses the roll to move in pretty meaningful way too.
That opening monologue sounds like a challenge to put this stuff in a game
It's a shame that you show Dominion when discussing 'take that' mechanisms while Dominion is one of the few games that does attacks right. I consider 'take that' mechanisms as ways to hit one player hard, often the player in the lead. For example, stealing a keeper in Fluxx, or a card from someone's hand. None of the attacks in Dominion target a specific player, they all hit all other players equally (though the net effect might differ depending on their deck).
I intended to show it as an example of doing it right - while talking about not setting players back too much, and not undoing their whole strategy etc. Clumsy editing on my part :)
@@AdaminWales I understood it in the way you intended.
Attacking certain players feels weak compared to attacking everyone else at the table anyway.
If there are targeted effects, I'd rather have them be positive mutualisms since they can lead to interesting decisions and alliances, as well as working as a secret comeback mechanic, compared to targeted take-that which often devolves to "bash the leader" without any decision space
"if you allow your players to make a decision, it should be an informed decision" - this was definitely one of the big flaws with my first game. Hopefully not with any of the subsequent ones...
That was a very good point. Something I dislike in a game is where I am hit with some random penalty or just making blind choices. I need to work on this is the game I am designing. Sounds like you have taken this to heart as well.
I have had good results implementing "Random Events", in educational games or Game Experience for training purposes.
There is an important caveat: When I implement "Random Events," they are meant for the players to negotiate and build agreements since such challenges require the majority of the players' collaboration to solve.
In a way, I use this mechanism as a "United we stand, divided we fall" resource.
I love the idea of the video but after 10 minutes you've almost exclusively mentioned games designed and marketed specifically for kids. Game of Life was one of my daughters favourite games until very recently, we have very happy memories of a giant Snakes and Ladders game they had at a local park, a couple of years ago we had to ask friends to go to Mcdonalds because she loved the Top Trumps cards they had in their happy meals so much! I used to love Battleship as a kid and played it against my Nanna on trains all the time, you said yourself you used to love Wrasslin' although I haven't heard of it before.
You're talking about children's games and their mechanisms as if they're adult hobbyist style board games but they are totally different things with different purposes and audiences. Very young children don't care at all about things like player agency or randomness, if anything these things are perfect for bridging huge skill gaps that exist when a 6 year-old plays with their Dad.
I played all these games and enjoyed them as a kid, but we rarely finished a game (not that we cared!!) But even as a kid, I had favourites - and they tended to be games which were “better designed”. Scotland Yard was the pinnacle. There are a vast number of excellent kids games these days which provide an outstanding experience for children far surpassing the games we played as youths.
In this video I am talking about mechanisms which I see presented to me in prototype games designed for adults, on a regular basis. Inexperienced designers take inspiration from the games they know - and too often it’s the stuff discussed in the video. The intent of the video is to persuade new designers to play modern games and avoid some of these features which are either “unfun” or likely to put off publishers.
the problem is that kids don't know of a better game, they only know what they're brought up with, once they get a taste of actually good games they never would want to turn back.
@@Ghorda9yeah my dad is a big gamer so we hardly played monopoly or life once we got a taste of better stuff like catan
28:55 restrictive player counts. most so called 2-6 player games aren’t anyway. For example we only play Battlestar Galactica with 5 players. It is a so much better experience than any other player count. And that is true for many many games.
100%. It is a great game, but only works with 5 players
There's a lot that theoretically go to 6 but in practice really don't, a fair number that are supposedly 2-4 but if you're not playing with 3 you're just making everything worse, and similar at any player count. Games that are good with both 2 players and 5 players are Very rare. It's noticeable that many games need extra rules that change how the entire thing plays in order to function at two players (and one player even more so unless it can introduce an 'AI' player (not just a neutral dummy player like Risk)... which some have!)
Not to say there aren't some that are genuinly good with 1 to 6 or 7 players, but they're solidly in the minority.
Or on the other side of the spectrum, you have games like King of Tokyo which is listed as 2-6, but really works much better as a 4-6 player game- I absolutely refuse to play it at 2 players; and this is speaking as someone that normally prefers smaller player counts! Similarly, One Night Ultimate Werewolf says 3-10, but I'd say that it really doesn't get good until you have at least 5 players, and can comfortably play up to 12.
Thanks for not including player elimination! Not only does it work in same games, it also works in some contexts. If you have a party/gathering/conference where only *some* attendees are playing the game, eliminated players can go do something else and aren't actually stuck watching the rest of the game.
In some of these contexts, the opposite of player elimination can be harmful. Many modern games offer no mechanism to deal with players who need to "eliminate" themselves from gameplay due to outside circumstances, and when one player leaves, all other players have to stop mid-game too because the game mechanisms require all players to remain engaged for the entire duration of the game. It would be good if more designers ensured a game could continue with fewer players than it started with...
And even for games that don't end quickly, it allows the eliminated player to get up and do something else without disturbing the game for the rest of the players. I'd argue that player elimination can indeed be a blessing in disguise for both the eliminated player and the others. I think it's an element that can be used badly, but it's preferable in many cases to the player being held at the game against their will.
though when the game's more fun to watch then to play, something's probably wrong
Werewolf can be an example of this
I've never played tank battle, but as you describe it it sounds like an interesting game. Sounds like a game about reading your opponent/bluffing, which i wouldn't say is the same as making an uninformed decision.
Which resonnate with you saying that the game can be fixed.
Yeah, it sounds more interesting than it is to actually play. There’s no real bluffing, and you can’t read your opponent - you just know they have a selection of possible moves… and take a guess. It’s not TOTALLY uninformed. But you might have ~20 possible moves at any given time and ~10 of them will result in your tank being destroyed. You really can’t tell which move is the hazardous one, so even though the traps were placed by your opponent, it essentially feels like random chance.
That said, the mix of different elements and types of confrontations, along with nice components, does make for an enjoyable game - if you accept it for what it is.
I’d love to see Restoration Games take a look at bringing Tank Battle back like they did for Thunder Road.
I would argue that event cards can be useful, if used right. Fate Decks in Villainous give a bit of push and pull in a game where players are largely playing their own games. Co-op and solo games like Spirit Island and Final girl often require them as either enemy behavior or random things happening, or even both. And in many competitive games, they can be used as a means of keeping a game fresh each playthrough and can keep players on their toes. But as I said, it needs to be utilized properly. Having cards that can either make a huge swing or push the current leader further ahead by leaps can make a game unenjoyable. But Events can have the opportunity to keep the person in the lead from leaning heavily into a single strategy, and thus keeping them from running away with the game.
I think that’s a fair comment.
I’ve had commenters arguing that event decks can be good (especially in coop games), reference tables can be good (especially in wargames) and restricted player counts can be good (to reduce costs). I’m yet to see anyone putting forward a defence of “miss a turn” or “swap places”! 😂
@@AdaminWales Miss a turn can be viable for competitive card games, like Magic, but very restricted. I've only seen it in a couple of instances, and the costs to play those cards basically makes it a reward for pulling it off.
Otherwise, the only game I think it works with is Uno, where everything is quick, and the objective is just to play the cards in your hand out. It might be possible in other quick games, but that is the only way I can think of to make it work.
Not much of a defense, but there you go. 😄
There's another benefit to restricted player count. For some co-op games, having more than 4 players might sound like a good idea, but then the group decision making becomes too noisy and drawn out. I recently played pandemic with a couple of back seaters (totaling 6 people), and it wasn't nearly as fun as with 4 or less.
@@davidripplinger8904 Very true. Disney Villainous, for example, showcases a player count of up to 6. In practice, about 3-4 is usually the sweet spot for the game. Otherwise, there can be a lot of downtime, especially for newer players figuring out how they're going to play their turns.
Aren't a lot of contemporary cooperative games basically just "event deck: the game"? Everything from Pandemic to Spirit Island is just a bunch of random (or semi-random) negative things happening that the players then have to deal with while traversing to their goal.
Haha. That’s a hot take. I like it. That’s exactly what a lot of coop games feel like to me too! (Maybe that’s why I’m not a huge fan)…. I might use that description if I make a future video about coops if I may?
@@AdaminWales You certainly may. I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to describe it that way, although I would be chuffed to receive a hat tip for the description later.
I often enjoy Event Deck: The Game. 😁 But the art and storytelling have to be top notch-and I admit, at some point it could become more like reading a graphic novel than gaming.
I guess the more well-built effects are "Here's something that you have to deal with this turn / in X turns or you suffer a negative effect" (input randomness) instead of "You suffer an unavoidable negative effect instantly" (output randomness). For example, Leviathan Wilds does this well and you can always escape a bad event.
But it is true that, in trying to make those event decks thick, many co-ops do have questionable and unfun event cards... ;)
that's probably a bit reductionist, but not entirely unfair. Those games and Arkham Horror LCG sprang immediately sprang to mind when he was discussing random events.
I think the distinction to be made is Random Consequences (lose 10 money, go back a space etc.) vs. Random Events (spawn x enemies, add 3 virus tokens to the board)
@10:20 As Battleship progresses, you learn more about your opponent's layout, making later choices more significant.
That’s true. But you sort of shift from a random choice to an obvious choice. At no point is there a very interesting decision to be made.
@@AdaminWales You're just wrong about Battleship, but the strategies are too subtle for the target audience of kids, and adults rarely return to consider the game. With the right strategy, you can bring the average number of moves needed to win down from the mid 60s to the low 40s. Like chess optimal play is too hard for humans to do reliably and is something for computers, but humans can do a lot better than the naive approach.
@@SkorjOlafsen Right, but the point here is that you're still making "obvious" choices. Algorithmically dissecting a game is fun, don't get me wrong, but then the enjoyment is placed more on the mathematical side of the game than the game itself. If I were looking at a shelf of 2 player games, would my first thought be to pull out Battleship when I own Watergate, Onitama, Air Land and Sea, or Kelp? Not particularly.
I think the point about "informed decisions" is the main selling point here. When playing Battleship with a more rigorous attitude, you will make a few informed decisions. However, will those differ very much from game to game? Is there an obvious path that you should take at any point? Of the games I mentioned, Kelp probably is the worst offender for informed decisions vs obvious decisions after the Octopus is revealed, but there's still some element of informed choice when it comes to the dice drawn for the Shark, the abilities that can be bought, and the cards added to the Octopus's deck.
@@mathmaniac3033 I don't get your point.
Battleship is a hidden information, high-randomness, high skill ceiling strategy game. Mechanically, none of that seems to be a problem. None of those elements are inherently bad in a game.
I think the lack of appeal to adults is subtle: it's a hidden information game, but you're not trying to guess and counter your opponent's strategy. It's the overlap between Eurogame-style "we each execute our strategy in isolation, and we'll see who gets there first" and the randomness /imperfect information elements that I think doesn't sit well. You have a very abstract problem to solve, and very little feedback about how well your strategy is working, no sense of "ah ha, _this_ _time_ I'm nailing it" that you can get from Eurogames or chess.
But my original point was: Battleship is a game with a very complex, non-obvious strategy that requires much thought to play well. The game's flaw(s) lie elsewhere.
Great video! I see many of these “game designer sins” as part of gaming evolution- game play has “evolved”
From simple basics like “roll and move” to modern player agency - have you considered doing a video when “game design goes too far”? Some modern games are more complicated than doing your taxes- require hours of rule reading- and sometimes require more rules references than an encyclopedia- love your work! Very inspirational!
It does almost seem like game design CAN’T go too far… however complex a game gets, there seems to be a market for it and players pushing for even more! 😂
The important thing is that a complex game is appropriate for that specific market - if the theme is wrong, or the mechanisms don’t mesh well (or add too much randomness) super-complex games will always flop. I don’t play enough of these games to make a video about them!
I’m impressed by the skill and dedication of these designers (and players) but it’s not anything I aspire to get involved in.
War for South Africa enters the chat!
I LOVE complex rules personally but I get not everyone does.
A good video but I would disagree with point #9. I would say that before 1995 games which played 2-6 or 3-6 were relatively common but between 1995 and somewhere around 2005 or 2010 the common range was 2-5 or 3-5. But from then until about 5 years ago games that played 5 became rare with player ranges narrowing to 2-4 or 3-4. So if there are 5 of us looking for a game we are looking at pre-2010 games, and for 6 players an even more limited range of games.
You are right that In the last 5 years, we have seen many more games that play 1-4 (and possibly 1-5), either by having a special solo mode or by having so little player interaction that that game can play solo with no significant changes to the rules.
Party games are of course an exception to the usual limitation on numbers.
Yeah, this one is very fluid and has changed a lot over the years. In general right now though, the publishers I’m speaking to want wide player counts.
@@AdaminWales I'll look out for it among the 2023 and 2024 releases I come across.
Thank you for interesting video, keep it up!
However:
8 (tables) are common for wargames (and they are selling pretty good now, it's a golden age in wargaming).
9 (player count) - is doubtful. Yes, you can make a game for 1 to 8 players, but quantity of components for 8 players is basicly doubled as of 4 players (and production costs), and will it scale well for 8 players? I think it's better to make strongly tested 2-4 player game, than loosely 1-8 player.
10 (components) - as far as I know, 1) designer do not make a final decision about components, and 2) publishers will think twice if there "must be very unique" components in a designed game.
Thanks for commenting - I’m glad you found the video interesting.
I don’t play wargames, but I rarely see tables in the games I play these days. I saw them used much more when I used to play miniatures games. I’m sure wargames make effective use of them. And from the little I know of wargames, I understand simulation and historical accuracy are really important factors - so tables probably allow for a lot of complex interwoven situations and scenarios.
Player count - I said in the video that the default now is probably 2-5 (with solo mode and 6 player being desirable). I would agree that 1-8 is very unlikely to be satisfying at all counts.
Components absolutely should be a consideration for designers. They are central to the identity of the final product. The publisher has the ultimate say on how they realise the designer’s vision, but the publisher is limited by the components used by the designer in their initial prototype. For example, my game Pikoko required a card holder for each player. The game Potion Explosion is built around a marble dispenser (which the designer will have devised). Some publishers love unique components - they’re a hook in certain markets. Other publishers will want simple components which they can get for a low price.
There was a recent video interview with Cole Wehrle where he defended results tables as the simplest way to cram a lot of historical/tactical detail into a battle resolution, as opposed to bespoke rules that have to be considered simultaneously (looking up different cards, adding modifiers, etc). And to a degree that is true.
But then the question is whether that detail is necessary - for a wargame, yes, for a more casual game, no. But some complex minis games could definitely be simplified (turns take less time) with an old school table instead of adding up lots of modifiers.
21:43 Yup, in the BG cafe I go Citadels was a relatively played game a few years ago, but I refused to play without houseruling the assasin. Every time I played it "as is" someone would not be able to play because they would get killed every turn. Sometimes it was me, other times it was other players, but in the end whoever got the short stick didn't get to play and more than once someone just stood up and went to play somewhere else.
It still baffles me the popularity of such a modern game with a rule that, by default, keeps out one player per round from playing the game.
Yes, this game has never worked for me either.
I remember hating games that have a square that say "wait here until someone rolls a 7" or "wait here until someone of a higher rank passes you".
Basically will be sitting there doing nothing for a long time.
"You don't spend your weekends besting your mates at Pong." Clearly you've never been to my house on Sunday.
A lack of a catch-up mechanism can be extremely detrimental to a game, because there is a risk of that player becoming "destructive" or "seemingly non-compliant" (not helping another player to win the game). I see this in online games of Settlers of Catan, another pre-2000 game...
One reason player elimination works in King of Tokyo is that it plays very quickly. If you get knocked out you don't have long to wait before it's time for a new round. Same with Bang!: The Dice Game. If you get shot out, it won't be long before someone wins, and then its time for a new round.
The video actually begins at 4:04
We've been playing Sequence as if it's Uno. The card you can play must match the suit or symbol of the last card. This changes the game from being able to hang onto the Wild Jack to win, and changing the suit if someone is close to a sequence. If you can't make a play, you just draw a card, falling behind on pieces, but giving you more cards to play with, especially at the end when the deck is depleted (3 player game, of course).
It's a lot more fun than the house rule of "Can't win on a Jack." While it may make the game feel more fair, all it really does is make nobody play jacks, until someone else does, resulting in decking out, and a stalemate.
The plastic segment unlocked a memory for me of the Steve Irwin Croc Hunter board game. It had a wind up toy croc that would move around the board and if your piece got knocked over by it, you had to restart
The design philosophy in these games was “this will look fun in a TV advert” rather than “this will be fun to play”.
Catan is also a good example of a more modern game where there are many turns in which you can do nothing but roll dice for everyone else
Whenever I play Trouble I always found the needing to roll a specific number to win led to vary tense end games with other players also trying or not far behind, I definitely agree with the start being clunky though
Well done, Adam. One of your best videos to date.
Much appreciated. Glad you enjoyed it :)
I don't think incomplete information is necessarily a _bad_ idea, just a niche one. Certainly any video game with a military style will likely have a 'fog of war'. Likewise, incomplete information is a staple of card games of all types, and even shows up in some board games, like Scrabble. Likewise, a lack of player agency can be very good for family games, as it prevents skill-based advantages from being a major issue. For example, a family with three children, age 15, 11 and 8 can sit down to a game of snakes-and-ladders without the worrying that the teenager will be able to outmanoeuvre their siblings based on skill, because the game allows none.
Chess has some excellent examples of things not to design.
1. Limited comeback mechanics. The losing player has very few asymmetric advantages and it's easy to be in a completely losing position 10 moves into a 60 move game.
2. Limited finish off mechanics. Yes, checkmate is a finish off mechanic. The issue is that it isn't a strong enough finish off mechanic to be reliable at high skill levels. A skilled player can defend down a piece even though the game is clearly over. Tricky tactical checkmates in the middlegame are cool but they don't happen much under skilled play.
3. Rote memorization is encouraged. Openings and endgames can be played without strategy until someone deviates from a memorized optimal line. Only the middlegame is truly pure strategy.
4. Lack of randomness means the actually plausible game tree expands rather slowly, especially since the most forcing line is usually also a pretty good line. It does make the game strategic but it also incentivizes overanalyzing positions and almost necessitates the use of a timer, which comes with its own set of issues. To be fair, this isn't so much bad design as an unavoidable issue with hardline determinism and pure strategy, but is a timer really better than a deck or dice? I don't know.
5. Stalemate is the wrong kind of comeback mechanic. It's much easier to accidentally stalemate your opponent when winning than intentionally stalemate yourself when losing, and in either case it revolves around degenerate gameplay in completely lost endgame positions where the game should be over, and probably has been for half an hour, but then the winning side blunders the game to a draw while the losing side has no agency.
6. The strength of the king means that for top level competitive play, draws are a bit too common. Chess isn't that drawish for non-masters, but you can still feel the effects of the king being a bit too hard to checkmate at lower levels.
7. En Passant and castling are kind of strange rules that really don't operate by the same logic as the rest of the game, adding substantial complexity for a questionable improvement in gameplay.
Not to be that guy, but all these are skill issues.
As long as you play someone about your own strength, these are all mitigated. You blunder in the opening and are objectively worse now? Keep playing, your opponentis probaboy going to blunder right back.
The other issue here is that we've had 1300 years to find the best strategies for the game, which is not going to be the case with any game designed today.
The special moves (en pessant, double move for pawns on rank 2, castling, promotion) were later additions to improve the game. Yes, it improved the game. Especially the double move for pawns, it's usually a crucial equalizong respurce for black in most openings.
Perfect information games with no variance are not a thing anymore, so I don't really see what prompts your comment anyway.
@@pairot01 you are being that guy yes
@@pairot01just relying on your opponent to make a mistake isnt exactly a comeback mechanic
I find chess to be a game that is quite distinct from most other games as, fundamentally, it's a game about stamina is what I've come to realize... What I mean is that it's a game about who can make the least amount of mistakes (at least, for most people most of the time). Do you know your opening or do you mess it up, weakening your position? Did you see the incoming fork? Do you move your queen to a position targeted by a bishop accidentally?
Sure, it's a little more nuanced, especially at high level play. For example, choosing a "weaker" opening that your opponent is less familiar with might give you more of an advantage than going for a "stronger" opening. There's also positional gameplay which targets the overall balance on the board. And if you're playing a more skilled opponent, they'll be able to carry out more subtle attacks, and/or attacks that span more moves than what you're able to "see".
However, moves that weaken your position can still be conceptualized as mistakes. So, effectively, I'd still argue that chess is a game where you try to minimize your mistakes and spot and capitalize on your opponents mistakes. And, as pariot01 points out, if you're playing with someone at a similar skill level, you'll be making roughly the same amount of mistakes. If you accidentally blunder early on, just do your best to hold on - chances are your opponent will blunder at some point and it would allow you to equalize the playing field (unless you blunder such that your opponent gains a significant advantage, like losing your queen early on).
However, I also agree that this isn't a catchup mechanic either... Hence why I feel like chess (and maybe similar games like Go) is in a category of its own...
@@aleksaa24 chess doesn't have "mechanics". Stop looking at it with modern game design in mind, chess is 1300 years old.
As for roll & move, I think it's really well done in MLEM Space Agency. There's a clear path and some luck involved, but you get lots of choices as well (which dice to use nd how far to move, abandonding the ship or not, which astronaut to send etc.).
I’m always up for a Knizia dice game! :)
I haven't finished the video, but I'll make a small defense of something like event decks:
You're correct that random chance shouldn't determine the outcome of a game by itself, but I'd argue a bit of unpredictability can serve a strategy game. For example, they can make the game simply less static, or they can offer a hail-mary to a player that's losing (or conversely, make a nearly-winning player's victory less assured). And sometimes your game doesn't need to be *perfectly* fair.
I would say that the balance is vaguely that random chance should call for player reaction and flexibility. IE:
• If a player loses due to a single die roll or card, it should be because they made poor decisions that made a single die roll or card the deciding factor.
• If a player has an event that gets in the way of their current strategy, they should feel like a plan B is/was possible or that they still have a chance to maneuver around the problem. A good strategist has a plan B and is able to adjust their strategy to unexpected and changing conditions.
• It should require skill to press an advantage given to you by random chance. You don't get to choose the hand you're dealt, but you do get to choose how to play it.
I don’t disagree with any of that :) Most “bad” mechanisms can be effective if used thoughtfully.
With all this in mind, how do trading card games succeed? Is it because the level of chance is expectable with your start of turn draw? Is it in the deck building process?
I think most CCGs offer up loads of interesting choices, both during the game and before the game starts. They have randomness for sure, and that adds some tension, but it’s well balanced with meaningful decisions. That’s the recipe for a fun game.
Not to mention the addictive quality of blind purchases.
@@AdaminWales Yeah, the booster pack experience is so much more important to the game than a lot of people realize. It's why those boxed card games often get solved and lose flare.
And as controversial as it may be, there is merit in having cards of varying value. It adds an interesting deck building choice around finding "budget" alternatives to expensive cards.
Battleship is actually a pretty strategic game, it has some probability optimization combined with Poker-like game theory
DOG, Partners, and Pegs & Jokers fix some of the issues behind Pacheesi by giving people access to a deck of cards instead of dice.
You have choices; they're still random, but you can choose from your hand of cards, you're no longer totally at the mercy of the dice roll.
Don't get me wrong, they still have a lot of the problems of Pacheesi (or Ludo as it's known on continental Europe).
All your pieces start home and you need a specific card to bring a new piece out.
But the cards add variety: splitting your movement between multiple pieces, moving backwards, and even swapping pieces.
So it's better, but not perfect.
I’m keen to try DOG. It’s always heavily promoted at Essen Spiel so obviously popular, but unheard of in the UK.
DOG is an insanely good improvement over the earlier variants.
There is a reason there are tournaments ❤
@@manveroo1340 I'm not a fan of the shrinking hand size. I'd rather just see each player draw back up at the end of every turn
Honestly I love mechanics that disrupt strategy like the Community Chest in monopoly. Honestly that's the only part of monopoly i like. I like knowing that no matter how far ahead someone is, no one is immune to bad luck.
I love reference tables. They feel fun and it makes it possible to do really interesting things
Victory points are my pet older game design hate - especially when they are not calculated until the end of the game. I just want games to have a sense of shared narrative and objective.
This is why it's important to play lots of games from all different genres. Quick tip, if you don't want to spend tons of money buying every game under the sun, just watch tutorial videos to learn new ideas.
I think its really hard to have a good balance, because outside of game that are pure strategy (like chess or go) I feel like that some game doesnt offer any chance to someone that doesnt know the game well enough compare to someone that knows, like back then even with 3-4 plays game for me and 2 other players it was near impossible to win against someone with 50 plays of Russian Railroad.
Where is the fun if you have no chance to win unless you played the game 25+ times really? there is a reason I dont play chess, its not fun since its just purely raw strategy
I definitely never meant to suggest that there should be no chance!! I love games of chance. The important thing is that the player gets to make choices (and that the choices mean something). At the end of the video I talk about “roll & move” games, and how I wish there were more of them! Most really good games balance chance against strategic choices :)
I disagree, random events CAN make a game much more exciting, and a great story. the issue stems not from them being random, but from them deciding for you. Random events should offer choices the player can make. instead of "tough luck, you take 5 damage", a lot of modern games offer the *choice* of taking the damage for something valuable, such as a trinket or currency.
I would somewhat agree with your take. Random events can add an uncertainty which when visited upon the leading player can invoke joy in the other players. I am trying to work random events into the game I am working on so that the event is coming but players have up to a few turns to prepare for its arrival, if they can and if it is aimed at them. Hopefully that made sense.
Top Trumps can offer a little extra strategy if you can keep track somewhat of what your opponent/s have, say if you know someone else has the fastest car probably coming up soon, it might be a good idea to avoid that stat, even if your speed's the best stat on your card, maybe go with the 2nd highest, 0-60 for example.
bold of you to assume I want my players to have a good time. I want them to suffer (!), like I do, designing the games in a way that they'll get published. =D but then again, that's why I watch these videos... so I don't suffer as much. thanks, Adam! =)
With most of my prototype games, the players absolutely do suffer…. Haha.
Hopefully with my published games, less so :)
Honestly, I’d disagree with number 9. Some of the best games I’ve ever played support at max 4 players (Clank! with no adventuring party expansion, Great Western Trail, Clank and Pandemic Legacy, Deal With The Devil takes exactly 4 players and it’s one of my personal favourites). I feel like games that have highly variable counts sacrifice the perfect balance that medium-heavy games require.
As a consumer, I would agree with you. One of my favourite games is Witness, which requires exactly 4 players. But that’s not what this video is about (Witness was critically acclaimed but appears to have been a commercial flop). The primary focus of this channel, and this video, is to offer advice to board game designers who are seeking to make commercially successful games. And from pitching to hundreds of publishers over the last few years, I can confidently state that broader player ranges are a distinct advantage when seeking publication. In 2024, a designer pitching a game for 2-4 (or worse 3-4) players is almost certain to be asked to stretch that player count. Not by every publisher, but by many.
And my advice to designers is not to make a lack-lustre 2 player mode, or a weak 5 player mode. It’s to make a game which plays WELL at as many different player counts as possible. It’s not easy to achieve. But it’s a competitive market, and every advantage is worth pursuing.
I've always liked stratego. Easy to learn, more complex than chess and loads of player agency. Played a bunch as a kid but a couple years ago I played with a teenager friend of mine. I beat him probably ten or twelve times before he won a game. What I think is fun as an adult is that strategies that seem logical end up being possible liabilities depending on how your opponent plays. Like surrounding your flag with mines only works if you can kill their miners quickly. And moving your high ranked officers into enemy territory isn't all that wise either. Varying your layout unpredictably is great for multiple games but even that can turn out bad for you as well. Even when playing with someone quite a bit younger and less risk averse than you are. The phrases "fortune favors the bold" and "don't keep all your eggs in one basket" and "the best defense is a good offense" are all things to keep in mind. Ultimately you can try anything and you have a chance for a win. I have come to believe that there just isn't a strategy that will allow you to win EVERY time. And it's a beautiful thing to behold when someone who's taken it as a matter of honor to beat you after you've beaten them many times! A great way of teaching complex concepts to young people.
Another simple to learn game with unpredictability is liars dice. Also called Mexican or Bullshit. And my late brother was literally the best at it. He lied about lots of stuff in life, so it became difficult to tell when he was lying in the game.
Here is a recent video I made all about Stratego and related games! Might be of interest? :)
Hall of Fame: Stratego, L'Attaque & the Big Four
ruclips.net/video/LQBB63Qy4Hw/видео.html
I do hold, due the sheer number of solid multiplayer classics that can end up in print, solo mode is increasingly needed. From a design perspective, a game that is fun to play solo, which will be normally beat a randomizer, can withstand poor play by opponents in multiplayer. Another plus is a designer has zero excuses not testing a game solo.
Yes, it is a consideration for me these days where it wasn’t previously. If a game could function solo, I’ll always try to put one in. But designing artificial opponents (randomisers) is a skill in itself - and sometimes a publisher will bring in a separate designer for that part of the product.
@AdaminWales my take is the action options need to be sufficiently engaging, which tends to be the norms of Euro games or X and Writes. And engaging with this new sandbox entertains. Player interaction tinkers with this, but it should be bulletproof. I hold it should be engaging enough prior to developing automata that optimalizes counters to player actions. Doing this also newbie proofs a game.
In another sense, once one has this, the automata formation is connected to adjusting the difficulty for players. It is like designing a single player video game.
All this is modern game design. A new game has to work with one player and sell to one, or it will not sell.
@@AdaminWales I am starting to specialize in solo mode design and it’s been an exciting development seeing it take off during/after the Pandemic, not so niche anymore
@rpm381 with the videogame business having its issues, and videogame sites covering tabletop games, I can see solo growing more. Solo campaigns, etc... get designed like videogame level design. With Indie being larger, there overlap is there.
On a quirk front, one of the latest videogame hypes is Balatro. This is a roguelike game that is pretty much a CCG version of video poker.
your references to historical games is what makes your channel so great
With random events it can also be made better if it's something you can mitigate, e.g. something that is drawn at the start of a round but only resolved at the end, and which one may protect against during the round, thus creating randomness but still giving players agency in choosing whether to focus on mitigation or taking the consequences and focusing on something else
I like how you bring up the value of certain childrens games. There is learning value, either general skills like memory or facts, or game-based skills like combos and planning is definately a thing.
I think the big thing about hidden information vs memory games, is that in hidden information games working out what you cant see is a skill element that you can ignore, whereas in memory games you have to engage with it.
Great distinction - I’m researching memory games at the moment for one of my own designs (and also a possible future video). But this is something I’ll give more thought because I think you’re right - you don’t HAVE to remember stuff to play a trick taking game, or Tigris & Euphrates. It’s an additional layer.
It's still funny to me that monopoly was quite literally designed not to be fun...
Very informative. I have been struggling with the concept of event cards in a game I have been working on for several years off and on. I am close to a workable design but was struggling with the mechanism of events. Your insights helped me to be able to revisit this and not have it slam one player over the others. Thank you.
4:49 1. Player Agency
13:02 2. Event Decks
16:45 3. Exact Rolls
18:12 4. Move Backwards
19:41 5. Swap Places
21:09 6. Miss a Turn
23:07 7. Runaway Leaders
25:56 8. Reference Tables
28:25 9. Limited Player Count
29:38 10. Component Quality
31:19 Notable Exceptions (Roll and Move, Take That, Memory, Player Elimination)
I really liked how Tokaido used its random encounters deck. You can play just to get the most of them (which alone scores points) But also you really are playing for a collection of potential scoring opportunities and the boost from an encounter can nudge you towards collecting a particular panorama for the rest of the game. There is only like two cards in the whole deck that purely grant victory points.
Through the Ages is a great example of how to do an event deck with strong agency: instead of blindly topdecking the events, you first draw them into your hand, _then_ choose which of the event cards in your hand to place under the event pile (which players regularly topdeck from at the start of their turn). This allows players to plan things out, as well as read into what other players are preparing for the event they put in
What if I want to add a random event cards that change the layout of the map (players are not aware of the full layout initially, they trace it as they move)? Is that a bad idea? Is there a way to make it better?
That is the basis of many adventuring-type games, for example dungeon-crawlers, so it might be fine. In many cases though, the maps are predetermined. Either one player plays as a dungeon master and reveals the next “room” as the other players enter, or it’s app-driven.
If you intend to have every room appear randomly, you need to ensure that a random card draw can’t affect one player enormously while leaving other players untouched. The game should be broadly fair. This is less important in a cooperative game where players can work together to overcome such obstacles.
But the only way to really know what is engaging and satisfying for players is to playtest the game extensively and watch players’ reactions. Don’t throw out the entire basis of your game because one internet commentator (me) dislikes a mechanism. Build a consensus opinion by gathering the views of many testers. Then decide what works for your game.
@@AdaminWales Thank you for answering! The concept is that the layout is initially unknown to the players but the GM. Some turns with a lucky throw GM picks an event card and changes the layout, announcing the them to the players.
I actually really like the type of I have no idea of the strength of the opponent kind of games, there are still often ways of playing strategically, just no obvious ones, which mean making the wrong move isn’t such a hit for the ego
Honestly, I'd rather games be a bit more specific with player counts in situations where certain player counts don't provide as great of an experience. I'd much rather a game ditch a 5 or 6 player mode if it's bolted on to mostly just appeal to getting published, same goes with a solo mode (as much as I love solo modes). I want to look at a box and know how many people I can play it with and still enjoy the game to its fullest
a runaway leaders problem is called "unstable equilibrium" in game theory. it's not necessarily a problem. racing has an unstable equilibrium but it is a problem when the game lasts four hours like monopoly.
I agree - runaway leaders are not a major problem in a relatively short game, or in a game where the game will end fairly soon after one player starts to snowball ahead. The issue is one of duration.
I wasn't sure I would even be interested in this stuff before I clicked, but now I'm hooked. I didn't know that "exact roll" had such a common distaste, so it looks like I've found my people.
I played a lot of Monopoly when I was a kid, but was always more fond of the whole building aspect (as seen in the one Monopoly where you had a grid to place buildings). So, I decided to make my own version. I was maybe 10 at the time so it wasn't very good, but a friend in middle/high school took an interest in it (he was an entrepeneural type) and so I developed it into what is now sort of a "mini-4X"-game, in that you have a big topographic grid with natural resources, claimable districts, intertwining paths, etc.
Since the game's only source of randomness is rolling to move (and even that is very liberal), I decided to use the chance cards to give some much needed variety to the game. I divided them into a few different categories; winds of fate, politics and state intrigue for now. They're all drawn from the same pile, however.
First category is mostly chance; but the chance for bad consequences increase depending on *your* previous choices. Eg. you can build coal power plants for a cheap source of power, but a lot of the chance cards involve negative effects *if* you have coal power plants. Nuclear power plants have the very rare chance of a meltdown, and so on. Having invested in green power, on the other hand, may even give technological breakthroughs; but they're often expensive and inflexible to build.
So there's always a trade-off to what you choose to build.
The other categories offer different dilemmas with different ways of dealing with them. State intrigue I find the most fun because it offers you extremely lucrative deals involving illegal trade. Some cards may even let you sabotage other players. However, there's also a chance to draw a card involving a crackdown, which is harmless if you have nothing to hide but can decimate your economy if you do.
There's also Favours and Grievances: Going out of your way to solve a dilemma the "hard way" may earn you Favours; trying to skimp on them may net you Grievances. A Favour may suddenly give you a way out of a difficult situation; Grievances only make a bad situation worse.
memory in gamesis tricky cause its one of those things that can be fun in some settings and leading to players optimizing the fun out of the game in others.
For example, in Catan technically everyone knows what resources everyone else picked up and use at every moment, but I very much enjoy watching my friend struggling to remember whether I still had that piece wood in my hand to try and steal it or if I had used it already and he should go for someone else.
consulting tables works way better in a digital board game where it's done in the background and the players don't even need to see the table
as long as it's fairly intuitive
If there are other ways to achieve the same outcome then that is better. For example, in Formula 1, you could have a spinner that has different sized wedges for the different outcomes instead of rolling dice and consulting a look-up table, which wouldn't change the gameplay at all but would keep it slightly more immersive.
When it comes to "exact rolls", I'd like to nominate the Finnish game "Afrikan tähti" ("Star of Africa") from 1951 as a surprisingly modern take (every single Norwegian who reads this is going to go "Wait, that game is Finnish?", just like I did a few years back). You run around in Africa using a single die throw each turn, and each big city has one secret tile you can reveal when you land there. Usually it's a gem that gives you money, but some are blank, some have bandits that take all your cash, and exactly one triggers the end of the game.
These cities are also fast travel hubs. So landing on them is good even when there are no tiles on them. When there are tiles on them, you can stop when you reach it, but when there isn't you have to throw exact distance. Which means that for the most important part of game progression the game is lenient on your throws, but when you want to use just the fast travel network for convenience you have to decide whether you want to try for several turns to get into the closest city, or just book it to your goal the hard way. It's a good balance IMO.
The reason Candyland and Snakes and Ladders are kids games is because it is all chance. Everyone has similar odds of winning. It indocrinates the little buggers into the socially acceptable illusion that life is fair. That rich people will have to deal with the same pronlems. That a child with minimal magical training can defeat the most powerful evil wizard in generations with courage and a few friends willing to sacrifice themselves for the plot.
I thought this video was titled "how not to design a WOODEN board game" and clicked it out of pure confusion lmao
Just bought my copy of the Board Game Designer Journal. (and I'm not even half way through the video. :D )
Thanks! Hope you find it helpful! :)
A game I remember playing as a kid was Omega Virus, an electronic board game for 1-4 players. Players would have to find the tools that were needed to fight the virus that had taken over the station that they were exploring. The board represented the station and was divided into 4 sectors with 6 rooms each. Of those rooms a player could only enter the green rooms at the start of the game, and they would have to find a key card to gain access to the red/blue/yellow rooms which were where whare the tools were able to be located. Once they had all three tools, they could confront the virus and try to stop it to win the game. How did a player know where the virus was you ask, a player would input a 2 digit code of their choice when the game was set up at the start and listen for that code on their turn after searching a room, if the code that the virus gave after they did their search was the code the player entered at the start of the game, then the room they just searched was the room the virus was hiding in. Warning though, players are on the clock because if the virus isn't found and destroyed before a certain amount of time had passed (I think an hour, I might be miss remembering that, I haven't played in over 20 years.) then the virus would win and all players would lose. After set intervales, then one of the sectors that the virus wasn't hiding in would be shut down by the virus and no longer be available for the rest of the game, and given that you had to visit more then one sector to get all the tools, then if the station was down to the last sector(IE the sector that the virus is in) and you didn't have the one tool that couldn't be found in that sector while playing by yourself then game over because the tools could only be found in the matching color room (red/blue/yellow) and each sector had 3 green rooms and the remaining 3 rooms were split 2/1 between 2 of the other 3 colors. Also if I remember correctly, except for the green sector, no sector had a room of that color. Red/Blue/Yellow rooms were split evenly between the 3 in terms of the number of rooms of each. Almost forgot to mention the droid that a player could find that would give them an extra turn, you couldn't fight the virus with it, but it could be used to scout ahead to try and find the virus and any tools you didn't have if you had a key card for the room color a tool was found in.
Whoa, the Thunder Road example is amazing game design!!
As an American, never heard of Top Trump, but the gameplay description rang a bell for a game I had in the late 1980s and still play with my young daughters. Crucially though, Tall Bird-Short Bird collapses the list of attributes to just 1: height; and you *do* have player choice. On each player's turn, everyone selects a card from their hand without revealing it, and the player whose turn it is only declares whether the goal is to have the tallest or the shortest bird *after* everyone's card is committed. Combined with the fact that you have separate cards for the upper and lower body and your decisions stack up on each other, it's surprising deep but easy to teach to preschoolers.
What is the game @ 33:02? Has colored bicycles riding over mounds of dirt? Never seen that game before, is it any good? Can I still get it? Or see a video of the game play?
It’s BMX Raleigh Burners from MB games. Long out of print, but probably beaten up old copies available on eBay. It’s not “good” by modern standards, but it has interesting ideas. I’ll cover it a bit more in my next video.
@@AdaminWales Thanks for the information. I have never seen a game like that before and it caught my attention. Is there a modern/updated version (aka good) game that is similar?
30:18 Also known as BUGs (Big Useless Garbage) by the guy making Chemicards (formerly titled as the UNO Amalgam), which is a deliberately-unwisely designed card game that combines the rules of all 800+ variants of UNO into one. A lot of UNO variants have that Mattel money, so they can get away with plastic battery-powered gimmicks. Turns out, a lot of the gimmicks can be accurately simulated with dice and maybe a counting system.
Have you ever heard of Warhammer 40k the tabletop war game? I’m curious if you have a better example of interesting ranged combat, as opposed to the clunky table format system? I’m trying to design a more interesting and yet more streamlined version on a smaller board.
I played a lot of 40K around 15 years ago. I think the reference-table format is probably suited to this style of game where there are so many different potential interacting pieces - it’s a hugely complex game. So my advice to avoid reference tables in board games probably doesn’t extend to tabletop miniatures games.
I don’t really play any combat-focused games these days. You could look at the Undaunted board games, or Memoir 44, as examples of fairly simple board games with a war theme. For more skirmish-style, the dungeon crawlers may have interesting systems for ranged combat. Many of them seem to use custom dice. This seems like a reasonable solution. The dice you roll depend on the weapon you’re using, or distance from target - with different shaped dice (D6,D8,D10 etc) and different results distribution on the sides.
But I’m not an expert on this.
I like the combat system in Star Wars Shatterpoint. That is very cinematic.
@@AdaminWales Thanks I really appreciate your comment and your insights on the industry. I'll have to check out Shatterpoint.
In the context of the video 100% no notes. But.... It helps to remember the context the games developed in, Shoots and Ladder and it's ancient predecessor where morality teaching games, if this then this, the idea was a low stakes way for children to see what happened to people who misbehaved without 'endangering' their own morality by making the bad choice, or gaining prestige by making a good one, add in a bit of you can always keep going even if you screw up (the original only ended after everyone made it to the end) and it's a good tool for the purpose. Monopoly on the other hand was one of the most screwed by the publisher games ever and the frustration factor is a result of the publisher fundamentally changing the games premise, it's meant to be played collectively NOT competitively, the very premise is an overly competitive player ruins the game for everyone!
Initially, I'd typed out a much larger response to this video, detailing specific points and, some might say objections to the statements made in it. Turns out, I typed far more than RUclips allows, so here's the gist of it, though I'm not opposed to sharing my longer views some other way.
- It seems, near the end, the perspective of the video abruptly shifts from "what will make your game FUN" to "what will get your game PUBLISHED" which, to me, are two vastly different things, and much of the statements in the video I objected to made much more sense in the scope of "getting a game published". I'd reccommend being more upfront about which angle you're coming from, because your statement at 1:00 left a direct impression on me that these were all objectively unfun mechanics
- The video IS well-made, and was still both enjoyable to watch and informative, and I will be checking out your channel to view more of your content moving forward. The in-depth look at various mechanics, including several real-life examples being mentioned that I haven't heard of before, is highly appealing to me, and may very end up leading me to my next favourite tabletop game!
- But... have you heard of the game Intercept? It hails from the late 70's, and boasts itself as an electronic board game... it's strikingly similar to Battleship, moreso the tank game you mentioned after it, but I can honestly say I've found it to be one of my favourite older games, even going so far as to call it a hidden gem. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, if you have the chance to play it physically.
Event cards can be functional as long as they are fair, or you can only draw one of your own free will. Ways to make them fair can either be that they effect everyone when drawn, that they don't change the status quo too much (or that you're able to plan ahead to mitigated the effects of most event cards), that they are consistent (either always positive, always negative, etc.) so you know whether to go for them or avoid them, and possibly by making the one who drew the card (or those who drew it, if multiple players drew it together) to be able to choose between different choices (where each choice has the same positive or negative weight (example; "either: [gain gold but lose crystal] or [gain crystal and another player also gains crystal]") on the event card so that players still has control of what happenes.
I haven't made a board-game myself, so I'm simply going over how a few board-games i enjoy handled the problems.
Random events can prevent games from being solvable, increase difficulty, and add complexity, sentinels of the multiverse, red dragon inn, etc.
This advice is better than I thought, but I really enjoy some of the games that are named
I enjoy many of them too :) The focus is supposed to be on the ‘mechanisms’ not the entire game. One bad mechanism doesn’t ruin the whole thing, but it might make it unmarketable.
@@AdaminWales yes you're absolutely right about the marketability. I gave the video a thumbs up in the end, hopefully I find some of your other videos as high quality
So can roll-and move mechanics work in better games where multiple actions can be taken? Basically, if you get to move less, you are allowed to take more of some other action?
I made a whole other video about how Roll & Move can be an excellent mechanism if done right!
How to Design a ROLL & MOVE Board Game
ruclips.net/video/Fflv2nCikrs/видео.html
I absolutely adore Fluxx! I love building absurd rule sets that result in burning through a ridiculous number of cards in one turn either through forced play or drawing way more than you can use.
A similar game with just a much chaos but a little bit more strategy is Unstable Unicorns, my favorite card game to date.
I've heard someone say Monopoly makes for a good group bonding event with your friends.
But you know what also does that? An actual good game
One great game for kids is Carla Caramel. It is easy to understand: build ice creme cones and give them to children before they melt under the Sun. We choose where to add ice creme (just behind the moving Sun or on the cone in front of the Sun to be ready to give?) and when to give a ice creme cone to a kid (give the only 1-flavour cone now or wait to have a 3-flavour cone that may melt under the Sun?). My 2 years old nephew love that game and it was fun for the adults.
Can I make random events with effects in several turns for the player to prepare for them?
So, the way we played Top Trumps as kids in my town was a bluffing game thanks to one simple rule I had no idea was a base rule, you list the name of the catogory, but not the value. You'd bluff playing a middeling number on a card like "Height 5'4" to force your opponents into a choice, they can play their highest height, but YOU got to choose the stat, so you likly have that as a high stat, so they can play a trash card to loose it, but if you played a middaling card, they can loose to a card they'd normally beat!
The list game mechanics in this video reminds me of blue mana decks in Magic the Gathering :D
"If someone doesn't get to play, there's a problem with your design"
I would agree with you, but I've seen games of the highly regarded Pandemic where the game was over before player 4 got to their first turn.
Game Designers. If you want to put these in your game. Do it. It's your game, not Adam's.
A houserule in monopoly that we had was that those in jail were unable to collect rent. Dunno why, I think it might have been in some ruleset we read ages ago or something.
Number 9 is what designers should aspire to in theory, but it just doesn't happen in practice. Most games lie about player counts, not all of them are practical or enjoyable and there is usually one that is obviously better. Most games that are good at 2 players don't scale up and vice-versa. Most games where the systems scale well have issues with game duration and downtime as player count increases. It's common for those that are snappy enough that time isn't a huge concern to not scale *down* very well and to be best at or near max player count. Component cost and size issues also happen. Your SdJ-candidate will probably sell better as a medium sized box for 30€ than as a TTR-sized one for 45€, and so will not include the materials for 5-6 players.
Games designed to be truly flexible about player count are not that common and tend to rely on the same small set of mechanics, so the experiences you can offer that way are limited.
I've got an (unannounced) roll & move game coming out towards the end of the year. I'm very proud of it.
That’s great Geoff! I’ll definitely keep an eye out for it :)