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Designing the Best Board Game
An anonymous reader writes: Twilight Struggle tops BoardGameGeek's ranking of user-rated board games, handily beating classics like Puerto Rico, Settlers of the Catan, and Risk. FiveThirtyEight has an article about the game's design, and how certain design choices can affect enjoyment. Quoting: "Gupta has a few theories about why his game has done so well. For one, it's a two-player game — the Americans vs. the Soviets. Two-player games are attractive for a couple of reasons. First, by definition, half the players win. People like winning, and are likely to replay and rate highly a game they think they have a chance to win. ... The data offers some evidence for Gupta's hypothesis. Games that support three players rate highest, with an average of 6.58. But two-player games are a close second, with an average rating of 6.55. Next closest are five-player games, which average 6.39. ... The shortest games are the lowest rated, on average. But players don't favor length without bounds. Three hours seems to be right around the point of diminishing marginal returns. Another key to the game's success is its mix of luck and skill."
What design elements do you particularly enjoy or hate in board games?
I like my board games to be based purely on chance. #LifeforLife
That said, the number of people who agree with me are going to be very limited. It's complicated, takes a day to play, the rules are obtuse and it's intended as a strategic simulation and hardly captures any wartime flavor or even individual units. I find most games - particularly the ones listed in the summary - to mostly be a bore.
It's illustrative of the issue - there is no best game.
(4th edition rules of the original AH game is my preference, for those who care)
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Any game where I can say "I've got wood for sheep" is tops in my book.
I have a monopoly on wood. My buddy nags me 4 turns in a row to trade him some wood and I refuse. Finally he rolls the robber and decides to target me out of spite, and the fact he will get to steal my last card after I've discarded the majority of a full hand. He's rubbing his hands together with a shit eating grin saying "now you have to finally give me that wood you bastard." Having not discarded yet.... I just casually glance up then back down at my cards, and discard every wood card but a single sheep. "Have fun with your new GF in NZ sucker." Tables flip..... and another night of Catan is concluded.
I play board games two or three times a week. I love games with elegant rules which still lead to a game that can be played over and over. I've been playing bridge for 30 years, and I still find something new every time I play. Dominion and Werewolf are really neat elegant systems, but nearly every game is a new experience.
I also need to be able to improve. I think Royal Turf is an elegant game, but I know the ideal strategy and don't enjoy playing anymore. Whereas I have a lot to learn to be a better Zendo player and a better poker player, and will never master either game.
You still can't beat Monopoly.
The unofficial Free Parking jackpot in Monopoly was my favorite thing about any board game ever.
The best games for me have a good deal of strategic depth, but are comfortable for casual players. As an adult it is very hard for me to find a large group of hard core gamers, so casual gamers have to do. But I want to be entertained too.
The best trade-off I have found is a game with a little randomness but not too much, and one that helps players who are losing catch up. This allows the good players to be rewarded for their good play instead of just luck, but also keeps the game competitive until the end.
The best game I have found so far for this is Power Grid. It has simple rules, a good deal of strategy, and many game mechanics that give players a chance to catch up. It is often in a player's best interest to not get too far ahead because they will be too harshly punished by the "catch up" mechanics. And that ultimately just adds more strategic depth to the game.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
It must not last longer than 3h, must be 90%+ skill based and preferrably not be medieval themed. I loath chance-driven games. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, the game must not foster too much direct player-to-player offense as that incites vengeful behavior and bad atmosphere. German Eurogames usually hit all the sweet spots for me (except the theme one). Eclipse rocks in all aspects (and isn't German, I believe).
You mean, of course, evidence that his hypothesis is wrong...
FAIL
I prefer games where either the randomness is minimized, or there ar emultiple ways around bad luck. Multiple ways to win is also important.
is pretty great. My group of friends have got deeply in to it recently, most of them being people who would never play board games and hadn't watched the show (or read the books). It's clear they took a lot of inspiration from Risk but has more than enough new elements to stop any sort of comparisons.
The design is well thought out, each house needs a completely different strategy and tactics which keeps it from going stale. Forming alliances (which to win you are going to have to betray at some point) always makes things interesting.
MAD Magazine and Tom Koch nailed it with "Three-Cornered Pitney". Any good board game should involve uncooked popcorn kernels, conch hackers, rolling whirtlings, and pancakes.
Some cooperative games (Space Alert, Escape, Pandemic) allow everyone to win as a group, which makes everyone feel good. But as Reiner Knizia put it "the best games are where the losers feel like they also won." Where even the losers have met goals in the game, have felt like they played well, or have enjoyed themselves. Who cares who wins at Cards Against Humanity? We don't even keep score in Concept. If a game has rewards along the way, where I can look back at a game and be happy with some of my good plays, it makes losing the game not so bad, maybe even irrelevant. I like to win poker tournaments, but if I've made a particularly good bluff or clever trap call, I feel good about my play even if I end up losing.
Do you know this history of Monopoly? No, it wasn't invented by Charles Darrow.
It was a woman. Whose credit for the game is still widely ignored. What was her name? Apparently nobody cares!
I spend a lot of time with my wife playing Pandemic. We love the fact that it is hard to win, but a cooperative rather than competitive play.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
Things I like in a board/card game:
1) Rules that are relatively easy to pick up in a short time even by casual players
2) A balanced game where proper play should provide a reasonable chance for all players to win
3) An element of randomness but one that demands calculation of odds ala poker (outcomes not pure chance)
4) Playable by groups of 2-4 people.
5) Easy to learn and play competently but hard to master completely
6) Can be played in a relatively short amount of time
7) Socially fun and with minimal frustration (though sneaky tactics are fine)
8) Some monetary investment is fine but should be playable without being a money pit
9) Replayable
Games I like: Carcassone, casual poker, sealed deck Magic:The Gathering, Battletech,
Games that are ok but overrated: Chess, Checkers, Go, Uno, serious poker, Trivial Pursuit
Games I loathe: Pictionary, Monopoly, Risk,
A good game requires continual player investment
Killer Bunnies is a good example of this. Through-out the game you are trying to collect carrots because your chances of winning are determined by numCarrots/totalCarrots. All players usually manage to get at least one carrot, but better players get more. Even a bad player can win, so they will remain invested to see if their chance of winning (even if 5%), pays off. The silly antics of the game and the entertainment of watching carrots getting stolen from other players keeps them invested as well.
Monopoly, Risk, and Settlers are a good example of how a game becomes boring when it is obvious you are going to lose. Mid-way through the game, half of the players are no longer interested because they are certain they will lose and usually it is obvious who will win. How many Monopoly, Risk and Settlers games get called mid-way because they are too long and too obvious.
Dungeons and Dragons (not necessarily a board game) is as good of a game as the DM keeps the players interested.
A good game should have simple rules, but hard to master.
Chess has the maximum amount of rules for a game.
Most casual game players the rules need to be simple as they can start playing quickly. Without feeling like an idiot. However even though the rules may be simple, there is a lot of different strategies to try to win.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If you can't make a drinking game out of it, it's not worth playing.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
I like abstract strategy games, but I don't like heavy memorization. Chess is popular so it's easy to find opponents, but memorizing the opening book is necessary if you want to get good. It's also very easy for weaker players to lose the game from a single blunder, which is unsatisfying for everybody. Arimaa was designed to be difficult for computers because of the very high branching factor, and that same property also makes it interesting for humans.
Arimaa can be played on a Chess board, and the rules are simple. Memorization is completely useless. You're forced to use intuition, in a way more like Go than Chess. There are no draws. Comebacks from inferior material are much more common than in Chess. It feels like Chess without the boring bits. It's still too new to tell if it's a truly great abstract strategy game, but people are already playing it at a very high level with no obvious flaw in the rules. I recommend trying it:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/
The rules must be extremely simple and straight forward, no ambiguities.
The game must be extremely difficult to play at the highest level of expertise.
The game must be handicapped to allow weak players to challenge strong players, when they have a handicap in their advantage.
The game must be able to raise your IQ, the better you play it.
The game must be able to transform your mind and let you see things that you never saw before.
The game must be balanced. A perfectly played game should be won by the least possible margin.
The game should have sacrifice to gain advantage.
The game should allow you to loose a battle, but still be able to win a war.
The game should punish greed.
The game should have an opening, middle game, and end game. Each phase of the game should determine the outcome of win versus loss.
There should be no opening book.
The game should be nearly impossible for a computer to play at an expert level.
The game should show the superiority of human pattern recognition, strategy, and logic over a computer's capacity to perform the same tasks.
The game should clearly show the difference between strategy and tactics, with both elements being present in any game.
The game should be all based on skill with no randomicity, such as rolling dice or spinning a wheel.
I'm an avid board games collector, but I have specific interests.
I like "mathematically interesting" board games. A lot of the big-name games just don't do it for me. I also like board games with well-designed elements and pieces, no matter how bad the actual game. Yes, I'm odd.
I quite like the Pac-Man from the MB Game Pac-Man board game. It's a piece of design that I love. And I quite like the "inifinite board" concept of a Mad-Max like car board game I have called Thunderoad (also went by other names). But I really like things like Super Cluedo and even Cluedo: The Great Museum Caper (Cluedo = Clue in the US). However the original Cluedo is just boring. It's about how well it works as a game, not some hard-and-fast rule for what works.
It's the old story - you have to have something that nobody's seen before and telling you how to do that is impossible.
Strangely, I find RPGs and other tabletop games uninteresting for the most part.
The best trade-off I have found is a game with a little randomness but not too much
I concur.
I have played some games with very little randomness, and for me at least they become "brain-burners" where I try to think three or four moves ahead. When I tried Caragena I had this problem. If there is some randomness, I can relax until it's my turn.
Also, some games that seem to contain a whole lot of randomness can become statistically predictable. If a game has you rolling a set of dice a dozen times in your turn, each roll is random but over all the rolls it averages out. In games like Can't Stop there is an undeniable element of luck, but it's less than a game that puts a great deal of importance on a single toss of the dice.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Games where there is a lot of variety and games with negotiation are golden in my book. This is why I adore Cosmic Encounter and Dune. Both games are made by the same guys and they were far ahead of their time. You will never play two same games of Cosmic Encounter or Dune. Such great games. Cosmic Encounter is definitely far easier to get to the table because Dune basically is best with exactly six players... and Dune can be too long for some players. I should also add that Dune was reprinted as Rex (rethemed sci-fi game in the Twilight Imperium universe) because the Herbert estate wouldn't give rights to use the theme again, so if you want to play a proper copy of Dune, it can be pricey. The Dune theme is also a big fun-factor for me, so I will always prefer to play Dune over Rex. Theme is usually a huge factor in me liking a game or not. Games with light theme tend to be lower on my list.
I also really love cooperative games, but I know that some people HATE those types of games. Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island is a 10/10 for me. Dripping with theme and so fun to play. It also plays amazingly well solo, so that is always a plus for a game. :-)
~Kat ^_^
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
I enjoy euro board games, and strategy video games, but Twilight Struggle was just too much. You spend hours figuring out all the rules, then hours to play a game that never gets exciting. I'm sure after memorizing the hundreds of rules, cards, actions, etc you can come up with some strategy but until then there is too much chance limiting your possible strategies. I'm truly baffled at how this is the highest rated game on BGG.
Oh... I also left out that Cosmic Encounter is a game with basically zero downtime, since everyone is usually involved in everyone else's turn. That can be something that keeps people happy in games when they HATE waiting for their turn. I am far more patient than some players, since I can handle old-school wargames that take all day to play, but I am easily in the minority. ;-)
~Kat ^_^
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
The universe of voters on Board Game Geek may not be representative...
Well, I suppose it depends on your crew. While I am indeed a board game geek, I don't always play with like minded folks. Some of my favorite games are those that may not be anyones' favorite, but they are pretty great for just about anyone. I'm specifically thinking about Cards against Humanity and Wits and Wagers, which are will be devoured by pretty much anyone playing for the first time.
When you are close to the end of your own play testing phase you need to build multiple prototypes.
If you want to get the word out to people about your game, particularly sites that review games and recommend them to potential crowd funding audience is that you must have betas you can send to people.
And don't underestimate the time required to develop, build and create a beta for your game, in-house playtesting can take months of refinement. Review feedback is going to add a new cycle of changes / testing.
It's a big investment both in time and materials even before you reach out for funding, and after all that you may not be able to reach your goal, so be prepared for that up front.
crazy dynamite monkey
Sealed deck or not Magic is still a game of chance.
Nothing wrong with that. There is a high degree of skill in the game just like poker. Yes you can have a bad beat but on average the better player usually wins.
Who wants to play a game with other people?
I loved this game; it totally ate my brain when it came out. Basically an event deck for chess so you get cards like "Move your Bishop as if it were a Knight" style cards. You can play it better if you know a tiny bit of chess openings but good chess knowledge can also hinder you if, for example, a card is played which swaps the directions of move and capture for pawns - all your pawn structure knowledge goes out of the window.
I also played it with a stacked deck rather than a shuffled one to lessen the randomisation - put good early game cards at the top of the deck and escape cards for your king near the bottom.
TS is an amazing game, with only two flaws that I can see: First it has an awkward positioning on the board game spectrum and has aspects that might turn off both wargamers and players of euros. Second: it's difficult for somebody to play for the first time against someone who has played the game even two or three times. That's because there's so much advantage to be taken of even a vague recollection of the events that have to come in the different phases of the game. I tried to teach it including pointing out some cards and what they imply on the game but that's awkward and the beginner usually cannot remember anyway.
If I was asked to design my idea of the most boring game ever, Twilight Struggle would be it. Cons: limited to two players, pasted on theme is "alternate history" of recent events (most of it within my lifetime) board design is a world map, runs overlong, verbose text on cards, graphics stolen from back issues of Life magazine. If this is what the majority of BGG users like, I'll have to stop referring to it-- to say they are geeks is a gross understatement, as they must be all still living in their parent's basement.
Calling Twilight Struggle the best boardgame on the basis of its BGG ranking is quite a stretch. BGG rankings are not to be taken as absolute statements of a game's quality or popularity. Just take into account that most people won't necessarily go back to rerate a game after a few years have passed. Also, a game which would never even be considered for play except by the enthusiasts (like Twilight Struggle...) will have its score inflated. A game like Dominion, which was much more popular and had a significantly higher impact on the industry sits lower in the rankings because its mass appeal meant it was exposed to more people who weren't enthousiasts of its genre, and its huge popularity led to people playing derivatives of Dominion before playing it, also negatively affecting its score.
The reality is that Twilight Struggle is a heavy, sort of bland game which appeals to a very limited crowd of enthousiasts. It also has had little impact on the industry as few games copied its system. I find it difficult to qualify it as the "best" game. I think Dominion and Pandemic are much better candidates for this title, at least in recent years, based on their impact on the industry.
Certainly, the industry is currently moving away from heavy games like Twilight Struggle.
Cones of Dunshire. Greatest ever.
It's called "Mind Games" - board game manufacturers use the Mensa organization to test new games over an intensive period of several days in a different city each year. Board game addicts within the organization converge on this event from a wide variety of places.
I've nothing against Chess, Go, Shogi or any other "classic" game; but frankly they're a completely different beast to the modern, commercial board game, and I'd play them under completely different circumstances. Attempting to bring them to this sort of discussion is apples and oranges.
That's one advantage of mostly cooperative board games where there might be a hidden "traitor" among the players who wins if the group loses (e.g. Shadows Over Camelot, Battlestar Galactica). With that possibility on the table, players can't just trust somebody else to make decisions and have to pay attention to what everyone else is doing (usually in these games, exposing the traitor has some reward, at least insofar as it curtails his ability to continue undermining the group).
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Bridge has the "one player gets knocked out very early" aspect to it, but it's fine. Dummy's job is to go mix the next round of drinks for everybody.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's a serious, interesting game, but you not only have to put a huge amount of work and study into it before you're any good, but also you need to have opponents around who are of a vaguely similar level. Yes, there's a handicap system, but playing a game with a 9-stone handicap is still mostly the smart guy teaching the newbie (and playing 13-stone is just silly.) And watching games between people who are far enough ahead of you doesn't teach you much.
I used to work in a building with about 4000 engineers and scientists, a fair number of them Chinese, and there was a lunchtime Go club with a few dozen players. Newbies are rated around 25 kyu, a couple of guys were in the 15-20 range, but most of the people were 9 kyu or better. When my officemate made sho-dan, he was nowhere near the best around; there were a couple of 3-4 dan players. So basically, if one of the not-so-hot players was around, I could play a game that wasn't ridiculously handicapped, but I really would have needed a year of serious self-study before I'd be able to have much fun playing a lunch time, and I had better things to do.
I played chess a lot growing up and with chess club in high school, and had reached the point that I understood the aesthetics of chess enough to know that it wasn't fun to watch me playing :-) I didn't totally suck at it, but it wasn't much of a social experience.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
A decade or so ago I played a LOTR game that was semi-cooperative. (There are presumably other LOTR games around.) You're playing one of the fellowship of the ring characters, and you're competing against each other, but Sauron's also moving, and if he gets to the ring before you get it to the volcano in Mordor, you all lose.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I disagree with much of the discussion and analysis in the article - optimal number of players and game length depends a lot on the group your playing with. How many people are at the event, is it a gaming event or is it a party where there are also games, how much do the people want to talk about the game vs. non-game socializing while playing.
Back when my wife was playing games a couple of nights a week and I was occasionally joining, the right choices seemed to be games that could handle 3-5 players because that let you get a table of people together but was somewhat flexible since different people liked different games, and it was occasionally useful to have pickup games that could handle as many as 6-8. 2-player games were less social, so they were mainly useful as quick filler games if you had latecomers or the other games were full up, but longer 2-player games were more useful for playing at home. Consistent length was also valuable - everybody breaks up into groups to play a game, and when the first round of games ends, people can switch around easily if they all take about the same amount of time. I think the optimum tended to be 1.5-2 hours, but I don't remember as well. (Or you could play short games if they had enough depth to play two or three rounds in a row.)
Settlers and similar Eurogames filled that niche pretty well, or maybe they defined it. A different niche was the large Ameritrash war games where one game lasts 4-5 hours. I haven't played those (unless you count Risk, years ago), so I'm less sure how many players they want, but I think they're 4-6, rather than 2 or 3.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I like the mix of randomness with the dice but the 'skill' in maximizing your potential.
This is to me the almost pefect game.
Personally, I dislike games that take three hours to play and hinge on the outcome of three or four crucial die rolls. Like in Twilight Struggle. Overrated? Oh yes. Two exciting decisions and one momentum-swinging-die roll per hour is not enough fun density for my tastes.
The rules are some of the best I've ever read though. They're fluidly laid out (despite being delineated in dry, numbered sub-sections) and contain interesting historical footnotes for every card.