Great Tension

Post by: Grant Rodiek

Tension is one of, if not the, most important ingredients in a great design.

Recently I played a new game for the first time. I was very excited to play this game based on the initial read of the rules. I actually enjoy reading and writing rules and I find them the first point of excitement for me. This game had 2 really neat mechanics, one of which is called Tension.

As we played the game, it became clear that the Tension mechanic was a lie and that tension had been removed almost entirely from the game. It completely removed the fun, the excitement, and the thrill of the game.

Josh and I can relate to this from earlier versions of Hocus Poker. As we wandered through the iterative wilderness trying to find our game’s soul, our game lacked tension. We realized this about the same time we hit our eureka moment, but now it’s a notion that’s so stuck in my craw I daresay I shant forget it soon. In these versions of Hocus, players had no pressures on their decisions. They had few risks to take. The game rewarded conservative play and waiting until you could win it all.

There was no tension and as a result, our game suffered. When we added limited turns before the end of the round, which can be determined by your opponents’ play and schemes, and limited the amount of things you could accomplish? Hocus became a game.

Let’s talk about tension and why your game desperately needs it.

Tension has a few definitions. I know this is a cliche way to begin a discussion, but it’s relevant here.

As a noun:

  1. the state of being stretched tight
  2. mental or emotional strain

As a verb:

  1. apply a force to (something) that tends to stretch it

Let’s keep these in mind as we identify the key elements of tension.

Constrain

The definitions sound negative, and there are times when we fear we’re pushing players too hard, but that’s not the case here. You can’t always get what you want, in life or good games, and you’ll find that if you force a difficult choice upon your players, there will be great satisfaction when they discover what it is they really need

The state of being stretched tight is beautifully demonstrated in games like Ra, 7 Wonders, or Race for the Galaxy. Yes, you can try to dominate every category, but really, working on 2-3 is sufficient. Monuments and pharaohs? Perhaps! Science and military? Also valid.

Worker placement is also excellent in this regard. You have 3 workers. What resources do you most wish to collect? What is the chain of events you most need to see occur?

Eclipse does this simply with an economic limitation. Sure, you may wish to research a new laser, and conquer a new system, and assault your opponent, but all of those tax your limited and fragile economy.

Netrunner deckbuilding does this with a limit on non-faction influence. With a Chaos Identity, you can use all the Chaos cards you want. But you’re strictly limited on Shaper and Criminal cards. I think one of the most important deckbuilding decisions is not what cards you take from the limitless pool, but which you take from the finite one. These cards show your wit and innovation in play.

Constrain your players. Put a box around them! Do not force them through a narrow shoot, which is limiting and boring. But, fence them in and let them decorate their personal diorama as they choose with their actions.

Obfuscate

Obvious choices are poor ones and grow old after some time. Or, rather quickly. If everyone can easily ascertain the value of something in an auction game, it deflates the balloon of joy with all the pomp of a slobbery fart sound. If you are locked into a strategy, either due to the shallowness of the design or your choices, you may check out as the game meanders to a close.

Obfuscation leads to mental and emotional strain. The good kind! You want the situation where player A takes their turn, player B says “Damn you!” and player C groans and puts their head in their hands. Uncertainty and a lack of clear direction is so delightful.

Modern Art does a great job of obfuscation as you don’t know how much money (i.e. points) your opponents have and some of the auctions are blind. But, it’s not too opaque as you know the approximate value of what things are worth.

X-Wing has great obfuscation as you don’t know precisely where an opponent’s ship will maneuver. You know where they could go. You know where they should go. You know where you’d like them to go. But you don’t know where they will go.

Netrunner does a great job giving the Corporate player a wall of fog to put up before the Runner. Is that an Agenda that they can score? If so, how soon can they score it? Is it a trap that can kill me? Is that an Upgrade that’ll make my life more difficult? Is that an Asset that’ll give them a fat payout?

City Hall, if you pay attention, seems clear. You can see that Bob is trying to build more housing. You know he needs two actions. You also see he has quite a few cards in his hand, but you’re not sure how many are Influence, how badly the others want the action, and how much they’ll drive the cost.

Obfuscation is about eliminating perfect information, but also about curtailing the number of possibilities such that the strain is fun, not overwhelming. People are bored by indecision, both their own and that of other players. Games with too many possibilities feel directionless.

Tax

These elements are ingredients and optional ones. To have great tension you probably need a few of them, but not all of them. I say that as this one will be highly contentious. You need to tax your players. Things should come with a cost.

There are many ways to do this, ranging from simple to cruel.

  • Hand limits — you can only keep so many!
  • Discard to play (ex: discard 1 card to play this other card)
  • End of round upkeep (ex: feed your family)
  • Spend finite or recurring currency to pay for actions (ex: Netrunner credits or Magic Mana)

Taxation is similar to constraint, but in addition to having limited actions and choices, you also need to pay for it. You need to lose something to gain something. This additional trade off beautifully complements constraint.

You only have so many silver bullets. When, and at whom, do you fire them?

End It

I couldn’t think of a clever verb heading for this one, but the idea is that you must always be advancing the game’s end state. Like death and taxes in our real lives, players need to know that the game will end, whether they want it to or not, and they need to make the most of their finite time on this Earth. I mean game.

In Farmageddon, players draw from the deck every turn and when that deck is empty, the game ends.

Many games simply have a limited number of rounds.

Many games lately literally have a time limit. We call this “real time” (as opposed to false time?).

Constantly advance the game state and force it to conclude. This creates wonderful tension and makes the final decisions all the more agonizing. Force your players to create a strategic bucket list.

This is getting a bit long for a Friday blog. Your game must have tension to succeed. You must challenge your players to work within constraints, and force them to accomplish twice as many things as it seems they are able to do.

What are your favorite ingredients for crafting tension? What are some great examples of tension in games?

Mechanisms that Perturb

Post by: Grant Rodiek

Designers often discuss favorite mechanisms, games that inspire, and things they like, but we often skirt the issue of things we don’t like. There’s good reasons for this, in that you don’t necessarily want to criticize one’s peers, or be a Negative Niles. However, I think, if positioned properly, this might lead to an interesting discussion. Or, at least an interesting statement of perspectives.

Therefore, I seek to discuss mechanisms that perturb. These are mechanisms or activities in game that tend to grate against my enjoyment and appeal to me less as a designer. Note that every single one of these has an exception, a champion of doing it properly. The point of this article is not to say “this is always bad,” but more for me to note things I care for less.

You’ll find I ask questions throughout. Feel free to respond in the comments!

Interrupt Cards, and/or Out of Turn Play: This is a mechanism I find is almost always done poorly and it drives me insane. Introducing decisions outside of a player’s turn almost always increases complexity and requires additional explanations for a variety of conditions. Note that I’m discussing turn-based games. If a game isn’t turn based, then out of turn play is fine.

The most notorious offender is the legendary “stack” of Magic, where one must gauge the priority of interrupts and instants and monster attacks. But, many light games, especially take-thats, introduce this and I feel it adds unnecessary complexity.

Netrunner, a favorite, introduces out of turn play/decisions in the form of runs on the server. Players need to decide what servers to rez (i.e. activate) and such. But, by and large, you know that when you’re taking actions, it’s your turn.

Interrupts are generally just awful, for the simple reason they invalidate a turn. It feels lousy to the recipient and often cheap. In my head, it always feels like:

“I want to do this.”

“Nope.”

“…Okay.”

I think it’s very important that players get to make a decision or do something interesting on every turn. Passing, without strategy, having interrupts, or having to weave through layers of what can/can’t happen due to interrupts really hinder this.

What’s your favorite game with out of turn play? What’s your favorite time to interrupt?

Worker Placement without Blocking: For me, the number one best part of worker placement is the tension of spaces being blocked and your opportunity being denied. There is the delicious choice of taking something before its time, or holding out to see if you can claim your first, second, AND third choice.

I feel that worker placement without blocking is like beer without alcohol. It’s lite sour cream. It’s a wolf without teeth. It’s another metaphor.

An exception that comes to mind is the Raider station in Alien Frontiers. It’s intuitive (have a higher straight), expensive (3 dice), contextual (you want something to steal), and not super common (requires a 3 dice straight). That, to me, is the right balance. But, making it a constant element? Not for me.

Another, is that some buildings in Lords of Waterdeep allow two placements. That, being less common and shared, also works.

Which game has done this mechanic well to refute my claims? What’s your favorite worker placement?

The Mimic: Choose any card to copy: This is a minor grievance, but it came to mind and I’ll list it. I don’t enjoy cards that put the burden on me, the player, to pick what it’s replacing. It’s a wild card that is far too broad. “This card can be anything, just name it.” Uhhhhhh? It puts too much on the player and should really be a smaller decision space.

Don’t put this on the player. Constrain their choices or remove the card.

Complex Line of Sight and Range: This is an area that I think every new war game can innovate, simplify, and improve upon their forefathers’ contributions. We were playing Level 7: Omega Protocol last year, which uses a square tile system. Its line of site rules were terrible! You could count towards a target vertically, or horizontally, or you could have diagonal, but never multiple diagonals in a row. They also added very confusing rules for cover. We put this game away in favor of Imperial Assault. Their line of site rules are far superior. One corner of the firing unit’s square must be able to reach two corners of the defending unit’s square. This is great, as it’s simple AND allows for players to fire around corners, yet be protected in return.

This airing of grievances also includes overly complex range solutions. Counting around squares constantly is so tedious! Think about it seriously for a moment. If you’re making a game about relatively modern weapons, range is often not an issue within the area of engagement. Accuracy, whether they hit or not, is. Where they hit is also interesting. You can do this with dice rolls to resolve hits that also abstract damage and chit pulls that identify where things are damaged.

Keep this simple and focus on the best part of the experience: maneuvering your units and bringing your firepower to bear. Not counting tile after tile.

What’s the best example of line of sight and range you’ve seen?

Trading, because sure? I’ve played a handful of games lately that involve trading and negotiation because it’s technically something you can do. But, it’s clear these elements were layered on, not core to the experience. I feel trading needs to be fully integrated by giving players a reason to trade. Trading often benefits both parties and helps balance issues of scarcity. Catan’s trading balances out the cruel nature of the dice. Bohnanza’s trading is forced by the queue of cards that must be played. China Town gives you random stuff that may be worthless to you, but incredibly valuable to someone else.

Having resources alone isn’t sufficient to allow for trading. If you desire a trading floor and social engagement, be sure to institute limits on supply, scarcity, and incentives for players to do so.

What’s your favorite reason to trade in a game?

Variable Ending: This has been a pet peeve since I was introduced to Munchkin and Catan. I think Munchkin would be quite fine as a 30 minute game. But, it never seems to end. Similarly, I want to play about an hour’s worth of Catan. Unfortunately, that never seems to be the case.

I prefer games have a set time period, such as a deck running out, a finite number of rounds, or when a nigh guaranteed event will occur. I’m also quite fine with games where the precise ending isn’t guaranteed, but the mechanisms force an escalation along that all but guarantee this will happen. City Hall does this very well. When X buildings are built, or a player reaches the end of the Approval Track, the last round is triggered. This seems to happen about the same time every game, making its length reliable.

As a player and designer, I appreciate knowing the space within which I have to work. I enjoy knowing about how much time I have and where we are in the story. Games with a fuzzy ending often turn into games that, for me, overstay their welcome.

What are your preferred methods of a game ending?

If the game ends with no winner, Bob wins: This irks me because it feels like the Sword of Damocles is hanging over my head. It also feels like someone’s getting an easy win. Now, that’s perception — it may not be a fair balance concern. In Rex, one of my favorite games, the Fremen (I can’t remember their Rex name) win if someone doesn’t win by the end of the game. This, paired with their ability, basically allows them to hang back and camp. Discworld: Ankh-Morpork also has a role where if the game ends without a winner, he wins. This allows him to just trash things and run amok for an hour.

With my factions, I prefer clear benefits and clear downsides. I love flexibility to interpret those within the system to allow for variability in the experience. I feel like defining a de facto winner prescribes a path that is simply best for one of the factions. It boxes them in and I don’t think that’s nearly as fun. I don’t play the Fremen, because I don’t want my path locked into prophecy.

Do you know of a case where this mechanism works?

Losing earned points: This just feels nasty. A big part of design is identifying experiences that feel lousy to the player and removing them or replacing them with something that delivers a similar experience without the same vibe. If I’ve scored points, I hate losing them. It feels dirty. I especially dislike losing them and giving them to someone else. Many take-that games do this and I feel it’s one of the reasons they are so heavily despised.

A way to do this in a more kind way is to remove resources from a player to hinder their ability to score more points. You can also penalize a player for using certain actions, or making them cost-prohibitive. Again, you’re slowing them, which slows their rate of point gain.

This is mostly about perception and shifting a penalty from points, which are sacred, to things that are less special. Lords of Waterdeep’s mandatory quest cards are hated by some, but I think are a fairly clever solution. In City Hall, especially as the game progresses, players need to spend major Influence in order to take actions. This limits their ability to take other actions for a few turns.

What are some of the best examples of penalties you can think of?

The Passive Overflow: A few games have really fallen out of favor for me for inflicting too many passive effects upon the table to track. I wave a chubby, perhaps too hairy finger at designers who do not carefully consider these. Having passive effects that only affect the owning player are okay. Having passive effects that affect everyone really need to be considered sparingly.

Seasons was a game I enjoyed, in theory, but grew to enjoy much less due to the constant upkeep and accounting of its passive effects. Every round, or every action, could affect multiple players in different ways. It slowed the game and made it difficult to make decisions — there were just too many factors.  We also had some trouble with Shadowrun: Crossfire. Various Events and bad guys in play will inflict things at different times. We often forgot to check this, which then meant we were cheating or retroactively addressing things.

The core lesson is, remember that players can only track so many things. The more layers you add, the more difficult it is to keep track of everything and make decisions that properly consider the board state.

What are examples of games that use passive effects very well?

Comment below! Thanks for reading.

The Low Hanging Fruit

Post by: Grant Rodiek

The beginning of a new design can be an overwhelming occasion. If you’re hiking Half Dome at Yosemite, which I recommend, the first time you encounter one of the very long and very steep climbs, you think, “why am I doing this?” It can be overwhelming, as I said, and you might not know exactly where to start.

If you’re anything like me, and experience tells me we all do things a little differently, you’re thinking of the big idea you hope to express with your game. The experience and the overall vibe. This might also pair with a component or mechanism you want to use, like dice, or a rondel, or worker placement, or perhaps another product defining point, such as player numbers or length.

So, you have the gist of an idea, potentially a mechanism or limiting factor (2 players only!) to restrain it some, then a huge cliff looking down upon you. “Go ahead!” it jests. “I won’t laugh.”

Eesh.

A trick I often use to calm my designer’s nerves and make progress in the appropriate direction is to seek out low hanging fruit. By this, I mean ways to make your task simpler, while still helping you craft a design that is unique, novel, and deserves to be played. One important thing to note is that merely identifying and championing these fruit doesn’t make the design task easy. The path from A to B is still fraught with disappointment. But, the goal is to get out of the wilderness sooner and find ways you can be unique from the start. Personally, I find my games’ most unique elements evolve through testing and iteration, and trying to identify that spark from the first step is, for me, impossible.

I’m going to provide a few quick examples of my personal experiences with designs and low hanging fruit, as well as throw out some other designs that I think similarly benefited. But, it’s just a guess!

Hocus Poker: At the outset, Hocus Poker (then Wizard Poker) was built around the notion of poker plus spells. The poker portion meant a similar deck of cards (suits and ranks), as well as the hands with which the world is familiar (flush, full house). But, we’ve always had guiding low-hanging fruit to constrain us creatively:

  • No player elimination. This is generally a universal no no. It works with actual poker, in which people are gambling, but not in a casual game.
  • No gambling. Poker is fueled by an exchange of currency. Hold ‘Em is miserable when you’re playing for jelly beans. We didn’t want a game that required people to spend money to have fun.
  • Cards only. This was primarily for publishing concerns (cost, box, complexity), but also for product elements such as portability and accessibility.
  • Design a game around card management, not bet management. If you remove money and player elimination, you need a fundamental shift.

None of these are brilliant insights! I think we can all agree they are rather obvious. These qualities took a year of development to realize, so our work was not done for us. But, by quickly gravitating towards easy differentiation, we could set forth productively.

Dawn Sector: When I began Dawn Sector in 2012, I was still relatively new to the hobby (which limited my knowledge of existing titles), but was also fiercely committed to shorter games. In the past year I’ve made a commitment to bring out longer games at game day, but in 2012 games that took more than an hour basically weren’t played. I wanted to make a war game, and a quick examination of top war games revealed some opportunities. I know these fruit aren’t exclusive to my game, but they aren’t super common either.

  • More than 2 players. So many war games are strictly head to head affairs. To me, there was an opportunity to expand that number to 4. That seemed obvious.
  • No player elimination. In 2 player war games, it’s fine to play until one side is expunged. With 3 to 4 players, that’s not fun. Although it has taken years to create a system that supports this, it was an obvious opportunity at the start.
  • As a partner to the previous bullet, all players needed to be involved, engaged, and viable until the end. It’s far simpler to say ” nobody is eliminated” than “you’re all in it until the end unless you play heinously.”
  • Short play time. Many war games range from 90 minutes to 6 hours. One of the reasons Memoir ’44 is so popular is due to its short play time.

You’ll see that none of these are mechanisms, thematic ideas, or even component suggestions. You can do this with many genres! For example, if you want to make a worker placement game, what are the easy things to change? Well, exclusive spaces could be something you get rid of. Changing the available spaces is also an idea. Most auction games require at least 3 players. Can you craft one that is compelling with 2?

Imperial Settlers: This is one of 2014’s top rated games and one I’ve been enjoying myself as well. Ignacy is a favorite designer of mine and I found his efforts on this game deeply inspiring. As many of you probably know, Imperial Settlers is a new game built on the engine of 51st State, which is a game of Ignacy’s that came out a few years ago.

51st State is very well regarded, and still has expansions coming out, but it is known for being incredibly complex, intricate, and detailed. As he does with all of his games, Ignacy has written at length about it on his blog. Go find them! (I’m lazy)

Looking at 51st State and Imperial Settlers, Ignacy tackled, in my opinion, some low hanging fruit.

  • Imperial Settlers has very few limitations. You aren’t gated on the number of cards, or duplicates of cards. You aren’t gated on the amount of resources you can collect, or how many deals you can have. If you can play it, you can do it. This leads to some nuttiness, but that’s OKAY. There are just fewer rules. Few exceptions.
  • The presentation is incredibly approachable. The characters are cute, chubby, and colorful. There are little cartoon sword tokens for combat (like Zelda!). There are cute little wooden apples and pink little people. It’s such a fundamental shift from apocalyptic 51st State, but man, it’s such a clear opportunity.

I can’t speak as intimately about it, but from my understanding, the above strategy is largely what the Privateer Press team applied to Warmachine as they looked to compete with Warhammer 40k. You can also see this strategy in much of Blizzard’s work in the digital space. World of Warcraft is a director’s cut of what is/was great about MMOs that came before it. League of Legends is a director’s cut of Defense of the Ancients. Taking something fun, distilling, and focusing it, are great fruits to pluck.

Finally, and I’ve written about this at length in a previous post, is the conversion of Dune to Rex by Fantasy Flight Games. That team clearly examined the game’s history, the balance debates, and did so through the lens of modern consumer tastes (versus those of the 70s and 80s). As a result, I believe they targeted a few fruit:

  • Shorter play time. Rex plays in around 2-3 hours, whereas Dune seems to be more a 3-4 hour game. That hour is really crucial.
  • More forgiving economy. The original Dune economy was incredibly tight and, if someone played poorly, could effectively eliminate you from the game. The new economy is designed to counter that.

There are other details, but those are two keys for this discussion.

When I examine games I love, I’m constantly reminded of how much one can improve a game by expediting the game’s pace and rate of player involvement. City Hall, a current favorite, is a 90 minute to 2 hour game, but every player is involved in every decision. Nobody is ever checked out as they must remain engaged.

Dead of Winter is so innovative as it reduces downtime AND infuses story by providing Crossroads cards and personal goals, which makes the traitor mechanic more interesting than usual.

Another constant that seems to be useful is replacing a standard component with something else. Instead of a pawn, use a die in worker placement. Instead of a miniature, use a card in tactics games. Figuring out which component to use isn’t obvious, but the starting point can be to take a standard favorite, and just pick a few elements.

What are some low hanging fruit you’ve plucked for your designs? What other examples can you share from games you’ve played? Start the discussion in the comments below.

The Rewrite

Post by: Grant Rodiek

Update: Here are the updated rules. 

I love writing rules. Writing the rules is often the first thing I do when I begin a new design. Developing the rules is arguably where I spend the most time as the rules are what I’m looking at when implementing changes or developing the prototype. I also update them as I go following every test, or as needed.

I recently tried something new in rules writing, which I thought was interesting enough to share. In addition, I wanted to begin a discussion on providing and incorporating rules feedback. The new thing? I completely re-wrote our rules for Hocus Poker from scratch. Other than one single section, the entire document was torched (figuratively, hooray the cloud!) and set aside.

If you’ll allow a brief tangent, I also re-wrote them by hand. On a short flight, I took out my legal pad and a pen and just took to the task. I hate writing by hand beyond sketches and scribbles, so you can be sure my text was concise and well-thought out. That, as an exercise, was very useful. I recommend it.

But, why would I re-write the rules instead of just tweaking the current ones? We’ve been seriously blind testing the game for about a month now with approximately 10 groups of dedicated testers, a few PNP testers, and local testers. We’ve had a lot of eyes and different perspectives providing input. Everyone, literally everyone, learns and obtains information in a slightly different way.

The other day while discussing a recent batch of feedback, Josh and I took a step back and noticed our rules were just bulging at the seams. They’d become this overweight monstrosity with dozens of clarifications and strange diagrams. We’d been blown off course!

They reminded me of the United States federal tax Code, a notoriously cumbersome, confusing, and rickety series of laws that fuel taxation software. Our rules had reached a point where players were missing key concepts because their mental space was being consumed by unnecessary additions. It was time for a clean slate.

I had a few questions in my mind while redesigning our rule set:

  • Where are the low-hanging fruit? We had a few large sections that needed to be removed, shortened, or integrated differently.
  • Where could we showing a visual for what was currently text?
  • Where should be be writing what was currently visual? Images take up space and aren’t always useful.
  • Where was the correct flow of information interrupted? We had a few places where we’d have A, B, F, then C.
  • How can this be said simpler?
  • Are we already saying this? Are we already saying this? (Remove repetition)
  • Does this really need to be a rule? Or a note? Or a clarification? Does everyone need to see this?

As so much time was spent on adjusting the rules, it forced me to consider the root cause. How did we get here in the first place? The short answer is that we took into account almost everyone’s feedback.

In the same way that not everyone’s feedback should be fully considered and accepted for the design of your game, not all feedback should be introduced into your rules. Josh and I will need to discuss what we do moving forward, but I think we’ll need to change how we go about introducing feedback from our many rules commentators.

I think this will be less a problem for Josh, who is the more patient one of the two of us. Ultimately, I want to be receptive to feedback. I know how it can be very frustrating to put work into something for someone, often with no compensation, and see zero changes as a result of your work. I think my hummingbird brain thinks “Oh, I’ll make their change! We’ll be best of friends.” Hummingbird is too harsh. I’m actually more like Dug from Up.

My first proposal is to create a spreadsheet to catalog comments and critiques that don’t quite fit. At least not at first glance.  We’ll list them and take a look every week or so. We’ll note how many people shared the comment. If you see a trend, you might want to address the feedback. The lack of a trend doesn’t mean you shouldn’t address it, but it should be considered more carefully.

Remember: Everyone learns differently. Everyone processes rules differently. Some people fill in the blanks and just run with it. Then again, some people fill in the blanks disastrously. Try to identify personality types and see where they run into issues with your rules. Over time, you should be able to  think about these types and fortify your rules for them as you write them.

When you encounter someone whose feedback seems bizarre, talk to them about where they are coming from. It’s clear they do things differently than you. As you don’t share a brain, that’s just fine. You’ll be surprised to find how simple some of the solutions are.

A common mistake of many rules editors, which is something I’ve assuredly done myself, is to identify a section in the rules where someone MIGHT be confused. Basically, you create trouble where none exists. Many people launch into a rules document with their red pen at the ready. We all mean well, like Quixotian rules nerds.

  • Someone could think you mean Z when you really mean Y. Consider: What would a reasonable person think in most cases?
  • Someone might want to know this information here instead of there. Consider: What do you need here and why?
  • You should really list out all of these. Consider: What does that solve? Who does it help?
  • Just in case, you might want to confirm what isn’t affected by this rule. Consider: How best to clarify, and position such clarification, to reduce repetition and undue complication.

Add these items to the list. Or, use them as the beginning to your discussion. Challenge (politely!) your readers’ critiques. In the same way that your rules document isn’t yet final, neither is their input. Have a conversation and seek the root cause to solve their concerns as best as possible.

To summarize, never forget who owns the rules: YOU (the designer)! Thank, love, and appreciate your readers, but remember to keep your rules clean, clear, and not Franken-like. Before incorporating a suggestion that seems odd, note it. See if other people mention it. At the very least, use it to start a discussion. Keep in mind that others can and will process information differently. Seek to understand their point of view and improve your rules within reason to accommodate this. Remember that people have a natural desire to help, but that they might “find confusion” where none actually exists. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and get to the bottom of things.

In the end, improve your rules with the same thoughtfulness and patience you do the game itself. Otherwise, you may have a document that caters to everyone, but serves nobody.

I’m Original, No I’m Not

Post by: Grant Rodiek

Friend and fellow designer Kyle Van Winkle asked me if I’d ever written about a moment where I thought I had a killer idea or mechanic, only to find someone else has already done it. The answer, is that I’ve been in that situation, but I hadn’t written about it.

So, let’s do that.

When I started working on Dawn Sector (previously Battle for York) in March of 2012, I was chasing a few elements I thought would make the game more unique:

  • 2-4 player war game with no player elimination
  • Short play time of about an hour
  • Entirely card driven. No dice!

Now, even then, and certainly not now, I wasn’t foolish enough to believe those three things hadn’t been done before. But, I was examining the landscape of games to play and found myself frustrated by the lack of options along the first two bullets. And the card only idea seemed like a good challenge.

Around May or so of 2013, after over a year of development, I discovered the game Horus Heresy. It had many similarities to my game, at least regarding its combat mechanic. Then, I discovered the game Kemet, which also had many similarities. Very close similarities. This all broke me like an avalanche hitting a flan lying on the mountain slope. Why is the flan there? It isn’t important. My internal (and to some degree, external) response was: why the hell bother any more? I’m years too late.

Luckily, I bucked up, found an amazing publisher (Portal), and we created a unique beast that, yes, still has some similarities.

Here are the realities you need to face.

  • It’s 2014. There is very little in the way of mechanics that hasn’t been discovered or attempted. In my case, three different designers set out with a similar goal and arrived at a similar solution. You know what that means? A lot of the other solutions were garbage. My design partner, Joshua Buergel, has over 3000 games. He reminds me constantly of a game that has done it before. At least in some way.
  • Few games are a single mechanic. Yes, your game uses worker placement, but it pairs it with dice. Or it pairs it with drafting. Or it uses it to fuel a war game. Mechanics in a game aren’t additive, but multiplicative. The uniqueness that springs forth from these pairings can exponentially affect the overall design.
  • Too much innovation and uniqueness is overwhelming. Players can only absorb and glean a few new elements. Even if you are brilliant and can create new mechanics, you should do this sparingly.

That might feel rather bleak, but it’s not meant to be. If anything, this is a pep rally, especially for newer designers. I don’t want you to break like I almost did a few years ago.

I think your overall game needs to be unique. I think your overall design MUST bring something new to the table. I’m super proud of Dawn Sector’s balance that keeps players in the game until the end with no elimination and relatively fast pace of play. The battle mechanic is neat and adds a lot of variety to how things evolve. And me and Portal have done some really cool things with dynamic events and such that vary a game with many other deterministic elements. Plus, factions!

In Sol Rising, you can see the finger prints of other games all over it. You’ll read the narrative and think Mice and Mystics and The Expanse/Honor Harrington series. You’ll see the events system and think about Robinson Crusoe’s exploration tokens. You’ll look at ship abilities and think about Summoner Wars.

But, the mix of fleet oriented tactics, how the events affect play, the smooth pace, and unique objectives and scenario balance make this a very unique package. Plus, it only takes an hour to play. And there’s a team campaign.

Had I been bogged down by those individual elements being derivative I’d never get out of bed. A few weeks ago I posted a community post asking about eureka moments. One of my favorite designers, Ignacy Trzewiczek had this to say, which I think is apt:

“Let’s face it – I don’t believe in Eureka moments. I don’t believe that I will ever have this brilliant idea, that moment of enlightenment that will let me invent something that awesome like Worker Placement mechanism (William Attia in Caylus), Deckbuilding mechanism (Donald X. Vaccarino in Dominion) or Pay With Cards mechanism (Tom Lehman in San Juan). It won’t happen. I just sit on my ass and work hard trying to use already invented tools and mechanism to build something fun and entertaining. I have not had many Eureka moments in my life, and yet, I managed to design couple of fun games. So my advice for you is – don’t wait for Eureka moment. Just sit on your ass and work as hard as you can. That’s all you need.”

To counter this, my friend Corey Young, who designed the very clever and innovative Gravwell, shudders at the thought of releasing a derivative game. If you follow him on Twitter, you know this! He seeks to craft unique mechanisms, whereas I seek to craft unique products, knowing full well I’m borrowing heavily in the weeds. Neither methods are incorrect, nor is one simpler than the other.

Therefore, what do you do when you discover that your killer idea is someone else’s killer idea? You keep working on it. You re-examine it through a new lens. You pair it with a mechanic or component that nobody has done before. But most importantly, YOU continue to make the game YOU want. All of us are unique in our tastes and manner of thinking and development. If you give the game time via development and testing, you’ll begin to see a wide distance between what you crafted and what has come before.

Don’t break, don’t give up, and don’t fret the borrowing. Consumers want great games. They want to be entertained. Make something original, either in part, or in whole, that satisfies those qualities.

The Like/Don’t Like List

Post by: Joshua Buergel and Grant Rodiek

Grant: Josh and I have been collaboratively designing Hocus Poker since February 2014 and our process has evolved constantly throughout.

Josh: It’s been the fastest evolving game I’ve ever been involved with. It hasn’t been the fastest from from prototype to production – that honor goes to Ascension at Firepeak, which I developed – but it’s been fun watching the game change.

Grant: One new process has jumped out at me recently and seemed worth discussing. It’s something Josh introduced and it’s worked very well. But first, we should probably provide some insight as to where Hocus Poker IS and has been recently.

Josh: All over the place!

Grant: Mostly notably, a few months ago we put the brakes on the version we distributed at Origin. It wasn’t as good as we wanted it to be and never would be. At a high level, we decided the game needed to use cards only, needed to be a more original title (less a poker modification), and work better with five players.

We recently put the brakes on Hocus 3.0, as we called it, to move towards Hocus 4.0. Each one of these isn’t a nuclear shift. We’re always keeping some, if not much, of the previous version. But, the changes are significant enough that we branch the rules and start fresh.

Josh: It has been occasionally dispiriting, honestly. It’s been Grant who has made the tough call each time to try and rethink things, and my reaction each time has been more onomatopoeic than anything: bleeeeaurrrrrgh. Because each time this happens, it’s time to come up with more content, re-think balance, just put everything back on the table. We may not be going nuclear here, but we have to really think about everything.

It’s been the right decision each time, I think. And each time, we accrete more things into the game that I’m proud of. And when (if?) this thing ever finishes, I’ll be happy that we went back into the salt mines each time. But, it can be hard to strap on your boots.

Grant: It’s really painful. There’s the saying that you have to stop tweaking at some point, but I don’t think that’s what we’re doing. I think we have a pretty clear idea for what this game can and should be. Not hitting that is disappointing, especially when all of our solutions keep getting us closer. I think we’ll hit the right iteration soon. I think we’re there now (which I totally haven’t said before). And, I fully expect Josh to finally pull the veto chute when we’re at the right spot and I don’t shut up.

For each of these significant changes, we did a really simple pro and con list. What do we like? And what do we not like?

Josh: The reason I like this approach is that we weren’t starting from scratch for these. We’ve put a lot of effort into this game – hundreds and hundreds of emails, chat conversations, document revisions, and all that. I have a dozen or so built prototypes around this house. Even when we wanted to examine every part of the game for a possible overhaul, we still had this base of acquired knowledge and ideas to draw from.

Grant: To really put this in perspective, we’ve tested and designed probably 100 different Spell cards at this point. We’ve tested several variations on the deck, including suit numbers, strength, and card powers. We’ve done about 4 major structural revisions. Each of these are similar and borrow from one another. It’s just a vast pool of knowledge from which to ponder our next moves.

I think we’re well over 100 tests between our local tests and blind tests. We tested HP3.0 over 20 times!

Josh: So how to decide what to re-consider? Why not list what we like and don’t like? If anything shows up on both of our dislike lists, that seems like an obvious place to start tinkering. No matter where I am with a design, there are always things that I’m more excited about than others. So, when we last hauled Hocus up on blocks to see what we could do, we decided to just put out what we liked and didn’t like.

Grant: The lists were pretty simple and short, but quite telling. The likes really help anchor our sacred cows. And by now, we have some sacred stuff. I don’t think this is a bad thing. These are battle tested goodies.

LIKE

  • Spellbooks: Variety, asymmetry, simple.
  • Building Multiple Hands: Long term planning. Is a nice twist on poker.
  • Gems: I love everything about them. Really simple wager. Giving someone a negative is fun without being too destructive.
  • Short turns: They work once people get it. I do think our turn structure is weird to explain. Maybe.
  • I like the idea of wolves and I want to solve the problem glyphs were trying to solve.
  • I like controlling when showdowns occur.
  • I like how our game scales. It does so decently right now.

Josh: The nice thing about this list is that I can point to when we figured that stuff out. And, for the most part, the stuff on Grant’s like list were things that we had figured out in what we call 3.0. That’s great sign, really. These were hard won lessons over a ton of iteration, and now Grant has a list of things that he really likes that we’ve hammered out recently. My like list looked like this:

LIKE

  • I like the spellbooks.
  • I like building multiple hands.
  • I like the Gems being the rewards.
  • I like short, sharp turns.
  • I like, conceptually, the wolves.

There’s a lot of overlap between these lists. We’re both pretty pleased with the innovations that were introduced in 3.0, as a result of all the learning from the first whacks at it. The like side of things, particularly the overlapping items, tells us what we don’t really have to worry about too much.

Grant: Dislikes are also important. Really, after we discuss the likes to smooth over any disagreement, we need to chart our course for the next steps. The dislikes are a big foam finger that says “I suck.”

DISLIKE

  • Endgame doesn’t quite work.
  • I don’t like our hand distribution. I’m frustrated trying to solve the balance of the range of hands. It just doesn’t seem to work with what we’re doing.
  • I don’t like the 2 hidden cards in the community. I like the IDEA of it.

When we start these discussions, I have a habit of just writing for days about everything that does and doesn’t work. I start thinking grandly, then minutely, and it gets rather scattered. This process does a really good job of forcing both of us to think constructively and focus. We don’t need to discuss everything. We really just need to know where we stand.

We agree on A and B. Good! C is contentious. Let’s focus on that really quickly.

Josh: It was primarily the end game that brought you to bringing up changing to 4.0. At least, it was a major concern. I, too, had things I wasn’t totally sold on, so my dislike list looked like this:

DISLIKE

  • I don’t like the numbers in the deck
  • I’m not thrilled with the endgame

To expand it a bit, I was discontent with the composition of the deck. I didn’t like that it was relatively close to a poker deck, still. I didn’t think there was enough differentiation here, enough use of a custom deck of cards. Our attempt to fix that in 3.0, adding some minor effects to some cards, just wasn’t hacking it. And, we see the endgame pop up here again. Clearly, that’s a sore point.

We’ve actually been struggling with endgame for the whole development of the game.

Grant: The Like and Dislike lists gave us incredibly clear discussion points. We knew what was working. We discussed the few differences in opinion there. We knew what wasn’t working, and again, were able to quickly discuss differences in opinions. Now, we have a short action item list of things to tackle, which we were able to do remarkably quickly. I think the time between the initial email and 4.0 was about 30 emails in 2 days. That’s super quick!

Josh: We have a new endgame structure, which may or may not work. We have a new structure for the main deck, which I think we’re both really excited about. And we have a new reward structure to change the way hands are valued, which may or may not work. But, at any rate, we cooked up possible solutions to the things that were bothering us, thanks to having some focus.

Grant: Even if you aren’t designing cooperatively, I’d argue this process has value for you. I know in the past, especially with York, I’d exit a rough test and attack it through the lens of “the game is wrong,” instead of “the defenders have insufficient options.” A like/dislike list would have curtailed that.

Josh: Knowing where you actually are with a design is probably the hardest thing to really understand. Fixing a specific problem is both easier and more fun, but identifying where that specific problem actually is can be tricky. “That test went poorly” is insufficient, and you have to start somewhere to make progress.

What do you guys think? Share your thoughts below.

Self Doubt is my first Tester

Post by: Grant Rodiek

I have several games in the works right now, which on one hand diffuses my focus and may not be entirely healthy. But, on the other, all of them are in weird places: long term development, early testing, late testing, rules tweaking, pitching, and so forth. All of that stuff consumes one portion of my brain and the other side, the creative portion, has little ideas with which I like to experiment. Some emerge, some don’t.

There is a really good argument to get a game to its playable state as quickly as possible. Come up with an idea, yank out some cards to build it, and test. I don’t think that’s a bad approach, and for some peers that’s the only way they CAN do it, as their mind requires the tangible pieces to move about and consider.

I, however, especially this past year, have found myself moving through a long marination phase of consideration and introspection before I build the prototype or even build the rules. And lately, I find myself building a prototype, then taking another week or so to think on it further.

Self doubt is my first tester and I want to make an argument for such marination to occur. Not to say it’s the ONLY way to do something, or even that it’s the right way, but merely to suggest that you may find gems by doing such a thing.

Firstly, your testers are precious, or more accurately, their patience. If you’re lucky enough to be surrounded by a group of designers, it’s possible to bring garbage to the fore and they’ll be fine with that. However, few have such a benefit. You should take the time to consider your prototype privately before exposing it to your test group, if only to make a stronger first impression. If your prototype is so mechanically broken that little promise can be seen, you’ve done yourself and your game a disservice.

Secondly, without a little marination, you, like myself, may find yourself relying on “old favorites” or “old habits.” I have a crutch upon which I constantly lean, which is action cards. I love them, but it’s stifling my creativity and unique approaches to problems. My first response “this needs spice” is to design 30 action cards. Nein! If you’re rushing to prototype, you’re only allowing your creative brain to conceive so much. You will fall back on comfortable trends, which again, is a disservice to your design.

My suggestion, is to take your core theme and core mechanic, then quickly build around it. If this includes your crutches, fine. Do it with abandon. Then, instead of taking the game to Billy’s, circle back and circle your less inspired concepts with red ink. Quickly list out alternative solutions to solve the same problem. And if something is in your design, you should know why, even at this stage. Challenge yourself from the viewpoint of using a simpler mechanic, or fewer components, or using a specific component to jumpstart the creative process. If you rely on cards too often, use hex tokens instead. If your favorite game in the genre uses a rondel for action selection, experiment with dice instead.

However you go about it, give yourself the time and put forth the effort to do things differently. Let your inner demon speak up and say, “Hey , can I be honest? You can do better.”

My final element to this simple treatise is that you need to be your game’s greatest champion. I was listening to Alex Bloomberg’s Start Up podcast this morning — hugely recommended, go grab it. In his first episode he’s pitching to a billionaire investor, who notes the most important quality to a company pitching him is their emphatic and devout belief that what they’re doing is important and will be successful. They aren’t saying “this can be cool” or “we think this is an idea.” They say, with conviction, this idea will change the world. This business will make money.

You need to allow self doubt to seep in to challenge your conviction. You need to battle it and emerge victorious. You’re going to receive input, especially early on, that your game isn’t fun, that it’s unoriginal, that it’s fiddly, overly complex, or isn’t as fun as a recent game from . They’ll be completely right now, but in the face of that, you need to know why they’ll eventually be wrong.

Allow the early criticism into your design from day one. Take the time to address the concerns, enrich the core, and become your greatest fan.

Eureka Moments

Post by: The Design Community!

I asked a handful of designers about eureka moments they’ve experienced in designing a game. Something that really opened their eyes to how things could work in their designs, or a way to solve their current problem in a magnificent fashion. Some of the examples seem specific to an individual game, but if you read into them, you’ll see broader themes that can apply to you. And in case you miss it, I break out some of these at the very end.

Note: To avoid a resume-like list, I simply introduced each participant with a single item. If you want me to mention another of your projects, just email me!

Ignacy Trzewiczek: Publisher at Portal Games and designer of Imperial Settlers

Let’s face it – I don’t believe in Eureka moments. I don’t believe that I will ever have this brilliant idea, that moment of enlightenment that will let me invent something that awesome like Worker Placement mechanism (William Attia in Caylus), Deckbuilding mechanism (Donald X. Vaccarino in Dominion) or Pay With Cards mechanism (Tom Lehman in San Juan). It won’t happen. I just sit on my ass and work hard trying to use already invented tools and mechanism to build something fun and entertaining. I have not had many Eureka moments in my life, and yet, I managed to design couple of fun games. So my advice for you is – don’t wait for Eureka moment. Just sit on your ass and work as hard as you can. That’s all you need.

Corey Young: Designer of Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

Santorini resulted from a chain of eureka moments. The first came while I was playing around with some 1-inch lasercut hexagons I’d picked up at a game convention. It occurred to me that when I split one into 3 sections that each became an isometric block.

 

I started fiddling around with these, playing with M.C. Escher-like artwork. While I liked the mind-twisting aspect, it didn’t feel grounded in reality. My primary concern was that each tile had 6 possible orientations. I considered marking the top or bottom corner to indicate “up,” but all the markings were ugly.

 

Then, while doodling in my design notebook, I drew an elongated hexagon. BAM! That solved it. The hexes still interlocked, but now there were only 2 possible orientations. With minor visual cues, “up” would be obvious. In some cases, the tiles work in either orientation. The wider format also made the overall image feel less vertically stretched.

 

The last eureka moment came when I was trying to come up with a way of getting the tiles to stay together in the right orientation. My original prototypes were simply tiles situated on a tabletop. The inspiration for the inclined board came from a music stand.

Geoff Engelstein: Co-Host of Ludology and designer of Space Cadets

Notable Eureka moment: Making losing fun in Space Cadets. That was by far the last big feature to be added. We had played for years where to win you had this climactic ‘Jump’ attempt, with much yelling and screaming. But you lost just by taking too much damage, which usually simply came down to a die roll. Yeah, it could be a tense die roll, but it just wasn’t the same.

One time I ran back-to-back playtests with different groups. The first won, with much cheering as they jumped successfully. The second lost the game, and it just was like air going out of a balloon.  And the thought just popped up in my brain – “Losing needs to be just as exciting. There needs to be a minigame about losing.”  Very quickly we sketched out the criteria:

  • Needed to involve the whole team
  • Needed to be thematic
  • Needed to help save you from losing.

So you always had one last shot for redemption, and you had to pull together as a team to do it.

It took lots of tries to get something that worked, but ultimately the ‘Core Breach’ mechanic became my absolutely favorite part of the game. I think we really did make losing just as dramatic as winning, and it perhaps creates more stories than anything else in the game.

Joshua Buergel: Designer of Foresight (Coming Soon)

One of my favorite eureka moments came on Foresight. I’m a huge fan of Uwe Rosenberg, especially his early card games. One of the things I enjoyed about them was the unexpected ways he used them. Things like not being able to sort your hand in Bohnanza, or the rotating hands in Space Beans. At the same time, I read an article by James Ernest about creating games that break implicit rules, the things everybody knows about games and game components. I think it was written about the extra turn mechanic in Spree, but I thought it was interesting. Since I’ve been a lover of traditional card games all my life, I decided to see if I could apply those principles, unexpected use of cards and breaking implicit rules, to a traditional pack of cards. It hit me in the shower one day, finally. The implicit rule I should break would be that all cards in a poker deck have the same back. If I broke that rule, what could I do? From there, the idea of putting suit information on the back of the cards came about very quickly, and I had my deck of cards in essentially its finished form.

Gil Hova: Designer of Battle Merchants

My journey so far has been a bunch of smaller eureka moments. I’ll highlight two that stand out, though.

The first came relatively early. My first few designs were simple bluffing games. At some point, I realized that I hated playing bluffing games! I was still new to board games in general, and it was a big shock when I realized that the games I liked the most were not always the games that everyone else liked.

We all play games, but the kinds of games we enjoy are all so different. They offer experiences ranging from contemplative thought to cutthroat bitterness. Not every game is going to appeal to every player. Once I realized my favorite games were deep economic Euros, I was able to focus my designs to what I liked best in games: making interesting plans and executing them around other player’s plans.

The second came much later. I was chatting with another designer over Twitter a few weeks ago, and we discussed the traps our early designs fell into. His fell into the “this card forces you to discard your hand, the next card forces you to lose your next turn” trap. Mine fell into the “roll dice to see how many dice you roll” trap.

Both traps use gaudy mechanisms to obscure player interaction. They seem like they add interesting and meaningful gameplay at first, but in practice, they actually obscure it. It took me a long time to learn how opacity and transparency affect game design. They’re both useful tools, but as a new designer, I tended to toss opaque mechanisms in just because they sounded cool, without realizing how much they pulled players out of the game.

I was lucky enough to fall into the NYC-Playtest group, who repeatedly urged me to cut useless mechanisms and to not be afraid to make radical changes. Prolix, my first published game, had an awful, clunky letter movement mechanism that didn’t actually add any value to the gameplay. Once I followed my playtesters’ advice and cut it out, the game started to really sing.

AJ Porfirio: Publisher at Van Ryder Games and designer of Hostage Negotiator

It was realizing that my game could not be all things for all people. There will always be someone who doesn’t like your game. When I started out, it was painful to hear the tough criticism and sometimes very harsh remarks. Over time, I’ve come to realize that it is ok that everyone does not like a design or publication of mine. What is important is that the target audience DOES enjoy it. So in a nutshell, know who your audience is and make design decisions with them in mind!

Todd Edwards: Writer of the Nerni children’s books and designer of Streets and Sidewalks

There I was, working on a solo combat game to take with me when I traveled. That meant the enemy AI needed enough attack variety so that I wouldn’t be able to predict what was coming, you know, to make it more like playing against a person. So I added cards and added cards until I had 120 or more. The game got too big to fit in the small travel box, which defeated the original purpose. Then I remembered my brief brush with combinatorial chemistry back in grad school. What if each card had two bits of info, and you drew two cards for each attack? Then you can have a much bigger variety with a small amount of cards. Then each enemy got five cards. Not only did that make the game portable again, but it let the AI build combos with the attack from one unit and the modifier from another. The AI felt more like a human opponent and the game turned out better than I’d hoped!

Daniel Solis: Publisher at Smart Play Games and designer of Light Rail

I was testing a bluffing/deduction game inspired by Liar’s Dice, where if you lost a wager you’d lose one card from your hand limit. If you ran out, you were eliminated. The last player standing was the winner.

Unfortunately, this led to runaway losers because a smaller hand size made it that much more difficult to make educated guesses about the overall game state. The game was too long and un-fun.

The Eureka moment came when a playtester suggested flipping the win/lose condition on its head. Instead, running out of cards is a good thing that you’re trying to achieve. This makes a natural catch-up mechanism as the player furthest in the lead has the least information to work with.

Since then, I’ve always kept an open mind about victory conditions when I hit designer’s block. Instead of wanting the most X, maybe you want the fewest? Instead of the tallest building at the end of the game, you want it tallest in the middle and then tear it down as quickly as possible? Sometimes there is a juicy design space in “shoot the moon” mechanisms, too.

Ed Marriott: Co-Publisher at Moon Yeti Games and designer of Scoville

My eureka moments are few and far between. But one moment of note was when I realized you could buy 1000 assorted cubes from EAI Education for around $20. That made my prototyping so much faster. I use the cubes all the time. It’s funny to me that sourcing components is my eureka moment so I’ll give another eureka moment.

When designing Scoville, I fumbled over the grid design for a while with how best to have it operate. When I stopped thinking about it and just chose the simplest method everything in the game fell into place. Sometimes it’s easier to just go with something and test it rather than toil over numerous design iterations in your head. Get your games on the table! You might be amazed at the results.

Kyle Hendricks: Co-Designer of Bountytown

When design started on Bountytown, it was originally supposed to be a Touch of Evil re-theme. My eureka moment was sitting in a meeting room at my day job, thinking about the core conceits of the game, and it hit me hard. The “spaghetti west” is always misrepresented as super white and male. Bountytown then took a MAJOR shift as the main goal was to provide a voice for often under represented folk. Because of that, we took huge changes with mechanics and breaking from our other “formulas” which made it what it is today!

Jay Treat: Designer of Legacy of the Slayer

For Cahoots!, the big eureka moment was realizing that instead of having one suit per player and fiddling with a formula for sharing points with opponents, I could have one suit per player pairing and the scoring would just work automatically. By challenging a core assumption about trick-taking games (that there are always four suits) and by considering my goal for the game rather than my current solution for it, I was able to simplify and innovate at the same time.

Legacy of the Slayer’s genesis was in the eureka of combining two solutions to problems I had with existing story games: Cards to focus the narrative on characters and their development, and a system to ensure that loose ends get addressed before the game ends. It’s important as a game designer to find what bothers you in the games people are playing and imagine solutions; That’s vital practice in developing the problem-solving skills you need, but also one of the better sources of inspiration. When a solution is so compelling you want to build a game around it—even better, when you realize you have multiple solutions that would fit the same game—the end result is likely to be a product that innovates in a way people enjoy (as opposed to innovation for its own sake which is often a dead-end).

Ben Rosset: Designer of Brew Crafters

I was taking a brewery tour at Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton Delaware and the owner, Sam, was so passionately describing how he grew the brewery into a thriving business in such a short amount of time, and talking about all the new equipment they were installing that year and about the new recipes they were researching, and then suddenly it hit me: this would make an amazing game! I went home and immediately got to work on what would become “Brew Crafters”.

Chevee Dodd: Designer of Pull!

I’ve always wanted to design a trick taking game. I love games with a “problem solving” aspect, and trying to deduce players’ hands to figure out the perfect play really excites me. So, I designed a trick taking game PULL! and that’s exactly what it was. A game where playing perfectly was a requirement.

The problem is, that’s not fun for most people. There’s a reason why Bridge isn’t heavily talked about with excitement among gamers… but Tichu is. So, during my weekly gaming sessions I started paying more attention to what makes Tichu “fun” for us. I found the answer during a particularly close game when one player was trying to go out first while setting up his partner. An opponent, who hadn’t done much the entire hand, suddenly throws out a bomb, which wrecked the brilliant play of the other. This happens a lot when playing Tichu, and it’s neat, but that wasn’t the moment.

Shortly after his bomb, the opponents threw out a bomb of their own. BAM! Eat that. Nope. Quiet guy calmly looks at his hand, and throws the rest down. He had an Ace high straight bomb! Just like that he went out, totally destroying his opponents and the table burst into laughter and mocking.

That’s what PULL! needed: an injection of coy little plays that could totally turn the game upside down. That’s when I went to work to make the game “fun.”

Grant Rodiek: Designer of Farmageddon

Early in Farmageddon’s life I was having difficulty solving the tuning of the Crop and Compost cards. You needed Crop cards to plant and Compost cards to harvest the Crop cards. I couldn’t get the distribution right! Players always had too many crops or too few compost, or vice versa. The thought occurred: why not let Crops be used as either? This solves the distribution entirely. In fact, it removes the problem. It also adds a nice little choice: how do I use this crop card?

Multi-use cards have since become a favorite tool of mine. They feature prominently in York, LF, and surely more to come. But, they are also a key element of my favorite games, including Race for the Galaxy, 7 Wonders, and Summoner Wars.

Secondly, and most importantly … I worked on York for years. The core mechanics didn’t change much, but I was constantly polishing barbs and imperfections. Smoothening and removing bumps. A friend noted I was going to strip the screw, so to speak. Over time, it became clear that I had sanded the game into a foundation. I had sought elegance at the expense of fun. Since then, I haven’t feared inelegance or “fat” as I think of it. As long as it makes sense, and increases the fun, I leave it. You can see these changes in Sol, which is full of fun items, Hocus, and LF.

Some highlights, in my opinion.

  • Don’t wait, but get busy on creating fun. The magic will happen as you work.
  • Losing should be fun too!
  • Don’t worry about making games for everyone. Make a great game for someone. Make the games YOU want to make.
  • New mechanisms can be found by breaking current rules and expectations. Break core assumptions to innovate.
  • Take inspiration from the world around you, be it flavors, sights, or key moments in your life.
  • The best doesn’t always have to be the biggest or most. You can win with the fewest or another less obvious fashion.

If you want to contribute your eureka moment, , or share in the comments below!

The Constitutionality of Rules

Post by: Grant Rodiek

Today’s post is me transcribing and odd thought process going through my head the last few days. The thesis is a tinge weak, but I find the notion fascinating and hopefully it leads to useful thoughts in your own mind.

I love the United States Supreme Court. I don’t always love their decisions, but I love the institution and think it is one of the more brilliant creations of the founders of the United States. The court exists to provide long-term, precedent setting interpretations of our almost 230 year old Constitution. The document, meant to be a living, breathing, evolving supreme law, must change to adapt to the modern world.

It’s fuzzy, intentionally so, and the few words of the Bill of Rights (for example) will be debated probably until the end of our republic (which I don’t foresee, but who knows). The Second Amendment is particularly prone to wildly varying interpretation. It reads:

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Does this mean only the militia should exist and be armed? Anyone can have arms? Is there a limit to the type and quality? Security of a free state implies their use being for defense against external forces, whereas guns are often advocated for self-protection, particularly in the case of criminal instances. I’m not trying to make commentary on this topic, merely prove the point that 27 words have a million interpretations.

Please don’t turn this into a gun debate. It’s not the point of this article.

In stark contrast, the rules of our games are intended to be taken literally with zero interpretation or wiggle room. Any fuzziness is derided and is seen as poor craftsmanship on the part of the designer/publisher. If there is a set rule structure that must be followed to enjoy the game, well, that makes sense. But, and this is where my thesis begins to lose its momentum, I’m curious if we can or should craft games with a more interpretive rule set?

In a sense, many RPGs already do this. Many are a sandbox of rules that you can pick and choose from in order to craft the adventure or session to your liking. Mods, to borrow a PC gaming term, are an accepted and encouraged standard of the medium. I wager few D&D designers are upset when people home rule a rogue’s ruling to maximize fun.

Home ruling exists to some degree in board games, for a few cases. One, to fix a broken element in an otherwise solid game. I imagine this is frustrating to a designer, as it means they botched it, or that people disagree with a decision that might otherwise work. In other cases, people just want to layer or tweak things to suit their personality or play style. I know Jerry Hawthorne is outspokenly in favor of folks home ruling Mice and Mystics.

But, I’m not sure in either of those cases the mods are intentional. The interpretation is a byproduct for some users, not necessarily the main course. The strength of the Constitution is that it can be reinterpreted, widely applied, and amended to re-address current wrongs.

I imagine a few scenarios.

Imagine a broad, operational game of war in which the rules of engagement and the rules of war are re-defined and enforced over time. Perhaps you have 6 independent countries, none allied for any cause. Country A employs chemical weapons, let’s say Mustard Gas, against Country B. Country B may be able to build a coalition about this, due to a moral mechanic baked into the game, or perhaps the strategic importance. Perhaps the other countries have a lack of their own chemical weapons to employ. Moral outrage, for them, is convenient. The court in this case would be a United Nations or Geneva Conventions like body.

This wouldn’t result in a rule that is taken from a table of options. We the players would define how it works. Perhaps Mustard Gas can only be used in a war that has stalemated. Perhaps an army is limited to 3 machine guns. These are weak ideas, but it’s a quick brainstorm.

The rules shift and can be reinterpreted such that Country A adjusts their behavior. Or, doesn’t, with consequences.

A second thought. Imagine an economic game at the turn of the 20th century. Children work in factories, labor unions have limited power, women can’t vote. I’m speaking of the United States, by the way. Obviously you would need to sacrifice economic game complexity to facilitate the other mechanics (or not, if you’re going for the uber game). But, let’s say Company A leverages child labor. Or, they pay their words a very poor wage. In this game, Company B could similarly compete, OR, as a strategy, they could bring suit and attempt to alter the rules of the game.

Here’s where it gets interesting — instead of me plopping a card down that defines HOW it’s changed, we, as players, decide the new laws. We, mid-game, define the rules we must follow.

Right now, I’m appending some fuzzy social elements to rather traditional game structures. I began this article by tying this all to the United States Constitution, so let’s get a bit weirder. What if the game were in two parts: the preamble (so to speak) and the game. Let’s say this is a 1-2 hour experience. Probably leaning towards the 2. Let’s call it 2.

The game would provide a broad swath of rules, ideas, and notions. It would provide the components to support these rules. Perhaps cards with symbols and various reference points for them. In one Constitution, blue square means one thing. In another, it’s different. Your group’s constitution could create an economic game. A game of Machiavellian politics. You could almost see the preamble phase as you defining the challenge of your country. After all, the issues of agrarian 19th century America are quite different than industrial, global super power 1970s America. Or, the country of your choice.

I love the idea of two groups meeting to discuss their interpretations. Or, two groups, or a community of online groups, sharing their interpretations and games. I think the key is making it simple to create legitimate and fun “constitutions” in the preamble. It’s all too easy to try to make everyone a game designer when really, most people don’t WANT to be game designers. They want to be players.

This is a weird thought exercise, and I’m not sure it delivered on its premise. I’m relatively certain it didn’t. But, perhaps it will generate a thought in your head to conceive a more perfect thesis.

Pre-Baking with Dopamine

Post by: Grant Rodiek

I’m going to play FAST AND LOOSE with science for this past. I hope you’re ready for it. One of my favorite publishers, Uwe Eickert of Academy Games, frequently talks about the “Dopamine drip” in games. You can read about Dopamine exhaustively via Wikipedia here. One of the brain’s Dopmaine systems is related to reward driven behavior. Scientists believe it plays a part of our “seeking,” as in, we’ll do things in order to get the reward.

What makes a game rewarding? What are some rewarding things one can do in a game? What are things you the designer can insert into your design that’ll bring plays back for another go and deliver that satisfying brain tingle?

Using my own brain as a guide post, which I realize is questionable at best, I’m going to identify a few of the ways to get your Dopamine Drip installed. You’ll note that I don’t consider victory or scoring points to be good examples.

Surprise: Or, more specifically, the delivery of a surprise. You ever see someone give another person the perfect gift? Notice how the giver was almost, if not more, excited than the recipient? The same holds true for a game. If you’re in a battle and you execute the perfect unseen maneuver, you’ll get a surprise. The traitor mechanic in Dune/Rex is perfect.

One example of a simple recurring surprise is removing the box at the start of Cube Quest to see how your opponent setup his side of the board. Or, in a CCG, when an opponent plunks down an enormous card using a combo you never conceived. That’s one many of us have felt.

Drafting a card that affects many others is another great case. To continue on that last thought, drafting games and games with simultaneous play are outstanding for delivering constant and delightful surprise. Look at the popularity of Gravwell and Get Bit!, both of which are built around HIGHLY interactive simultaneous choices that lead to surprising outcomes for everyone at the table. That, potentially, is another key: everyone’s choice in those two games affects everyone else at the table. That’s a surprise in a big way.

You may not be making a drafting game, so let’s bubble this back up to a higher level. A great surprise must be something within the players’ control. It isn’t just a card flip off the top of a huge event deck. A great surprise effects most, if not everyone in the game. A great surprise should cause an audible reaction. Examples include “Nooooo!,” “Ah!,” and “You bastard!”

It’s a big impact “no vote,” a disastrous left turn, the ultimate betrayal, or the nuclear option on turn 2.

The Likely Outcome: This may seem counter to the previous statement, but I think the likely outcome can be a great additive for your game. One game that comes to mind is Summoner Wars. Your combatants hit on a 3+, which means each die has a 66% chance of delivering a wound to an opponent. However, you still frequently see a roll of five dice result in no hits, or 2 CRUCIAL dice landing both hits to seal the game. I’ve often said Summoner Wars has the perfect probability on its dice and I happily copied it for Sol Rising.

The British Regulars in Academy’s 1812 and 1775 games is another great example. They are the only faction without a Flee option on their die. They also have more Hit faces than the others. This means they won’t retreat and they will cause more casualties. But, sometimes they peter out (sorry readers named Peter) and don’t deliver the hot mortal broadside. Yet, they often do.

Star Realms, which is devilishly popular right now, is full of likely outcomes. The decks never get that big and the parameters of the cards are quite simple. Mid to late game you’re hoping to begin drawing a full hand of Blob ships to deliver that 20+ damage turn. You SHOULD get that. But, it might elude you. The small deck and quick pace of Star Realms make it a game where you’re constantly chasing that one perfect hand. It’s so close, it should turn up, and often, the player who receives it first will win.

Look to the cube tower in Shogun/Wallenstein. If you chuck a pile of cubes inside it, there’s a likely outcome. In fact, there’s a Ludology podcast on this somewhere in their catalog that I listened to recently where Geoff Engelstein studied the probability.

A final example are simply weighted dice rolls. Think about those tense moments playing D&D when your rogue steps forth to sneak past the guards. He has a big bonus to his stealth and should be able to knock it out. There’s satisfaction in that knowledge, and joy and surprise when it overwhelmingly succeeds (big surprise?) or dramatically fails. I think there’s joy in failure and I think the likely outcome is a great contribution. Never forget that Probability is a cruel mistress. Set her up to delight and disappoint you spectacularly.

Passive Interaction: My posts are often very example driven. I come up with a thesis and try to defend it. This one just came to me while looking at some of my games and thinking of moments that lead to sheer joy in the players at the table.

I think this is one of the reasons Euros are so popular. They are full of passive and often subtle interaction. Worker placement is essentially a series of passive aggressive prioritization of need and nitpicking. Oh, you took that from me last turn? Well, I’ll take this from you now. You can just see the JOY wash over their face.

In The Speicherstadt, one of my favorite games, you can just hear the smirk forming as someone places a worker down on a card you REALLY want to buy. Same with Spyrium. Or Modern Art in the open bid, or Rex/Dune on the bidding phase. I have a friend who ALWAYS bids something up just hoping we’ll eat the cost, which has led to some hilarious meta-play between us.

Fill your game with ways to let your players passively jab at their opponents. People want to compete and they want to best one another. They just don’t want to be mean, often. Fill your rules with all the ripostes of an aristocratic British social soiree and you’ll be in business.

Thoughts? Where am I off? Where am I close to the mark? What are some of your favorite examples of the Dopamine drip in games?