Your Turn!: The Guide to Great Tabletop Game Design 9781119981596, 9781119981862, 9781119981602

Table of contents :
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Contents
Hi There!
A Game Designer Plays All the Games!
Chapter 1 Let’s Make a Board Game!
The Game Board
A Brief Note About Components
Getting Started
How to Make a Game Board
Let’s Make Improve the Game!
Change a Number
Change a Component
Change a Rule
Change the Theme: An Introduction to Theme and Genre
Chapter 2 Writing Rule Books Is Hard
The Problem with Rule Books
Problem #1: There Can Be Only One (Reader)
Problem #2: Front-End Information Overload
Problem #3: Rule Book Length
Problem #4: Edge Cases
Tricks to Writing Rule Books
Trick #1: Rules Are Stories
Trick #2: Use The Six Zones of Play
Trick #3: I Am Talking to “You”
Trick #4: Use Command Statements
Trick #5: Include Pictures
Trick #6: Add Callouts
What Every Good Rule Book Needs
Creating an Introduction
List of Components
Game Setup
The Goal of the Game
General Sequence of Play
Detailed Sequence of Play
End of Game
Everyone Deserves Credit
But Wait, There’s More
Say What? Translating the Rules
Chapter 3 The Chapter About Play Testing
The Great Worry
Let’s Start Starting
Is This a Thing?
Going Solo
Do It by Design
Gamers Game Games
Friends and Family
Blind Play Testing
Publisher Play Testing
Chapter 4 Let’s Make a Dice Game!
Dice Basics
Dice Mechanisms
Rolling
Rerolling
Dice Determine Movement
Dice Determine Combat Results
Dice Placement
Banking Dice
Dice for Targeting
Dice Builder
Concealing Dice
Dice Determine Actions
Dice Determine Resources
Dice of Different Colors
Combination Matching
Real-Time Rolling
Roll and Write
Dice Stacking
Dice Crafting
Dice as Counters
Dice as Units
Bluffing with Dice
Pop-O-Matic
Choosing the Right Dice Tools
It’s Probably Due to Probability
I Still Don’t Believe in Luck, But. . .
Let’s Design a Dice Game
Step 1: Create the Rules
Step 2: Play Test the Game
Step 3: Change the Rules
Step 4: Change a Number
Step 5: Change the Objective
Step 6: Add a Mechanism
Step 7: Change the Theme
Creating Your Own Custom Dice
Dice Games to Play
Chapter 5 Let’s Make a Card Game!
Let’s Create a Card!
One Way to Make Cards
Another Way to Make Cards
Yet Another Way to Make a Card
Here’s One More Way to Make a Card
Even More Ways to Make a Card
Print and Play
Size Matters
Clear Cards
Pentagonal and Hexagonal Cards
Circular Cards
A Very Short History of Card Games
An Order of Sides
Card Mechanisms
Components
A Note About Probability and Cards
Let’s Design a Card Game
Step 1: Setting Up the Game
Step 2: Create the Rules
Step 3: Play Test the Game
Step 4: Change the Rules
Step 5: Change a Number
Step 6: Change the Objective
Step 7: Add a Mechanism
Step 8: Change the Theme
Let’s Share a Card Game!
10 Card Games to Play
Chapter 6 Let’s Make a Party Game
There Are Only Four Types of Party Games
Traits of a Party Game
Trait 1: Keep It Simple
Trait 2: Few Components
Trait 3: No Theme Required
Trait 4: Accommodating the Players
Trait 5: Playable Anywhere
Trait 6: Interruptions Allowed
Trait 7: Scoring at a Party
Trait 8: Ageless
The Five Ps of Party Games
Permission
Predictability
Pace
Presentation
Props
The Sixth P Is for Player
Party Game Mechanisms
Knowledge
Word Play
Guessing
Memory
Acting
Drawing/Creating
Betting
Bluffing
Repetition
Movement
Observation
Judging
Let’s Make a Party Game
Step 1: Create the Rules
Step 2: Playtest the Game
Step 3: Change the Rules
Step 4: Change a Number
Step 5: Change the Objective
Step 6: Add a Mechanism
Step 7: Change the Theme
Ten Party Games to Play
Chapter 7 Let’s Make a Board Game
Board Games of Antiquity
Mancala
The Royal Game of Ur
Mehen
Senet
Nine Man’s Morris
Chess
Backgammon
Hnefatafl
Snakes and Ladders
Ancient Games Are Still Around
Types and Elements of Game Boards
Game Board Grids
Game Board Tracks
Game Board Spaces
Victory Tracks
Maps
Terrain
Abstraction and Symbolism
How to Make a Game Board
Understanding Abstract Games
Traits of an Abstract Game
The Concept of Elegance
Abstract Game Mechanisms
Word Game Mechanisms
Let’s Design an Abstract Game
Step 1: Create the Rules
Step 2: Playtest the Game
Step 3: Change the Rules
Step 4: Change a Number
Step 5: Change the Objective
Step 6: Add a Mechanism
Step 7: Change the Theme
The Mensa Select Award
10 Abstract Board Games You Need to Play
Chapter 8 Let’s Make a Euro-Style Strategy Game
A Short History of the “German Game”
The German Game Becomes the Euro-Game
Euro-Game Traits
Lack of “Luck”2
Lack of Conflict
Loss
Emphasis on Construction/Growth
Exotic Settings
Lack of Theming
Goals
Balancing Mechanisms
Catch-up Mechanisms
Shorter Playing Time
Wood Components Rather Than Plastic
Crunchiness and Weightiness
Euro-Game Mechanisms
Action Points
Action/Role Selection
Arrangement
Auction/Bidding
Building
Bag-Builder
Buying/Market
Choosing
Cooperation
Engine-Builder
Income
Negotiation
Placement
Follow Action
Seeking Information
Set Collection
Trading/Deal-Making
Rondels
Victory Track
Gaming Is for Everyone
Color Blind Accessibility
Language Dependency
Character Diversity and Portrayal
Let’s Design a Euro-Game
Components of Riverside
Step 1: Create the Rules
Step 2: Playtest the Game
Step 3: Change the Rules
Step 4: Change a Number
Step 5: Change the Objective
Step 6: Add a Mechanism
Step 7: Change the Theme
Some Euro-Games to Play
Chapter 9 Let’s Make a Thematic Strategy Game
A History of Thematic Games
The Adventure Is Yours
Meanwhile Over in England
The Secret Origin of Ameritrash
Traits of Thematic Games
Intellectual Property
Any Theme Can Be a Game
Stories in Games
Players Have Wishes
Adding Drama and Conflict
Strategy vs. Tactics
Unraveling Complexity
Bring on the Bling
Making Miniatures
Collectability
The Gimmick
Thematic Mechanisms
Variable Player Powers and Characters
Leveling
Upgrades
Crafting
Action Points
Action Selection
Movement
Take-That
Fighting and Combat
Player Death and Elimination
Area Control
Timer
Doom Track
Race
Deduction
Voting
Let’s Design a Thematic Game
Step 1: Creating the Game Board/Tiles
Step 2: Creating the Characters
Step 3: Creating the Denizens and Hit Tokens
Step 4: Creating the Dice
Step 5: Create the Rules
Step 6: Playtest the Game
Step 7: Change the Rules
Step 8: Change a Number
Step 9: Change the Objective
Step 10: Add a Mechanism
Step 11: Change the Theme
Some Thematic Games to Play
Chapter 10 Let’s Sell a Board Game
Why Sell Your Board Game?
First Things First
The Importance of Sell-Sheets
The Pitch Presentation
The Pitch Video
The Digital Solution
Playtesting Events
Selecting a Publisher
Meeting with Publishers
Contracts and Money
Licensing Your Game
Credit Where Credit Is Due
The Advance
Royalty Rate
Other Rights and Issues
Complimentary Copies
Rights Reversion
Media and Products
Always Be Selling
Self-Funding
Crowdfunding
Marketing
Previews
The Campaign
Add-ons and Stretch Goals
Production
Pricing
Shipping, Storing, and Distribution
Chapter 11 Let’s Do It All Over Again!
Starting with a Mechanism (or Two)
Starting with the Theme
Starting with a Story
Starting with the Title
Start with Components
Starting with the Player Count
Starting with a “Moment”
Starting with an Experience
Starting with the Publisher’s Need
Carrying a Sketchbook
Inspiration for Amateurs
Preventing Game Designer Burnout
One Last Bit of Advice
Appendix A Let’s Make a Game Prototyping Kit!
Appendix BSell-Sheet Examples
Who’s Hue?
Dynamite Ridge Railroad
Castle Climbers
A Town Called Showdown
Index
EULA

Citation preview

Your Turn!

Your Turn! The Guide to Great Tabletop Game Design Scott Rogers

Copyright © 2024 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Illustrations in this book are © Scott Rogers, 2023 Game designs in this book (Sequence Dice, Pack of Thieves, Order Up!, Scram!, Riverside, Dungeon Crawlers) are © Scott Rogers, 2023 Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada and the United Kingdom. ISBNs: 9781119981596 (Paperback), 9781119981862 (ePDF), 9781119981602 (ePub) No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permission. Trademarks: Wiley and the Wiley logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages. For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. If you believe you’ve found a mistake in this book, please bring it to our attention by emailing our reader support team at [email protected] with the subject line “Possible Book Errata Submission.” Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic formats. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Control Number: 2023944286 Cover image(s): Cover illustration by Scott Rogers, (background) © sudowoodo/Adobe Stock Cover design: Wiley

This book is respectfully dedicated to Todd A. Breitenstein (March 3, 1966–March 24, 2013), my first mentor in the board game industry.

A ck now le d g ment s When asked if writing is hard, sports columnist Red Smith replied, “Why, no, you simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.” This pretty much describes how writing Your Turn! The Guide to Great Tabletop Game Design went. It was an especially bloody process. The first four chapters lost in a catastrophic hard drive crash, my family experienced life-­and-­ death health issues, and then there were all the usual emotional ups-­and-­downs we all had during a global pandemic. And whose bright idea was it to write a book, draw all of the illustrations, and design six original games? Oh yeah, me. Fortunately, I had a lot of amazing people who supported, inspired, and loved me as I worked. They are all the Rogers: Brenda Lee, Evelyn, Jack, Brett, Jen (Trebby), Elinor, Chris, Patti, and Mom. Cheerleaders Hardy LeBel, Marvin Jones, Sean Epperson, Mike Floyd, and Todd Martens. My regular gaming friends who kept me sane during the entire process including Ethan Schaeffer, Peter Vaughn, Manny Vega, Sherri Perry, Cricket Yee, Richard Malena, Mike Rizzo, Ms. Jane, Brad Brooks, Robert Batkovic, Jason Gajda, Joey Vigour, and always inspiring Ta-­Te Wu. Special thanks to Donna and Eric and the entire staff of Geeky Teas and Games (a wonderful store you should visit when you are in beautiful downtown Burbank), my home away from home. My Ludology podcast compatriots who inspired many of the topics in this book: Gil Hova, Emma Larkins, Geoff Engelstein, Sen-­Foong Lim, and Erica Hayes-­Bouyouris. The game department of the New  York Film Academy, especially Andy Ashcraft and Scott Gillies. Thanks to Chris Swain and Tracy Fullerton for creating the foundation on which many ideas in this book are built upon. Thanks to composers Michael Giacchino, Ludwig Goransson, John Powell, John Williams, and Alexandre Desplat whose music helped me through the long hours. Thanks to all my gaming industry friends and publishers for being so patient when I’d tell them, “Sorry, but I have to work on my book this weekend.” But most of all, thank you to all the amazing people at Wiley and sons: Jim Minatel, the extremely patient Brad Jones, Magesh Elangovan, Melissa Burlock, and Michael Trent. And of course, thank you to you, constant reader and aspiring (or veteran) tabletop game designer! I would love to see (or play!) the games you end up creating after finishing Your Turn! The Guide to Great Tabletop Game Design, so please look me up online (just Google search for “Scott Rogers Game Designer”) and send me a picture or three. And who knows, maybe we’ll meet at a gaming convention? I’m the guy who looks like that guy on the cover.

A b o u t the Author Scott Rogers is a 30-­year veteran of the video game industry who helped design AAA console and computer games that you definitely have heard of and maybe even played. He fell in love with board games at age 3 and started making them at 10. His first published game—­ Rayguns & Rocketships—­was successfully Kickstarted in 2017 and is featured in the documentary film Gamemaster (2020). Scott went on to design Pantone the Game, Texas Chainsaw Massacre the game, and Diamonds and Dinosaurs (with son Jack), with more to come! He is the creator/host of the “Biography of a Boardgame” segment on The Dice Tower podcast and a co-­host of the award-­winning Ludology podcast. He has authored/drawn two other popular books on game design (Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design and Swipe This! The Guide to Touchscreen Game Design) and apologizes in advance that there is no recipe in this one. Scott lives outside of Los Angeles with his wife, kids, and many, many board games.

Conte nt s HI T HE R E ! � � �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ���������������������������������������������� xxi C HA P T E R 1

Let’s Make a Board Game!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Game Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 A Brief Note About Components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 How to Make a Game Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Let’s Make Improve the Game!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Change a Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Change a Component. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Change a Rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Change the Theme: An Introduction to Theme and Genre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 C HA P T E R 2

Writing Rule Books Is Hard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 The Problem with Rule Books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Problem #1: There Can Be Only One (Reader) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Problem #2: Front-­End Information Overload. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Problem #3: Rule Book Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Problem #4: Edge Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tricks to Writing Rule Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trick #1: Rules Are Stories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trick #2: Use The Six Zones of Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trick #3: I Am Talking to “You”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trick #4: Use Command Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trick #5: Include Pictures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trick #6: Add Callouts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Every Good Rule Book Needs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Creating an Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . List of Components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Game Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

23 23 24 25 26 27 27 28 34 34 34 35 36 36 37 38

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The Goal of the Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 General Sequence of Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Detailed Sequence of Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 End of Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Everyone Deserves Credit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 But Wait, There’s More. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Say What? Translating the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 C HA P T E R 3

The Chapter About Play Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 The Great Worry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Let’s Start Starting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Is This a Thing?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Going Solo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Do It by Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gamers Game Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Friends and Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blind Play Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Publisher Play Testing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

54 56 56 59 62 63 73 73 74

C HA P T E R 4

Let’s Make a Dice Game!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Dice Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dice Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rolling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rerolling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dice Determine Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dice Determine Combat Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dice Placement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Banking Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dice for Targeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dice Builder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concealing Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dice Determine Actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dice Determine Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dice of Different Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Combination Matching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

75 78 79 80 81 82 82 82 83 84 84 85 85 86 87

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Real-­Time Rolling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Roll and Write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Dice Stacking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Dice Crafting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Dice as Counters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Dice as Units. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Bluffing with Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Pop-­O-­Matic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Choosing the Right Dice Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 It’s Probably Due to Probability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 I Still Don’t Believe in Luck, But. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Let’s Design a Dice Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Step 1: Create the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Step 2: Play Test the Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Step 3: Change the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Step 4: Change a Number. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Step 5: Change the Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Step 6: Add a Mechanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Step 7: Change the Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Creating Your Own Custom Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Dice Games to Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 C HA P T E R 5

Let’s Make a Card Game!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Let’s Create a Card!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One Way to Make Cards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Another Way to Make Cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yet Another Way to Make a Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Here’s One More Way to Make a Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Even More Ways to Make a Card. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Print and Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Size Matters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clear Cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pentagonal and Hexagonal Cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Circular Cards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Very Short History of Card Games. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Order of Sides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

110 110 111 112 112 113 113 115 116 117 117 118 121

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Card Mechanisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Note About Probability and Cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Let’s Design a Card Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 1: Setting Up the Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 2: Create the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 3: Play Test the Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 4: Change the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 5: Change a Number. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 6: Change the Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 7: Add a Mechanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 8: Change the Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Let’s Share a Card Game!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Card Games to Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

125 142 143 144 144 144 145 146 146 146 147 148 149 150

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Let’s Make a Party Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 First Came Parlor Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Then Came Party Games. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . There Are Only Four Types of Party Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Traits of a Party Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trait 1: Keep It Simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trait 2: Few Components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trait 3: No Theme Required. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trait 4: Accommodating the Players. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trait 5: Playable Anywhere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trait 6: Interruptions Allowed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trait 7: Scoring at a Party. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trait 8: Ageless. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Five Ps of Party Games. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Permission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predictability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Presentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Props . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Sixth P Is for Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Party Game Mechanisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

153 154 157 160 161 161 161 162 166 167 168 168 169 169 170 171 173 175 176 176

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Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Word Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Drawing/Creating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Betting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bluffing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Repetition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Judging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Let’s Make a Party Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 1: Create the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 2: Playtest the Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 3: Change the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 4: Change a Number. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 5: Change the Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 6: Add a Mechanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 7: Change the Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ten Party Games to Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

176 177 178 178 179 180 181 183 184 184 184 185 185 186 186 187 187 188 188 188 190

C HA P T E R 7

Let’s Make a Board Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Board Games of Antiquity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mancala. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Royal Game of Ur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mehen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Senet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nine Man’s Morris. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chess. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Backgammon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hnefatafl. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Snakes and Ladders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ancient Games Are Still Around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Types and Elements of Game Boards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Game Board Grids. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

194 195 196 197 198 199 199 200 201 201 201 202 203

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Game Board Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Game Board Spaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Victory Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terrain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abstraction and Symbolism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How to Make a Game Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Understanding Abstract Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Traits of an Abstract Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Concept of Elegance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abstract Game Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Word Game Mechanisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Let’s Design an Abstract Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 1: Create the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 2: Playtest the Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 3: Change the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 4: Change a Number. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 5: Change the Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 6: Add a Mechanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 7: Change the Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Mensa Select Award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Abstract Board Games You Need to Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

203 204 206 207 208 211 215 216 218 219 220 221 224 227 228 229 230 230 231 231 232 233

C HA P T E R 8

Let’s Make a Euro-­Style Strategy Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 A Short History of the “German Game” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 The German Game Becomes the Euro-­Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Euro-­Game Traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Lack of “Luck”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Lack of Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Emphasis on Construction/Growth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Exotic Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Lack of Theming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Balancing Mechanisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Catch-­up Mechanisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

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Shorter Playing Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Wood Components Rather Than Plastic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Crunchiness and Weightiness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 Euro-­Game Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 Action Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 Action/Role Selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Arrangement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 Auction/Bidding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 Building. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Bag-­Builder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 Buying/Market. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Choosing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 Engine-­Builder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Negotiation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 Placement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 Follow Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 Seeking Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Set Collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Trading/Deal-­Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Rondels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Victory Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Gaming Is for Everyone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Color Blind Accessibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Language Dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Character Diversity and Portrayal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Let’s Design a Euro-­Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Components of Riverside. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 Step 1: Create the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Step 2: Playtest the Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Step 3: Change the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Step 4: Change a Number. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Step 5: Change the Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Step 6: Add a Mechanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 Step 7: Change the Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 Some Euro-­Games to Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

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Let’s Make a Thematic Strategy Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 A History of Thematic Games. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 The Adventure Is Yours. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 Meanwhile Over in England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 The Secret Origin of Ameritrash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 Traits of Thematic Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 Intellectual Property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 Any Theme Can Be a Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Stories in Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Players Have Wishes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 Adding Drama and Conflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Strategy vs. Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 Unraveling Complexity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Bring on the Bling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Making Miniatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Collectability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 The Gimmick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312 Thematic Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 Variable Player Powers and Characters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 Leveling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318 Upgrades. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 Crafting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Action Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Action Selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322 Take-­That . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Fighting and Combat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324 Player Death and Elimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326 Area Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 Timer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 Doom Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 Race. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 Deduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332 Let’s Design a Thematic Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332 Step 1: Creating the Game Board/Tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

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Step 2: Creating the Characters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 3: Creating the Denizens and Hit Tokens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 4: Creating the Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 5: Create the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 6: Playtest the Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 7: Change the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 8: Change a Number. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 9: Change the Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 10: Add a Mechanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 11: Change the Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Some Thematic Games to Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

339 340 342 342 344 344 346 346 347 348 349

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Let’s Sell a Board Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 Why Sell Your Board Game? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 First Things First. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352 The Importance of Sell-­Sheets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354 The Pitch Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357 The Pitch Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 The Digital Solution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366 Playtesting Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367 Selecting a Publisher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368 Meeting with Publishers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370 Contracts and Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373 Licensing Your Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373 Credit Where Credit Is Due . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374 The Advance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374 Royalty Rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 Other Rights and Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376 Complimentary Copies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376 Rights Reversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377 Media and Products. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377 Always Be Selling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377 Self-­Funding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378 Crowdfunding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 Marketing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380 Previews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

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The Campaign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Add-­ons and Stretch Goals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pricing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shipping, Storing, and Distribution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

380 382 383 385 386

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Let’s Do It All Over Again!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389 Starting with a Mechanism (or Two). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Starting with the Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Starting with a Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Starting with the Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Start with Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Starting with the Player Count. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Starting with a “Moment” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Starting with an Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Starting with the Publisher’s Need. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carrying a Sketchbook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inspiration for Amateurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preventing Game Designer Burnout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One Last Bit of Advice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

389 390 391 391 392 392 393 393 394 394 394 395 396

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Let’s Make a Game Prototyping Kit! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399 A PPE N DI X B

Sell-­Sheet Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403 Who’s Hue?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dynamite Ridge Railroad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Castle Climbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Town Called Showdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

404 406 408 410

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  413

H i T he re !

I’m glad you picked up Your Turn! The Guide to Great Board Game Design! I’m Scott. It’s so nice to meet you. Since you are reading this book, I assume that you must love board games, or at least want to learn more about them. If I were interested enough in a book about board games to pick it up and start reading it in a bookstore or online and if that book promised to teach me how to make great board games, then I would need to be convinced that this book is written by an expert about board games, or at least someone who loves board games. I assure you that I do love board games and that you are in good and experienced hands. Rather than rattle off my résumé,1 instead let me tell you a true story. One of my earliest childhood memories is playing a board game. I remember huddling together with my brother and his friends in a darkened and stuffy garage, our faces bathed in the eerie glow of a green phosphorescent light.

  I’ve published three board games with more on the way at the time this writing!

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The board game was Green Ghost, published by Transogram in 1965. For those of you not familiar with it, Green Ghost was the board game equivalent of a grade-­school Halloween fair’s haunted house. You know the kind, where you stick your hand in a shoebox and feel around for witches’ eyes (peeled grapes), graveyard worms (cold spaghetti), or bat’s wings (feathers). Even though that sounds cool, Green Ghost itself is a pretty dull spin-­and-­move affair. Its production values, however, were through the roof. It was the first board game to feature a glow-­in-­the-­dark game board, and its movers were sinister plastic silhouettes of black bats, hissing cats, and looming vultures. Lording over the game board was the massive titular Green Ghost who doubled as the game’s spinner. All that phosphorus2 must have burned into my brain, because playing Green Ghost kick-­ started my love for all things spooky, toys that glowed in the dark, and, most importantly, board games. Now that I have shared what my first board game was, what was yours? Go ahead and write down your answer. In fact, you are going to write in this book a lot, so you might as well start now. My first board game was: _________________________________________ After playing Green Ghost, I wanted to play more board games. I started to ask for them as birthday gifts. One such gift was Dark Shadows: Barnabas Collins Game (1969). In it, players raced around a board to collect the plastic bones of a vampire’s skeleton. Another early favorite was Voice of the Mummy (1971) where you raced around a ziggurat collecting emeralds while an entombed mummy shouted curses and commands for the players to follow.3 There was a lot of racing around on a board in board games back then.

  Green Ghost was reissued in 2011, right after a law was passed in the United States that reduced the amount of phosphorus that could be used in commercial products. I considered buying the reprint, as I had lost my original game years ago, but when I saw how weakly the board glowed compared to my memories of the original, I passed on buying it. 3   Voice of the Mummy was an amazing game for its time. Inside the sarcophagus was a little record player that played a plastic record. When you pressed the button, the needle would drop, and a random curse or command would play for the player to follow. You can hear the voice of the mummy at www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAxN8a26wvM. 2

HI THERE!

By the way, whenever I first mention a board game in this book, I will also list the year4 that it was released. That way, if you are curious to learn more about the game, you can look it up online. A great place to learn more about board games online is BoardGameGeek.com (BGG). Not only is it one of the best board game websites, but it is one of the best websites on the Internet. It is an incredibly dense repository of information pertaining to almost every board game in existence, as well as reviews, how-­to-­play videos, images, rule variants, and much, much more! Be prepared to lose several days of productivity! In my board game design class (which Your Turn! The Guide to Great Board Game Design is based on), I make sure that every new student joins BGG so that they can learn how to use the website. As a game designer, you will find it to be an indispensable resource. If you are not already a member, you should join now. Make sure to add me as your first “GeekBuddy” when you join. (My username is Scott Rogers.)5 Now that you have joined BGG, write down your username so you don’t forget it. My BGG username is: _______________________________________________

  Sometimes different games have the exact same name, which is why I’m including the year it was published.   I know, not very original.

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Where were we? Just like many of you, I grew up playing all the old classic board games—­ games like Battleship (1931), Monopoly6 (1935), Risk (1959), and Mouse Trap7 (1963). Board games became a main pastime for me, and my high school friends and I spent many hours playing games. I remember that we even began creating our own variants of the game, such as the time we combined two Risk boards to create one epic, weekend-­long game.8 Playing board games has a funny effect on people. I have found that if you play enough board games, you start to want to make board games. Maybe that is what happened to you. I started designing board games when I was in high school. I spent the entire summer of 1985 creating games cobbled from spare parts of other games. One of my finer designs combined Scrabble (1948) with Dungeons and Dragons (1974). I was so obsessed with board games that when I was old enough to get a job, I wanted to get one where I could be around board games! My first retail job was at a store called The Game Keeper, which was one of the first board game chain stores. While The Game Keeper mostly sold high-­end chess and backgammon sets that were carved from ivory and rare wood and encrusted with precious metals and gemstones, it also carried traditional mass-­market games from Risk, Monopoly, and Acquire (1964) to that classic drinking game Pass-­Out (1962) and the risqué Love Dice9 (1985). Even though I did not know it at the time, working at The Game Keeper was the best training ground I could have had as a future board game designer. This is because my boss insisted that I take home every new board game we received and read the rules. He knew that if I knew the game’s rules, I would be able to better sell the game to the customer. He was right; but not only that, thanks to him, I learned the rules to dozens if not a hundred board games.10 That leads to the first important thing I want you to know:

  At least until my father cheated one too many times as the banker!   Which was always more fun to build than to play. 8   It didn’t end well. I ended up losing within the first two hours of the game and spending the rest of the weekend reading sci-­fi or fantasy novels while I waited to see which of my friends had won. 9   Look it up. 10   The Game Keeper was my Hamburg, Germany. In Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent 2011 book Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell points out that it takes 10,000 hours for someone to become an expert in something. The Beatles performed live more than 1,200 times for four years in Hamburg, Germany, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time and therefore meeting the 10,000-­hour rule. 6 7

HI THERE!

Game designers play games. Oh, by the way, if I ever write something important that I want you remember—like an idea or a term—I will write it in bold so you do not miss it. I will also list it at the end of each chapter so that way you can find it quickly. Now “Game designers play games” might seem like a no-­brainer statement, but I am often surprised to learn that some people think they don’t need to play games in order to make them.11 They are wrong. I believe that it is crucial for board game designers to play board games—­all kinds of board games. As a game designer, you should play as many games as you can. Never turn down an opportunity to play a game, whether you have played it before or whether you have never even heard of it.

A Game Designer Plays All the Games! The good news is that you will never get bored or run out of new games to play. There are so many different types of games for you to play. Did you know that more than 5,000 new board games are released each year? That doesn’t include the thousands of games that have been published or have existed since the beginning of recorded history! Senet is one of them.

  In fact, just the other day, someone asked me, “Do you need to play games in order to make them?”

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The game Senet dates back to 3100 BCE,12 and paintings of it can be found on the walls of Egyptian tombs. Several copies of the game (including a miniature “travel-­sized” version) were discovered in King Tutankhamun’s tomb. Archeologists think that Ancient Egyptians played Senet as practice for getting their souls to the underworld.

The Royal Game of Ur, which was played by ancient Mesopotamians, is around 4,600 years old, and its rules were rediscovered when archeologists found a stone tablet with the rules carved on them.

Tavli, the predecessor to Backgammon (1635), dates to 476 BC. The Japanese game Go is from the 13th century, while Chess is from the 15th century. These are known as “games from antiquity,” or, as I call them, ancient games. Amazingly, you can still play a game that old!

  That’s more than 5,000 years ago!

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HI THERE!

Many of these games are the foundation for modern abstract games like Mastermind (1971), Othello (1973), and Azul (2017). Classic games are “newer,” dating back to the 18th century. These types of games became popular when European publisher John Wallis printed “instructional toys” such as The New Game of Human Life (1790) and The Royal Game of British Sovereigns: Exhibiting the most remarkable events in each reign from Egbert to George III (1819). Games about money and property became popular when George Parker published Banking (1883) and Elizabeth Magie designed The Landlord’s Game in 1904. Many of these games were the foundation13 of modern classics such as The Game of Life (1960) and Monopoly. The first hobby games were published in the 1970s. Many of these games were the modern versions of Kriegspiel—­or war games—­from the 19th century. War-­themed games like Panzerblitz (1970), Dunkirk: The Battle of France (1971), and Axis and Allies (1981) gave way to fantasy and science-­fiction-themed games like Magic Realm (1977), Talisman (1983), and Twilight Imperium (1997). These are different than mass-­market games, which are simpler to learn, faster to play, and often geared toward a younger or family audience. Kriegspiel and Dungeons and Dragons combined to inspire miniature games such as Broadsides and Boarding Parties (1982), Warhammer: The Mass Combat Fantasy Role-­Playing Game (1983), and Space Hulk (1989), some of which have miniatures battling on boards, while others feature a more “open” play format. Meanwhile, German games later redubbed Eurogames, took the gaming industry by storm. Games like Settlers of Catan (1995), Carcassonne (2000), and Puerto Rico (2002) focus less on conflict and more on strategy. As you can see, there are plenty of types of games to choose from!

  Some legitimately, others not so much.

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Oh hey, I never asked you what your favorite game was. Write it down here. My favorite game is: ________________________________________ As a game designer, not only should you play your favorite game, or only “the good ones” or the “popular ones,” but you should play as many games as you can because each game that you play adds to your knowledge of games. You should never turn down an offer to play a game. You should even play “bad games.” I can hear you asking, “Why would I want to play a ‘bad’ game?” When you play a “bad” game (or more appropriately, a game that isn’t that “great”), you will learn what types of gameplay you don’t like. Whatever it is that you do not like about a game, you can avoid using it in your own game designs. Now, I do not want you to be negative about every game that you play, but this will help you to develop a critical eye when it comes to playing games. The more games you play, the more you’ll start to understand how the elements of the game work together. By the way, these elements are called mechanics or mechanisms,14 and all the ways that they can be combined are known as systems. The player’s interaction with these systems and the rules that guide them are what we call gameplay. The more games you play, the better you will understand all the clever ways in which a game designer can combine mechanisms to create engaging systems and entertaining gameplay. Mechanisms are like tools in your utility belt of tricks. The more tools you have as a game designer, the more types of games you will know how to make. In this book, you are going to learn about many different types of mechanisms and how to combine them to create gameplay to make many different types of games. In fact, you will design seven types of games by the time you have completed this book. ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Dice game Card game Party game “Euro-­style” strategy game Thematic strategy game Abstract strategy game Miniatures game

  There is still some debate over which term is more appropriate. Board gamers usually use the term mechanism more often, but I find them to be interchangeable.

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HI THERE!

You will learn the difference between all these types of games as we reach their respective chapters. Since we are talking about what you will be learning in this book, I should mention what kind of games this book doesn’t cover. ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Role-­playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons Collectible card games such as Magic the Gathering Gambling games such as Poker or Blackjack15 Video game versions of board games16

The good news is that if you are interested in any of these types of games, plenty of books have been written about them. This book is about board games and how to make them. So, how are you going to learn how to make board games? Simple. You are going to copy me. Throughout this book, I will step through the construction of various types of games for you to follow along and create your own copy of each. Contrary to what some teachers might tell you, copying isn’t a bad thing. In fact, all humans learn by copying. I learned in art school that all the great artists of history copied other artists’ work when they were first starting out. By copying, you will learn the basics of making a game. You will be taking these designs and turning them into your creations because I want to make sure you have a strong foundation to build upon. Once you’ve built the game designs in this book, then you are free to change them to your liking. I want you to build your confidence by completing all the game designs in the book; then you can go on to create your very own game from scratch! One last thing, at the end of each chapter, I will list the important concepts and takeaways from the chapter to give you a handy reminder when you need it!

Important Introduction Concepts and Takeaways ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

A game designer plays games. You can learn by playing a game, even a bad one. Game designers use mechanisms, rules, and systems to create gameplay. The more games you play, the more “tools” you will add to your “tool kit” of tricks.

  Although we will be talking about many of their mechanisms.   If you want to learn more about video games, check out my book Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design.

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L e t ’s Ma ke a B o ard Game! AS I SAID in the introduction, the best way to learn how to make something is to copy someone else. This time, that someone is me! You will start by copying me, but soon enough you’ll learn how to make your own board game without having to copy anyone. It’ll be fun!

Until the 1980s, the most common style of board game was the “track” or “race” type. These are games you’ve probably played like Monopoly (1935), Mouse Trap (1963), Candy Land (1949), Parcheesi (400 AD), Sorry (1929), Backgammon (-­3000 BC), The Game of Life (1960), and many more. If you ask someone to draw a picture of a board game, the odds are the game they will draw a track-­style board game. This style of game is known as a roll and move, as in “You roll your dice and move your mice,” which is a great description of the roll-­and-­move game Mouse Trap. And guess what? We’re going to make one.

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The Game Board Before we start, let’s talk about the board itself. The board represents where the game happens. A board is often a map of some kind—­of a world, a country, a city, a village, or a house. It can be the schematic of a space station or the deck of a pirate ship. It can be the rings of a circus, the layout of a summer camp, the interior of a mansion, or the tunnels and chambers of a dungeon. The board is the microcosm where play occurs. A board can be constructed of three-­dimensional buildings or other toy-­like structures. There can be ramps and gears and thingamajigs that cause actions to happen like they do in games like Mouse Trap, Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar (2012), or Fireball Island (1986). A board can have electronic features built into it to talk to the player or convey information or a story like The Omega Virus (1982) or Mall Madness (1988). The board can be as elaborate or simple as the design calls for. The one thing these type board games have in common is that the board is a shared space. All players have access to this place where they can move and place their pawns/meeples, collect resources and cards, or interact with and combat the other players. This is usually where you find resources and currency used in the game. The board gives the players a place to focus their attention during the game. It also creates something special called the magic circle, an idea that was first created by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga in his book Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-­Element in Culture. Huizinga wrote that the magic circle is the space in which the normal rules and reality of the world are suspended and replaced by the artificial reality of a game world. In other words, while we gamers are in the magic circle created by the game, not only do we immerse ourselves in the world of the game, but we also agree to follow the rules of the game—­no cheating and no talking on your mobile phone. Keep in mind that while the term board game is always a tabletop game, many tabletop games do not need to have a board. Some games such as Carcassonne (2000), Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2005), and Betrayal at House on the Hill (2004) use tiles or map pieces to create the play space or an environment. Some games such as Star Wars: X-­Wing Miniatures Game (2012), Wings of War: Famous Aces (2004), or Flick ’em Up! (2015) are played on a table but do not have a designated board on which play occurs. Other games, such as Warhammer 40K (1987), Heroscape (2004), and Dark World: Village of Fear (1993), use three-­dimensional terrain placed on a table or other play space to indicate areas of importance. And some games such as Werewolf (1986), The Game of Things (2002), and Bring Your Own Book (2015) don’t require the use of a table at all to play the game.

C H A P T E R 1   L e t ’ s M ak e a   B oa r d G am e !

A Brief Note About Components In addition to a board, many board games come with components. Components are the things that you need to make and play a game. Sometimes they are called bits, parts, or pieces. No matter what you call them, you will need them to play a game. Some games need only one type of component such as a deck of cards for War (date unknown) or a set of dice for the game Farkle (1930). Other games need a lot of components that might include pawns, tokens, money, chits, wooden cubes, player’s guides, score pads, miniature figures, foam guns, leather cups, miniature terrain, polyhedral dice. . .you can use just about anything as a component!

A pawn is a component that usually represents the player in the game. You might know the word pawn from the game Chess (1475), but the term is used pretty interchangeably by game designers. There are many different names and types of pawns, depending on what they look like and what they are made from. For example, a plastic or metal figure is called a miniature, while a figure cut out of wood is commonly known as a meeple.1 To many in the game industry, a pawn is called a mover because a player “moves” it around the game board. One of the distinguishing factors of pawns is they can come in different colors such as red, blue, yellow, and green. The color helps players remember which pawn is theirs while playing

  The term was coined in 2000 by Alison Hansel during a game of Carcassonne when she mistakenly mashed together my and people into meeple to describe the game’s wooden figures.

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the game. Some gamers are particular about what color pawn they play with, but when you are choosing colors to make your pawn in your game, you want to remember that some ­players have color blindness, which makes it difficult for them to distinguish one color from another. We’ll be talking more about how to help players see the colors better later in this book. In the meantime, let’s make a game!

Getting Started I like to start designing a game by getting together all the components that I think I will need to play the game. Sometimes, I first draw a picture of all the components to help me get my head around the number of components that I will need.

To make and play our first game, you will need the following components: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

A sheet of paper (to make the board) A drawing implement (to draw the game) A coin (any type) A pawn item for each player (you can use anything you have lying around the house for a pawn like a coin, a piece of paper with a drawing on it, a tiny car, a miniature ship, a thimble, a metal top hat, or a toy dog)2

  If these last few components sound familiar, it’s because they are from the classic game Monopoly. When Monopoly was first created, the game was shared between friends who created their own versions of the game by hand (just like you are doing!). Monopoly initially didn’t come with components. Players used things that were lying around the house like buttons or thimbles for pawns. When Parker Brothers, the publisher of Monopoly released the game in 1935, they included lead miniatures made by the Dowst Manufacturing Company, who had produced toys for Cracker Jack. Many of their toys, such as the iron and the battleship, were included in the game and have become iconic pieces since!

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How to Make a Game Board We will walk through seven easy steps to make our board game. Let’s start with the first three. STEP 1: On your piece of paper, draw a big curving line like an S.

STEP  2: Draw a different big curving S next to the first one. This second curve should be parallel and close, but not too close, to the first one.

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STEP 3: Draw little lines to connect the two bigger lines together to make little squares all the way up the track:

Congratulations! You have created the board for your board game! A board is considered a component too. Besides components, there is something else very important that games need: rules. Let’s talk about rules for a moment. We will be diving deep into rules in the next chapter, but because they’re such an important part of making games, let’s talk about the basics now. Rules Rules are the actions, conditions, and guidelines that the players must all agree to perform and follow to play the game. If you don’t have rules, then you don’t have a game. It’s just that simple. For example, you can have components, you can roll dice, you can deal out cards, and you can move miniatures around on a board, but without rules, these actions are just play—­ meaningless fun. There’s nothing wrong with play, but if our intention is to create a game, then we must have rules. Following the rules might be easy for players, but for game designers, writing rules is hard. Writing rules is hard because there are so many questions that the game designer needs to answer for the player to play a game. If I were to make up a game and play it with you right this moment, I would describe to you how to play the game. However, almost always,3 the game designer is not there to tell the   Unless you happen to be at a live play testing event or a convention—­which are two of the best ways to meet a fellow game designer!

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players how to play the game or to answer the player’s questions about how to play the game. Because a game designer is not there to help the players, the rules must do that instead. Let’s look at our game so far. We already have so many questions about it. ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

How do we play the game? Where do we start? How does the player move their pawn? How far do they move the pawn? What’s that coin for? How does the player win? Who goes first?

So many questions that we need to answer! That’s okay, because we’ll learn how to answer these questions in a moment. But in addition to rules, the players need to know their objective. Objectives are short-­term and long-­term goals that the player has to accomplish during the game. In some games, the objective might be to earn the most money. In other games, it might be to defeat all the enemies. Other objectives include controlling the most territory, earning the most victory points, figuring out a mystery before the other players, and, in our game’s case, moving our pawn down the track. Ah! I knew we forgot something! We need to indicate a starting point on our game! Let’s return to the seven steps I was sharing with you for building our game. STEP 4: Write START on the first square on one end of your track.

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STEP 5: Next, our game needs a victory condition. A victory condition is what the player needs to do by the end of the game, usually to win the game. A victory condition can often cause the game to end, but not always. Victory conditions are different than objectives in that a player usually must complete many objectives over the course of the game to reach the victory condition. Let me repeat: a victory condition often causes a game to end, but not always. We’ll talk about this idea later. In our game, the victory condition is “the first player to reach the FINISH square wins the game.” I guess we need to add a FINISH square to our game! STEP 6: Write FINISH on the last square of your track, like so:

STEP  7: Place your pawn (and any other player’s pawns) on the START square. It helps to know where and how to begin the game.

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We have created a board, we have a track, we have our pawns on the track. . .oh yeah, what’s that coin for? The coin is a randomizer, a component that can generate a random result, such as “heads” and “tails.” A randomizer can take many forms—­a coin, a die, a spinner, a deck of cards, a bag of tiles, pages of a book, etc. In our game, let’s use the coin to move the player. Flip the coin. If you get heads, you move one space down the track. If you get tails, you move two spaces. Why do we need a randomizer? Because games are more fun when we don’t know who is going to win before the game ends. A randomizer is just one way to create unpredictability in a game. Don’t worry, we’ll learn many more ways to create randomness. We’ll also cover all the different ways randomization can be used to create gameplay. The Gameplay ’s the Thing Gameplay is the interaction between the player and the game and its components. Gameplay is the activity of playing the game. Gameplay is what creates fun for the player. If a game is too difficult or boring, then we lose interest. But if the gameplay engages the player, then the game is “fun.”4 Tracy Fullerton and Chris Swain, authors of The Game Designers Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, have created what I think is a great definition for what a game is. “A game is a closed formal system that engages players in structured conflict and ends in an unequal outcome.” Fullerton and Swain

I use Fullerton and Swain’s definition all the time when teaching my board game design class, but I have simplified it even further to the following: “All games must have rules, gameplay, and a victory condition.” Me

If what you are creating doesn’t have all three of these things, then it’s not a game. It’s a toy or a simulation or a puzzle or something else.

  I don’t like to use the word fun because the term is too subjective. We’ll talk more about creating fun—­and unfun—­later in the book.

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Are There Any Unanswered Questions? Speaking of gameplay, let’s get back to making our game! So, see if we’ve answered all our questions. ■■

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How do we play the game? Flip the coin to move your pawn down the track. Where do we start? Place your pawns on the START square. How does the player move their pawn? By flipping the coin. How far do they move the pawn? If you flip heads, move one square. If you flip tails, move two squares. How does the player win? When the first pawn lands on the FINISH square. Who goes first? That’s a good question!

There are many ways to determine who gets to go first. Determining the first player can often be fun or funny—­an icebreaker for your game that encourages the players to interact with each other. In many children’s games, the youngest player goes first or the oldest player goes first. You can let the theme of your game guide who gets to go first. For example, if your game is about sailing a ship, you could have the player who has most recently been on a boat go first. If your game is about outer space, you could have the player who most recently watched a science-­ fiction movie be the first player. If your game is about eating food, then the person who most recently ate something goes first. You get the idea. We’ll be talking more about theme very soon. Rules for Our Game Now that we have answered all our initial questions about how to play our game, we should write down all the rules so we don’t forget them! Here are the rules for your game: My First Game’s Rules 1. All players put their pawns on the START square. 2. The youngest player goes first. 3. Flip the coin. If the result is heads, then the player moves one space on the track. If they get tails, they move two spaces on the track. 4. Each player takes turns flipping the coin. 5. After each player’s turn, pass the coin clockwise around the table. 6. The player whose pawn reaches the FINISH square first wins the game!

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Now that we have all the rules written down, we can play the game! Go ahead, play it! (I’ll wait.) Done?

Hooray! I knew you could design a game! Between you and me, I think we can make the game better. The heart of game design is iteration, which means that by playing a game over and over and over and over, we can find everything that isn’t quite right about the game,5 fix it, and improve a game design.

Let’s Make Improve the Game! To improve your game, you should think about all the aspects that you can change. Looking at our game, there are five fundamental aspects that we can change that will make a big difference in how the game is played. ■■ ■■

A number A component

  Some game designers call when a rule or interaction or gameplay isn’t doing what they expect it to do “broken,” but just because something is “broken” doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. By fixing these “broken” interactions and gameplay, we make the game play better and stronger.

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A rule An objective The theme

Change a Number When you change the number of anything, you will change the experience of the game. For example, let’s say that when we flip the coin, if we get heads, we move forward one space, but if we get tails, we don’t move forward at all. That single number change would totally change the feel of the game, wouldn’t it? Playing the game will take longer and flipping a tail wouldn’t be very much fun, would it? Let’s change a number again. Let’s say if we flip a head, we move forward two spaces. If we flip a tail, we move forward three spaces. That would also change the experience and make the game shorter. What if we changed it to, if you flip a head, you move forward two spaces, but if you flip a tail, you move forward five spaces? While that would make flipping tails much more exciting, it might make the game result in an unequal outcome where one player is still only halfway down the track when the other finishes. The outcome and the impact the change has on all the game’s players is something that you must keep in mind when you are adjusting—­or balancing—­your game design. A good rule of thumb is this: A close finish is much more exciting to all the players. An exercise that I like to do when play testing a game is to record all the players’ results—­their score, the number of cards they have in play, their remaining health, etc. If those numbers are close to each other—­for example, if Brenda has 13 points, Evelyn has 15 points, and Jack has 16 points—­then I’m satisfied with the balance of the game. But if the scores are way off—­Brenda has 5 points, Evelyn has 15 points, and Jack has 35 points—­then I know the balance is off, and I start looking at what factors contributed toward creating such a large gap in the final scores. Another number that can be changed is the actual amount of something being used in the game—­not limited to just components. For example, what if we feel that our game plays too fast? We could increase the number of squares on the track. This would require us to redraw the track, but it might be worth it if we get the desired play results. Or perhaps we feel that rolling a 1 on the die makes the player’s movement too slow,6 so we could put a sticker over the 1 spot on the die and change it to a 7. That would speed things up!   Statistically, this can happen several times in a row. I once had this happen to a player during a play test and they said, “I hated this game because I only ever got to move one space!”

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Speaking of dice, let’s talk about the next way to change our game: by changing a component.

Change a Component Let’s change a component for our game right now. Instead of using a coin, which gives only two results, let’s change to using a six-­sided die. If you already own a board game, go ahead and take a die from it. So now, on the player’s turn, they roll the die and move that many spaces. Notice how this already speeds things! This reminds me of a saying that I have. “Your goal as a designer is to get the player to play your game the way that you want it to be played.” Me (again)

It’s important for us, as game designers, to know what kind of experience we want the player to have. The great video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto7 says, “When I create a game, I try to focus more on the emotions that the player experiences during the gameplay.” Let’s write down an emotion that we want the player to experience when playing your game: The emotion I want the player to experience is: __________ There are lots of emotions that you could write down: wonder, joy, fear, tension, sadness, curiosity, anger.  .  .but there’s one emotion that I prefer not to go after when designing a game, and that’s fun. The Problem with Fun The word fun is hard for a designer to capture, especially when starting to design a game. Oh, you can start with an idea that you think might be fun or start with a proven gameplay that is you know is fun. But fun itself is elusive and, even worse, subjective. Fun is like funny—­there are some things that people think are funny and make them laugh while other things fall flat. But sometimes it’s hard to say what is funny or not. It depends on many different things that you, as a designer, could not know about. I find that if you chase something as nontangible as fun, you end up frustrated and discouraged with your design. This is why I prefer to go after “unfun.” We all know when something is “unfun”—­whether it’s rolling straight 1s on a die or moving your pawn verrrrrry slowly up the track. It’s easier to change “unfun” back into “fun” by changing or removing it.

  Shigeru Miyamoto (1952–present) is a video game designer and director for Nintendo of Japan. He is the creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, and many more famous and successful games.

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Fun is really another name for what we experience when we are being properly challenged and engaged by a game. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (“Me-­high Cheek-­sent-­me-­high”) introduced this idea in his theory of flow. You know when you’re doing something and you lose all track of time? That’s when you are in the “flow state”—­you are so engaged in what you are doing that everything else seems to fade away. Flow is gauged by two vectors: skill and challenge. If the player is able to keep between these vectors, they will remain in a flow state. However, if a game is too hard or too boring, then they will fall out of flow and get discouraged or even quit playing. It is the game designer’s job to set up challenges for the player that are appropriate to their skill level. This is when we can engage the player and create an atmosphere—­the magic circle—­where it’s okay for challenge and fun to occur. Back to Our Board Game If we want to make even more changes to our game to make it more interesting or challenging, we can combine our first two methods—­change a number and change a component—­by changing the number of components. Tricky, right? Go ahead and add a second die to your game.

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Now, when the player rolls both dice on their turn, their results would be from 2 to 12. A 12 would really zoom the player along the track! But that might be too far for the player to travel on one turn, and we don’t want our game to be over that quickly.

Change a Rule Instead, we could change the rules. We could let the player roll two dice and then choose which result they wanted to use. That way, if they rolled a 1 and a 5, they of course would use the 5 because it would move them further along the track. Just changing the rules about how the components are used makes our game more interesting. What are some other rules we could change about our game? For this, we are going to need to get some colored pencils, pens, or crayons. Go ahead and color each space a different color such as blue, yellow, green, and red. Now, let’s add rules to go with those colors. ■■

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When you land on a blue space, you roll the dice again, pick one, and move that many spaces. When you land on a yellow space, you can move another player’s pawn either forward or back to the space you are on. When you land on a green space, you roll the dice and immediately move the result of both dice. (For example, if you roll a 2 and a 3, you move five spaces!) When you land on a red space, you lose a turn.

Now that we’ve added these new components and rules, let’s revise the rules of our game! My First Game’s Rules (Version 2.0) 1. All players put their pawns on the START square. 2. The youngest player goes first. 3. Roll two dice. The player gets to pick one of the two results and move up the track that many spaces. 4. If the player lands on a colored space, the following happens: a. When you land on a blue space, you roll the dice again, pick one, and move that many spaces. b. When you land on a yellow space, you can move another player’s pawn either forward or back to the space you are on. c. When you land on a green space, you roll the dice and get to move the result of both dice. (For example, if you roll a 2 and a 3, you move five spaces!) d. When you land on a red space, you lose a turn. 5. After each player’s turn, pass the dice clockwise around the table. 6. The player whose pawn reaches the FINISH space first wins the game!

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Go ahead and play this version of the game. See how different it is than the previous one? Just with the addition of a few new rules, we have something brand new.

Change the Theme: An Introduction to Theme and Genre The last way to change our game is to change the theme. Theme refers to the type of game that it is. Actually, that’s only half-­true. First let’s talk about another word that often gets used in place of theme, and that’s genre. The dictionary definition of genre is “a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content.”8 But, in tabletop game design, there are two types of genres—­one that refers to the content and the other that refers to gameplay. The first type, story genre, pertains to the authored theme of the game. There are many, many story genres (and subgenres!). I like to think of them as how the books are organized in a bookstore; books are classified by the type of story: mystery, horror, science-­fiction, fantasy, romance, finance, biography, etc.9 One of my favorite things about board games is that they can be of any genre! Really! All story genres that you can think of can be a board game. Here is a list of games and their story genres: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Clue (mystery) Arkham Horror (horror) Twilight Imperium (science-­fiction) HeroQuest (fantasy) Fog of Love (romance) Monopoly (finance) Einstein: His Amazing Life and Incomparable Science (biography)

I hope this short list proves that any story genre can be turned into a board game! But there is a second type of genre, and that is the game genre, which refers to game’s type of designed gameplay. Just like story genres, there are many of these, all of which we will be talking about in more detail later in this book.

  Definition from www.merriam-­webster.com/dictionary/genre.   My book Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design has a great big list of story genres in it because there are so many story genres that sometimes I forget some of them!

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Taking our previous list, here are the game’s game genres: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Clue (deduction) Arkham Horror (coop area control) Twilight Imperium (4X) HeroQuest (dungeon crawler) Fog of Love (card hand management) Monopoly (roll and move) Einstein: His Amazing Life and Incomparable Science (polyomino tile placement)

It is common to refer to a game by both the story genre and the gameplay genre. For example, my board game Rayguns and Rocketships is a pulp sci-­fi action/skirmish game. “Pulp sci-­fi” describes the story genre, while “action/skirmish” describes the game genre. But let’s concentrate on the game we are making. The game genre of the game we are making is known as a “roll and move,” but what is the theme (story genre) of our game? The theme of my game is: ___________________________________ If you couldn’t come up with an answer, that’s okay because this was a trick question. Our game has a genre, but it doesn’t have a theme. . .yet. Currently the genre of our game is known as an abstract game. We’ll talk more about abstract games and other genres of games in the rest of the book. But for now, we want to come up with a theme for our game because themes do many things to help our game.

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One of the things a theme can do is to help the players understand the rules. If, in my game, I have two ways to travel—­by foot or by airplane—­then it makes sense that moving by airplane will be faster than moving on foot.

If my game is about pirates, it makes sense for the goal of the game to be the pirate with the most gold. It also makes sense for each of the players to be able to steal gold from each other because that’s what pirates do! There are so many ways to inform a player of the theme—­art, text, rules, gameplay—­but let’s concentrate for a moment on the art of our game. You don’t need to be a great artist to communicate theme. Here are just a few ways we can easily give our game some theme: ■■ ■■

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Color the path blue to indicate that it is a river and we are boats traveling up it. Draw a castle on the FINISH tile to indicate that we are traveling in a medieval kingdom. Draw a ghost on the red tile where the player has to lose a turn. Draw stars all around the path to set it in outer space.

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You can also change the text on the game and in the rules to give our game more theme. Here are some examples: ■■

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If a player lands on a red square (where there is a ghost), they are too scared to keep moving and lose a turn. If the player lands on a green tile, they have gotten a ride from a friendly frog who hops them forward the number result from rolling both dice. If a player lands on the yellow space, a witch curses another player, and they must be moved backward to the closest player. If a player lands on a blue space, you continue your journey through the kingdom.

Just using some theming to describe what happens to the player in the game makes the game come alive! Let’s try this again. No tricks this time: The theme of my game is: ___________________________________ Rewrite your rules and update the art on your board to match your new theming. Go ahead and play this new version with your friends and family.

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Congratulations! You know what that makes you? A game designer! You don’t need to sell a board game to be a game designer. Game designers make games. So, write this down: “I am a game designer!” We’re just getting started! There’s much more work to do to make your game fun! Go play your game again and write down any ideas you might have to make your game better. I’ll be waiting for you in the next chapter. Things I can do to make my game better: __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________

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A game consists of rules, gameplay, and a victory condition. Rules are the actions, conditions, and guidelines that the players must all agree to perform and follow to play the game. Gameplay is the interaction between the player and the game and its components. Gameplay is the activity of playing the game. A victory condition is the goal or the group of goals that the player needs to achieve to win the game. Change one thing, and you change the entire game experience. Things we can change include the following: ■■ A number ■■ A component ■■ A rule ■■ An objective ■■ The theme Game designers make games.

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Wr i t i ng R ule B o ok s I s Hard IN A PERFECT WORLD, every board game would come with a game designer. Can you imagine it? You buy a new board game, take off the shrink-­wrap, admire the cover, open the box lid, and ZOOOOOP! Out pops the game designer like the Genie from Aladdin1 who then teaches you the game! Wouldn’t that be great?

  The closest there are to “game genies” are “how to play” YouTubers like Rodney Smith and Becca Scott.

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Unfortunately, as most game boxes2 are too small to hold a game designer inside, we game designers must rely on a rule book instead. Why create the rules first? Because without rules, you don’t have a game. Games are not emergent; they are designed. Rules create the structure of the game. Without it, you just have a loose collection of components. Remember, a game is composed of rules, gameplay, and a victory condition. The rules are the structure on which the components and interactions and everything else in a game hang. The first thing you learn when you play a game is how to play it by reading the rules. Rules are the most important thing about making a game; therefore, a game designer should strive to master writing clear and concise (and maybe entertaining) rules. You must also realize that the rules pertain to everything about the game, so if you don’t get the rules right, then it affects everything else about playing the game. However, writing a rule book is hard (especially writing clear, concise, and maybe entertaining rules). Why is writing rule books so hard? Because it carries most of the burden of the game. You cannot have a game without rules. The rules must also be clear and concise (and even entertaining); otherwise, your players will get confused, frustrated, or even lose interest in playing your game. You never want that to happen; thus, the main job of a game designer is to be able to communicate the rules in a way that the players can easily follow. If you read the user forums of BoardGameGeek.com (BGG), you’ll find that they are filled with gamers complaining about rule books. Sometimes these complaints are justifiable, but other times they are not. These users will complain that a game’s rules are “broken” or “poorly written” or just “bad.” When a person reads that a game’s rules are not good, they are far less likely to buy the game. Why is writing rule books so hard? Because they must engage and entertain from the very first moment a player starts to read them. Game designer Rob Daviau (Pandemic Legacy [2015], Return to Dark Tower [2022]) says that the best moment for the player’s engagement is opening the box, and the worst moment is reading the rule book. As a game designer, you must make your rule books step on the gas rather than bring the game experience to a screeching halt.

  Except for Gloomhaven (2017).

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The Problem with Rule Books Why is writing rule books hard? There are several problems with rule books, some of which are inherent in their very nature. Let’s look at four problems and possible solutions.

Problem #1: There Can Be Only One (Reader) Because there is only one rule book in the box means that only one person can read it at a time. The rest of the players can’t do anything but listen. This can be a bigger issue, especially if the person reading isn’t a very dynamic reader. The droning of rules can bore or even turn a player off from wanting to play! My favorite moment is when one person reads something from the rules and another player doesn’t think that they’ve read it right so they take the rule book (sometimes without asking) to read it for themselves. It’s as if they don’t believe the person who just read it! This rule book tug-­of-­war can get tiresome, especially if it happens before gameplay even begins! Solution: If you are like me and prefer your board gaming to be an analog experience, consider including player overview cards that the other players can review to “follow along” the major beats of the game and understand objectives and the types of actions they can choose from. Alternatively, video rules can also help with clarifying rules.3 There are some great video rules available, but often they are created “after the fact” by secondary sources. Video rules add just another step to the complication of creating a game for the game designer. Not only must you be good at making a game, but you also must be an effective communicator and a decent videographer! I didn’t sign up for all this work! However, in today’s media-­centric market, videos are becoming more and more of a necessity. I know some publishers who won’t accept a game submission without a “how-­to-­ play” video! This means you must be ready to make a video for your game even if it is never seen by your customers. You don’t need a fancy camera or editing to make a decent video (at least, not yet!). Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating a how-­to-­play video for your game: ■■

Keep it short. No matter how complicated your game is, keep your video to 3 minutes or shorter. Sadly, most people just don’t have the patience to watch anything longer.

  If you want to experience board game video rules at its ridiculously over-­produced extreme, check out the super-­ cheesy 35-­ minute “how to play” video of DragonStrike (1992) available at www.youtube.com/watch? v=FF1_IHliRhI.

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Set up your game on an uncluttered surface. . .or use a digital prototyping tool like Tabletop Simulator. Show all the components and how they interact during the game. Your video viewers want to know what the game pieces do and how they interact with each other. It also helps to show how the game is supposed to look when set up properly and how things interact during play. Have good sound. Poor sound quality is the most common problem I see with many game videos. Speak clearly. A good trick is to smile when speaking, which makes your words sound clearer and friendlier. Try not to mumble. Write down your instructions as a script and read it if you must. Rerecord if you make a mistake or trip over a line. Be enthusiastic and positive. Your game is great! Let others know this too! Never mention the problems with your game or make excuses for anything about it. It’s okay to mention that the game is a work in progress or the art is placeholder; publishers understand this. Also, don’t insult other games to make yours appear to be better.

Don’t forget to mention the name of your game and who you are. You can watch one of my own how-­to-­play videos at www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh5sJrh5TVA.

Problem #2: Front-­End Information Overload Have you ever experienced a player who reads the entire rule book to the other players before they can start playing? Some rule books are very long. I remember having another player read the rules for about an hour before we started playing!

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I understand the need to read the entire rule book. Players want to make sure that they (and the other players) understand everything about the game. They don’t want to play the game incorrectly.4 However, the human brain can sustain only so much of this information-­ pummeling before it is beaten into submission and causes you to feel like giving up even before you’ve started playing the game! Solution: There is a process from cognitive psychology called chunking in which information is grouped into a collection of basic units, usually around a common subject. Once you’ve learned a “chunk” of information—­like a set of rules or sequence of player’s actions—­ you should then introduce the next “chunk” of information to the player.5 Some board game designers have been experimenting with chunking rules into more “bite-­ sized” bits as part of the play experience. These “learn-­as-­you-­play” rule sets can be found in titles such as Charterstone (2017), Stuffed Fables (2018), Friedmann Friese’s Fast Forward system (used in games such as Fear (2017), Fortress (2017), Flee (2017), Fortune (2018), The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game (2020), and Story Time Chess (2021). They are worth checking out for ideas and inspiration.

Problem #3: Rule Book Length Large rule books can be intimidating to a player. I have seen some players decide against playing a game merely because they are intimidated by the rule book’s length. Some players feel that it would be a better use of time to play the game than spend time reading the rules. That’s not to say you can’t or shouldn’t have a longer rule book if your game requires it, but you want to be aware that the longer your rule book, the larger the barrier you are placing between the player starting to play your game.

  Here’s the truth: at least 50 percent of the time, you will play a game incorrectly the first time. I once played a game four times before I felt like I was playing it correctly! 5   In the 1950s, psychologist George A. Miller discovered how many things the human mind can process at once. In his paper “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two,” Miller proved that humans can really hold only five to nine things (words or numbers) in our head at once and anything past that causes information overload. This is why American phone numbers have nine digits—­to help people remember them. 4

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Solution: Writing succinctly is an art and a skill. Often a designer wants to describe a mechanism or gameplay function in length. Or they might want to include lore, tell a story, or write the rules in “a voice,” as if a character were telling the reader the rules. However, all of these tend to take up space in a rule book. If you can’t edit yourself, get an editor to help you reduce page count. I’ve found that a great way to keep track of page count is to set a page number limit. Because of the limitations of printing, rule books are usually a minimum of four pages. Pages are generally added in groups of four, so make sure your page count is a factor of four (4, 8, 12, 16, etc.). This limitation helps you decide what to keep and what to cut. Another factor to keep in mind is the physical size of your rule book. A rule book that is 5 inches by 7 inches is going to require more pages to cover the same content that is found in an 8 by 11 inch rule book. Consider the “reading experience” you want your players to have and how you are going to present the information (via text, via illustrations, via examples) to help determine the size of your rule book. The physical box size will also determine the size of your rule book. If your box is 5 inches by 7 inches, then you can’t have a rule book larger than that. Finally, not all games require rule books. Some games are simple and require only a single two-­sided sheet of rules. There’s nothing wrong with being “short ’n’ sweet,” as long as all the information the player needs to understand how to play your game is covered. The rules to my game Pantone the Game (2018) are a single sheet because that’s all we needed to explain the game.

Problem #4: Edge Cases Rule books cannot cover every situation or answer every question; otherwise, you will have a very long rule book. When edge cases—­problems or questions that aren’t addressed in the rule book—­arise, they can frustrate players if a quick or readily available answer can’t be found in the rule book. Solution: It helps to have a frequently asked questions (FAQs) section in your rule book. These questions can be discovered by rigorously play testing your game. The more often that your game is play tested, the more often these edge case questions will come up. It’s then up to you to decide to squash the edge cases in the rules or to allow for them by making exceptions. We’ll be talking more about play testing soon. If you keep these problems (and their solutions) in mind as you begin to write your rule book, the more successful your rule book will be.

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Great rule books are worth remembering. They are great ways to inspire you to make your own rule book better. Here’s a place you can keep track of one: The best rule book I’ve read is: __________________________________

Tricks to Writing Rule Books As I’ve said, writing rules is hard. Fortunately, I’ve picked up a few tricks when it comes to writing rule books that I’m happy to share with you! ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Trick #1: Rules are stories. Trick #2: Use the six zones of play. Trick #3: I am talking to “you.” Trick #4: Use present tense. Trick #5: Include pictures. Trick #6: Add callouts.

Trick #1: Rules Are Stories The best written rule books are like stories. They have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. As a thousand bedtime stories and movies have taught us, every story starts from the perspective of the protagonist, the lead character of the story. “Once upon a time, there was a poor girl named Cinderella. . .” or “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there was a farm boy named Luke. . .”; you get it. In the case of board games, the protagonist is the player. Yes, you can have more than one protagonist in your story. When you start explaining your rules, you do it from the perspective of the player. I find that if you start your story by focusing on who the player is and what they are doing, it makes it much easier than starting with more complicated or abstract concepts such as objectives, components, or mechanisms. Use the rule book to tell a story. Hmmm. I think an example would work well here. . .what is the story of Chess?

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Once upon a time, there were two kingdoms who fought a war. The war ended when one of the kings was captured. Both players—­protagonists—­are kingdoms engaged in a war. The goal of the game is to capture the opponent’s king—­the opponent. Players do that by moving pieces around the board (battlefield) until one is in position to capture the king. Notice what I just described: Who am I? A kingdom. What am I doing? Fighting a war. How do I win? Capture the king. Beginning, middle and ending. It’s the basic structure of a story, but it’s also the basic rules of playing Chess. Ask yourself, what is the story of your game?

Trick #2: Use The Six Zones of Play Trick #2 takes a bit longer to explain, so bear with me. We’ve already established that rules should be written from the perspective of the player. It is also important to think about where the players are positioned at the game table. When you describe the actions of the game, it helps to work your way from the player outward toward the center of the table and the other players when describing how the components are to be used to complete victory objectives in the game. To describe this concept, I use a theory that I call the Six Zones of Play. I first noticed this theory when I observed how players who sit near a certain spot at the game table will tend to primarily focus on that section of the game and the game board regardless of whether there are better options elsewhere. For example, while playing Charterstone, I observed that even though players could make a play at any available location on the board, they tended to play nearer their “home” location (within arm’s reach) regardless of how good any other optional move was. Some of the players were even hesitant to get up from their chairs to observe what the offerings were at the other side of the table, even if there was a better move to be made by playing there.

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This same phenomenon occurred during a game of Formula D (2008). Players who were new to the game remained seated until it became clear that they would need to get up and move around the table to move their cars. (In some cases, the player asked another player to move their car for them!) After witnessing this, I started thinking about the relationship of the player to the table, the player to the components of the game, the components to the table, the direction of the components on the table, and even the relationship of the player to their own hands and how they affected the play of the game. Not long after, I was playing a prototype in which an important victory condition was on a sideboard. As a result of my unfamiliarity with the game as well as the distance of the sideboard from where I was sitting, I neglected to interact with the sideboard. As a result, I lost the game handily, mainly due to missing scoring opportunities on the sideboard. I identified the issue to the designer, but they didn’t have a better solution to my concern. That got me thinking: what could be done to help the player pay more attention to the entire game, rather than just the bit in front of them? The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was on to something interesting. So, I did what I always do; I drew a picture to help me get my thoughts in order.

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The theory is that there are six zones of player activity that physically compete for a player’s attention during gameplay. These zones are based on the physical interaction and ergonomics of the player. I find that the proximity of the zones to the player impacts certain aspects of play as well as emphasizes their importance to the player during gameplay. There is a natural priority to these activities due to their proximity to the player. The zones are as follows: Zone 1: The player’s dominant hand Zone 2: The player’s nondominant hand Zone 3: The tableau Zone 4: The board/shared space Zone 5: The sideboard Zone 6: The rule book

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Zone 1: The Player ’s Dominant Hand The first zone is where the player holds cards or information that is most important to the play of the game. It is the most secret and personal of spaces and, in most cases, not accessible to the other players unless a card or ability allows it. From a functionality point of view, the player might often swap out what is in this hand to perform some other action, such as move a unit, roll a die, or make some other significant move during the game, but players will hold these components “close to their chest” as it were. They are often critical to the player’s success of the game and the best zone to which the designer can convey or even change information to the player. Zone 2: The Player ’s Nondominant Hand The second zone is the domain of the hand that is doing what the other hand isn’t. Depending on the player’s handedness (left, right, or ambidextrous), the nondominant hand might be reaching for resources, moving a pawn, or even grabbing snacks. Often a player will switch between these two hands to perform different tasks, only to return to the dominant hand. The nondominant hand is an accessory to the player’s dominant hand when it comes to functions, and the designer should never make the functions in the nondominant hand redundant to those in the dominant hand. (For example, a player should never have to juggle two hands of cards at the same time.) Zone 3: The Tableau The third zone is the personal play space of the player. It’s where a deck of card goes, and it’s where the player keeps their character sheet, their pile of meeples, coins or resources, or a status tracker for health or some other currency. The other players rarely have access to this space, unless a card or special ability allows it. It is where many of the player’s tactics are plotted out. As a designer, this is the second-­best location to convey information to the player as it is literally “in front of the player” and hard to ignore. Plus, this zone often undergoes the most change during a game, allowing a location for new status or rules to be communicated to the player. Zone 4: The Board/Shared Space The fourth zone is the first and most important common space in the game. All players have access to this place where they can move and place their pawns/meeples, collect resources and cards, or interact and combat the other players. This is usually where you find resources and currency used in the game. This zone often represents the microcosm of the game—­a representation of the game’s world and everything that isn’t of personal use to the player. Information and rule changes can be done here, but because of the distance of the board to

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the player, it is less desirable. Any change to any game state represented on this board should be big, obvious, and clear to all players. Zone 5: The Sideboard The sideboard zone is the domain of extensions to the main game board (zone 4) and is often where secondary mechanisms for the gameplay resides (such as the corruption tracker in Lords of Waterdeep: The Scoundrels of Skullport (2013). In many cases, these side boards are used to track time, points, or world conditions such as a round. Because of their distance from many of the players at the table, components in this zone should be designed to have a lesser priority or be infrequently used (such as once every player has had their turn or when a specific condition arises) by the players. This zone is where problems can arise for players. One suggestion is to make this zone mobile so that it can be moved to the other player rather than being locked into a fixed and distant location. Zone 6: The Rule Book The sixth zone is also troublesome to game designers. When a player needs to refer to a rule book during the game, it breaks the game’s magic circle and the immersion of the game. Designers should strive to make players refer to a rule book as infrequently as possible. This of course is the greatest challenge to a game designer—­clear and concise rules. NOTE

In addition to the rule book, the Internet also counts as zone 6 for the purpose of the Six Zones of Play theory.

Player aids (which can live in zone 3), rules printed on cards (zone 1), icons on the game board (zone 4), or even a shorthand guide printed on the back of the rule book (zone 6) exist to keep the players from having to “go into” the rule book, distracting them from gameplay. There are some games (such as SeaFall (2016) or Betrayal Legacy (2018) that have separate storybooks that contain narrative elements that keep the players within the magic circle of the game. But in general, having to go back to the rule book disrupts the rhythm of play. As a game designer, you should strive to reduce the need to go to the rule book and focus on keeping players in the game. Zone 0: The Mind The Six Zones of Play theory primarily focuses on components and their spatial relationship to the player, but game designer Mike Sellers reminded me that the mind of the gamer is just as important, as it is holding all the strategies and tactics and information vital to the playing of the game. While I agree it is of course important to always consider the player and what information they should know (or need to know) to play the game, their mind doesn’t come with the game nor does it always remain in the same location during play; therefore, it doesn’t quite fit in with the Six Zones of Play theory.

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However, a designer does need to take account of the amount of information the player needs to hold in their mind (remember chunking?). As the designer, you can help the player by providing components to capture that information such as scratch sheets or player guides. Zone X: The Box There is one other zone outside of the Six Zones of Play, zone X. This zone is the game’s box. It’s the phantom zone where pieces are banished for bad behavior, if they aren’t necessary to play this version of the game, or extra components that aren’t needed for play. Sending components to the box means that they are completely out of play and should never be considered during gameplay again. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. Of course, some games use the box for gameplay, such as Cleopatra and the Society of Architects (2006), The Architects of the Coliseum (2016), or Backgammon (1635)—­a game that doesn’t have “architect” in its title. I know some players who store the face-­down Scrabble (1948) tiles in the box top rather than use the draw bag like civilized people. This allows the players to pass the box lid around like a portable sideboard. This just goes to show that there are always exceptions to every rule or crackpot theory about game design.

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The Goal of the Zones What is the point of identifying these zones? As a designer, the goal, is to bring activity from the further zones (4–6) into the closer zones (1–3) so that any necessary information can remain in the player’s view and be easily accessed. Remember, all gameplay should be centered around the player, and the closer you can keep a game’s components and information within reach of the player, the more engaged they will remain in the game. To bring everything back to writing rules, your rules should describe to the player how to play the game by “moving” from one zone to the next. This “chunking” of information will help the player understand how components are meant to be used and what their relationship is to each other in the context of the entire game. Okay, back to the tricks!

Trick #3: I Am Talking to “You” For many years, rule books would refer to “the player” or “he” when describing rules. Then game designers realized that women played games too, and you could find rule books that addressed the player as “she.” Hooray! Progress. Try to use gender-­neutral language whenever possible. We really don’t know who is playing our game, so I always find it better to refer to the reader of the rule book as “you.” Rather than a rule book describing how “the player” does this or “the player does that,” it’s “you” do this, and “you” do that. “You” is more personal. It’s friendlier. It’s more direct. It cuts to the chase. It describes the action better. It’s more inclusive. That said, if you need to be clear about who exactly is doing what when, try using the term active player to indicate that the rule is directed toward that player and not whoever is reading the rules.

Trick #4: Use Command Statements This is an old writing trick that I find works especially well for rule books. For example, say “Roll dice” instead of “Dice are rolled,” and say “Move your pawn” instead of “Players will move their pawn.” This keeps your instructions sounding fresh and exciting as you read them (especially aloud) rather than stagnant.

Trick #5: Include Pictures They say one picture is worth a thousand words. It may be trite, but it is true. But in the case of a rule book, one good illustration that shows the players how gameplay works is priceless. You could spend pages of a rule book describing how gameplay works, but if you show the

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player one good illustration (or two or three) detailing that gameplay in action, they will understand it much faster and clearer than any words can convey. It is too easy for someone to confuse words, no matter how simply you state something, while a clear image is almost impossible to misinterpret. Players tend to read rule books only once or twice and will return to the rule book only when they’ve forgotten a rule. Help them find those rules quickly with the help of an image or even color-­coding sections of the rule book to help them with quick navigation.

Trick #6: Add Callouts Speaking of aiding your rule book readers with quick navigation, another good trick is to use “sidebars” or “callouts” in your rule book. These can be images or rules that relate to a specific action or situation in your rule book. For example, in the rule book to Splendor (2014), there are two different callouts that show (1) how buying cards can score points and (2) how more valuable noble cards score and affect other cards.

What makes a callout unique is the ease in which the player can find it in the rule book. Callouts are best used either with common actions or with edge case situations. What’s ­useful about callouts is that they are easier/quicker for a reader to find in the rule book, ­especially if they have an associated image or subject header to aid the player.

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You can also use callouts to tell your story, display character bios, or display flavor text. But keep in mind, callouts should be used sparingly for just the most important situations.

What Every Good Rule Book Needs Now that you have some simple tricks to keep in mind when writing your rule book, let’s talk about writing it! The good news is that there is an established structure that you can follow. Sure, some rule books might not follow this exact structure and you are free to play around with the format, but an outline is always a great place to start. My favorite outline comes from my friends at Pegasus-­Spiel,6 who have created a list of what they believe every good rule book should contain. ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

An introduction List of components Game setup Goal of the game General sequence of play Detailed sequence of play End of game Credits

Creating an Introduction The introduction, also called the overview, informs the player of the “who, what, and why” about your game. If you are a creative writer, this is a great place to introduce the story and set the mood. Just like with a book or a movie or a song, you need a strong introduction to grab the player’s attention if you want them to go along with you for the ride! For example, here’s the introduction to the highly thematic game Camp Grizzly (2013): It’s 1979 and the Counselors at Camp Grizzly are enjoying Jody’s guitar by the campfire. Chet left to check the generator an hour ago. He should have been back by now. . . Then HE appeared—­the man in the bear mask. With a subtle nod, he tossed Chet’s severed head into the campfire before splitting Becky in half. Who, if anyone, will survive the night in Camp Grizzly?

Creepy! As you can see, the introduction is a great place to introduce the lore of the game with your player, but be careful not to make this too long; I find that a little lore goes a long way! How long is too long? A few paragraphs are fine, but anything past a page is too long.

  You can read more on Pegasus-­Spiel’s tips at pegasus.de/media/pdf/7a/ec/b2/Pegasus_Tips_ for_Game_Designers_1_0.pdf.

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Or if you want your rule book to be narrated by a “character,” the introduction is the best place to establish the “voice” of your rule book. Again, be aware that the more “character” you write, the longer it will take players to read through the rules. I find there’s a fine balance between writing personality and efficient rules. Use this technique with caution. The overview can also be used to summarize how to play the game. This is what we did in the rules for my game Pantone the Game: In Pantone™: The Game, you’ll use colors to create representations of Characters from pop culture and beyond. The colors are inspired by Pantone™, the world’s leading color expert. When you are the Artist, you’ll choose one of your Character Cards and then design a representation of that Character using only color swatches. Arrange your Swatch Cards in a way that will make it easy for other players to identify the Character. When someone guesses your creation, you both score points! Play occurs over three phases, each one more challenging for the Artist. Once everyone has been the Artist three times, the player with the highest score wins!

No matter whether you use it for storytelling or simply as a rules overview, just make sure that you keep your overview brief, energetic, and interesting!

List of Components The list of components is a list of all the parts that are needed to play the game. Why would you want to include this in your rule book? Players will want to know if all the pieces required to play the game have been included in the game so if anything is missing, they can contact the publisher to get a replacement. The list of components serves another useful purpose—­it lets the publisher estimate how much the game will cost. This is particularly important when selling your game—­a topic that, you guessed it, will be covered later in this book. Take a photo or create an illustration of all the game’s components so players can see what everything looks like. It also helps to show pieces in relation to each other so players will know if a component is big or small. You don’t need to show every bit and piece in the game, just a representative image of the component. It always helps to give a little bit more information than you think might be necessary. For example, it is helpful to show both the back and the front of a deck of cards as part of the component list. The list of components teaches players the names of the different types of components. This is important especially when components have a similar appearance. For example, knowing the difference between the encounter deck and the item deck will be important during

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g­ ameplay. You want to make sure that everything is clearly labeled. You should try to give components a distinct name (even to the point of giving them a name each with a different letter of the alphabet). Make sure everything on your component list has a name. For example, I recently read a rule book where the miniatures used in the game were shown (great) but none of them was clearly labeled with a name. The players wouldn’t know which miniature was which character (bad). As you are giving components names, you’ll find there is a temptation to give your components a thematic name. I’ve seen coins called nibs, shards, and suns; but do you know what is a perfectly good name for a coin? A coin. Don’t get too clever with naming your components. Resist the temptation to give components bizarre, strange, or unpronounceable names. As my friend and game designer Andy Ashcraft says, “If something has a perfectly good name, then you should use it.”

Game Setup The game setup is an illustration or photo showing how the game is meant to be set up on the table for the start of the game. The setup shows the player where all the components are meant to go and how components are meant to be divided among the players. The game setup also creates context for the components you just showed them in the component’s list. If any components need to be combined or prepared in a specific way, you should call it out in your illustration—­for example, if a deck of cards needs to be shuffled ahead of time or placed in a particular order. The game setup illustration should show how the game will be set up for as many players as possible, although many rule books show either a two-­or four-­player game.

The Goal of the Game What’s the goal? The goal of the game describes how to win the game. “Wait a second,” you say, “if a game is a story, then why would you want to spoil the ending at the beginning of the rule book?” That’s a good question. I’m so glad you picked up on it! It’s because you need to give the players context as they read through the rest of the rule book. I can only know all the different ways to win a game if I know what the game’s victory condition is ahead of time. As an example, if you read the rules to 7 Wonders (2010), you will learn that you can gain big points at the end of the game not only by building a wonder—­as the title suggests—­but also by having a powerful military force. These are two totally different objectives for a player to focus on during the game.

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Letting the player know all the different ways to win the game allows a player to know their choices from the beginning of the game, and as a designer, the most important thing that you can give a player during a game is choice. Making a Choice Game designer Sid Meier7 says that “a game is a series of interesting choices,” and that’s true—­the player’s choices must be interesting to keep the player engaged in the game. My own definition is “a game is a series of meaningful choices.” The choices must mean something to the player and their goals. It’s even better if the player has several meaningful choices they want to make but they can make only a few or even one of them on their turn. What you don’t want to create is an obvious choice. That’s a decision where one choice is clearly better than another. For example, if I have two cards in my hand and one card is higher than the other and the highest card wins against other players, then of course I will play that higher card. There’s no choice to be made. If I want to win the game, I will always play the higher card. The problem with obvious choices is that the game gets boring after a while. By making one card clearly better than another, the player has no choice but to play the higher card. Giving the player an obvious choice is just as bad as giving the player no choice.

  Sid Meier is primarily known for designing video games like Sid Meier’s Civilization (1991) and Sid Meier’s Pirates (2004).

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Without meaningful choices, a game can feel stale. A game without meaningful choices is uninteresting to the player. Some players say that if a game doesn’t give enough choice or if the choices aren’t meaningful, then the game will feel like it is “on rails”—­that the players are just moving toward a predetermined conclusion. You should focus on designing games with meaningful choices only. Here are a few examples of choices a player might be able to make during a game: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

A choice between drawing a card or making a move action A choice between buying two or more different items in a market A choice between two treasures as a reward A choice of which stat to raise on a character sheet A choice of which enemy to fight first A choice of which direction to go on a map

Creating Tension Choice is also what creates tension during the game, and tension is what creates excitement for the player. I find that tension is the most interesting emotion to create for the player. It’s that feeling of being on the edge of your seat because you don’t know what is going to happen next. Fortunately, creating tension is one of the easier tricks to execute from our game designer’s tool kit. Here are just a few of the tense (and therefore meaningful) choices you can give a player during your game: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Do you keep the dice roll you have, or do you roll again? Do you discard a card in the hopes of drawing a “better” card? Do you risk battling an enemy even through it is stronger than you? Do you move into an unexplored area and risk triggering a bad effect? Do you bet a larger sum than your opponent in the hopes of winning an auction?

General Sequence of Play How do you play? The next section in our rule book is the general sequence of play—­also known as the order of operations. It is important to communicate this clearly to the player; otherwise, you risk confusion and slowing down the time it takes to play the game. It is useful to view the game and all subsequent things a player can do from a top-­down perspective when explaining the game to others. Game ⇨ Round ⇨ Phase ⇨ Turn ⇨ Move/Action Game is the “highest” order of operation. Considering the game in its entirety doesn’t usually have an impact on the gameplay. . .unless your game has a special rule that affects how the game is played. For example, in Dune (2019) players take their turns counterclockwise, and in Magic Maze (2017), players are not allowed to talk to each other during the game.

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When introducing a new or important concept like these to your game, clearly call it out—­ visually if possible—­on the page. You will also want to do this whenever you introduce a new term or rule in your rule book. Don’t just highlight the term or rule in bold8 or with a different color; also define the term for the player so they don’t have to search for the definition. Use the term consistently throughout your rule book! For example, don’t refer to what a player needs to win as “points” on one page and “victory points” on another. I’ve seen players get confused over something as simple as that. If you change your terminology as you are writing your rule book (which happens more often than you might expect), make sure you go back and change all your references to it. Players are also more likely to be able to understand a sequence if you write them using bullet points. That way, they are quicker and easier to find in the rule book, and the players can (mentally or literally) check them off as they perform them in the game. Round and Round A round is when every player has taken a turn once. Often, a game’s length will be limited by the number of rounds played. As we’ve already learned, change a number, and you change the experience. Rounds are just one of the many “knobs” available to a game designer that we can adjust to achieve different results. The more rounds a game has, the longer it might take to play a game. If you have designed a quick party game like Pantone the Game or Monikers (2015),9 you might want your game to last only a few rounds to keep play light and breezy. If you want a longer game, you can increase that number. For example, the strategy game Dune (1978) was originally played in 15 rounds. The game received criticism for taking too long to play, so when the game was redesigned by Gale Force 9 for its re-­release in 2018, the designers reduced the number of rounds to 10. Having played both versions of the game, 15 rounds felt like an interminable amount of time. Reducing it created the feeling that there was “an end in sight” and doesn’t make the game feel like it drags on. In fact, reducing the number of rounds helps ratchet up the tension and drives players to make more aggressive actions that are crucial to the gameplay. Rounds can also help differentiate between different rule sets used during the game. For example, Pantone the Game is played in three rounds with each round having a different set of   Like I’ve been doing throughout this book!   Both of those games last three rounds each.

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rules. On each round, a player makes a creation, and the other players must guess what that is. In the first round, the creator player uses all the color cards. In the second round, the creator player gets to use only one card of each color. In the third round, only three color cards can be used. By breaking the gameplay into rounds, it allows the player to understand and adapt to the new rule set much easier. In the social deduction game Werewolf (1986), play is divided into a “day round” where players try to deduce who the werewolves are and a “night round” where the villagers “sleep” and the werewolves stalk their prey. The clear distinction between the two rounds isn’t only pivotal to gameplay but creates wonderful opportunities for mood, theme, and storytelling. There are more extreme examples of resetting the game’s rules round to round. In Jaws (2019), rounds are thematically referred to as acts. The first act is set on an island where players attempt to prevent the shark player from eating tourists. In the second act, the player actually flips over the game board, resetting the entire experience with new components. The game now takes place on a ship, as the player battles against the shark player. It’s quite effective. This very dramatic shift in gameplay not only helps tell the story from the film that the game is based on but also heightens the tension as the players are on a smaller playing field from the first round. When determining the number of rounds in your game, you might want to also consider adjusting it based on your game’s player count or experience level. For example, in the game Lord of the Rings the Board Game (2000), Sauron’s position on the corruption track is 15 for starting players but is moved to 12 for experienced players—­to make the game harder. La Citta (2000) has positions on the board that can be accessed only in higher-­player-­count games. Small World (2009) includes a totally different map that is used for lower player counts. W ho’s on First? Another important round-­related mechanism is determining the first player. There are tactical advantages for going first: a player may get first pick of cards or a character or resources or where to place their pawn. This is known as the first player advantage and is often frowned upon by modern game designers and players. To offset this, designers will balance their design by giving subsequent players a starting advantage. A classic method found in many Eurogames is to give each player after the first one more coins (or other resources) per player in front of them. So, the second player gets two resources, the third player gets three resources, and so on. A different option to address first player advantage is to have asymmetric drafting occur before the game begins. This is where the last player gets first choice of cards or resources, and the first player gets last choice.

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Making the first player shift from player to player every round or when a specific event occurs is another way to keep things fair. In my design of Rayguns and Rocketships (2017), I made the first player token rotate at the start of each round because being first had a definite tactical advantage. In Heaven & Ale (2017), the first player token is a prize that a player may select when picking rewards. Other games award the first player token to the player who does something first or last—­which adds to the strategy of when a player does (or doesn’t) do something on their turn. You can have players spend an action or bid on the first player token during gameplay—­as is done in Stone Age (2008)—­so that when the next round starts, a totally different player will be first! The first player token can be hotly contested in some games! CHOOSING T HE FIR ST PL AYER Determining the first player can be done a variety of ways. It can be based on a condition, such as the youngest player (Candy Land, 1949), the nicest player (Dungeon Lords, 2009), the player whose ears are the most pointed (Small World, 2009), whoever looks most like a pirate (Cartagena, 2008), or whoever has the coldest nose (Roll to the South Pole, 2012). Choosing first player can be turned into a competition. In Tales & Games: The Hare & the Tortoise (2011), the first player to say what time it is gets to be the first player. In Ticket to Ride: Europe (2005), the first player is whoever has visited the most European countries. In Zombie Dice (2010), the player who can say “braaaaains” with the most feeling gets to go first. Choosing first player can also be based on a component of the game as in Chess, where white always goes first. In Betrayal at House on the Hill (2004), players look on their explorer card to see which character’s birthday is closest to the date on which the game is being played; for example, if we are playing on June 14th, then the player who is playing Professor Longfellow would be first player as that character’s birthday is July 27th but not Darrin “Flash” Williams whose birthday is June 9th. WHY FAIRNESS MAT T ER S Why all this fuss about who gets to be first player? Because you want to make sure that your game is fair. Games are meant to reward skill, and as a game designer, we should make every effort to give the player a fair shot at winning. It’s part of the unspoken agreement between the game designer and the players. If players consider a game to be unfair, it will ruin their enjoyment of the game. Often players will complain how a rule is “broken” or “unfair” or “OP” (overpowered) and that it ruins the

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fun of the game. One of the goals as a game designer is to create a “fun” experience, and anything that detracts from that is bad for our designs. Going Through a Phase The next operation is the phase. A phase refers to a specific type of action or activity that the player can do only during that phase. This is where things get confusing. There is a hotly contested debate in the board gaming community about the use of the term phase and whether it comes before a turn, if it is part of a turn, or something else altogether. It doesn’t help that some games use the term phase in different ways. For example, Power Grid (2004) gameplay is split up into different phases—­a new phase starts after a certain condition has been met. Others use phase as the smallest measurable unit of play. For example, Magic the Gathering (MtG, 1993) breaks up a player’s turn into five distinct phases (beginning, first main, combat, second main, end), but because a player can make choices, perform actions, and play interrupts during these phases, I relegate MtG’s use of the term as jargon and will leave the term phase in the order where I described it earlier. Here are just a few examples of what are considered phases: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Bidding Building Buying Card programming Combat Charity, where the player with the least money gets a small amount Movement

Phases are helpful because they help players concentrate on a specific action. This is especially important if your game has many different actions to choose from. Once again, this is a form of “chunking” information to a more understandable form. If a player cannot perform the required phase action, they may pass—­not perform the requested action, or any action for that matter. In some games, there are strategic reasons for passing. You might not want to spend money during a buying phase. Or you might be setting up a trap for another player to fall into, but by taking an action, you wouldn’t get to spring the trap. In MtG, you can hold mana in reserve for use on another player’s turn if you have an “instant” card that you can play and the mana to power it. You might choose to pass to gain another ability, such as drawing cards or collecting spent cards back into your hand.

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Now, there are some games where you cannot pass,10 where you must take a move to keep the game going or balanced. Again, make sure to mention this in your rule book so your players know what choices they have on their turn. Giving players the option to pass is just one more choice for the player. . .and the best thing you can give the player is a choice. Keep in mind, passing is not losing a turn. Losing a turn is when a player cannot do anything because they drew a card or landed on a space that caused them to lose a turn. In fact, losing a turn is considered an archaic mechanism that should be avoided by modern game designers. My philosophy is that you don’t want to prevent the player from playing the game. But if losing a turn is hated so much, why is it in so many games? Well, it might be that those games are a product of their time, when game designers cared less about “hurting the feelings” of other players. It could be a byproduct when more time could be spent playing a game than today’s audience who generally want a shorter play experience. It might be that the game designer is inexperienced and hasn’t played enough games that don’t allow players to lose their turn, or they just think that to make a game, you need a moment when a player loses a turn. Whatever the case, I would avoid this mechanism. . .unless it is absolutely important to your gameplay or game’s theme. Is It Finally My Turn? In most cases, a turn refers to the “taking of a turn,” in which players take all the actions that they want/need to do. What differentiates a turn from a phase is that in a turn the player has a choice of the types of actions they may take. This action can be to make decisions, move pawns, fight combat, draw, play and discard cards, and generally perform the actions to help you win the game. It helps to include an example of a typical turn—­which can be especially helpful to a new player. While turns are generally a solitary activity, some games allow players to interrupt a player’s turn. The storytelling game Once Upon a Time (1993) literally allows a player to interrupt the story being told in a similar manner to how improv comedians use “yes and. . . .” If a player attacks another player in Exploding Kittens (2015), the target may play a “Nope” card that cancels the action of the attacker’s card.11 Another mechanism is the follow action, in which one player chooses an action, other players have a chance to follow the same action or a slightly weaker variation of the action. In Villages of Valleria (2017), a harvest action allows the player to draw three cards, while the   Ironically, none of them features Gandalf the wizard.   It also has a “Yup” card that cancels out a “Nope” card!

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follow action allows a player to draw one card. You can make the other players pay a cost, as seen in Tiny Epic Galaxies (2015). In that game, players have access to a resource called culture, and whenever the active player selects an action, the other players may spend culture to imitate that action. Some games have simultaneous turns, where players do the same action at the same time. In the family game Dutch Blitz (1960), all players simultaneously grab for cards as quickly as they can! In Star Wars X-­Wing Miniatures Game (2012), all players use a dial to simultaneously select the maneuver they want to perform with their ship miniature. The order of which player gets to go first is based on the type of ship they are “piloting.” There are many ways for players to simultaneously select actions. Sushi Go (2013) has each player draft a hand of cards and then pass them on to the next player. In RoboRally (1994), all players simultaneously select and “program” direction cards that are resolved using a priority number system. RoboRally also uses a timer, in this case a minute sand timer, which forces a player to make their decision or move within a certain time limit. If the player doesn’t finish programming in time, their cards are randomly placed by another player! Galaxy Trucker (2007) uses a sand timer for a more comedic effect, as players have a limited time to make the “best” spaceship possible before time runs out. As a result, some of the player’s spaceships turn out to be barely functional or outright terrible! It’s Your Move The player’s action or move is the smallest “atom”12 of play found in a game. An action usually involves the gaining or spending of resources to do a single. . .something. (Remember, a turn is doing multiple actions.) You might have noticed that I used the term action earlier when talking about phases. This is one of the challenging things about game design—­that terms often get reused to describe more than one thing.13 I will try to use distinct terms whenever possible, but if I don’t, I hope you are able to follow along. Some games limit the number of actions a player can do, such as one or two actions per turn. Some games limit the number of times a player can perform or repeat an action. Another way to limit the number of actions a player can do is to apply a cost to perform the action. The cost a player spends might be money, food, or energy; more commonly, the cost might be

  A game atom is a term I shamelessly stole from my friend, fellow game designer and former podcasting partner, Gil Hova. You can hear him dispense gaming knowledge on the Ludology podcast at ludology.libsyn.com. 13   A perfect example of this can be found in video game design where the term level can be used to describe everything from a player’s rank to a wave of challenges to the location where the player plays! I chalk it up to a lack of an agreed upon terminology among the game design community. 12

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abstracted and simply known as action points. Players may have a limited number of action points depending on the role they are playing, or they may have the capacity to gain more action points over the course of the game. An action can also literally mean a move. A move can describe the physical action of moving a pawn across the board or the rolling of dice as in Monopoly (1935), Chutes and Ladders (originally called Snakes and Ladders, =200 BC), and Sorry (1929).

Detailed Sequence of Play The detailed sequence of play is where you dive into exactly what a player needs to do when playing the game. This is where you give examples of particularly complex actions, phases, or turns in your game. Again, follow the rules we discussed earlier where you use illustrations, bullet points, fonts, or colors to help clarify the details. Examples are extremely helpful only if the example is based on something that might actually happen to the player. You might want to provide strategy tips to the player. This is especially useful to a new player who might be nervous about whether they are playing the game correctly. You might want to include a designer’s note explaining an unusual, infrequent, or odd rule. This should include explaining why you’ve created the rule that way. If the player knows your intention, it will go a long way to helping them understand the rule.

End of Game This is the end! Finally, we come to how to end the game. This is the win condition that stops gameplay for the player. However, reaching the end of the game doesn’t mean that the game is over. Here are just some of the ways you can end a game: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

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The story is over. All players are dead/only one player or team is left alive. The boss monster is killed. A predetermined point value or score is reached. A predetermined number of rounds has been played. Some games have rounds skipped by random elements or player-­generated events to keep a feeling of unpredictability to the game. The timer runs out. Resources run out—­there are only so many resources left, or a predetermined number of resources (such as cards) has been depleted. There is no legal move left.

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The player’s objective or win condition has been achieved. Too much or too little—­the board has been overrun by enemy forces or all the resources run out. Position—­a player has control of a predetermined number of locations. The end —­a player reaches the end of a path/racetrack. A random event occurs—­a card or some other system stops the game. Sudden death—­a condition arises in which if the players don’t meet the criteria, they lose the game. Boredom—­players get tired of playing the game and mutually consent to stop playing.

You don’t need to have only one ending condition to your game. In Glory to Rome (2005), the game ends if the draw deck runs out, if a player lays a Foundation that claims the last Site card, if someone completes the Catacombs, if a player builds the Forum Romanum and at least one of each Client type and one of each type of Material, or if all other players agree to surrender for any reason. That’s five different ways to win the game! A Note About Stor y As you are writing your rule book, you might want to interject some story or flavor text—­ short snippets of dialogue or description. There are different ways to present this material. For example, the authors of Everdell (2018) tell their story in their rule book in the form of fiction, letters, and even a poem! If you include fiction of any type in your rule book, I suggest that you italicize that text or print it in a different color than the main text so that readers understand that it is not part of the rules.

Everyone Deserves Credit To a game designer, the credits are just as important to the rules, and getting credit is an extremely valuable thing for a game designer. We’ll talk more about credits and many of these positions later, but you want to make sure that everyone involved in making the game receives credit. That includes the game designer (that’s you!), anyone who helped play test your game, the game’s artist(s), the game’s developers, anyone involved in publishing the game, and anyone special you’d like to thank, such as someone who gave you good advice, say in a book about designing board games. Wink. Wink.

But Wait, There’s More There are two other things that aren’t in the rule book format I’ve presented, but they are important to consider: the FAQs and the back page.

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The FAQs section is where you can cover a range of topics that the rule book might not directly address. Edge cases are usually the number-­one way that a player can get tripped up when playing a game, and the FAQs section is usually the place for them to find an answer. How do you create an FAQ? By playtesting your game, a lot! As you play test your game, keep track of the questions that the players ask you. If they ask it three or more times, you should make sure that you address it somewhere in your rules. Sometimes, as you write a rule book, the explanation of the rules will flow from one topic to another. If you come across a question or edge case that doesn’t quite fit into the “flow” of the rules, then either include it as a callout or place it in the FAQ. The problem with FAQs is that they tend to grow after the rule book has been published. If you can, place the FAQs section online (and include the link to it in your rule book) so that if you need to add to it, you can do it much easier than having to release a new edition of your game. Online FAQs will also appear on BoardGameGeeks.com, but I find that it is better for the designer and/or publisher to moderate those questions than leaving it up to the game’s audience. The back page is a special place because unlike the rest of the rule book, it is easy to quickly access information from it. You can leave the rule book with the back page facing up so that it is available to quickly reference during the game. I’ve seen the back page used for many different functions in a rule book including the following: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

A list of the actions a player can do on their turn A list of the different phases of the game The cost of different resources or powers A reference chart of the game’s icons A guide to the different characters, races, factions, or monsters found in the game A quick reference guide to the game An index of keywords and where they can be found in the rule book

There are a few other things you can include in your rule book. Depending on how complex your rule book gets, including a table of contents helps the player quickly find a topic in the rule book. An appendix or index essentially does the same as a table of contents but pertains to individual subjects rather than broad topics. A glossary lists definitions of important terms and concepts used in your game. Character biographies can be fun to include, but I suggest putting them in the back of the rule book so they don’t get in the way of a reader who is trying to find rules.

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If your rule book is longer and more complicated, then you might want to consider breaking it into multiple, separate rule books! This is especially good if you need to have secret information to be read at specific times during the game. Betrayal at House on the Hill has three rule books: one for the general rules, one for the survivors, and one for the traitor player!

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Star Wars X-­Wing Miniatures Game comes with two rule books: one for the general rules and another “quick start” guide to allow the players to begin play faster until they feel ready to try a more complex game experience.

Say What? Translating the Rules Translations are challenging, especially if you don’t speak or write other languages. My suggestion is, if it isn’t your native language, don’t try to translate your own rule book. Instead, hire a professional translator to do it for you. Or even better, have the publisher do it for you.14 Whew! That was a lot to digest. But if you follow the format and advice, then you will be on your way to having a good rule book. But how do we know whether we have written a good rule book? Let’s go to the next chapter to find out!

Important Chapter 2 Concepts and Takeaways ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Writing rule books is hard. The main job of a game designer is to communicate. Telling the rules is like telling a story. Consider the Six Zones of Play when describing the rules of the game. Always write to “you.” Use images whenever possible. Outline your rule book to help you while writing it. Choice is the most important thing to give a player. A game is a series of meaningful choices. An obvious choice is the same as no choice. Tension is what creates excitement for the player. Game ⇨ Round ⇨ Phase ⇨ Turn ⇨ Move/Action. Everyone involved in making the game deserves a credit.

  Just one of the many benefits of working with a publisher! Yep, we’ll talk about this later too!

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Chapter 

T he C h a pte r A b o ut P l ay Test i ng WHY IS THE chapter on play testing here? Well, that’s a great question . . . and the answer is that even before you start designing a game, you should really be thinking about play testing. Play testing is just that critical to the game design process. Knowing how to play test before you start play testing will save you a lot of wasted energy and effort. When you are making a game, expect to play it over and over and over and over and over again. Then expect to play it again. That’s because the heart of the game design process is iteration. The following is a popular model that illustrates the process of iterative development:

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The iterative design method works by building a design, testing that design with play testers and getting their feedback on what is fun and isn’t fun and what works and doesn’t work, and then acting on that feedback—­fixing what doesn’t work, clarifying how things work, finding the fun and adding to it. The goal of all this iteration is to “break” the game. Breaking a game, even though it feels bad sometimes, is actually good for the game. Just like forging and reforging the blade of a katana, your game design will get stronger each time we break it and fix it. It is through iteration that we gain insight on how to fix what isn’t working with our game. It is through iteration that we learn what components are necessary for our game and what should be removed. It is through iteration that we learn what the players enjoy doing during the game and what they don’t like doing and what slows down the game or is too confusing. It is our task as game designers to “lean into” what works and bring it to the forefront of your game. If something works, do more of it. If it doesn’t work, then you should find another way to do it or get rid of it completely. It’s better to throw out good things in your design than to let bad things stay in it.

The Great Worry Let’s take a moment to address a worry that many new board game designers have. “I’m worried that if I show my game design before it’s done, someone will steal my idea.” Most new game designers

I’m here to tell you that idea theft in the professional board game industry almost never happens. That’s not to say that it hasn’t happened. Here are three instances where it did: ■■

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1935: Charles Darrow “steals” Elizabeth Magie’s design for The Landlord’s Game as the basis for his game Monopoly.1 2004: Looney Labs’ Aquarius (1998) design is copied and published as Search, Ponder and Play by Covenant Communications. Covenant admitted to copying the game, agreed to pay Looney a royalty, and offered to destroy all remaining copies. Looney

  The issue around Monopoly is a lot more complicated than that. Homemade versions of Magie’s design were being circulated around college campuses and in households for years before Darrow saw the game. Many of those other players changed Magie’s design in moderate to significant ways, including giving it the name Monopoly. Darrow’s main contributions to Monopoly were to set the game in Atlantic City and to sell it to Parker Brothers for a lot of money. Magie was later given restitution and credit as the original designer. You can read more about this in the excellent books Monopoly: The World’s Most Famous Game: And How It Got That Way by Philip Orbanes and The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury and Scandal Behind the World’s Favorite Board Game by Mary Pilon.

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Labs offered to sell a second edition of the game on its website that had the a­ ppropriate copyright giving credit to designer Andrew Looney—­which, in my humble opinion, was a very magnanimous thing for Looney Labs to do! 2014: Chinese manufacturer Ziko Games publishes an unlicensed retheme of the card game Bang! by the name Legends of the Three Kingdoms. A court case rules in favor of Ziko, and the case is dismissed.2

But don’t let these examples rattle you, because no one is going to steal your game design. Let me repeat that. . .no one is going to steal your game design. How do I know this? Because: ■■

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Most game designers and publishers already have their own game designs that they are working on. They don’t have the time or the desire to steal your idea. Not all designs appeal to other game designers and publishers. For example, even if you came up with the best game design based on the sport of cricket, I would never steal it because I don’t like cricket (or even understand how to play it!). It’s not worth the trouble. The last thing a game publisher wants is legal trouble. Legal cases are expensive and time-­consuming.

On his blog at stonemaiergames.com, game designer Jamey Stegmeier gives this advice: You will learn far more by sharing your idea than by keeping it secret.

By sharing your idea, others can respond to it and let you know if they like the idea. They might offer to support you as you develop your idea. They might point you toward other games that are like your game—­which you can research to improve your design or distance it from other existing games. Sharing protects your game by establishing precedence. The board game industry is a very small place, so word gets around. If someone steals an idea, others will find out about it. I do have a word of caution about sharing: it has been scientifically proven3 that people get the same endorphin rush from sharing an idea that they do from creating that idea. Many believe that telling your idea to others robs you of the motivation of creating it.

  Why was it dismissed? “That doesn’t seem fair,” you might say. That’s because game mechanics are not (well, almost never) copyrightable. We’re going to learn much more about this later in the book. 3   See When Intentions Go Public: Does Social Reality Widen the Intention-­Behavior Gap? by Gollwitzer, Sheeran, Michalski, and Seifert (www.jstor.org/stable/40575071). 2

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Another funny thing that can happen is when synchronicity occurs. You might come up with a game design, build it as a prototype, and even get to the point where you are play testing it at an event like ProtoSpiel or at Gen Con’s First Exposure Playtest Hall when you see another designer’s game with a similar theme, mechanics, or both! It just happens. It’s the reason why five underwater horror movies were released within a year of each other4 and in 1998 there were two action movies about killer asteroids threatening to hit Earth!5 Even if someone steals your idea, what matters is execution. In my game design class, I have an assignment where I give all my students the same criteria for making a game. They all must make a game based on the same theme with the same gameplay. Guess what? They all make totally different games. That is because what makes your game special is . . . you! Your interests, your perspectives, and your quirks will make your game unique.

Let’s Start Starting While some designers think of play testing as something that starts only when you are “done” with the first draft of your game, I have found that there are several points during the game development process where play testing can occur. The following points will help to give insight about your game during different steps of the design and development process. ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Is this a thing? Solo play testing Designer play testing Gamer play testing Friends and family Blind play testing Publisher play testing

Is This a Thing? The first point is what I call the “Is this a thing?” stage.

  Deep Star Six (1989), Leviathan (1989), Lords of the Deep (1989), The Abyss (1990), and The Rift (1990).   Armageddon and Deep Impact.

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When I first come up with an idea for a game, I draw in my notebook all the components that I think I need for the game based on the type of gameplay I’m trying to make. Then comes the fun part! I assemble all the parts that I need for the game, and I spread them out in front of me on the table and start to push them around to see how they would interact with each other. I consider things like how many cards are in a player’s hand, what a

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miniature looks like on the board that I’ve drawn on a piece of paper, how many dice might be needed, or how many coins or other resources (such as cubes, cards, or other things) the player might need. After I push the components around for a bit, I start to imagine what it would be like to play this game that I’ve thrown together, and I ask myself, “Is this a thing?” Sometimes you just know whether the pieces are working together. At other times, maybe you need to add a little something to make the presentation more exciting on the table. In case I’m not being clear, this step of “Is this a thing?” is more than just prepping the game by assembling components. It’s using your imagination to play the game partially in your head and partially with the pieces you have in front of you. Sometimes the tactility of the components sparks ideas on how they interact and you start to see how the pieces of the game might fit together, even if the pathway to a successful game design is still unclear. For example, maybe your game is “just” a deck of cards, and maybe that’s all it needs to be. But perhaps you think it would be more helpful for the player if you had a deck of cards as well as a player board to designate where to play or discard cards. Do you think it would be more thematic or charming if perhaps that player board is instead a paper-­craft tree, such as what was done with the game Everdell (2018)? A little imagination at this step can take you a long way.

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You see, table presence is an important thing to consider in today’s crowded marketplace. Over the years, I’ve seen game designers use trees, pirate ships, dark towers, zombie-­infested buildings, cyberpunk cities, western trains, and even big fluffy beds as ways to make their games stand out from all the other games. I admit, I like it when a game looks more like a miniature world. I think it’s one of the appealing things about tabletop games. But I digress.

Going Solo Once you’ve passed the “Is this a thing?” stage, you’re ready for the next stage of play testing: solo play testing. As you’re creating your game, the rules are still in their early, primordial form. More likely than not, you are keeping the rules in your head even as you play the game. Get them out of your head and into a notebook! Here’s mine:

Trust me, there are going to be moments when you will get a flash of insight about your rules. Or maybe you will be playing another game with some friends and you realize that a

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mechanism or rule from that game might work great with your own design. Don’t rely on your brain to remember it. Brains are very squishy things!6 No matter how good your memory is, you will tend to forget! Get yourself in the habit of carrying around a notebook so that you can keep track of your rules and all the good ideas that you get. I have been carrying a notebook around with me for literally decades,7 and it’s saved my butt, metaphorically, many times. It’s also not uncommon to be worried that you are going to make the wrong choice when designing your game. This is part of the reason why game design is just so dang hard. There are literally hundreds of answers to the questions that we are proposing as we are building our game! What is the right answer? It depends on what you want the players to do. For example, if I were designing a simple card game, a question would be “How many cards should the player be able to hold in their hand?” That seems like an easy question, right? But what is the correct answer? Is it three cards? If the player is allowed to play one card on their turn, a hand of three cards gives the player more choice than two cards. But having a hand of five cards gives the player even more choice, which is good; but five cards, especially if the cards have unique information on each of them, will take the player more time to read and consider what strategy to play.

  Have you ever tried holding one?   I’m on notebook volume 46 as I write this chapter!

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This gets even “worse” if the player has seven cards or nine cards or twelve cards in their hand—­which is a big hand of cards, especially if you are considering it from an ergonomic perspective. Don’t even get me started on games like Uno (1971) where you can literally have dozens of cards in your hand depending on how badly you’re playing. If the goal of your game is to play cards quickly or to have lots of cards you can use to create combos or have lots of cards that you can trade with other players, then you might want the player to have more cards in their hand. And that’s just addressing the “simple” question of “How many cards should a player have in their hand?” My point is, when designing a game, things can get complicated quickly. Write down a description of your game’s core gameplay to act as your “guiding star” so as your design progresses you’ll have something to help you get back on track if you ever stray from your original concept. Here are a few examples of the descriptions of other popular games. Can you guess what they are?8 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Attract a beautiful and diverse collection of birds to your wildlife reserve. Vanquish monsters with strategic card play. Fulfill your quest to leave your legacy! Ship goods, construct buildings, and choose roles that benefit you more than others. Build your railroad across North America to connect cities and complete tickets. Prove you are the master of all things trivial, rolling and moving to collect pies.

Your turn! Write down a description for the game that you want to design: Game description: ________________________________________________ Let’s get back to solo play testing. This is where you play the game by yourself to make sure that it is “doing what you want it to do.”

  1. Wingspan, 2. Gloomhaven, 3. Puerto Rico, 4. Ticket to Ride, 5. Trivial Pursuit: Genus Edition.

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Solo play testing can help you get a feel for what the game will play like. Granted, it won’t answer all your questions, but it’s important when starting a game design. The goal of solo play testing is to get your game to play the way you want it to play. Solo play testing helps answer basic questions such as the number of components, the number of turns, and the time it takes to play the game. Solo play testing can be a bit tricky, especially if you are new to designing games. It takes imagination to pretend that you are several players at once. It takes even more imagination to make decisions even though you know every choice each player has. Some games are a lot harder to solo test—­such as games with a betrayal mechanic. Just do the best you can. You don’t need to solo test your game a lot to get it to play the way you want it to. There’s going to be a point where you must kick your baby game out of the nest and get it in front of real players; however, I don’t suggest showing your new game design to just any player at first. You want to show it to your fellow game designers.

Do It by Design The next type of play testing you should do is with other game designers. As you know, game designers are a special and rare breed of people who are already well versed in the language of game design. If something in your game design is half-­done or if it is not quite right, they usually possess the vocabulary and communication skills to describe what is wrong and how you might be able to fix it. I find that game designers don’t require a game to be pretty or even finished to have an opinion about it. They can imagine what your game will be. They often will know about other games that they can point you toward for ideas. This is because game designers in general are problem solvers. They suggest how to lop off large areas of your design that aren’t working and remove mechanics and components and elements that are unnecessary or redundant. They can help get to the heart of the game design quickly—­which should be your goal at this point of the design process. This is critical because once you have your game playing the way that you want to play, then you can go back and elaborate on it or tighten it up. I found that there are two types of game designers: additive game designers and reductive game designers. An additive game designer is somebody who starts with a single mechanic, a small or simple game design, and keeps adding complexity and difficulty to it. A reductive game designer will start with a very big and elaborate and maybe even complicated system and reduce and remove elements of the game until it is balanced “just right.”

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I have learned that I am an additive game designer. Often, when I am play testing a game, a player might give feedback such as “I like this game, but I’d like to be doing more things in it.” If I agree with this feedback, then I will add a system, another resource, or another way for the player to win the game. You want to be careful about this way of designing because it can cause feature creep. It’s easy to get excited about a new idea, especially if you’ve been working on your game for a long time. New ideas can be seductive, but you must be very critical about them. They can add cost to your game, they can slow down gameplay, and they can upset the balance of the game that you’ve already created. If you have a big, elaborate design for your game with lots of complicated systems, then creating your design reductively might be a better way to work. Working this way will allow you to start big and then focus your way. There’s no wrong way to do it. However, in my experience, I find that there are interdependencies that will develop as you are making a game design. If you’re not careful, you could remove something tied to another system, and everything will unravel your game like pulling on a piece of loose yarn when knitting a sweater! I’m not saying which is the better way to work; you must do what is best for you! What kind of game designer are you? I am a(n) [

additive

reductive

both

] game designer.

(Circle one) So, I am fortunate enough to have game designer friends who live nearby who are always happy to help me play test a prototype. What if you don’t have game designer friends? Not to worry, there are plenty of ways to meet a game designer. This includes gaming conventions, game group meetups, university game design programs, and the Internet!9 I have found that, by and large, game designers are friendly people and like helping other game designers solve problems with their game design.

Gamers Game Games Now that we’ve built our prototype and play tested it alone and with our game designer friends, we are ready to play it with other gamers. Experienced game players make good game testers because they already like to play games and have thoughts and opinions about games.

  A great example of this is a long-­running thread on Board Game Geek called “Post your Game Design Issue here—­ Get Actionable Feedback” (boardgamegeek.com/thread/2103719/post-­your-­game-­design-­ issue-­here-­get-­actionable-­fe/page/1).

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There are a few disadvantages that I’ve found when play testing with experienced gamers. Sometimes, I’ve found that these types of players are less willing to play games that aren’t “finished.” They feel like playing an incomplete game isn’t giving them the full experience and that playing an unfinished game isn’t a good use of their time. Another disadvantage I’ve encountered is that sometimes it’s hard to get even an experienced game player to play a prototype repeatedly. But, if you find someone who is willing to do so, hang onto them for dear life! They are worth more than gold! Another thing to keep in mind about experienced gamers is that often their knowledge comes from playing other games. This is great if you are looking for comparative games for reference, but they won’t always be able to “think outside the box” when it comes to offering feedback, but that’s totally okay because we’ve already talked to our game designer friends about that. Your goal for play testing with gamers is to find the answers for questions about comprehension and the play experience. We are looking for answers to questions like the following: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Do you understand how to play the game? Did you enjoy playing the game? Was there anything you found confusing or annoying? Would you play this game again?

In Appendix A, “Resources,” you will find a play testing form that you can use to help guide your play tests and get the answers you want from your play testers. Your Game Isn’t Fun One of the issues you are going to encounter during play testing is that players sometimes (more often than you’d like) will not like your game. They will tell you, “I just didn’t think your game was very fun.” I hate the term fun. I hate it because it is too subjective of a term. Fun is like funny or sexy—­everybody’s taste for what they consider to be fun can be wildly different, even when it comes to board games. Plus, it’s often hard to get someone to effectively communicate what they think is fun. Fun is an emotion and often hard for someone to quantify. It’s one of those “I’ll know it when I see it” situations, and that just isn’t very helpful when it comes to determining what is wrong with your board game design. That is why rather than trying to “find the fun” in your game design, you should concentrate on the “unfun”—­the elements in your game design that are making your game not fun for the players. You see, unfun is much easier for players to spot. People, in general, are much more likely to complain about something than compliment it. Problems are easier to spot than gameplay

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that is working the way you want it to work. By concentrating on those problems, we can find solutions and remove the “unfun” from the game, and what should be left, in theory, is the fun. Once we’ve identified a problem causing the unfun, we can address how to fix it. The following sections cover a few common problems found in game designs and provide some of the ways they can be resolved. YOUR GAME TAKES TOO LONG TO PL AY As we will cover later, play time is one of the “three essentials”10 listed on a game’s box. As such, it is important for a game designer to know how long it takes to play their game. New game designers will often find that their game takes too long to play—­due to a variety of reasons.11 There are several ways you can solve this problem. ■■

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Reduce the number of goals, objectives, or steps required to win the game: Try designing your game with only one way to win. Play test it. See how long it takes to play your game. Then add a second way to win, and so on. By working additively, you will have more control over the systems in the game and how long it takes for the player to interact with them. Start your game on “turn three”: I learned this trick from reading an interview with Klaus Tauber, the designer of the wildly popular Catan (originally known as The Settlers of Catan [1995]). He said in early play tests his play testers felt that the game took too long to “get going,” but once it did, they really enjoyed playing the game. He thought about cutting features from the game but realized that all he had to do was to start the players with the equivalent resources that they would have on the third turn of the game. This rectified the slow start to his game, and Catan has sold more than 32 million copies. PL AYER S T HINK YOUR GAME IS “ TOO COMPLIC AT ED ”

Modern hobby games can get quite complicated. In our enthusiasm, it’s easy to add systems, components, and mechanisms to our design. But as we’ve already discussed, a game that is too complicated can be overwhelming for a player.

  Don’t worry, we’ll be talking about the three essentials soon enough.   I don’t want to get onto my soapbox, but the hobby game industry has a real issue with confusing game length with quality. If a game doesn’t take very long to play, the game is often dubbed by gaming enthusiasts as a filler game—­a derisive term that implies that because the game is short in length, it is worthwhile only as a game that “fills the time” between two longer (more worthwhile) games. This is ridiculous as a game needs to be only as long as it needs to be. There are plenty of complex, elegant, lovely games that take 10–30 minutes to play as there are games that take 2, 4, 6, or more hours to play. One day, more of my fellow gamers will realize this. I’ll get off my soapbox now.

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The solution? Concentrate on the good parts of the design. Here’s an example: designer John D. Clair’s first game design was Edge of Darkness (2019), a sprawling fantasy epic with many complicated mechanisms and systems. One of those mechanisms was something he called card crafting, where players would slip clear cards into sleeves to create new cards. When publisher AEG first signed the design, they realized that Edge of Darkness in its current form was too complicated, so they decided to focus solely on the novel card-­crafting mechanic instead, which became the game Mystic Vale (2016). YOUR GAME HA S A “RUNAWAY ” LE ADER PROBLEM The runaway leader problem is when there is the possibility for a player to advance (score more points, have more resources or money, be more powerful) than the other players to the point where it is difficult or even impossible for the competing players to catch up, let alone win the game. The other name for this is “the rich get richer” problem—­where players who are successful keep earning money and resources while losing players are punished by losing more money and resources.12 While there are those who claim that “winning doesn’t matter,” this as we know isn’t always true. Remember, one of the social contracts a game designer makes with players is that “everyone should have a fair chance of winning the game.” The runaway leader problem removes the fairness from the game, which will end up ruining the game experience, no matter whether the player cares about winning or not. It also discourages players from finishing playing the game as the other players see that there is no chance that they can win. If players don’t complete a game, there is often little chance that they will want to play it again. This can be especially disastrous for play testing—­when you need play testers to iterate on your design. If they feel like they never have a chance to win, why would they want to keep playing? The solution to the runaway leader problem is rubber-­banding.13 These are systems or handicaps added to your design to help losing players or “nerf” winning players during the game. For example, some games limit the number of resources a player can have or the

  Ironically, it was exactly this point that designer Elizabeth Magie was trying to make in her The Landlord’s Game (1903). However, players of the 1920s and 1930s preferred winning money to being lectured at, which is how Magie’s design became twisted into Monopoly (1935). 13   The term rubber-­banding originated in driving video games and refers to the handicapping that occurred when a winning driver got too far ahead of the other drivers. Mechanics (like the infamous Blue Turtle Shell) would ensure that the leader would return to the pack of racers to ensure a closer finish. Japanese publisher Nintendo patented their rubber-­banding algorithm (US Patent 7278913) for the video game Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (2003). 12

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number of resources physically included with the game. This means that if players want to have access to more resources, they need to spend the resources they already have. The worker placement game Agricola (2007) requires players to feed their workers at the end of the turn, so while having more workers means you can collect more resources, you will also have to spend those resources to feed your workers; otherwise, you will lose them. In Power Grid (2004), the weakest player gets first choice of buying resources and placing cities. In my research and experience, players will have a better time playing a game if it ends in a close finish. The tension that the players feel when they all believe they have a shot at winning is a much better feeling to leave players with than a game in which they feel like they have no chance at all for a victory. YOUR GAME IS TOO PREDICTABLE , OR IS “ SOLVABLE” A solvable game is a game in which there is a specific strategy that a player can use to win every time. For example, while Connect Four (1974) has more than 4,531,985,219,092 possible moves, the reality is that there are only nine strategies that a player can use to play the game.14 This means that once a player masters these strategies, the game becomes predictable and no longer fun. To combat this predictability in your own game design, you want to introduce some variety to your game. The best way to add variety is to make components modular. There are many ways to do this. You can add decks of cards, multiple objectives, different paths on tech trees or story lines, or endings/victory conditions. For example, Catan has modular hex tiles that are shuffled and then laid out during setup. This ensures that the island of Catan has a different layout each game. In my own game design for ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo (2021), I created a deck of player objectives (the number of objectives in play was based on the number of players) with more cards than the number of players. This ensured that there would always be a few extra cards that new players wouldn’t see in the first playthrough so that the next time they played the game, they would get some new and different objectives. YOUR GAME HA S “ TOO MUCH LUCK” This problem is a little more complicated. . . “In my experience, there’s no such thing as luck.” Obi-Wan Kenobi

  These nine strategies were first discovered by Victor Allis in 1988. You can learn about them at www .informatik.uni-­trier.de/~fernau/DSL0607/Masterthesis-­Viergewinnt.pdf.

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WHY I HAT E LUCK I don’t believe luck exists. Let me clarify that. I don’t believe luck exists for a game designer. Let me explain. Most players use the term luck incorrectly when describing a game. They will complain that a game has “too much luck” in it. They feel that games with luck leads to unfair outcomes and frustrating failures. However, luck isn’t some magical force with control over our destiny. It is an emotional response to success and failure. It’s dumb to say that board games have luck. Board games don’t have emotions. It is impossible for a board game to have “luck.” What a game can have is randomness, and randomness creates emotions in a player. Randomness creates positive emotions (such as when you roll a 20 on a d20  in D&D—­ known as a critical hit) and negative emotions (when you fail to roll a saving throw during a desperate situation such as a saving throw against your character dying). Anyone who complains about luck during a game is really complaining about uncertainty. Uncertainty is when you’re not sure what the outcome of a dice roll or card draw or spinner spin will be, but you hope it will be a good outcome, not a bad one. Now, the reason why luck doesn’t exist for a game designer is that game designers have complete control over probability. Game designers can manipulate probability and its outcomes. Manipulate probability? Now that sounds like magic! Let me teach you how to create some “magic.” Let’s say we are designing a fantasy adventure game. In our game, there are four rewards that the player can earn. ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

A small bag of gold worth 10 gold pieces (gp) A gem worth 100 gp A shield (retail value 150 gp) A magic sword that grants +2 to attacks (retail value 1000 gp)

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In our game we will make players roll a 10-­sided die (d10) to determine which loot they get after defeating an opponent. We want the small bag of gold to be the most common reward and all other items to be rarer. Write down what you think the distribution of the items should be here: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

_______________________ _______________________ _______________________ _______________________ _______________________ _______________________ _______________________ _______________________ _______________________ _______________________

So, if I were filling out this chart, it would be like this: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Shield Shield Bag of gold Bag of gold Bag of gold Bag of gold Gem Gem Gem Magic sword

What’s my reasoning behind this distribution? I want the bag of gold to be the most earned item, so I made it the most plentiful by putting it in the most slots, in this case four. I wanted gems and shields to be less common than the bag of gold but more common than the magic sword, so I used three slots for gems and two slots for shields—­with the thinking that gems would be more useful to players than having two shields, so they would want to get them more often. Finally, I put the magic sword in only one slot because it is the rarest item. If I wanted the gem to be rarer than the shield, I would have put the gem in two slots and put the shield in three. Or if I wanted the gem to show up more often, I would have used four

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slots of gems and four slots for the bag of gold with the shield and magic sword getting the remaining two slots. Just by playing with the number of opportunities the player gets to receive the reward, we adjust the probability of that result appearing in the game. Pretty simple, right? Like I said earlier: change a number, you change the experience. Since this chart will appear in the game’s rule book, I took the opportunity to “play a trick” on the reader. Notice how I placed the magic sword at “the end” of the chart—­in the #10 slot. I did this because I wanted to make the player think that it was harder to get, so it required the player to roll a higher number to obtain it.

But this is all a trick. I am totally playing mind games with the player! We’ll talk about dice and probability in the next chapter, but for now, all you need to know is that a player has an even chance to get any result when rolling one die. But because I placed the magic sword on a number that the player perceives is harder to roll, it re-­enforces the concept that I am trying to get across—­that the magic sword will be harder to get. Sneaky! WHY SO R ANDOM? There are other ways than just dice to create randomness. This includes card decks, tokens drawn from a bag, a spinner, dexterity mechanisms, and more. But let’s talk about when the randomness occurs during gameplay—­which is described in the concepts of input randomness and output randomness, which I learned about from game designer and podcaster Geoff Engelstein on the Ludology podcast. According to Geoff, input randomness is when a random event happens before the player gets to make a decision, such as the random distribution of tiles in Catan, shuffling the deck

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of ticket cards in Ticket to Ride (2004) before laying them out in the market, or the rolling of the resource dice in Wingspan (2019) before the player picks the resource type they want for that turn. Output randomness is when a random event occurs after you make a decision. An example is when you make the decision to declare an attack in Dungeons and Dragons and then roll combat dice to randomly determine whether you’ve hit or not. It is also the rule found in the game Calimala (2017), which says that if you cannot take an action, you must draw from the top card of the deck. Geoff goes on to say that gamers prefer input randomness to output randomness because output randomness feels unfair and, well, random.

Let’s say we’re playing a fantasy adventure game and you’ve spent all your time and resources to build up a character that can defeat just about any enemy in combat. When the time comes to battle the enemy, you roll the die and get a critical failure (such as a 1 result on a 20-­sided die)! Of course, you are frustrated by this result because no matter what you’ve done to prepare, a random result has foiled your plans. While some players hate this unpredictability, other love it because it creates drama. Speaking of drama, I realized that I’ve just opened a whole can of worms by talking about this when I want to save it for a more in-­depth discussion in a future chapter. I hope you don’t mind the suspense, but I want to finish our list of problems first. Here’s the last one. . .

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YOUR GAME HA S A RULE OR ROLE T HAT IS “OVER-­P OWERED ” OR “UNBAL ANCED ” Game design is all about combining systems together in a planned way (that’s why it’s called design), and one of the greatest challenges of game design is that there can be so many systems and mechanisms and variables that eventually a game designer is going to lose track of how they work together. It can be common for a game designer to lose track of how everything works together in a game design. Sometimes the combinatorics15 of all your game’s systems and mechanisms becomes too dense to keep track of, and this is what creates edge cases. Edge cases are problems that occasionally arise during play testing but are harder to account for why they are happening. Perhaps your play tester is an unusual thinker who found a way to “break” your game. When this happens, it might be frustrating that this smarty-­pants has broken your game, but you should be happy! This player has identified a problem that you can fix. Game design is often about problem solving. Another problem is when a rule or a role is considered by a player (usually the player negatively affected it!) to be over-­powered. This is when the player (although it’s usually the other players) feel that the player has an unfair advantage during the game. Again, most of the “problems” that we must solve with game design are to make the game fair for everyone. The act of correcting this is known as balance. There are some game players who are obsessed with balance. You can find countless posts online about how a game is “unbalanced” or “broken.” What they really mean is that the game feels unfair. Game designers can get obsessed with balance too. Often, they will save balancing a game until after the first pass of the game is done. This is like that old filmmaker saying “We’ll fix it in editing!” But I find this to be a mistake. You want to be aware of your game’s balance as early as possible. The real trick is how to keep the game balanced as you are making it, but I believe the answer lies in keeping the game fair for all players. One of the reasons why game design is so hard is that no matter how much you try to balance your design, some game designs just don’t work. This is why you must be willing to throw out that design before you’ve spent too much of your time and energy on it. Time and energy are precious things, so use them wisely!   Combinatorics is a great word from the world of mathematics that is concerned with all of the arrangements or configurations that something can be organized in.

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WARNING! Don’t Literally Throw Out a Game Design or Prototype! Here’s a true (and sad) story. Back in the early 1990s, I was really into collectible card games like Magic the Gathering. I played every collectible card game (CCG) I could afford. Of course, if you play enough games, you want to start making games. I had a bunch of blank business cards and turned them into a Wild West–themed card game where you built a Western town that would attract all manner of people based on the reputation of the town. If you had only outhouses and mudholes, you would attract outlaws and riffraff. If you had hotels and saloons, you would attract shootists and gamblers, etc. The game was playing well, and as I was deciding what I should do next with the game, another Wild West–themed CCG came out, only this one had the very clever mechanism of using poker hands to resolve combat. I was so mad at myself for not making such an obvious connection that I threw my hand-­drawn prototype, the rules, and everything about it into the trash! About three months later, I wondered why I had done such a stupid thing and tried to reconstruct the game from memory to no avail! I still haven’t been able to re-­create the game to this day. So, learn from my mistake! Never throw out a prototype!

Friends and Family Now you are ready to share your game with friends and family. While these might be the easiest play testers for you to find and to play your game with, they aren’t always the most helpful when it comes to solving problems. Why? Because your friends and family love you, they want to be supportive of your game design efforts. They will compliment your game design and how clever and creative you are for making it! While this is great for your ego, it is not helpful when you are trying to find and fix problems with your game design. If you have family members, like I do, who are good at helping you troubleshoot your design, then great, make sure to thank them in the credits! Otherwise, friends and family are best utilized to help you determine whether a game is fun, easy to understand, and that they are playing the game the way you want it to be played. Friends and family can also be helpful when blind play testing.

Blind Play Testing Blind play testing is when you give play testers your game with all the components needed to play including the completed and clearly written rules so that they can play the game as if you weren’t in the room with them. Blind play testing simulates what the customer’s experience will be. Since we game designers don’t come with the game, we must rely on our rules to communicate the game.

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This can be hard because our first instinct is to try to help the player enjoy and understand the game. You must resist this urge. As a game designer, your job during blind play testing is to “shut up and observe.” Your goal when play testing is to see you’ve properly communicated how to play the game through the rules and the game play. Here are a few rules that I follow when conducting a blind play test: ■■

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Watch for players’ reactions. Note when they are having fun or laughing or when they are confused or frustrated. Try to determine what is causing these reactions. You should take notes when a player is having difficulty with the rules or the game play. If possible, record the play session so you can review it more carefully after the play session. Do not answer questions from the play testers during the play test. The rule book should be able to cover all questions. If it doesn’t, you have some rewriting to do!

Publisher Play Testing The final type of play testing is playing the game for a publisher. There are some specific rules that I follow when playing a game with a publisher for the first time. We will talk more about this when we get to the chapter on pitching games. For now, I want you to keep these concepts in your head as we start to design our next game! Let’s go!

Important Chapter 3 Concepts and Takeaways ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

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No one is going to steal your game design. You are what makes your game design unique. Iteration is the heart of game design. Consider your game’s table presence. Write down your rules as soon as possible. Carry a notebook to record ideas and notes about your game. Make players play the game the way you want it to be played. Find and play your game with game designers first to solve early problems quickly. Consider input and output randomness when designing random systems. When play testing your game, resist the urge to help the play testers. Just keep quiet, observe the players, and take notes.

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L e t ’s Ma ke a D ice Game! LET US CONSIDER the humble die. Dice have been around for a very long time. The little guy shown here is one of the world’s oldest, dating all the way back to 5,000 BC! It was found by archeologists as part of an ancient Backgammon set, which means that if Backgammon is from 5,000 BC, then dice are even older than that! The first “dice” were originally animal knucklebones, from animals such as goats, sheep, horses, and camels. These astragalus were used for divination—­to tell the future or answer a question. A set of knucklebone dice were found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb. Eventually, the sides of knucklebones were filed down into the square shape we are more familiar with.

Dice Basics Dice are useful when it comes to designing board games. It’s one of the handiest tools in our tool kit, so let’s get some dice basics out of the way. First, it’s die for singular and dice for more than one. It is never dices. The dots on dice are called pips, which means spot or speck.

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Dice are primarily used as random number generators to create a random result, such as the number of monsters the player must fight, the outcome of combat with those monsters, or the amount of a treasure the players gain for defeating said monsters.

For example, the dice in Wingspan (2019) generate resources in the form of food like fruit and worms for birds, while in Zombie Dice (2010), they can generate delicious brains or shotgun blasts. There are dice with letters on them (Boggle, 1972), weapons (Age of War, 2014), buildings (Alhambra the Dice Game, 2016), animals (Zooloretto: The Dice Game, 2012), or even coffee beans (Viva Java: The Coffee Game: The Dice Game, 2014). When using these kinds of custom dice in your game design, you’re limited only by your imagination and what you can print or engrave on the dice. There’s only so much space on a die face!1 Dice are most often used to determine the distance a player can move. For example, in the racing game Formula D (2008), each die represents a gear of your race car. The player starts by rolling a four-­sided die and “shifts up” to the next highest gear by selecting the next highest die, a six-­sided die. Players can go all the way up to a 30-­sided die, but they risk overshooting turns and doing damage to their cars. In Fortress America (1986), dice represent the strength of the attacking military unit. In many fantasy battle games, like Dungeons and Dragons Basic Game (2004), the different polyhedral dice represent the damage done by different weapons and spells.

  The size of a standard die face is 16mm or two-­thirds of an inch.

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Dice come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes such as the four-­sided die (or d4), six-­ sided die (d6), eight-­sided die (d8), ten-­sided die (d10), twelve-­sided die (d12), and the mighty twenty-­sided die (d20)! There are 30-­ sided die, 100-­sided die, and even a “2-­sided” die. All these different shapes of dice are collectively known as polyhedral dice. Dice don’t need to be polygons. Designer dice are available in a variety of colors, materials, and even shapes. Manufacturer Tabletop Tycoon’s range of dice resembles swords, shields, pouches, arrows, and other fun shapes associated with the fantasy genre. Most people associate the 20-­sided die with the role-­playing game Dungeons and Dragons, but 20-­sided dice are much, much older than that! The 20-­sided die shown here is almost as old as that ancient six-­sided variety presented earlier in this chapter. This 20-­sided die was crafted in Ptolemaic Egypt around 30 BCE to 300 BCE. It was carved from serpentine rock and engraved with Greek letters. What game was it for? That is a mystery! Ten-­sided dice are known as a percentile die. When you roll two of them together, they generate a percentage result with the first number as the “tens” and the second number as the “ones.” The range of results on two percentile dice is 01—­ which is 1 to 00, which stands for 100.

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When rolling percentile dice, you’ll want to designate which die is the “tens” and which die is the “ones.” A good way to differentiate them is to provide two different colored dice in your game. Say a red die represents the tens die and a white one represents the ones die. That way, when you roll a 00 and a 07, you’ll know whether you’ve rolled a 07 or 70. These two different results could have a big difference! You don’t need to be locked into the numbers shown on a die face; it is now possible and relatively inexpensive to create your own custom dice. This way you can play with the numbers on the die to get different roll results. The number of faces on the die doesn’t have to equal the number of results. For example, in Formula D, the red fourth-­gear die, which is a d8, gives the results of 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, or 8. You will notice that the designer removed the low number results (1, 2, 3) because you wouldn’t drive that slowly in fourth gear. Making the die result start with 4 is more thematic to represent the speed that the car is driving. Another example is the dice used in the Star Wars X-­Wing Miniatures Game (2012). While the dice in the game have eight sides, they have five different results: hit, critical hit, swerve, focus, and blank. There is even a second die that is colored red that has less “positive” results on them—­more blanks, less successful results.

Dice Mechanisms Next, let’s examine all the mechanisms available for the different types of gameplay and components that can be used in game designs. All these mechanisms are the “tools” in your design toolkit. By knowing the tools you have available, you can start combining them to spark ideas and create your own unique gameplay! The dice mechanisms you have available include the following: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Rolling Rerolling Dice determined movement Dice determined combat results Dice placement Banking dice Dice for targeting Dice builder Concealing dice Dice determine actions Dice determine resources

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■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Dice of different colors Combination matching Real-­time rolling Roll and write Dice stacking Dice crafting Dice as units Dice as counters Bluffing with dice Pop-­O-­Matic

Rolling What do you do with dice? You roll them! Well, not all the time. But many board games from Craps (1125) to Monopoly (1935) to Formula D (2008) use dice rolling as the main way to get the action going. Rolling dice creates tension and drama in a game; the tumble of the dice creates suspense as the players wait to see the result. This is particularly exciting when big stakes are on the line. If you have lots of dice to throw, you could use a dice cup. This can be a simple plastic, cardboard, or metal cup. You can print graphics on it like the cups in games like Zombie Dice or Cthulhu Dice (2010). It can be themed like the leather cup found in Stone Age (2008). You can even use it to hide the results like in Liar’s Dice (1800). If you want to get fancy, you might want to use a dice tower—­which is a cardboard or plastic tower in which dice are tossed. Inside the dice tower are slats or sticks that help make the dice tumble as they fall, preventing nonrandom throws. Not only do they prevent dice from falling off the table, but they also look very cool sitting on your table. I’ve seen dice towers that resemble castles, skyscrapers, churches, clocktowers, and even leering skulls! Some games even incorporate dice towers into their gameplay such as Shogun (1984).

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Rerolling What happens if you get a die result that you don’t like? Well, in many games you can reroll the dice! Farkle (1996), Yahtzee (1956), and King of Tokyo (2011) all allow you three chances to reroll the dice to get different or better results. This way, you don’t feel so restricted—­ it gives you a choice whether to push your luck or not by rerolling the results. In these games, there are different strategic reasons why you would want to reroll your results. In Farkle, you are trying to race to a predetermined number before the other players reach it. The larger the result, the faster you’ll reach that goal and win. In Yahtzee, you want to reroll as you try to complete combinations that allow you to earn points. But as you complete more combinations, you’ll be forced to reroll to try to complete the combinations you haven’t finished. In King of Tokyo, you might want to reroll depending on the outcome you want to achieve—­ whether it’s causing damage to the player in Tokyo, healing your monster, or earning energy cubes to purchase cards. However, if you don’t get the results you want in a push-­your-­luck game, your turn is over, and you usually lose all of the dice results that you’ve generated up to that point. This risk versus reward gameplay that pushing-­your-­luck creates makes for exciting choices during the game. In some games, rerolling is a benefit that can be earned, bought, or unlocked by the player. This gives you control over the results that you roll. Since the randomness of dice is an aspect that some players find frustrating, giving them an opportunity to mitigate that randomness is always welcome. Just be judicious with how much the player can mitigate that randomness—there can be too much of a good thing. A game is more exciting when there the risk of loss is real, but the reason for losing should be the fault of the player, not because of the “dumb luck” that comes from the roll of the dice.

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Dice Determine Movement Roll and move games, once the norm, are now mostly considered passé because they take agency away from players. However, that doesn’t mean this mechanism is not worth using! There are still excellent games that use dice for movement, such as Thunder Road (1987), Merchant of Venus (1988), Deep Sea Adventure (2014), and Cubitos (2021).

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Dice Determine Combat Results Using dice for combat dates to 1824 when Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann von Reisswitz Jr. used them to determine damage in his father’s Kriegspeil (or wargame) design. Combat dice found their way into mass-­market games through Risk (1959) and the hobby wargames of the 1970s such as Wooden Ships and Iron Men (1974) and Squad Leader (1977). When Gygax and Arneson introduced polyhedral dice in Dungeons and Dragons, board game designers followed suit. Combat results occur either when players roll against a preprinted statistic (known as a stat), which the player must roll “under” or “over” to succeed (as found in Axis and Allies [1981] and Nexus Ops [2005]), or when two opponents roll dice and compare their results (as in Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2015) or Star Wars: Outer Rim (2019).

Dice Placement Players roll their dice and then determine where to place the results. The results on the dice give them options to where they can place the dice to score. For example, in Las Vegas (aka Vegas [2012]), players roll several dice. Dice of the same number must be placed on the corresponding casino mats with that die number (2s go on the 2 casino mat, 5s go on the 5 casino mat, etc.), but the player has a choice of how many dice they want to commit to that bid. Conversely, in the game Sagrada (2017), one player rolls the dice, and then each player takes turns drafting dice to place on their window. They also get to choose where to place them in their window as they attempt to earn the best score.

Banking Dice The player rolls a result and “locks it in” to help toward a score or goal. Or

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that dice result can be used later in the game. The tension comes from the player having less dice to roll on each consecutive turn as they attempt to reach their goal or improve their score. Often, if an undesirable result is rolled or a “bust condition” occurs, the player’s turn is over.

In Favor of the Pharoah (2015), players must bank at least one die into their pyramid on their turn to keep playing. Locked dice also allow players to buy cards that are worth victory points. In Stuffed Fables (2018), a player may reserve a single die result to use for defense against an attack or on a future turn.

Dice for Targeting Dice for targeting is when you physically throw dice at a target (either on a playmat or printed inside the box) to have it land on a symbol or icon. The number on the die usually represents the damage the attack does to the target. In the game Dungeon Fighter (2011), you throw dice at a target to get symbols to align with numbers to calculate damage done. Using dice for targeting adds a physical dexterity component to your game play, which can get chaotic, but that chaos can add fun to your game design.

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Dice Builder A dice builder is a game in which you collect or buy dice each turn. The dice are added into a draw bag. On your turn, you randomly draw a predetermined number of dice from the bag to be used on your turn. The dice are rolled, and the results are used for a variety of actions—­ buying more dice, combat, etc. The game Quarriors (2011) was the first dice builder, which was inspired by the deck builder mechanic found in card games. In Quarriors, all available dice are placed into a bag, and players randomly draw out dice. The results on the dice in Quarriors all have different probabilities and colors that correspond to powers and abilities, which the player may use, depending on what is rolled. The Quarriors dice building system was popular enough to turn into several licensed sequels, known as Dice Masters (2014).

Concealing Dice Cups, bags, hands, screens, or other methods of concealment can be used to prevent a player from seeing the types of dice or their faces. This allows for another layer of randomness when drawing dice. Games like Dice Masters, Sagrada, or Zombie Dice use a random draw as another gameplay mechanism.

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Dice Determine Actions The dice in Quarriors and many other games have custom faces or icons that represent an action. A  sword icon indicates that the player could cause damage, a magic wand indicates that the player could use a spell card, and a winged foot indicates that the player can move. These actions can be used only when that die result is rolled. Games such as War of the Rings: Second Edition (2010) and Epic Tiny Galaxy (2015) use this mechanism, but they also give players opportunities to mitigate (or change) the die roll results into results that are more favorable for the player.

Dice Determine Resources Custom dice may also be used to allow players to gather resources. It just depends on what the icon on the die represents. In Bang: The Dice Game (2013), they generate bullets, dynamite, arrows, and beer, while in Istanbul: The Dice Game (2017), the dice generate resources such as textiles, jewelry, fruit, and money. In the early 2010s these types of dice adaptations of published board games were very popular. Other games such as Roll Camera: The Filmmaking Board Game (2022) have you roll dice to determine their resource; then you can assign those resource dice to locations on the board to fulfill the location’s requirement. When designing these types of dice, it helps to have one of the sides count as a “wild” resource. That way, players get two opportunities to get the resource they need/want when they roll the dice.

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Dice of Different Colors Because dice are produced in different colors, we can take advantage of this and create gameplay around the colors. In the game Qwixx (2012), there are six d6: one red, one blue, one green, one yellow, and two white. The colors correspond to tracks on a score pad that the players mark during play. You can use the number rolled on the white die only during another player’s turns, but on your turn, you may use one white die and one colored die to mark on the track of the corresponding color. In the game Stuffed Fables (2018), different colored dice represent different actions the player can take. Red dice perform melee attacks, while green dice perform ranged attacks. Yellow dice allow players to search, while blue dice are used for special actions. Purple dice are wild and can be used as any color. Using colored dice is a great way to get custom results on dice roles without having to create custom faces on your dice.

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Combination Matching A variation on action and resource generation is using dice for combination matching. The goal is to get a combination of results to activate an ability or complete an objective. In the game God Dice (2008), players are trying to roll and reroll their attack dice to finish a combination of dice to do more damage. If the player fails to roll a combination, there are still “lesser” ways to do some damage. However, if the player fails to roll any sort of combination of dice that does damage, nothing happens. This type of gameplay works only because the player has tokens of the different dice faces that can be spent to reroll dice of that face. In any dice game where the player is locked into the result rolled on the die, you want to make sure that the player has some way to change the result. Rerolling is a good option, but allowing the player to physically rotate the die to another face (like to the “opposite face” of the die) or to a specific face (a sword icon becomes a shield icon) gives the player more control over the random result.

Real-­Time Rolling Players must roll the dice as quickly as possible to get the desired results before the timer or music ends. If the player fails to roll the desired results within the time limit, they fail the objective. This can be achieved with a sand timer as easily as with a CD or digital audio file. Examples of this include Tenzi (2011), Escape: Curse of the Temple (2012), and Fuse (2015).

Roll and Write The game Yahtzee introduced the concept of the roll and write, where players roll dice and then record their results on a preprinted score sheet. The score sheet in Yahtzee has different objectives for the player to fulfill—­such as scoring as many of one number as possible, or if all of the dice results are the same number, they score a high number of points. (When the player rolls this, they must shout “Yahtzee!”) As the players fill up their score sheet, they have fewer opportunities to record results, so careful allocation of results is necessary to win. After almost 50 years, the genre exploded in the early 2010s with titles such as Qwixx (2012), Qwinto (2015), and Ganz schön clever (2018). Some newer or deluxe titles include an erasable playboard to help players cut down on paper waste.

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A variant of this mechanism that uses cards instead of dice is called draw and write (it’s a pun on “drawing a card”), but there is also another variant called roll and draw where the player draws in a picture or symbol onto the score sheet. Examples of this genre are Saint Malo (2012) where you draw a city, and Chroma Cubes (2014) where you color in sections of a paint-­by-­numbers picture depending on what you roll. Welcome to DinoWorld (2017) has players rolling and drawing a map of a Jurassic theme park and the dinosaur exhibits within. My own roll-­and-­draw design, Pizza Cat (2021), has players drawing a newspaper comic strip and scoring points based on the elements drawn. Another variation on the roll and draw is known as crayon rail, where a player draws a line across a map or score sheet to connect several locations together. Most crayon rail games are themed to trains and use cards or action points to determine where players draw rather than roll dice.

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Dice Stacking In Sutakku (2011) and Tumble Town (2021), players physically stack dice on top of each other to create structures and score points based on their relationship to each other. Often, the higher the dice on the stack, the more points it is worth. This type of play starts to move your dice game into the realm of a dexterity game, especially if keeping the stack intact is part of the gameplay. We’ll talk more about dexterity games soon.

Dice Crafting In 2011, Lego released the Heroica series of games: Fortaan, Waldurk, Draida, and Nathuz—­ which included “Lego dice” that were constructed by the player by snapping faces onto the dice. The game Rattlebones (2014) showed up a few years later that used a similar conceit, but, in this case, swapping faces on the die was part of the gameplay. This new style of play was dubbed dice crafting. In a dice-­crafting game, players are trying to create the statistically best dice, where every roll generates something useful to the player—­much in the way that a deck builder starts with “junk” that must be weeded out over play. Other dice-­crafting designs soon followed: Blank White Dice (2016), Dice Forge (2017), KAPOW! (2021), and Dice Realms (2022). While these games offer great modularity, the constant removing and replacing of the dice faces can get somewhat tedious and can be difficult to do for players with large hands or disabilities.

Dice as Counters Dice can be used to track the health or status of something in a game. These can be used as a replacement for counters or tokens that might end up taking too much room or are too many pieces to deal with. They can be used to represent the number of something (a resource, the power of a creature, etc.) without having to use lots of counters or tokens.

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In card combat games such as Magic the Gathering (1993) and Yuh-­Gi-­Oh! Trading Card Game (1999), dice are used to track life points—­where they are known as spin-­down dice. For example, players start the game with 20 health and rotate a d20 whenever they take damage. If the dice is “spun” to zero, the player is out of the game. Other sized dice (such as d6) are often used to represent the strength or number of a unit on the field. Similarly, dice can be used as a cool-­down counter where the rotation of the dice represents the time it takes for something (such as a weapon, a machine, or a spell) to either cool down or recharge so it may be used again by the player.

Dice as Units This is where the dice represent what miniatures or meeples usually would. The value on the dice face represents the strength of the unit. For example, if a die represents military troopers, a 4  would represent a four-­strength army. It’s an easy way to have lots of units represented without having to resort to many components. The face of the dice is rotated upward or downward to indicate the worker’s status, worth, health, etc. If the die reaches a “top” or “bottom” value (like a 1 or a 6), then they are considered used up and removed from play or rerolled on the player’s next turn. The game Quantum (2013) uses dice as stand-­ins for spaceships, which is not as exciting as miniatures but allows for ships of various strengths to be cheaply represented. There are other games that use dice as workers in a traditional worker placement game: Kingsburg (2007), Grand Austria Hotel (2014), and Dice Hospital (2018).

Bluffing with Dice Another popular use for dice is in bluffing games. This is a genre of game where the player may lie to other players about their results. Liar’s Dice (1800) is a popular game that plays much like the card game Poker (1810). To conceal their roll results, players use either a cup, a screen, or their hand.

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Pop-­O-­Matic The “automatic cube shaker” was created and patented2 for the game Trouble (1965) to solve the problem of dice falling off the table. To “roll” the dice, players press down on a plastic dome, which in turn causes a spring and a piece of tin to flex, tossing the dice up and causing them to tumble, giving random results. On his podcast Ludology (found at ludol ogy.libsyn.com/gametek-­2755-­ pop-­o-­matic), game designer Geoff Englestein wondered if Pop-­O-­Matic produces truly random results. After a series of tests, he determined that the standard Pop-­O-­Matic was just as random as rolling a die. While Trouble would change publisher hands over the years, a handful of other games would be made using the Pop-­O-­Matic system: Headache (1969), Side Track (1974), YIPES! (1983), and Robo Force (1984). This device is still under patent, so not anyone can use it in their game design without licensing it; I’m just including it in this list of mechanisms because it’s fun!

Choosing the Right Dice Tools A multitude of tools are available for us to use. There is no right or wrong combination of mechanisms as long as they work to make your game enjoyable. Which of these mechanisms sounded the most interesting to you? Write down three mechanisms and see if you can combine them to create an interesting game design. 1. _________________________________________________________ 2. _________________________________________________________ 3. _________________________________________________________

It’s Probably Due to Probability Whew! That’s a lot of ways to use dice! Let’s examine the basic reason to use dice for gameplay: probability.

  The patent for “dice agitating chance device” is US Patent #3,356,369.

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An interesting fact about throwing a single die (in this case, a d6) is that it creates a flat probability distribution. Your odds of getting a 1 result on a six-­sided die are just the same as getting a 6 on a six-­sided die. If the meaning of that 6 result is better than the meaning of that 1 result, the player will be much more excited when they throw that 6 result. Here is where an interesting thing happens in the player’s perception. As a player makes repeated throws of a single die, they might still believe that the “next time” will give them a better result. This is known as the gambler’s fallacy. The player is pinning their hopes on what the dice might do or not do, even though the probability says otherwise. As game designers, we can manipulate that hope to get players to take risks and make actions they might not otherwise make. Please don’t interpret my use of the word manipulate as a bad thing; it is one of the more powerful tools we have as game designers. The player must have hope to believe that they will get a good result or their strategy will succeed or they will win the game; otherwise, they might not play the game at all! However, the numbers say otherwise. Let’s look at the odds realistically and learn how we can manipulate them to create good and bad results for the player. By using a random number generator like dice—­or any randomizer for that matter—­a game designer is able to create interesting choices and situations for the players.3 To determine probability, we can use the following formula: Probability =

# of Desired Outcomes # of Possible Outcomes

  We’ve already started talking about this! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the “loot table” exercise from the previous chapter!

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I know, ugh, math. But rather than thinking of the outcomes as numbers, try thinking of them as parts of a story.

Let’s pretend that we are playing a game where we are vampire hunters. What could we find when we enter a crypt? What do we want to find? Go ahead and make a list. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

_______________________________________ _______________________________________ _______________________________________ _______________________________________ _______________________________________ _______________________________________

Here’s what I wrote: a vampire, a werewolf, a coffin filled with dirt, a lingering mist, the bride of Dracula, and nothing. The results could have been anything (in addition to finding a vampire, which is our main objective as vampire hunters). We’re limited only by our imagination and how hard we want it to be for the players to get what they want.

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How can we turn that into gameplay? Let’s put each of our results onto the roll of a die. Finding a vampire can be a result of rolling a 1 on a six-­sided die. How many chances do we have of finding a vampire? Answer: _____________________________________ We have one chance in six, or a probability of one out of six, which is roughly 16 percent. Did you get it right? There are six results, but only one of them is 1. Now what if we were to change another face on that die to a 1, so the results are 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6? Answer: ___________________________________ With this change, we now have two chances out of six to roll a 1 on our custom die. This is a probability of two out of six, which is roughly 33 percent. Different probability structures lead to different play experiences. We can keep changing the number of 1s on our die until the player could find a vampire 100 percent of the time, but how hard or interesting would that be? Not very. As you can see, we change one number and the odds change. Depending on what the results are, it will be easier or harder for the player to get what they want—­the desired outcome. If you are more inclined toward math, you can approach the design from the other way around—­from the numbers first.

Let’s say we are digging for gold. How hard will it be for the player to find gold? If it’s easy, then perhaps the player can find gold 50 percent of the time that they dig. Let’s create a die

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that represents this. In the template for a six-­sided die shown here, go ahead and write “G” on the dice faces that will result in gold and leave the other faces blank to represent “no gold.” Since there are six faces on the dice, I hope you drew a “G” on three of the faces. (It doesn’t really matter which face you drew it on.) Out of the six chances, the player has three chances to strike gold. That’s 3 out of 6, which is 50 percent. OK, let’s make it harder for the player. Let’s say that the player strikes gold only 16 percent of the time. It’s hard to find gold here. Go ahead and write a “G” on the faces that will result in gold and leave the other faces blank like before. You should have drawn only one “G” on your die layout, because 1 out of 6 is 16 percent (give or take). You don’t even really need to be “good at math” to determine this. You just need an idea of how easy or hard it is for something to be accomplished. If it’s hard, it happens less often. If it’s easy, it happens more often. This is how you adjust the difficulty for your player. Now, let’s add another d6 to this exercise and see how it changes the scenario. When you have one die, the probability curve is flat. You will always have a 1 in whatever chance of getting a result because a single die yields one result. If a second die is added, it creates a bell curve. You know, that thing that smart kid in algebra class was always screwing up for the rest of us. The more dice you add, the “steeper” the curve becomes, but it will still always be a curve. Go to the website anydice.com and change the number of dice to see this in action. What’s important is that the range of numbers—­of possible outcomes—­will help you to determine the probability range, or the opportunity for success for the player.

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Rolling the dice repeatedly can get boring for the player, especially if they don’t roll the results that they want. We must give the player opportunities to mitigate their luck, in other words, to be able to change the dice rolls to outcomes that are more favorable for them.

I Still Don’t Believe in Luck, But. . . Let’s talk about luck again (aka “the odds of getting what we want”). But first let’s talk about an interesting phenomenon when it comes to odds and a player’s perception of them. In the folk dice game Bupkis,4 a player rolls six dice. They are trying to get a combination of numbers. Some numbers and combinations are better than others, as shown in the following chart: Bupkis Rules v1: A Dice Game for Two or More Players ■■

Roll six dice. You score based on the following results: 5 = 50 points ■■ 1 = 100 points ■■ Three of a kind = that number × 100 ■■ Three pairs = 750 points ■■ Three 1s = 1,000 points ■■ A straight (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) = 1,500 points ■■ All dice of the same number = instant win! The player who reaches 5000 points first wins. ■■

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Now Bupkis wouldn’t be very fun if on their turn the player rolled the dice only once and received points based on the results. We want to give the player a choice. Choices are just good for gameplay, especially if there is risk involved. In Bupkis, you can risk all your points to earn even more points by rolling again. You get three tries to reroll as many dice as you want, as long as you bank—­or set aside—­at least one scoring die. However, if you fail to reroll any scoring dice, you will lose all your accumulated points for the turn.

  It has been known by many names including The Dice Game, Zilch, Greed, 1000/5000/10000, and Farkle. It was first commercially available as Bupkis in 1981 and as Farkle in 1996.

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Let’s adjust our rules to reflect this: Bupkis Rules v2: A Dice Game for Two or More Players ■■

Roll six dice. You score based on the following results: 5 = 50 points ■■ 1 = 100 points ■■ Three of a kind = that number × 100 ■■ Three pairs = 750 points ■■ Three 1’s = 1000 points ■■ A straight (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) = 1,500 points ■■ All dice of the same number = instant win! On their turn, a player may reroll the dice up to two more times, provided they keep at least one scoring die. If you fail to roll a scoring die or combination, you lose all the points you’ve earned on your turn. The player who reaches 5,000 points first wins. ■■

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This type of risk-­taking gameplay is known as push your luck. The risk of losing everything to win it all can be thrilling. This is why dice (and randomizers in general) are so great for gameplay; they create drama! Even if you’ve scored points from all the dice you’ve rolled, Bupkis creates even more drama by allowing you to reroll all the dice to gain even more points! While at first this might seem like a bad idea because you could lose hundreds of points, statistically it’s a better option because the odds of rolling scoring dice and the combinations of dice you can roll are greater.

The greater the risk, the greater the reward.

With that in mind, here are the final rules for Bupkis: Bupkis Rules v3: A Dice Game for Two or More Players ■■

Roll six dice. You score based on the following results: 5 = 50 points ■■ 1 = 100 points ■■ Three of a kind = that number × 100 ■■ Three pairs = 750 points ■■ Three 1s = 1000 points ■■ A straight (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) = 1,500 points ■■ All dice of the same number = instant win! ■■

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On their turn, a player may reroll the dice up to two more times, provided they keep at least one scoring die. If the player has rolled all the dice and they all contribute to scoring, you may roll them all again. If you fail to roll a scoring die or combination, you lose all the points you’ve earned on your turn. The player who reaches 5,000 points first wins.

At its core, Bupkis is a race game. The player who reaches 5,000 points first wins the game. Therefore, you want to earn as many points as you can as fast as you can. That means taking a risk. That pressure to earn as many points as you can creates the excitement that makes Bupkis a great game. Here are a few good rules when creating risk in your design: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Let the player know their odds before they take a risk. Let the players decide when to take a risk and when to back down. Give the player several opportunities to take risks. Make the risk worth it; small or incremental rewards won’t do. Make the value of the reward risked worth triple, quadruple, a hundred times more!

Let’s Design a Dice Game We know about percentages, we know about risk, and we know about rewards. Let’s put all that knowledge to use! What do we make? Which mechanisms do we use? We have so many choices! It is because there are so many choices that game design can be so difficult. Since we’ve been talking about push-­ your-­luck games like Bupkis and Farkle, let’s design a push-­your-­luck game of our own. First, let’s gather our components. For our game, we will need the following: ■■ ■■ ■■

6 six-­sided dice 1 pencil with eraser A few sheets of blank paper

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Now that we have all our components, let’s design a dice game. In preparing to create a game, I suggest you research other existing game designs that use the push-­your-­luck mechanism. One classic game that I found was about building a sequence using three dice. For our design, we’ll start with six dice instead (change a number). It’s perfectly fine to be inspired by another game as a starting point, but your goal should be to create a different game by the time you are finished with your design. We’ll have lots of opportunities to change our design as we follow the steps for designing a game. These are the steps we will follow: Step 1: Create the rules. Step 2: Play test the game. Step 3: Change the rules. Step 4: Change a number. Step 5: Change the objective. Step 6: Add a mechanism. Step 7: Change the theme.

Step 1: Create the Rules First, we need to come up with the rules for the game. I started with the concept (create a number sequence) and the primary components (the six d6). Decisions that need to be made about the rules included the following: ■■ ■■ ■■

How many times do players get to roll dice on their turn? When is a player’s turn over? What is the victory condition for the game?

Start by getting the answers to these questions (aka “the rules”) down on paper. You can and undoubtably will be changing them later as you play test your design, but you have to start somewhere. The following are possible starting rules for our sequence dice game:

Sequence Dice v1 1. Your goal is to create a sequence of numbers: 1-­2-­3-­4-­5-­6. 2. Roll all six dice. 3. You can accept your result, or you can choose to reroll any dice, even all six. You can keep dice that are connected in a sequence. Any dice that do not connect must be rerolled. (For example, you have a 3-­4-­5, but doubles or a 1 must be rerolled.) You can choose not to reroll the dice and end your turn right here. See rule 6 for scoring.

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4. Roll a second time. You may choose to reroll any dice, even all six. 5. Roll a third time and score the dice. 6. Score the dice you’ve kept in a sequence. Add the numbers on the dice face to determine your score. For example, 1-­2-­3-­4  equals 10 points. Write your score on the paper. 7. If you ever roll a “natural” sequence of 1 through 6 in one roll, score 25 points, and end your turn. 8. Play continues clockwise. The first player to reach 50 points or more wins.

Step 2: Play Test the Game Play the sequence dice game using the rules we just created. Log your reaction to the solo playtest. How “fun” was this game for you? __________________________________ You’ll find that the first problem with this game design is that as the player, your decisions are strictly guided by what you’ve rolled. For example, if a 2 and a 3 are rolled, then you will start with that. If there is only one good choice, then there’s no choice. Also, there is no risk or penalty for failing. You get to keep whatever you rolled without any risk. You likely don’t really feel like you’re pushing your luck. Let’s change that. How do we do that? We change the rules.

Step 3: Change the Rules The rule change we can make to our game is to require the player to declare which way their sequence is going—­up or down. If they roll any dice that doesn’t match the direction, they lose them. That way, the player risks having less dice to roll on their next two rolls. Our updated rules now look like this:

Sequence Dice v2 1. Your goal is to create a sequence of numbers: 1-­2-­3-­4-­5-­6. 2. Roll all six dice. 3. Once the player starts a sequence, they must announce whether the sequence is running down (6-­5-­4-­3-­2-­1) or up (1-­2-­3-­4-­5-­6). Any dice roll that doesn’t fit that direction is removed from play for that player’s turn. 4. You can keep dice that are connected in a sequence. Any dice that do not connect in the chosen direction must be discarded. You can choose not to reroll the dice and end your turn right here. See rule 7 for scoring.

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5. Roll a second time. You may choose to reroll any remaining dice. 6. Roll a third time and see if they help complete the sequence. 7. Score the dice you’ve kept in a sequence. Add the numbers on the dice face to determine your score. For example, 1-­2-­3-­4  equals 10 points. Write your score on the paper. 8. If you ever roll a “natural” sequence in one roll, score 25 points, and end your turn. 9. Play continues clockwise. The first player to reach 50 points or more wins. Even though it’s not in our list of steps, whenever we reach this point in the design of our game, we should playtest again. That way, we can see if what we changed really made a difference. If it didn’t, we make a different change and try again (remember the iteration loop from Chapter 3?). We could change a different rule, such as what if the chain of numbers looped around so we could have a chain of 5-­6-­1-­2? How would that change the gameplay? When I added the loop: ____________________________________

Step 4: Change a Number Here’s where we can start balancing rules or gameplay in our design. For example, we could change the number of dice to five instead of six. Or we could change the number of points a player must reach to win to 100 points instead of 50 points. Or we could adjust the number of points a player earns for rolling a natural sequence from 25 points to 50 points.

Sequence Dice v3 1. Your goal is to create a sequence of numbers, for example, 1-­2-­3-­4-­5. 2. Roll all five dice. 3. Once the player starts a sequence, they must announce whether the sequence is running down (5-­4-­3-­2-­1) or up (1-­2-­3-­4-­5). Any dice roll that doesn’t fit that direction is removed from play for that player’s turn. 4. You can keep dice that are connected in a sequence. Any dice that do not connect in the chosen direction must be discarded. You can choose not to reroll the dice and end your turn right here. See rule 7 for scoring. 5. Roll a second time. You may choose to reroll any remaining dice. 6. Roll a third time and see if they help complete the sequence. 7. Score the dice you’ve kept in a sequence. Add the number on the dice face to determine your score. For example, 1-­2-­3-­4 equals 10 points. Write your score on the paper. 8. If you ever roll a “natural” sequence in one roll, score 25 points, and end your turn. 9. Play continues clockwise. The first player to reach 50 points or more wins.

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Try playing around with each of these different changes. Track what happens when you try each of them: When I changed the number of dice: ____________________________________ When I changed the number of points: __________________________________ When I changed the reward for natural sequence: _________________________ Keeping a record of these types of changes in your design notebook will help you remember all the changes you’ve made as well as help you in the future when you are designing other games.

Step 5: Change the Objective The objective of our sequence dice game is to earn points by creating a sequence, but what if it were something else? Let’s try this. On their turn, players must roll duplicates of the same number. How would changing the objective of the game change the game? How would changing this objective change the scoring? What if the objective of the game were changed completely from scoring points? What if scoring was based on the number of duplicates you rolled? Let’s try this.

Matching Doubles Dice 1. Your goal is to roll doubles to score points. 2. Whenever you roll the dice, you can choose to keep them or reroll them. You may reroll up to three times on your turn. 3. Whenever you roll duplicates, you earn 10 times the number you rolled on the dice. For example, if you roll two 3s, you earn 100 points. 4. If you roll three of a kind, you earn 100 points, regardless of the number of the dice face. 5. If you roll four of a kind, you get the total number times 100. For example, if you roll four 4s, you earn 400 points. 6. If you roll five of a kind, you lose the number rolled times 100. For example, if you roll five 3s, you lose 300 points. 7. If you roll six of a kind, you immediately win. 8. The first player who reaches 5,000 points wins!

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Go ahead and play test this version of the game. Did this change make the game better or worse? __________________________ Now it’s your turn. Write down a change to the objective that you would make and then play test it and record the result. My objective change is: _______________________________________________ The result of that change was: _________________________________________ Did that change make the game better or worse? _________________________

Step 6: Add a Mechanism Here’s where things get really interesting. Right now, our game has rolling and rerolling mechanisms, but let’s add something else. Look at the big list of mechanisms from earlier in this chapter. Pick one to add to your game. Once you’ve added this mechanism, be sure to play test it to make sure it is doing what you want it to do and that the game plays the way you want it to play. If it doesn’t work, don’t be discouraged; just try something else! I’m adding: __________________________________________________

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I’ve added dice as units to my matching dice game. Units need somewhere to go, so I’ve created a map (that you can copy or print out) on which you and the other players will place their dice. Let’s see how the rules change with this new addition.

Payanonthean War Components: Seven dice of matching but different colors for each player; print out or re-­create the previous game map. 1. Your goal is to capture as many realms on the map as possible. The player with the most realms conquered by having the most dice in them wins. 2. Give each player seven dice of matching colors (red, blue, green, or black). 3. You roll all seven dice on your turn. You may not reroll them. 4. Select dice of the same number and place them onto one territory on the map matching the number in the territory; for example, all 2s rolled are placed in the “2” territory of the map. You may place as few as one die and as many as all of them, as long as they all have the same number. 5. The next player rolls their dice and places their matching dice on one of the territories. 6. This continues until all players have rolled and placed their dice. You can place additional dice of the same number onto a territory. 7. Once all players have placed their dice, the player with the most dice in a territory wins that territory. If there is a tie on a territory, no one wins that territory. The player who controls the most territories wins the game. That caused a severe change to our game design! You can see that just adding that one mechanism completely changed the type of game. This can be a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because now your game design will be going in a direction that you didn’t quite expect. Maybe this new game design is better than the original design you were working on. (If you don’t like the new design, you can always revert to the older one.) It’s a curse because now you’ve got to make a choice. Which design do you pursue? I’ve found that it is easy to come up with new game design ideas, but what matters most is finishing them. It’s too easy to get distracted by new, shiny game design ideas, especially when your previous one isn’t going the way you want it to.

Step 7: Change the Theme Many early dice games like Bupkis or Craps or Yahtzee are themeless. They are abstract games that don’t have any sort of story genre to them. As more designers create games, they

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are putting themes onto games that were previously themeless. Some gamers complain that themes are “slapped on” and don’t really add anything to the game other than making it appealing to fans of that theme. However, other designers are designing dice games around the theme. For example, the dice game Zombie Dice (2010) is themed to zombies and has custom faces on the dice. Steve Jackson Games, the publisher of Zombie Dice, has rethemed this game many times. They’ve made Trophy Buck (2011), Dino Hunt Dice (2012), Mars Attacks: The Dice Game (2014), and Batman: The Animated Series Dice Game (2016). Each time they’ve changed the theme, they’ve also added one new mechanism to the game to make it a little different than the previous version. You’ll notice that I’ve added a theme of a fantasy warfare to the revised previous example. Go ahead and add your own theme to your dice game design. It can be anything you want! How would it change your game? What new mechanism could you add to the game to make it more thematic? My dice game’s theme is: _____________________________________________ Adding a theme should impact your rules. Go ahead and write the rules to your new themed dice game here:                    

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Creating Your Own Custom Dice Throughout this chapter, we’ve talked about custom dice. Not only is creating custom dice a great way to assign your own probability and manipulate the statistics to fit your design, but it’s also a great way to add theme into your game. You can create your own custom dice in three ways. ■■

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Modify an existing die. Using a marker, you can write on an existing die. Keep in mind that this might be difficult to change. Some markers, such as Sharpies, leave a permanent stain on the die’s plastic. You can buy blank die of all shapes and sizes online that are ready to customize. However, drawing on a blank die face requires a steady hand and good eyesight. Stickers! I’ve found the best way to customize a die is to use stickers. You can use any type of blank sticker to put on the face of your die. I use “name tag” stickers that you can buy at a stationery or office supply store. I suggest either using a printer to print what you want onto the sticker ahead of time or drawing on the sticker once you cut and place the sticker onto the die. Be warned, cutting stickers and placing them onto a die is a time-­consuming and somewhat tedious process—­especially if you have a lot of custom dice to make. I recommend using either a very sharp pair of scissors or, even better, a craft blade like an X-­acto knife to cut your stickers. Place the sticker onto the die and then cut off the excess sticker, leaving only the face stickered. You don’t want any bits of sticker hanging off the die as it might come off when you roll the die. Manufacturing. If you have the means, you can either 3D print your own custom die5 or have a manufacturing company do it for you. Be aware that many of these companies require a minimum order, which can get quite expensive and leave you with more dice than you want. The minimum number of dice most of these manufacturers make is 100—­which is a lot of dice, especially if you need only a dozen or so for your game design! However, they can be a great solution if you are publishing your own game. I’ll list a few of these dice manufacturers in the appendix of this book.

Dice Games to Play Congratulations! You have designed a dice game! But just because we’ve designed one game doesn’t mean we should stop learning. And the best way to learn is to play more games! Here is a list of dice games that I like and you should try: ■■

Can’t Stop (1980)—­This is a dice-­rolling race game created by the great game designer Sid Sackson.

  I’ll be addressing 3D printing in Chapter 9.

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Formula D (2008)—­This thrilling racing game has one of the best uses of polyhedral dice I’ve ever seen (at least since Dungeons and Dragons!). While roll and move is considered passé by modern designers, this is proof that this mechanism is still worth playing. Qwixx (2012)—­This simple roll-­and-­write game offers a lot of tough choices, and every player gets to play on every turn. Las Vegas (aka Vegas) (2012)—­Players roll and assign dice as they try to collect the most cash. Roll Player (2016)—­This game was first described to me as “rolling up D&D characters but without ever going on the adventure!” The design is quite novel and has many different characters, which gives it a lot of replay ability. Unearth (2017)—­Players are archeologists who roll and assign dice to unlock locations for points and gain special abilities. Sagrada (2017)—­This competitive dice game combines dice rolling with the puzzle game Sudoku.

Important Chapter 4 Concepts and Takeaways ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Dice can generate more than numbers. Randomizers create drama! Probability = # of Desired Outcomes OVER # of Possible Outcomes. Different probability structures lead to different play experiences. Game designers have complete control over probability. Change a number and you change the experience. To a game designer, there is no such thing as luck. The best thing to give a player is a choice. The greater the risk, the greater the reward should be.

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Chapter 

L e t ’s Ma ke a C ard Game! IN THE MOVIE industry, it is believed that the best way for a young director to get their start is to make a horror movie. Look it up: James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Sam Raimi, J.J. Abrams, Peter Jackson, Zack Snyder, Guillermo Del Toro, and Ridley Scott all got their start in Hollywood making horror movies.

Compared to most other genres, horror movies are quick to make, they are accessible for independent creators, they give creators a chance to experiment, and they often make a big splash for less effort than other types of film. The audience will always go see a new horror film even though there are thousands of them out there to enjoy.

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I believe that card games are the horror movies of the tabletop industry. Card games are inexpensive and quick to make, and yet they can make a big impact. Card games allow designers to experiment or to create a new twist on a classic formula. Before we make our own ground-­ breaking card game, you should first learn how to make a card.

Let’s Create a Card! To make a card game, first you need to make some cards. There are several ways to do this depending on the time and effort you want to put into it.

One Way to Make Cards The first way to make cards is to take a standard letter-­sized sheet of paper (8.5" × 11" or A4 sized if you live overseas) and use a pencil and a ruler to draw two sets of lines on it like this:

Then cut along the lines with scissors until you have nine cards. You can write whatever you want to on these cards, except. . . . . .to be honest, these kinds of cards aren’t very good. Sure, you could play a game with them, but you will be able to see right through them, so any information that you want to keep secret from other players is revealed. They fold or bend or tear easily if you aren’t careful handling them, and they don’t shuffle very well at all. The best thing about these kinds of cards is that they are easy to change and throw away if a card becomes obsolete during the prototyping stage.

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Let’s toss those out and let’s make better cards.

Another Way to Make Cards Okay, don’t really toss out your cards. You can use them to make cards that are easier to shuffle and handle. For this, you are going to need what are called penny sleeves. Penny sleeves are clear plastic sleeves that you use to protect cards, like Magic the Gathering or Pokemon cards. They are inexpensive, and thanks to the popularity of tabletop games, they are easy to find both online and in stores. Go ahead and slide your paper card into the penny sleeve. The sleeve provides a little more stiffness and rigidity to your card. You can even upgrade your cards using a higher-­quality/ cost sleeve, such as those made by companies like Dragon Shield or Ultra-­Pro. If you do a search online for “collectible card sleeve,” you can find these slightly stiffer, more durable card sleeves. You can also purchase these types of card sleeves with opaque backs. These are useful when you want to distinguish different types of decks from each other. You can also buy card sleeves with images of your favorite characters, fantasy creatures, and intellectual properties printed on them. At this stage of making a prototype, I suggest staying away from these as I find the images to be distracting, but your tastes may vary. Do what makes you happy.

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Make sure you avoid using the hard plastic sleeves (also known as top loaders). These are often used to protect collectible/high value cards. Just like with paper cards, these stiff sleeves make it hard to shuffle cards. They also take up a lot of storage space. Unless your game needs to use something like this, I would avoid these as well.

Yet Another Way to Make a Card The sleeved cards are pretty good and provide better support than floppy paper cards, but I can find that they still are a bit floppy to shuffle and handle. This is where you want to add some stiffness by adding a “core” in the form of another card. You can find a deck of standard playing cards almost anywhere—­especially at big-­box stores, drug stores, and liquor stores—­and they are almost always very inexpensive. Or if you live near a board game store, you could ask the owner if they have any free “common” cards lying about. These are “worthless” cards from games like MTG or Yu-­Gui-­Oh! that represent land, common creatures, and spells. The board game store I live near has boxes of these cards that they would happily give away to anyone who wanted them. Take one of these “worthless” cards and slide it in between your cut card and the sleeve. This way, the image of your card faces outward, and there is a card “stiffener” in the middle.1 This will give your card the right amount of stiffness, which makes it easier to shuffle and handle during gameplay. Plus, it’s more durable than just a paper card!

Here’s One More Way to Make a Card There’s a fourth way to make a card. There’s a “quick and dirty” way to make cards. Take one of these playing cards or “common” collectible card game (known as CCGs) cards and take a Sharpie marker and just draw right on it. This is easier to do with standard playing cards as there is usually more blank space in their design. Voilà! You now have a card that you can shuffle and handle. They aren’t pretty, but it does the trick. Another good quick and dirty method is to place a sticker over the face of a playing card and draw right on that. Or you can print out the information on the sticker and place it right onto the face of the card.   My friend and game designer James Ernest has a great tutorial video on making these types of cards that can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0t6PBypahI&t.

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Even More Ways to Make a Card Another way to make cards is to use index cards. They are bigger than standard playing cards, but they are quick to make and even come in different colors if your game requires the cards to have some sort of differentiation. You can also take comic book backing boards (you can buy, or sometimes get for free, at your friendly neighborhood comic store) and hand-­cut these into card-­size cards. I find that they are stiffer than regular cards and a little harder to shuffle, but you can’t see through them, and ink doesn’t bleed through the paper, which can happen with standard printer paper. If you have the means, you can also buy blank playing cards on Amazon or at online game printers such as Print and Play or Game Crafters. I’ve even seen blank cards that can be written on with a dry-­erase marker and erased if you want to make a change. One thing I don’t recommend doing is using Post-­it Notes as cards. They are way too flimsy, and you can’t shuffle them. Another thing I don’t recommend doing is laminating your cards. It’s expensive to do (if you don’t own a laminating tool), and it’s impossible to change your card once you’ve laminated it.2

Print and Play If you have access to a design software program (such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator or GIMP) and a printer, I suggest you print your own cards. Many times, I will skip all the methods I outlined earlier and make my own cards on the computer. It might seem like more work, but there are several benefits to creating your cards digitally. First, it is easier to re-­create your cards. Imagine making a deck of 52 unique cards, play testing them, and wanting to make another deck to have a friend play test. Making a new deck by hand is going to take forever! It’s much easier to reprint your deck. Or even better, send the digital file of your deck to your friend. They can then make a copy of your game by simply printing. Doing this is known as a print-­and-­play game. Making print-­and-­play files of your game is often necessary when pitching a game to a publisher. Print and play also makes it easy to share your game with the rest of the world! We’ll talk more about how to do this later. When you print your own card, make sure to print them on cardstock. Cardstock weight is traditionally measured pounds with 67lb–110lb range being the average weight used. However, it is often measured in grams per square meter (gsm). This is the universal measure

 There are exceptions to every rule. If you are making a card game where you must draw on the card with an erasable ink marker, then go ahead and laminate away!

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for playing card paper weight. The higher the number (300gsm, 330gsm, 350gsm), the thicker and heavier the stock and card will be. Heavier cardstock gives your cards a higher-­ quality feel.

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Scissors, which are best for cutting standard paper or cardstock. A craft blade, which is used for cutting standard paper. A self-­ healing cutting mat, unless you don’t mind leaving knife marks in your tabletop. A metal ruler. I don’t know about you, but I can’t cut a straight line with a craft blade to save my life. You will need one of these to keep your card edges straight. A paper trimmer. A cutting device that uses a razor blade on a guiderail to cut straight lines. I prefer this to the craft blade/metal ruler method. Guillotine trimmer. If you have the space in your workshop, this is what I recommend using. However, make sure you are careful when cutting; you don’t want to lose any fingers! Color printer. There are so many different makes and models out there, you should pick the one that is best for your budget. I recommend getting one with a built-­in scanner that can handle heavier stocks like card stock and linen cardstock.

Speaking of linen cardstock, this is a paper with a textured feel that is pleasing to the player. Linen paper has two distinctly different sides. One side is smooth like regular paper, and the other is textured. When printing your cards, make sure that your images are printed on the textured side. With linen cards, generally a back and a front of the card are glued together to make one card. Sometimes another thin sheet called a core is glued in between the two. This is to ensure the card’s stiffness but to also make it impossible to see through the card to see the information on the other side.

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Once you’ve printed your cards, don’t forget to round the corners using a rounding tool. This is a cutting tool that makes the edges of a card round and easier to shuffle and handle. You’d be surprised what a big difference this simple step makes.

Size Matters Using the right card size is important for your game. Fortunately, there are a variety of templates available online at sites like Print and Play (www .printplaygames.com/prototypes/ formatting-­guidelines/card-­formatting-­ templates) and The Game Crafter (help.the g a m e c r a f t e r . c o m / a r t i c l e / 3 9 -­ templates). I suggest using either a single-­card template or a nine-­card layout. You’ll notice that on these sites, there are a variety of sizes of cards. It can be confusing at first, but I find it helps to know the difference between them so that way you use the right size card for your game. ■■ ■■

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Poker cards are the standard size for playing cards. They are 2.5" × 3.5". Euro Poker cards are slightly smaller (2.48" × 3.46") than standard Poker cards and are often measured in millimeters (63mm x 88mm). Bridge cards are also smaller than Poker cards (2.25" × 3.5") because to play the game of Bridge, you need to hold more cards in your hand. A smaller card makes the hand of cards easier to hold. Mini cards are also known as mini Euro cards because they became popular in Eurogames like El Grande (1995) and Ticket to Ride (2004). They are very small (1.75" × 2.5") and are best used if you don’t have too much text or information on them. Tarot-­sized cards are oversized (2.75″ × 4.75″) and work especially well for components such as character cards, event cards, or game finale cards. Their larger size differentiates them from “regular” cards and helps make their content seem important. They work especially well in games like Dixit (2013) and PARKS (2019) when showing off beautiful artwork.

There are other size cards, but you’ll find the ones I listed are the most common and useful. However, if you are looking to create something original, there are a variety of unusual cards that you can use in your design. Keep in mind that these kinds of cards require more effort to create. These include clear cards, pentagonal and hexagonal cards, and circular cards.

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Clear Cards Gloom (2005) was the first card game that I played with clear cards. In the game, you overlay cards on top of each other to “improve” or “diminish” the original card. Game designer John D. Clair has published several games that use clear cards. In his designs, he uses both sleeves and clear cards so that the cards combine to create new cards with different abilities. Games such as Mystic Vale (2016), Edge of Darkness (2019), and Dead Reckoning (2021) use this “card crafting” mechanism in their designs. Canvas (2021) and 3000 Scoundrels (2022) use a similar card-­crafting mechanism, but the result creates a new card image as well. Even less common are cards with openings cut into them that allows the player to see through them or to other cards underneath. These can be somewhat challenging to

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­ anufacture and are prone to damage during play. Turing Machine (2022) players decode m messages with die-­cut cards.

Pentagonal and Hexagonal Cards Using pentagonal or hexagonal cards is not that common. Not only does Hecatomb (2005) use hexagonal-­shaped cards, but the cards have clear edges so you can overlap them to create different card effects. The problem with these usual-­shaped cards is that the pointy edges of the cards often get bent.

Circular Cards Round playing cards have been around since the 15th century, but they’ve never quite caught on. I wonder why that is. Are they too hard to hold? Or maybe you just can’t tell which way is up? The reason is lost to the pages of history. Speaking of history, let’s take a moment to explore the history of card games.

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A Very Short History of Card Games It is believed that cards were first invented sometime during the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD) in China. Several literary references refer to emperors and ministers playing a game called yezi ge, or “the game of leaves.” However, game historian and author David Parlett3 argues that yezi might just be the word for cards. Exactly what games were played using those cards are unknown.

Money cards became popular in China in the 15th century. These skinny cards were used to play ma diao (three-­legged horse), a complicated trick-­taking game. These games spread through trade routes through India, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt, eventually finding their way to medieval Europe in 1400 AD. These early card decks were originally hand-­painted and only for the rich, but with the advent of woodblock printing, cards became cheaper and more popular.

  Parlett’s fascinating research and article about yezi ge can be read at www.parlettgames.uk/histocs/ leafgame.html.

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The standard card deck’s modern suits evolved originally from Mamluk card decks, which in turn became the card game Tarocchi, which was renamed Tarot by the French. The most famous of these Tarot decks is the Waite-­Smith deck, which features art by Pamela Coleman Smith.4 Over time the imagery of the Tarot deck changed: swords became spades, pentacles became diamonds, cups became hearts. With the popularity, portability, and affordability of cards, a variety of games were created. Karnoffel, the oldest trick-­taking game, is still played in Germany. Dozens of new games were created using a standard card deck. This includes games such as Maw, Reversi, Skat, Gleek, Canasta, Old Maid, and Go Fish. Edmund Hoyle became the ultimate authority on card games when he wrote his Treatise on Whist in 1742. In the mid-­1700s, the solo game Solitaire emerged possibly from fortune telling. In 1875, the Joker first appears as a trump card in the game Euchre. Old favorites eventually evolved over time: Whist became Bridge, Poque became Poker, Conquian became Gin Rummy. Many of these card games become associated with gambling (also known as gaming), and the entire gaming industry emerged. Cities around the world such as Monaco, Macau, Atlantic City, and Las Vegas became meccas for gamblers and gaming. Images return to card games with Authors (1861), Snap (1905), and Memory (1966). These games are aimed at children and families rather than gamblers, but by the early 1990s, card game manufacturers have found a new way to get money from their players.

  A summary of the history of Tarot can be found at www.modachicago.org/blog/2021/3/4/ visual-­history-­tarot-­cards.

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The collectible card game (CCG) debuted with Richard Garfield’s Magic the Gathering (1993). Published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC), they have become a multibillion-­dollar franchise. Players have bought and opened millions of booster packs as they attempt to find rare and valuable cards. Spurred on by WotC’s success, dozens of CCGs have been published: Shadowfist (1995), Star Wars CCG (1995), and Legend of the Five Rings (1995) are just a few. Hoping to shake off some of the negative aspects of CCGs, the genre has evolved into the “Living Card Game” (LCG) with Android: Netrunner (2012), Lord of the Rings LCG (2011), and Game of Thrones: The Card Game 2E (2015).

Another twist on card games came with Donald X. Vaccarino’s Dominion (2008), which invented the deck-­building genre. A flood of these deck-­builder games followed in the wake of Dominion’s Spiel Des Jahre win including Thunderstone (2008), Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game (2012), Star Realms (2014), and dozens of others. Fueled by the Internet, thanks to the increase in small-­press printing companies and bolstered by crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indigogo, card games experienced a renais-

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sance. Games like Apples to Apples (1999), Werewolves of Millers Hollow (2001), Cards Against Humanity (2011), Exploding Kittens (2015), and Unstable Unicorns (2019) reached worldwide audiences and have made millions of dollars in the process. And that brings us back to today! Will your game be the next to leave its mark on history? Who knows? You’ll have to make it first!

An Order of Sides To make a card game, let’s look at all the mechanisms that exist that can be used to create gameplay. But first, let me ask you a question: Q: How many usable spaces do you think a card has? A:  If you answered “two,” you’d technically be correct; but if you are thinking like a game designer, you’ll realize there are twelve usable spaces! Think about how the card in your game is used during the game, both while in the player’s hand and on the table. This is what makes cards so flexible and desirable for game designers. Let’s look at all the locations available on a card:

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Upper-­left corner: This is where a player looks first when holding/reading a card. This location is where you can find the name of the card (as in Magic the Gathering and Pokemon Trading Card Game [1996]), its affiliation (as in the Star Trek Collectible Card Game [1994] and Star Wars Customizable Card Game [1995]), its type (as in Doomtrooper [1995] and Wyvern [1995]) or its value (such as traditional Uno (1971) -­ essentially any important information that you need to know at first glance. Top edge: If you prefer a centered name, then here’s the perfect place to put it! It was good enough for the graphic designers of Sim City the Card Game (1995) and the James Bond 007 Card Game (1995). Top center: This is often where you will find the introductory information about the card. It’s where the name of the card and its cost usually live as well as an image (or if the image is large, it takes up part of this space). Player usually scan the upper part of the card when reading a card, so make sure that it’s providing useful information. Upper-­right corner: I find the upper-­right corner is a dichotomy. In most card games, it is where the cost of the card goes, as it’s a good location for something that needs to be referenced only once and then forgotten about. However, I’ve also seen it used for the most important information such as attack values, rewards, or icons for set collection. That’s the great thing about card design: there are exceptions to every rule! Left/right edge: Some card games use the sides of the card for multiple bits of information. For example, in OverPower (1995) stats for the characters (Energy, Fighting, Strength, Intellect) are lined up along the side of the card for easy viewing during play. The edge of the card can also be used to link cards together using colors, numbers, or directional arrows. Middle center: In almost all card games, the middle is where the artwork goes. Art is a very important element as it gives the card its personality, helps tell the story, and is the best way for a player to identify a card when sorting their collection. Bottom center: This is where more detailed rules of the card go, or elements such as keywords (terms that are shortcuts for longer concepts and rules), or flavor text that gives the card personality or adds to the lore. Bottom edge: This space can be used for a variety of things, from colored edges to help the player differentiate a type of card from another to where the artist’s credits or any legal jargon needs to go. As it is the last thing a player looks at, you can put “less important” (to the gameplay) information here. Lower left/right corners: Here’s another common location for pivotal infor­ mation such as attack and defense values. It helps if the player can fan out the cards in their hand to see these values, much like the upper-­left and right corners allow.

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Back: All of the previous locations can be duplicated on the back of a card (bringing us to 22 locations—­though using all of those might create information overload!). Card games such as FlipOut (2009), Hanabi (2010), Sellswords (2014), and Uno Flip! (2019) use both sides of their cards for gameplay. Remember, you are giving up secrecy when drawing a card by doing this.

Let’s see how these areas are put into action! Magic the Gathering does a particularly good job of utilizing as much of card’s space as possible. The following list describes how Magic the Gathering uses various locations on a card:

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Upper-­left corner: The name of the card. This is important not just for thematic purpose but for gameplay purposes as well. In some cases, players may play only one card of the same name or benefit from multiples of the same named card. It also identifies your card to your opponent so that they may either look the card up or tremble in fear from its arrival!

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Upper-­right corner: The cost. This is a one-­time cost that the player must pay to play the card. Once they’ve played the card, the cost (usually—­MTG is a game of exceptions) doesn’t come into play anymore. Having it in the top right deemphasizes it as the player becomes more concerned with the content under the picture. Middle center: A picture that serves several purposes. The picture tells the story of the card, it makes the card look appealing, it gives players an image to associate with the card (particularly helpful when trying to find the card later during pre-­game deckbuilding), and it visual separates the top information (name and cost) with the vital bottom information that is used during gameplay. Middle center left: The card type. For Magic the Gathering, the card type is important for gameplay as it indicates when and how a card can be played—­as in the case of an “instant” card. The type also indicates whether a card is immune or vulnerable to in-­game effects. Types can be used to synergize with other cards in the game. Think of this new section as the “new top” of the card, which is where the player will be focusing their attention during gameplay. Lower-­left corner: The artist credit, copyright, and trademark. Lower center: The gameplay effects and description. These are the rules that pertain to the gameplay and using the card. Also in this text box are keywords. These are written in italic text to call attention to them. Keywords are shorthand terms for gameplay concepts that might be too long to fit on the card. This is also where you will find the flavor text. These short snippets of text help tell a story, create an image, or quote a character. They usually have nothing to do with gameplay other than reinforce the game’s theme. Lower-­right corner: Numbers representing a creature’s strength and health separated by a line to indicate which is which.

Let’s not forget the card’s back! The creators of Magic the Gathering have expressed their frustration with the back of the card. If you look at it, every card since the game’s first printing in 1993 has used the “Deckmaster” graphic on its back. I’ve heard some of the newer designers of the game lament that they can’t change it because it would make newer versions appear to belong to a different game, but I like the sense of continuity it provides. It says, “You can use any card ever published for this game in your deck.” The back provides your game’s identity, and it helps keep cards secret until they are drawn—­an important way to create tension and mystery throughout the game! Keep in mind that while this is how the designers of Magic the Gathering lay out their cards, it is not required that you do it this way. I recommend that you look at several other card games to see how they’ve done it. Then you should use what makes sense and be consistent in your use of the locations that makes reading and playing your cards easiest for your player!

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Card Mechanisms You should already be able to see how flexible cards can be just based on their basic form and the position of information on the card. Let’s dive into all the great things you can do with cards to create gameplay! Activation cost: This mechanism was first seen in CCGs and found its way into other designs. It is a card that can be played only after the player pays a predetermined cost. For example, in Magic the Gathering, the card Nezumi Bone-­Reader costs 1 colorless mana and 1 black mana to be brought into play. Activation cost can also pertain to the abilities that the card possess. In the same card, if you spend 1 black mana and sacrifice another creature, then a target player must discard a card. Auction: This is where players compete and offer increasing amounts of money or resources to gain possession of a card, position, or some other benefit. Auctions are the basis of card games such as High Society (1995) and For Sale (1997). There is also a reverse form of auction where players offer increasing amounts of resources to not gain possession of a negative card, as seen in the game No Thanks! (2004). Auctions are often used as a secondary mechanism in a game and are a great way to promote player interaction. Bidding: This is a staple of cowboy movies; you bid by betting money (or some other resources) into a “pot” or common pool as a vote of confidence based on the strength of your hand or as a vote of confidence in your choice on a game board. Whoever has the hand that is revealed as the strongest collects all the resources, money, or cards. Bidding is the foundation of many gambling games such as Poker, Craps, and Roulette but can also be found in hobby games like Vegas Showdown (2005), Wits and Wagers (2005), and Manila (2005). I’ve even seen bidding used for combat in 2005’s Beowulf: The Legend.5 Bluffing: Bluffing goes together with bidding and is at the heart of games such as Skull (2011), Welcome to the Dungeon (2013), and Sheriff of Nottingham (2014). You might need to bluff because you don’t have a hand as good as you need to win. Or you might want to bluff to shake another player’s confidence and get them to fold. Keep in mind that some players might be uncomfortable with lying when play testing a design that has bluffing.

  And apparently, 2005 was a popular year for bidding games!

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Card as vehicle: A vehicle (plane, car, spaceship) is represented by a card that is physically moved around the play space or gameboard. In Wings of War: Famous Aces (2004), you “fly” their biplane using a deck of directional cards. Turbo Drift (2017) uses a similar system but with race cars. This can be an inexpensive alternative to miniatures.6 A challenge I’ve discovered with this type of design is this: how many cards do you need to maneuver without your hand of cards getting too large?

Card as terrain/map: Build a map using a deck of cards. In Thomas Denmark’s Dungeoneer series (2002), you explore a randomly generated dungeon built from a deck of cards that grows with each turn. The trick when making these games is to make sure that there are plenty of connection points on the cards. You don’t want to accidently block your movement and not be able to expand the map. Other map-­building games include Oddville (2012), 7th Continent (2013), Burgle Bros. (2015), Sprawlopolis (2018), Undaunted: North Africa (2019), and Diamonds & Dinosaurs (2023). Using tiles instead of cards is extremely popular in these types of map-­building games from Carcassonne (2000) to Northgard (2022).7 I find that using cards offers an inexpensive solution to cardboard tiles. With cards, you can create a larger deck that can offer more topographical variations.   Wings of War: Famous Aces eventually became the miniature game Wings of Glory: WW2 Starter Set (2012) as well as becoming the foundation for several other miniature combat games including Star Wars X-­Wing Miniatures Game (2012) and Star Trek: Attack Wing (2013). 7   We’ll talk more about using tiles as boards in Chapter 8 when we discuss Eurogames. 6

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Card as a resource: Whether it is property in Monopoly, Sheep or Wood in Catan, or a land card in Magic the Gathering, resource cards give you something to own, trade, or spend. They may also be spent to create new, better resources. This action is called crafting. Resources can be a great thematic replacement for money and/or points and adds thematic flavor to a game’s design. Redundancy on your resource card doesn’t hurt; I find it helps to have both an icon and text that describes your resource. When designing games with resources, I have found that the more variety you have, the more complex your economic system will get; therefore, I suggest starting with a low number of resources (around 3 to 5). You can always add more types if your game requires it.

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Cells/grid: This is a layout of cards—­either imaginary or printed on a board or play mat—­ that indicates where a single card or deck of cards is placed during the game. A cell indicates where a single card may be placed or played. A grid is several cells and can be in a wide variety of configurations. Chaotic rules system: The rules of the game and/or victory conditions change as new cards are introduced into play. Often pre-­existing rules are overwritten by the new one. The Fluxx series (1997) is centered around this mechanism. In Pitchstorm: A card game of pitching horrible amazing movie ideas (2018), cards played by the “producer” player deliberately causes chaos to your pitch, which can be a source of hilarity. I have found chaotic rules systems to be highly divisive as it does not allow you to plan a long-­ term strategy during the game, but rather to only react to the ever-­changing conditions and rules. Use this mechanism with caution as it can make a game last longer. Cutting the deck: This is when a deck of cards is divided into two different stacks and then stacked back on top of each other to make a single deck again. It is often used as a method to prevent cheating or encourage randomness in a possibly mis-­shuffled deck. An “I cut, you choose” approach can promote fairness and is used to prevent one player from getting all the “good” cards. In this mechanism, a deck or selection of cards is divided into two or more stacks of equal (or unequal) amounts of cards. The other player gets to choose which deck to take. Deck bottoming: This is when a card is discarded to the bottom of the deck, making it inaccessible. It can be used as a defense measure as with Lambert’s ability in ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo (2020), which allows you to look at the top card of the encounter deck and put it on the bottom of the deck. In Fury of Dracula, 3rd edition (2015), deck bottoming is used differently, to allow the Dracula player to draw more cards into their hand. This introduces an element of risk for Hunter players who draw cards during the night phase. Deck building: This is a mechanic that involves purchasing or acquiring cards during gameplay and adding them to your deck over the course of play. Cards are dealt, played, discarded, and reshuffled many times over the course of the game as the decks ­(usually) grow. Many deck builder decks start with “junk cards” or weaker-­strength cards that are weeded out (or “trashed”) over the course of play so that only stronger and more efficient cards are left in the player’s deck. In the DC Comics Deck Building Game (2012), you must “defeat” more powerful cards to add them to their deck. Once you gain or buy these “better” cards, you can use them to create combos or cards that synergize with each other, which is a great fiero moment when it happens. However, in many of these games, the marketplace of cards is limited—­both in options and number of cards available—­so that you must compete over the “good cards” for their deck. The genre, which started with 2008’s Dominion, has grown quickly in popularity the past decade. Notable deck builders include Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer (2009), Paperback (2014), Thunderstone Quest (2018), and Fort (2019).

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Here are a few tips when designing a deck builder: ■■ Your beginning deck must be garbage: While starting cards must be useful, they should be weak compared to the cards you can purchase. Deck building is about improving your deck over time and the excitement that a good hand can bring. ■■ Drawing: Deck builders often have hand-­ limits (example, you may have a hand of only four cards), so be sure that your design has cards that allow you to draw more cards. ■■ Combos: Whether it’s a simple synergy between two cards or a super-­ ridiculous combo,8 this is arguably the best part of deck builders. However, make sure that your cards aren’t directed toward creating only one type of combo, but rather design a card that can be used in several different combo plays. ■■ A trump for every play: While executing big combos are exciting, opponents must be able to shut them down. Just as in rock-­paper-­scissors, there should be a defense for every attack. Often these take the form of an “instant” card—­one that can be played on an opponent (or off-­turn). Defense cards often require you to keep resources in reserve for just such an occasion—­creating a wonderful “do I spend it now or save it for later?” choice. ■■ Switching strategies: Because of the random nature of the card draw, often your strategy will get thwarted or stymied by your opponents. A good deck builder allows you to change strategies during the game. Can’t seem to cause enough damage to your opponent? Try buying victory point cards for the endgame instead. Originally a “stand-­alone” genre, deck building has found its way into other games as a companion mechanism. In Police Precinct (2012), deck building is used to simulate gathering evidence. In Salmon Run (2013), your salmon meeple up a river using a deck of movement cards. Note that “deck building” is different than “building a deck,” which is common to CCGs like Magic the Gathering or Pokemon. Building a deck involves you buying (in the real world) and assembling a deck of cards before the game is played. There is an art and science to building a good deck, and how to build one is a topic of great discussion among the game’s player community. “Recipes” of winning deck builds are often shared online, and the popularity of winning decks rise and fall quickly—­often driven by the performance of a deck in a tournament. Deck depletion: This is a losing condition if you “run out” of cards in your deck. The classic game War uses this mechanism, as does the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set (2013) in which your deck represents not only the areas you explore but also your character’s health. Dying means that you’ve run out of cards. Deck depletion is also used as a game-­ending condition, as in Dominion, where gameplay ends when either the supply pile of Province cards is empty or any three supply piles are empty.   You can see a ridiculously long combo in the YouTube video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBIsZlV1jHk.

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A variant is deck deconstruction, in which you deliberately remove cards from your deck for end-­game scoring, as seen in Valley of the Kings (2014) where you must “entomb” cards for points. Deck destruction is a variant of both deck building and deck depletion in which you start off with a “good” deck of cards and add more and more “bad” things to it. Sometimes the goal of the game is to remove the bad cards over the course of the game as in Flamme Rogue (2016), and you need the “bad” artichoke cards in your hand to win the game in Abandon All Artichokes (2020). Deck topping (aka scrying): Look at one or several cards on the top of the deck and then return them to the deck. In some cases, you may choose the order in which the cards are returned to the deck. Dexterity: These are games in which your ability to quickly or skillfully use or collect a card determines who gains it. There are two types of dexterity games: “fast and chaotic” and “slow and precise.” It’s best not to mix the two types. Fast and chaotic is more common: whether it’s racing to slap or collect a card like in Slap Jack (1930) and Dutch Blitz (1960) (also known as Nertz) or quickly drawing and discarding cards from a deck as in Blink (1995).

Something to consider when designing a fast and chaotic dexterity game is that your design should be physically accessible to players of all types. I used to play Dutch Blitz against a girl whose arms were much longer than mine, which gave her an “unfair advantage” during the game. We eventually created a house rule measuring the distance of the cards to the player to make sure that no single player has an advantage over the others during play.

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“Slow and precise” gameplay can be found in Wok on Fire (2015) where you flip cards (using a spatula-­card) to reveal point-­scoring icons and in Super Rhino Hero (2017) where you build a skyscraper of cards for your superhero to climb. Again, accessibility is the key to dexterity games. Consider including some sort of implement to help players with poor motor skills or including a way to rotate the play space or allow players a way to maneuver around the table without upsetting the game. Discard: One of the fundamentals of card games, this is when you must discard a card from your hand or an in-­play card for one or more of the following reasons: ■■ As a penalty indicated on another card or by a game condition ■■ To maintain a specific hand limit ■■ To be replaced by another card that comes into play ■■ To indicate the start or end of your turn Believe it or not, there is a big difference between whether you draw a card at the beginning of your turn versus drawing a card at the end of your turn. Drawing a card at the beginning of a turn feels like a “fresh start,” which gives you new resources to consider and can contribute to a change in fortune. However, it slows down the game as you must read these new cards and consider how they will affect your turn. I prefer that a player draw a card at the end of a turn; this gives you time to read the new options that the new cards give you during “downtime.” They replenish an empty hand, and they are a good indicator to the other players that you are “done.” However, during play testing, I have found some players forget to draw cards at the end of their turn. I don’t know why some players have so much trouble remembering to do this. Maybe it’s because they are “coming down” from the action of their turn that drawing a new card becomes an afterthought. Discarding a card can also be made of gameplay. How a card is discarded can be made part of gameplay. For example, is a card discarded face up or face down? If the players can select a card from the draw pile, then you will want it to be face-­up. A face-­up discard pile is often called a stack. But if the discard pile is off-­limits during the game, then you will want cards discarded face down. In Aeon’s End (2016) when you run out of cards, you flip over the discard pile so that the order in which you have discarded your cards is now the opposite of when you play them. Colt Express (2014) does this as well when creating the action pile. It’s an interesting way for the game to obfuscate the card order from the player and create just a little bit of chaos in an otherwise organized system. Magic the Gathering has a wide variety of abilities pertaining to discarding cards. For example, if you play a black deck, you can draw cards from the graveyard (discard pile) to “bring them back to life.” You might be able to “burn” a card—­discard it from the top of the draw deck to activate an ability or gain an advantage. Other cards have effects that trigger only when discarded, to diminish the pain of losing that card or to make an opponent think twice about removing it from play.

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Finally, consider giving players a discard action in which they can dispose of undesirable cards to gain a better hand. You can let them discard, but at a cost, such as “You may draw one less card than you discarded (with a minimum of one card).”

Doomsday card: This is a single card that causes misfortune to the players during the game. Even if the players manage to avoid the card’s effects, it is reshuffled back into the deck to eventually show back up again later in the game, giving the game a delightful feeling of dread and tension. Doomsday cards are the foundation of the game Exploding Kittens (2015). Several CCGs including the Yu-­Gi-­Oh! Trading Card Game (1999) has a variant of the doomsday card in which if you complete a set of (usually complicated) conditions, then your opponent automatically loses the game! The most famous of these is Exodia the Forbidden One. Double-­ended card: This is a card that has a different effect on play depending on its physical orientation on the table or play environment. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Card Game (2017) uses double-­sided cards, with different phases of the turn using different sides of the card, while The Agents (2013) allows you to choose whether you want to use a card as a “command” or as “points.” Drafting: This term originally comes from fantasy baseball where players would draft their rosters from an open pool of team members. According to game designer Mark Rosewater,9 this idea was adapted by the play testers of Magic the Gathering. While playing a format known as “limited,” MTG play testers would each open a booster pack and pass the cards around to ensure fair distribution.10 The first drafting type was “Rochester draft” or a “snake draft,” where cards are passed clockwise around the table, and when they reach the last player to draft, that player gets a second   podbay.fm/p/magic-­the-­gathering-­drive-­to-­work-­podcast/e/1467994500   CCG players also referred to this activity as “pass the trash.”

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selection. Then the cards are passed counterclockwise until the first player is the last to get the final card. Here’s an example of the pattern of a Rochester draft (if you have five players): 1-­2-­3-­4-­5 5-­4-­3-­2-­1 Drafting (almost always) occurs before the game starts and is fair way to distribute cards among all the players. You are dealt a hand of cards, then after choosing one card and setting it aside, you must pass the rest of the cards to the player on your left. This repeats until all the cards have been distributed to all players and everyone has a full hand of cards—­most of which are not the same cards you were dealt. Since the MTG days, drafting has found its way into other designs: Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization (2015), 7 Wonders Duel (2015), and Citadels (2016) all use drafting to evenly distribute cards. In Sushi Go (2016), the entire game is based on drafting cards! Draw: The most common action in card games is often overlooked as a gameplay mechanic. But when, what, and how many cards to draw from a deck (or even from which deck when there are multiples to choose from) are important to the design of your game. As we’ve already learned, changing the number makes a huge difference to the game. Do you draw one card or two at the start of your turn? If you draw two cards, do you get to choose one of them and discard the other? Drawing fewer cards during a turn makes them more valuable as the number of cards you can play correlates to the number of turns you have. If you want to keep a game short, give a player fewer cards to work with. But what if the player draws a card that isn’t useful to them on their turn? It might as well be a wasted action. You might want to give your player more access to cards. Vampire the Masquerade: The Eternal Struggle (1994) makes players draw a card every time they play a card, creating a flow of cards. On the other hand, drawing several cards at once has its own problems. You will need to read each card as you get them and evaluate how they will or won’t be helpful. Too many cards in a hand can be overwhelming and contribute to analysis paralysis. Another draw method is to draw back up to your hand size at the end of the turn. As mentioned, I find that this is a good way to end a turn, and you can spend the rest of your downtime reading the new cards and preparing for your next turn. Remember, just because a player draws cards doesn’t mean they have to play them that turn. Drawing cards can be an action onto itself, especially if the player can collect cards for a potentially powerful play later in the game. Push-­your-­luck is a mechanic centered around drawing cards. In it, you can choose to “keep going” by drawing a new card to see if you reach a goal or improve your hand. This is the foundation of the game Blackjack (aka 21) where players can keep drawing cards as long as they don’t “bust” and go over the 21-­point limit. Dead Man’s Draw (2015) is another excellent push-­your-­luck game in which players draw cards and combine them with special abilities to plunder loot without busting.

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Flipping/tapping/rotating: This is where a player indicates a change in a card’s state by physically turning the card either vertically or horizontally or even onto its face. For example, if you have a resource card that doesn’t get discarded when spent, you can rotate it to indicate that it has been used and that it cannot be reused immediately on the same or a subsequent turn. In Magic the Gathering, when a land card is turned to the horizontal position, it is called tapping. When turned back to the other orientation, it is called untapping.

For many years, Wizards of the Coast (MTG’s publisher) owned a patenti on tapping, which prevented other game designers from using the term in their rule books. That didn’t deter, prevent, stop designers from finding ways around this, and soon cards could be “exhausted,” “activated,” “exerted,” “kneel,” “bow,” “charged,” “used,” “spun,” “booted,” “locked,” “tasked,” and “tacked,” which definitely doesn’t sound like “tapping”! The patent expired on June 22, 2014, and you are free to use “tapping” again. Go fish: From the card game of the same name, this is when you request a specific suit or card from another player, and if that player has the requested card, then they must give it to you. But if they don’t, you must “go fish” and draw a card (or several cards) from the deck.

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This mechanism is most used in hidden information games like those themed to murder mysteries; however, as a designer, you want to consider whether the player announces the card they are looking for—­otherwise other players might hear and keep track of the request, ruining the exclusivity of the information they just requested. Hand: This is the term for the cards that are dealt to you, usually face down. These cards are held in your hand to keep them literally “close to the vest” and kept their contents known/ visible only to you. The contents of your hand are usually kept secret from the other players during most or all of the game. There are moments when a hand can be viewed by another player—­either as an action to require you to show one or all your cards or part of a deal. Some games allow for a show of hands (or show), in which all the players reveal their cards to each other, usually for comparison purposes to see who has won the hand or game. The facing of your cards in a hand can be used for gameplay. In Hanabi (2010), you hold your hand with the card’s faces facing the other players. The other players then give you hints to help you determine which card to play. To make things more complicated, the term hand is also used to indicate the number of rounds you play before the game is considered over, as in “whomever has the highest score after three hands of cards wins.” Hand depletion: This is a losing condition that occurs if you “run out” of cards in your hand, as in Exploding Kittens. A hand of cards can also represent your “life,” and if you run out of life, then you lose. You can also run out of cards in 5-­Minute Dungeon (2017), but another player can help you by giving you cards. Hand depletion can also be used as a winning condition, The first to discard all their cards is the winner in Uno (1971), Phase 10 (1982), and Dutch Blitz (1960). In the classic game Karma, the loser is the last to discard all their cards. Hand limit: This is an artificial restriction enforced by the rules where a player may have only a specific number of cards in their hand. If new cards are introduced, then other cards must be discarded. Hand limit brings up a thorny design question: “How many cards is too many?” Some feel that odd numbers—­3, 5, 7, 9—­are better than even. However, even numbered hands—­2, 4, 6, 8—­lend themselves toward natural set building and melds. Whatever the number, consider the concept of “handiness”—­how many cards fit comfortably in the player’s hand. Unless the game is fast-­paced and allows for many cards to be discarded on a turn (via meld or some other method), I suggest nine or fewer cards in a player’s hand. Be mindful of the tempo in which new cards come into play. A player’s comprehension slows to a crawl when they must read the contents of multiple cards and consider their ramifications on their turn. Hand management: This is when the number of cards in your hand is limited by a rule and cards must be drawn, discarded, or played to maintain that limit. For example, if a game has a hand limit of five cards and I have seven in my hand, I must discard two cards to maintain the card limit.

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Some games require specific management of your hand—­such as the order of cards held in a hand—­as a restriction or victory condition. In Bohnanza (1997) cards are held in a locked order, where the order of the player’s hand cannot be changed during play. In some cases, the player may discard and replace a card in their hand, but the cards in your hand may not be transposed. In 10 Days in the USA (2003), cards are also held in locked order, which represents a route the player is traveling across America. Some players prefer to manage their cards to process information found more easily. For example, I always organize my hand of Uno cards by color and number. Hidden information: This is when cards are held facing away from the other players so the player cannot see what is on them as in Blackjack or when the information on cards are kept away from the players—­who must guess what they are, as in the game Cluedo (1949). The player must guess the value or identity of the cards to win the game. You can hide the cards from players using a small envelope, or they can be stashed into a box with other cards as done in the game Chaosmos (2015) and Charterstone (2017). Hole card: This is a card dealt to a player face down and not revealed to other players until the end of the hand. The player can look at this card, but it isn’t revealed to the other players until the end of the game, creating a tense and exciting moment, especially if it helps win the hand. This is where the phrase “ace in the hole” comes from. Junk card: This is a term from deck builders that refers to a card that is considered almost useless but is part of your deck at the beginning of the game. Junk, or “garbage,” cards are meant to be replaced with better cards to improve the deck’s efficiency. Market: This is a location on the play space where a variety of cards are available for you to purchase during the game. This is a standard feature found in deck-­building games like Machi Koro (2012), Space Base (2018), and Everdell (2018). An important aspect of the market is the churn, the rate in which new cards enter and leave the market. This can be part of the upkeep stage of the game, in which older cards are discarded and new cards come in to replace them. A new card can enter the market when a card is bought, and a new card replaces the one that was just purchased.

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Other games have presorted decks that escalate in value and usefulness as the game progresses. You must buy the “lesser” low-­value cards first to access the “better cards” further down in the deck. You may let players spend an action to initiate the churn. In Ticket to Ride (2004), you have the option to clear the market of ticket cards and replace them with all new choices. Meld: Most used in the game of Rummy and its variants, a meld is a set of matching cards, typically three or more, that earn the player points and/or allow you to discard them from your hand. Melds typically come in sequences of ascending cards belonging to the same suit known as runs (8♠ 9♠ 10♠ ) or sets/groups of cards of identical rank (8♠ 8♣ 8♥). Other melds that involve face cards are called a marriage (e.g., K♥ and Q♥) and bezique (Q♠ and J♦).

A clever use of melds can be found in the game Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper (1998), which replaces the face cards with story cards whose contents tell the narrative when they are assembled in melds. Ramping points: Players attempt to collect multiple cards of the same type or suit to earn more points. The more cards the players collect, the more points they are worth at the end of the round/game. For example, collecting dumpling cards in Sushi Go (2013) earns the player 1, 3, 6, 10, or 15 points depending on the number of dumpling cards collected. If you collect one card, it is worth one point. If you collect three cards, you earn six points! Rounds: This is the number of times the game is played before being considered over. For example, players will play three rounds of a game, calculate the score, and whomever has the highest, wins. Rounds are often called hands, and in game theory, a game with repeated rounds of play is known as a stage game. There might be some sort of upkeep or change that occurs in between rounds that escalates the stakes, increases difficulty, or even introduces new rules to the players. Shuffling/reshuffling: In most games, the deck is shuffled to evenly distribute the cards. A deck may be reshuffled to redistribute discarded cards, create randomness in the deck, or change the order of any cards that might have been returned to the deck.

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Some card games require the deck to not be shuffled, as the cards are presorted (usually by number) in a way that helps tell the story or direct the gameplay flow. Good examples of presorted card games include 7th Continent (2015), Fabled Fruit (2016), and the Fast Forward series of games (Fear, Fortress, Flee and Fortune—­all from 2017).

Secret role/traitor: This is a cooperative game that has one or more players whose victory condition is in opposition to the rest of those playing the game. The presence of a traitor can be hidden until they are discovered by the others, revealed by the traitor themselves, or held in secret until victory is declared. The goal of the traitor is to defeat or thwart the other players. This mechanism gained popularity with the party game Mafia (1986) but eventually found its way into dozens of card and board games like Ultimate Werewolf: Ultimate Edition (2008), The Resistance (2009), Secret Hitler (2016), and GROWL (2019). Simultaneous action selection: All players select their cards in secret and then reveal them at the same time. The act of the reveal adds some nice tension to the game. Outstanding examples of this mechanism can be found in Twilight Struggle (2005), The Resistance (2009), Libertalia (2012), and A Game of Thrones the Card Game (2008). Set collection: In this mechanism, you must collect a specific sequence of cards (based on numbers, suits, colors, icons, etc.) to gain points or earn a benefit during gameplay. Set collection makes a great addition to your main game. Players can benefit by collecting sets to gain points or benefits either in the medium term or in the long term of the game.

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In Sushi Go, if you are collecting pudding cards, you score six points if you have the most by the end of the game and lose six points if you have the least! Another great set collection mechanism found in Sushi Go is what I call the dumpling scoring mechanism, named after the dumpling cards in the game. With each card collected, the player gains more and more points. If you have one dumpling card, you score only one point. But if you collect two cards, you gain three points! If you have three cards, you score six points! If you collect four cards, you gain 10 points, and if you have five dumplings, you gain a whopping 15 points!

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Stealing: This is when you take a card or resource from another player—­either as an action dictated by a card or thanks to some other game rule—­like the robber in Catan. Netrunner (2000), Citadels (2000), and Unexpected Treasures (2002) are just a few of the card games that let you indulge in your naughty side. Suits: In playing cards, a suit is one of several categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several symbols showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or in addition be indicated by the color printed on the card.

As we’ve already learned, traditional playing card suits are either black (spades, clubs) or red (diamonds, hearts), but you can make your suit any symbol and/or color that you want. In MTG, the suits represent the lands that the Planewalkers draw upon to cast magic spells and summon creatures. The game of Sabaac (1986), which is played in the Star Wars movies and novels, has suits of sabers, staves, flasks, and coins. Just make sure that the icons that you use are large enough and clear enough for players to see and identify. When creating cards for printing, make sure that your icons are at least a half an inch large (36-­point scale). Trick taking: This is a type of card game in which play of a “hand” centers on a series of finite rounds or units of plays called tricks. Tricks are evaluated to determine a winner or “taker” of that trick. The object of trick-­taking games may be closely tied to the number of tricks taken or on the value of the cards contained in taken tricks. Trick-­taking games have been around for as long as there have been card games. Bourré, Hearts, Euchre, Spades, Whist, Pinocle, and Skat are all classic games that date back to the 15th century. I admit that trick-­taking games can be a little complicated to learn and understand, especially if you didn’t grow up playing them, but more designers are interested in them—­ the genre has had a bit of a renaissance lately. FORK (2023), Twin Palms (2022), Cat in the Box (2020), The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine (2019), and Fool! (2018) are all modern takes on that classic style of game. Trading: In trading games, the cards often represent resources or items. Players may exchange these cards with each other—­either through goodwill, negotiation, or blackmail—­to better their own position in the game. Even though there are games that rely on and are more fun with trading—­like Catan or Monopoly—­I find that players are often hesitant to trade, possibly because they don’t want to give their opponents an advantage! However, another reason might be that trading relies on surplus.

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My logic regarding trading is this: you want to hang on to the first card. You also want to hang on to the second card in case you want to use or lose the first one. It’s when I get the third of a resource that I will start to feel comfortable offering it for trade to another player. Players must feel like they have extra resources to trade to be comfortable trading. I’m not going to trade my only card of a specific type—­unless it’s something I just cannot use. If your game depends on trading and you are finding that your players are reluctant to trade, I suggest calling out and making trading a very specific step in your rules. Give the player a benefit for being the first one to trade. Or make trading mandatory—­each player must trade a resource during the trading round. If you can get players used to trading early in the game, it will become second nature to them as the game continues.

War: Based on the classic children’s game, players compare two (or more) cards. The player with the highest numbered (or face) card wins. If there is a tie (matching cards), then each player draws three cards and rematches. This continues until there is a clear winner. The winner collects all the cards in play. The “compare two cards and see which one is higher/better” mechanism is often used in other games as a quick and simple combat system. This is fine if you have a variety of other systems in your game—­there’s nothing wrong with having a simple mechanism in a game—­but I don’t think that War is compelling enough for modern players to stand on its own.

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Components Ironically, card games don’t always just consist of cards alone. Designers often incorporate components to augment their mechanisms. The following are some of the most typical components found in card games: ■■

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Chips are circular tokens, usually made of plastic or clay and are commonly used for bidding in casino card games like Poker, Blackjack, Baccarat, and others. Their value or denomination is often indicated by the color of the chip. Don’t dismiss the tactile pleasure that the player gets by handling chips. The way they feel, weigh, and sound when clacked together is a big part of their appeal. Coins, both real and fake, can also be used to represent money. Many game publishers, especially those who produce games for Kickstarter, offer uniquely designed coins as a popular upgrade. Again, players seem to prefer the tactile and aural sensation that metal coins offer. Coins don’t have to be circular either. I’ve seen a wide range of shapes and sizes and designs being produced. A differently shaped coin is an easy way to add theming to your game. If you are making a sci-­fi game, consider a hexagonal or rectangular coin in lieu of the traditional circle. Tokens are cardboard counterparts to chips and coins. The advantage is that they can be printed in color and unique shapes using a tool that is called a die. Die-­cut cardboard tokens are an inexpensive alternative to metal and clay coins and tokens. They don’t have to represent only money; I’ve played games where tokens represent health, wounds, reputation, and even the mental state of the player. We’ll dive more into tokens when we talk about board games. Counters (also known as gems) are plastic, resin, or glass components that represent the player’s position on a track, the number of “somethings” that a player has. They are transitory components, ones that are meant to come and go as the fate and fortune of the player changes over the course of the game. In Yu-­Gi-­Oh, counters placed on a card can represent the card’s power, the card’s health, or the card’s upgraded level, which is important when it comes to combining cards together to bring out a higher-­level card. Dice also make great counters (also called trackers), because they have a variable numeric value that can be raised and lowered during gameplay. MTG players will use a 20-­sided die to represent their Planewalker’s health. These are commonly called spinner dice—­because they “spin” up and down in value over the course of a game. Scoring sheets are a must if you are designing a game with scoring. These are used to track the player’s score over multiple scoring rounds or if multiple hands of your game

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are to be played. Don’t forget to include a pencil! (Or mention in your rules that they will need one!) A pegboard is primarily used to track score in the game Cribbage (approx. 1630). Pegs are not commonly used in other card games (they can be found in board games like Battleship and Mastermind), so perhaps there’s a whole genre of pegboard card games just waiting to be created?

There are many other components that can be used in card games, such as pawns and meeples. I will cover those in later chapters. However, cards are an essential part of almost every other type of game that we will be learning about from here on out.

A Note About Probability and Cards We talked a lot about probability in the Chapter 4, but a deck of cards creates its own (and very different) probability situation due to their physical nature. As cards are drawn from a deck, the number of desired outcomes will fluctuate over the course of the game. Let’s say we have a twelve-­unique-­card deck, and our starting hand is three cards. Once these cards are played, and unless there is a rule in the game that allows you to do so, you can’t draw them again. . .at least until they are reshuffled back into the deck, as in a deck builder. Waiting for those cards to “come back around again” is not very fun and not very strategic. Therefore, most card games have duplicate cards that start in a deck, especially if the card is important or even crucial to playing the game. The deck builder Dominion (2008) has players start with several money cards because buying more cards is a main mechanism of the game. By allowing the player to have duplicate cards in their deck, they will be able to do these critical actions several times before the deck runs out. More powerful cards are usually rarer—­ often one per deck—­to prevent the player from being able to do the powerful move repeatedly. You can also deal with this issue by giving your player opportunities to add cards to the deck, draw additional cards from the deck, or even search a deck or “graveyard” of discarded cards to reuse a card that has been previously used and discarded. Just like with dice games, these mechanisms allow the player an opportunity to mitigate the probability that the cards will give them more choices and create a more enjoyable game experience.

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Let’s Design a Card Game Let’s design a card game for two to six players. For the game, you will need the following:

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Two decks of standard playing cards A Sharpie marker Plain white stickers (optional)

Step 1: Setting Up the Game To set up for this game, do the following: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Open the two decks of cards. Remove the Jokers and any instructional cards. You won’t be needing these. Separate the face cards—­King, Queen, Jack, and Ace—­from both decks. Organize the face cards by suit—­spade, heart, club, and diamond. Keep only one face card from each suit. Set aside the second set of face cards in a separate deck, unless you are playing with five or six players. 5. Shuffle together the remaining numbered card deck and set it aside for the moment. 6. Give each player a set of four face cards—­King, Queen, Jack, and Ace—­of each of the different suits.

Step 2: Create the Rules Start by writing down how to win the game. In this case, we’ll write the following: How to win: Create a hand with a value closest to the trump card as possible.

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Now write the rules for the game: 1. Face cards have the following values: ■■ King = 14 ■■ Queen = 13 ■■ Jack = 12 ■■ Ace = 11 Feel free to write this number on the card with the Sharpie if it helps you remember. 2. Deal each player a hand of five cards from numbered deck. 3. Red suits (diamond and hearts) are negative valued. Black suits (spades and clubs) are positive valued. 4. By adding and subtracting their card’s values, players are trying to get a hand that is closest to the number—­without going over—­on the trump card played in that color. (For example, if a black Jack card is in play, all players are trying to get a hand that totals 12 points.) 5. The player with the number closest without going over in that color wins. (In the case of the trump being a black Jack card, if the closest hand is a black 10, then that player wins. A black 13 would not.) 6. However, a player may win the hand if they match the number in the opposite color. (For example, if one player has a black 10, but another has a red 12, then the red 12 wins.) 7. The dealer then selects one of their face cards and places it face up in the center of the table. 8. The value of the card is the target number for the players. The suit of the card is also the trump suit. 9. Players may choose to discard up to five cards and are dealt new cards to replace them. 10. All players reveal their hands. If there is a tie, the player with the most cards in their hand that matches the suit of the trump card, wins the card’s value in points. 11. Repeat play until all players have been the dealer twice. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins!

Step 3: Play Test the Game Play the game using the rules from step 2. Once you’ve played it, you’ll notice that this game is fun but could be better. The first problem is the dealer has the most control over the game since they determine what the trump card is. Giving a player that big an advantage is unfair to the other players.

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Some of this advantage gets mitigated by letting each player be the dealer, but what’s keeping each player from always playing the highest point card (the King)? If there is only one clear choice, then there is no choice. Let’s change that. How do we do that? We change the rules.

Step 4: Change the Rules Here’s a suggested rule change. Instead of the dealer revealing the trump card on the first turn, the trump card is revealed before cards are dealt out to the players. Play test this rule and see how it changed the game. When I changed when the trump card appeared:  What’s another rule that you would change? Write it down here: My new rule is: 

Step 5: Change a Number Change a number in the game. It can be the number of cards a player is dealt (perhaps three or four cards instead of five cards), it can be the number of points on the face card (18-­19-­20-­21), or it can be the number of hands played. Go ahead and change a number. The number I changed was:  What happened when I changed a number: 

Step 6: Change the Objective Another way to change the game is to change the objective. What if the goal was to get a hand that was higher than the number on the face card? Then the player with the highest

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numbered hand wins. However, you could still have the exact number in the other color trump because you always want a way to win even if you are “losing” the game. It just makes things more exciting, and it lets the player feel like they have a chance to win even when things aren’t going in their favor. How did it feel when you made this change to rules? Did you like it better or worse than the original game play? I liked it (circle one): Better Worse

Step 7: Add a Mechanism As you have already seen, there are so many card game mechanisms to choose from! Let’s pick something from that big list earlier in the chapter. I’m going to add the mechanism of betting. To add betting to a game, you need to add something to bet with. You can use coins, tokens, candies, or whatever. Just make sure each player has enough of the item. (If a player bets 1 coin per round, they should have a minimum of 5 objects per round—­which is about 25 objects per player or 100 objects for four players.) I’m going to add a rule that players can bet on their hand before all cards are shown. If their hand wins, they earn double the points for that hand. This “commitment bid” can be used only once a game by a player—­that way we need only a few of these tokens (one per player). Go ahead and play test the game with your new mechanism. How did the play test go with your new mechanism? Write the results here. The mechanism I picked is:  Go ahead and rewrite your rules using this new mechanism. How did it change the game play? Did it affect the objective of the game? The mechanism I picked changed the game in this way: 

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Step 8: Change the Theme I find that plain ol’ playing cards can be dull-­looking, mainly because we’re so used to how they look. Let’s spice things up with a theme. Since everyone is competing to get the same card in the middle of the table, what if we were all playing as thieves trying to steal a valuable gem?

Here’s where you can take those stickers and use them to cover the front of the face card. If you feel like it, you can draw a picture of a gem (or a treasure chest or a statue or whatever you like) on it. Or you can just write the word “GEM” on it instead. Make sure that you include the target number (remember? King = 13, etc.) on the face of the card too. My card game’s theme is:  You can make your game any theme! When I play tested this game design, my play testers suggested the following themes: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

A Tug of war A person jogging a distance through a park Feeding a baby dragon (the number on the cards was the food you feed it) Goldilocks trying to find the “right” bed

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Go ahead and write up the rules to your new themed card game here:          

Let’s Share a Card Game! Now that you’ve created our card game, share it with the world! Making a small print run of card games used to be difficult and expensive, but it was often the only way a designer could get their game into the marketplace! Merle Robbins, the designer of Uno, sold his game out of his barbershop before it was licensed by International Games. Fortunately, it is much easier and cheaper to print a deck of cards these days! Getting your game out into the world is an important step in becoming a professional game designer. After all, games are meant to be played, so don’t be afraid to share your design with the world! We’ve already talked about making a physical deck of cards, so let’s learn about making a digital file so you can share your game! To share your game, do the following: 1. Create the file digitally. Depending on how you want the printer to create it, you can create each image either individually or in a nine-­card format as we talked about earlier.

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2. Name layers individually. When making your digital file, make sure to name layers individually. It’s quite easy to lose track of which layer is which! 3. Decide on the number of files. A choice you will have to make is whether you want to have a single digital file for each card during production or have a “template” file in which you construct each card. Even though it takes up more space on your hard drive, I recommend the former. It makes it easier to make individual card changes and save the file. 4. Some designers like using NANdeck, which can be found at www.nandeck.com. NANdeck is a Windows-­based program that supposedly makes it quick and easy for designers to create card decks. I’ve tried it myself and don’t care for it, but your mileage may vary. 5. Don’t forget the backs! Depending on how you prepare your cards, you will need either a nine-­card sheet of card backs or the card back as a separate file. 6. Save your digital files. By the way, you will want to save your digital files as JPEG or PNG files for printing purposes. Some publishers require your cards to be in PDF format (a pain in the butt, in my humble opinion) or as a TIFF. 7. Once you have all your files, compress them into a file such as ZIP format. Don’t forget to include the name and version number of your game in your filename, and don’t forget to include the rules or any notes on how your cards should be printed. 8. Upload your file to the Internet for everyone to download! Share your new card game with a friend or family member or post it on Board Game Geek to share with the entire gaming community. Congratulations! You are now a published game designer.

10 Card Games to Play The best way to get better at designing games is to keep playing them. Here is a list of great card games that you should play and learn from. Remember, the more “tools” you get into your design toolbox, the better a designer you will become. ■■

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Exploding Kittens (2015)—­This tension-­filled Russian Roulette–inspired card game earned $8,782,571 on Kickstarter and continues to be a top seller to this day. Quiddler (1998)—­Spell words of increasingly longer lengths using cards in this fast-­ paced word game. Dead Man’s Draw (2015)—­In this pirate-­themed press-­your-­luck game, draw cards to activate abilities to plunder more cards! Magic the Gathering (1993)—­This was the first and reigning champion of collectible card games, which annually earns billions for its publisher Wizards of the Coast. As a Planeswalker, spend mana generated by lands to cast spells, summon creatures, and attack your opponents. While MTG can seem daunting to a newbie, there are plenty of

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basic sets and starter guides available. There are many formats to play as well as a digital version, not to mention hundreds of websites and podcasts about the game. If you get hooked, be prepared to spend money! Dominion (2008)—­The first game of the deck-­builder genre, Dominion has expanded into almost a dozen expansion sets. There’s a digital version too! While an “oldie,” it’s still worth playing to understand deck-­builder basics. Parade (2007)—­Avoid collecting cards and try not to earn points in this charming Alice in Wonderland–themed game. Guillotine (1998)—­Manipulate the line of royal cards that lead to the guillotine to gain the most points when they are executed. Uno (1971)—­Try to be the first player to discard your hand of cards in this classic game. I always recommend that my students play Uno because it is a great example of how to make a fast, casual card game. If you want to spice things up, you can use my own house rules: 7s makes players pass their hand to the left; 0s makes all players pass their cards to the left. The Mind (2017)—­Without verbally communicating, players attempt to play their cards in numeric order. Don’t be deceived by its simplicity—­The Mind swept up all the awards in 2018. Sushi Go (2013)—­This is a card game completely built around the mechanism of drafting cards. Players pass cards around as they attempt to gain points and build matching sets of cards. The “dumpling scoring mechanism” is one of my favorites in all of card gaming. 

Important Chapter 5 Concepts and Takeaways: ■■ ■■

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Card games are quick and inexpensive to make. Digital card games are even easier and more inexpensive to create, and they make it easier for you to reproduce your card game on demand. Using a sleeve and core will make your card easier to handle during play. Know which card size is best for your game. Knowing and playing historical card games will give you more ideas and mechanisms to use when designing your own game. Consider all 10 sides of a card when designing your game. Even the most basic mechanisms of a card game—­like drawing and shuffling—­can be used as gameplay. Chance adds uncertainty, surprise, and fun. Don’t be afraid to introduce components into your card game. Games are meant to be played! Share your game with the world!

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Chapter 

L e t ’s Ma ke a Par t y Game WOOT WOOT! WHO wants to party?!? Then let’s make a party game!

But what exactly is a party game? It seems like almost any style of game can be considered a party game. Guessing what a barely decipherable drawing is supposed to be? That’s a party game! Trying to trick your friends into believing that you aren’t going to betray them? That’s a party game! Making Grandma read two completely unassociated dirty phrases just to embarrass everyone at the table? That’s the most popular party game in the last decade!

First Came Parlor Games What is now called party games first evolved from parlor games, which were popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. Parlor games were played primarily in parlors (well, duh) by the

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middle and upper classes who found themselves with increased leisure time thanks to industrialization. Many of these parlor games were originally outdoor games that were adapted for inside play like Blind Man’s Bluff, Hunt the Thimble, and Are You There, Moriarty? As more people started to become educated, games were invented that embraced wordplay and wit such as The Minister’s Cat, AesoPs Mission, and Wink Murder. Perhaps you’ve played some of these classic games. If so, enter your favorite here: My favorite parlor game is: _________________________________________

Then Came Party Games In America, somewhere between the 1870s and 1930s, parlor games fell out of favor. There are a few theories for why this happened. First, with the rise and fall of prohibition, adult parties focused on drinking and other. . . adult activities. Erudite games were out, and more casual games like gambling were in! Another contributor was the rise of radio. Why think when you can just passively listen? Movies, organized sports, and other distractions also took players out of the parlors and into theaters, stadiums, and speakeasies. Another reason might be architectural. Around the 1930s, architects replaced the once ubiquitous parlor with a new location in the house: the family room. These larger rooms became the social hub of the house and a room designed for social events such as parties. With more social events, a rise in more “mature” card games such as Bridge, Hearts, Gin Rummy, Cribbage, and Poker were seen. You know—­the games your grandparents like to play. A few family-­friendlier versions of these card games popped up during this time like Skip-­Bo (1967) and Uno (1971), but for the most part, the more childish games that had been traditionally played in parlors were left for the kids to play elsewhere. In the 1980s two games made a big splash in American social circles. The first was Trivial Pursuit (1981)—­a trivia-­based game that catered specifically to the Baby Boomer generation. Trivial Pursuit became so popular that adults would host parties centered around the new craze.

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The second was the How to Host a Murder series (1985)—­the precursor to live-­action, role playing (LARPing) that combined a Cluedo-­style murder mystery, role-­playing complete with costumes, and a dinner party. Trivial Pursuit and How to Host a Murder spawned a multitude of imitators. Soon the market was flooded with these types of games. Two other games rose to prominence during this period: Mafia (1986), a crime-­themed social deduction game that had immigrated from Russia to college campuses around the world, and Apples to Apples (1999), which first became extremely popular at church camps thanks to it winning the National Parenting Seal of Approval award. Personally, I wasn’t aware of these games at the time; I was too busy playing “adult” party games like Beer Pong and Quarters. What can I say? It was the 80s and I was in college. These and other party games persisted during this time with popular mass-­market titles such as Jenga (1983), A Question of Scruples (1984), Cranium (1998), Moods (2000), and The Game of Things (2002) being published by the “big boys” Hasbro, Milton Bradley, and Parker Bros., but they were mostly being sold to “kids and families” at retailers like Toys “R” Us.

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Mafia evolved into the game Werewolf (1986), which inspired dozens of social deduction party games including The Resistance (2009), Coup (2012), One Night Ultimate Werewolf (2014), Secret Hitler (2016), and We’re Doomed! (2019). After a period of cooldown, the party game genre skyrocketed with success of two card games on Kickstarter: Cards Against Humanity (2009) and Exploding Kittens (2015). Cards Against Humanity is an outrageous and uncensored version of Apples to Apples that first found popularity as a print-­and-­play game and went on to become a Kickstarter hit. As of this writing, the game is earning $40 to $50 million a year! Exploding Kittens (2015), a card-­game version of Russian Roulette, earned $1,333,586 on its first day and ended up selling more than 2.5  million decks for an estimated $50  million in revenue. Both games inspired a slew of imitators as party card games became more “adult” in theme and content. Some of the more notable (or is that shameful?) games include Drunk Ass (2013), Mobscenity (2013), Drunk, Stoned or Stupid: A Party Game (2014), F**K the Game (2015), That’s What She Said (2016), and Cards Against Sobriety (2016).

The party game genre shows no signs of slowing down. Codenames (2015), What Do You Meme (2016), Unstable Unicorns (2017), Just One (2018), and Wavelength (2019) are all worth playing at your next game night. My favorite party game is: _________________________________________

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There Are Only Four Types of Party Games As I was designing my own party game, I took a hard look at all the other successful party games on the market. I wanted to understand how they were similar and how they were different from each other. While they all used different mechanisms, I found that, in general, there are only four ways players interacted with the game in relationship to each other. They are what I call “One In, One Out,” “One In, Many Out,” “Many In, One Out,” and “Many In, Many Out.”

One In, One Out interactions are in games where the active player takes one action such as asking one question, miming something, or drawing a picture. The other players try to provide one (the correct) answer. These are primarily trivia-­centric party games like Trivial Pursuit: Genus Edition (1981), Cranium (1998), Colourbrain (2017), and Blockbuster (2019). You are either right or wrong in these games with there being no wiggle room for the answering player. However, while these trivia games are still popular in the mass market, they are considered antiquated by the hobby gamer, who prefers to have more choices in their games. One In, Many Out is used to describe games where the player has many choices of an answer such as The Minster’s Cat or Wits and Wagers (2005). In the Minster’s Cat, the player

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can answer with any word provided it starts with the correct letter of the alphabet and hasn’t been used by a previous player. A One In, Many Out game might allow players to narrow down their guess over a series of rounds. This style is much more appealing to players than One In, One Out because it’s more forgiving. It’s even better if you can find a way to visually represent the “band” of options like the play board in Wits and Wagers, the lineup of cards in Timeline or the dial in Wavelength.

Codenames (2015) is another example in which the clue-­giver can tell the other players they have several choices available. It is up to the player to determine which are the correct ones.

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One In, Many Out can also be used to describe the number of choices the player has on their turn. For example, in Twister, while the player has no choice which limb they must place (hand or foot), they might have several choices based on their position on the mat and/or the length of their limbs. Many In, One Out is where players have a variety of ways to get players to give a single answer—­whether it’s drawing, acting, saying multiple words, or even sculpting! Charades, Pictionary (1985), The Game of Things (2002), Taboo (1989), Cranium (1998), Moods (2000), and Pantone the Game (2018) are prime examples of this type of interaction.

I like this style of party game because they often give the active player an opportunity to show off their creativity, talent, or wit. However, some players are intimidated by this. I tried to address this in my own game, Pantone the Game, by having the players “draw” with colored cards so they could use “I can’t draw” as an excuse for not playing the game. This type of party game often utilizes timers to help reign in the artist or actor and create some tension for both the clue giver and the guessers. Many In, Many Out is where the clue giver has lots of choices or ways to express themselves, and there are lots of ways for the other players to interpret the clue. Apples to Apples

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(1999), Dixit (2008), Cards Against Humanity (2009), Mysterium (2015), and What Do You Meme? (2016) are much more free-­form and often require a judge or moderator to come to a decision pertaining to the player’s guesses. When starting to design your own party game, consider which of these interactions is the right one for the game you want to make. Go ahead and write it down here: The interaction of my party game design is: ____________________________________________________________________

Traits of a Party Game Now that we’ve looked at how to allow the players to interact with the game, let’s look at the traits found in party games. Often game designers are asked “How do you begin designing your game? Do you start with a theme or a mechanic?” I have found that when creating a party game, you can start with an activity.

Take, for example, the game Throw Throw Burrito (2019). The designer’s goal was to re-­create the game of dodgeball but for indoor play. Other elements of the game, the cards, and when to throw the soft foam burritos (because using real burritos would just get messy!) evolved as the design progressed. You’ve learned where a party game comes from, but what is a party game? Let’s look at the defining traits of party games. Remember, not all party games have these traits, but the majority of them do.

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Trait 1: Keep It Simple A party game is simple to learn. Designer Elan Lee likes to tell the story about how the original rule book to Exploding Kittens fit on a single sheet of paper. The core rules to my own game Pantone the Game can be explained in three sentences. 1. Select a character card. 2. Use color swatches to represent the character. 3. The other player guesses the character with as few hints as possible. Designer Richard Garfield says that games have a complexity budget, and players of party games have a lower complexity budget than, say, a strategy game. You should be able to explain the rules as quickly as possible—­seconds, not minutes or hours. Partygoers don’t want to wait around while someone explains the rules; they just want to play! Don’t let the rules get in the way of the fun, and don’t let keeping score get in the way! The fun is the main thing you should be concentrating on as a designer. If something is fun to do, then make sure the players keep doing it! A good test of the rules to your party game is how succinctly they can be told to the other guests. If you can keep your rules short, you might have the makings of a good party game.

Trait 2: Few Components Keeping things short means keeping things simple. This is why the second trait of a party game is that they don’t use too many components (if any!). I’ve already talked about the concept of handiness and how it can impact the play of your game. Think about it this way: your party goers are too busy holding drinks and food to be holding too many components! Make it simple for them to play your game and still enjoy the party. Many party games use only cards such as Werewolf (1986) or Monikers (2015) or a cupful of dice like Zombie Dice (2010) or Batman: The Animated Series Dice Game (2016). Twister (1966) uses only a mat and a spinner, while The Minister’s Cat (circa 1800s) doesn’t use any components at all!

Trait 3: No Theme Required Party games don’t require a story or theme. There are many party games that are considered “themeless”—­Charades (1550), Cards Against Humanity (2009), Salad Bowl (2004), and Taboo (1989). These games emphasize players interacting with each other over trying to

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tell a story. That’s not to say that there aren’t party games that utilize story—­Werewolf (1986), Two Rooms and a Boom (2013), and How to Host a Murder (1985) come to mind—­but often, a party game is based on a premise, rather than a story or theme. I’m using the term premise how it is used in film theory. A premise is the initial situation that drives the plot. It’s a “jumping off” point to get the viewers involved. A great example of this in party games is Wavelength (2019). The premise is about a psychic using a machine to guess what the other players are thinking, but whenever anyone describes how to play the game, that premise is often ignored in favor of “you are trying to guess what the other players are thinking.” And that’s okay. Because I also design video games, I often think of the player’s relationship to a party game in this way: a hobby or thematic game is like a third person video game where you are playing a character like Batman or Lara Croft. You are invested in their story and their world. By contrast, a party game is like a first-­person game where the player is “you.” It doesn’t matter what the story is because the game is about the narrative you create—­the story of you and your experience when interacting with the game. A theme can get players initially interested in buying a party game, but I find that once the game gets going, often the theme or story is jettisoned in favor of the pure gameplay.

Trait 4: Accommodating the Players Party games can accommodate many players. You never know how many people will show up to you party,1 but the more players there are at the party, the more rambunctious and fun the game will be! Some party games require a minimum number of players. For example, Werewolf needs at least eight players to work. Why is that? The answer is math! Let’s look at the rules of the game and how the numbers impact the gameplay. In Werewolf, some players are secretly werewolves, while the rest are villagers. There is a night phase in which the Werewolves “hunt” a villager and “kill” them, removing them from the game. Then there is a day phase in which the villagers must deduce which of the living players is the werewolf who did the deed and vote to eliminate them. The goal is for the villagers to deduce the identity of and eliminate all the werewolves and for the werewolves to eliminate all the villagers. Let’s see why this game requires at least eight players to play.

  In my experience, I’ve found that two-­thirds of the people you invite to a party don’t show up! Why is that? Don’t they know that my parties are always fun!?

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If one player is a werewolf and one player is a villager and the werewolf kills a villager during the night phase, then that’s not much of a game, right? The game doesn’t even get started!

If there are two villagers and the werewolf kills one of the villagers during the night, it’s not much of a mystery who the werewolf is. And besides, when it comes to voting on who is going to be hung, there will be a tie.

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You’d think that three villagers and one werewolf would allow for some obfuscation during the voting round, but remember, one of those villagers is already dead and no matter whether the werewolf is hung, or a villager is accidently hung, the game will be over at the end of that round! Not much of a game if it’s over in one round (unless you are playing One Night Ultimate Werewolf [2014], which does exactly that!)

Things start to get a bit spicier when you have five players (one werewolf and four villagers), but it makes for a very short game if the werewolf is discovered in the first round. The same is true when you have six or seven players. You usually want a game like this to last a minimum of four or five rounds. The first round is for everyone to learn how to play the game. The second round is for players to start to formulate a strategy and look for behaviors in the other players. Things don’t really start to heat up in a game of Werewolf until the third round, and if you had only four villagers, the game would already be over! This is why the game’s rules suggest that there should be a minimum of six villagers and two werewolves!

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The addition of the second werewolf makes things more interesting for the werewolves, who must silently agree on their victim during the night phase, and exciting for the villagers, who, even if they manage to find and eliminate one werewolf player, still must find another one, which they might not have as much luck doing!

The last big twist in the game Werewolf is the addition of special characters who each possess a special ability. The fortune teller can silently guess the identity of a player during the night phase. The lovers try to protect each other from getting hung by the villagers, because if one dies, the other dies out of heartbreak. The lycan turns into a werewolf if “killed” by one. And, if the hunter is killed, they get to “shoot” one other player as a last gasp! I am the Werewolf (circle one):

YES!

NO!

Ultimate Werewolf: Ultimate Edition (2008) has dozens of these special character roles in the game. Despite all these unique roles, most players find that Werewolf isn’t that complicated to play because players are learning these roles and their special abilities one at a time. This is a great way to introduce new gameplay mechanisms into your own game design. Even with all these players and all these extra rules and exceptions, an average game of Werewolf can take around 60 minutes to play, which is another trait of party games. They are quick to play and promote repeat play. Often, my friends will want to play two or three games of Werewolf a night, rather than just one. One of the best signs you can get from players of your game design is when they want to immediately play it again. If that happens, you know that you are on to something good! If you don’t know how many players your game should accommodate, I use the rule of thumb of a minimum of four players. I think of it this way: One person isn’t a party. Two people isn’t

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a party. Three people might be a party, but a party doesn’t really start until there are four or more people. If you want to accommodate even more players, consider having players form teams. For example, you can play Pantone the Game with up to 20 players, but once you get past 10 players, I recommend breaking up into teams. If your design is flexible, there’s no top limit to how many players can play at once. I’ve heard of games of Werewolf with more than 100 players!

Trait 5: Playable Anywhere Another trait of party games is that they can be played (almost) anywhere. Parties can happen anywhere such as a house, at a campsite, on a ship, or even in a bus. And a party game should be flexible enough to be played anywhere too! This flexibility is a good thing to test during the development of your game. Don’t just play your game in your living room or your classroom. Try playing your game in a coffee shop or (if you’re old enough) a bar. Try playing it outdoors or at a crowded party. Try playing it on a camping trip or in a moving vehicle like a train or a bus. If the players laugh and yell even with all the distractions and bumps and whatnot going on around you, that’s a sign that you have a successful party game!2 That’s not to say that all party games should be played anywhere. Some games like Codenames or Beer Pong or Jenga require a table or flat surface to play on. Try using the “world” as part of your game design. Games like Two Rooms and a Boom (2013), This House is Haunted (2014), Monikers (2015), and Speakeasy (2015) either encourage or require players to move throughout multiple rooms of a house during play. Other games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey (1887), Twister, and Don’t Step on It! (2017) come with a play mat on which the game is played. Just because you are creating a party game   Just don’t play your game in a library or church or some other place where you might get “shushed!”

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doesn’t mean you have to adhere to a single concept of a party game. Make your players play the game the way that you want it to be played.

Trait 6: Interruptions Allowed There are some things about a party that you just can’t control—­and that’s the people. Party games should reflect the nature of a party—­groups form and break up, people leave, new people show up, get snacks, take a break, etc. There’s nothing you can do about this as a designer, except to allow your game to be interrupted by the players. This is where party games are different from all other types of games in that the “magic circle” we talked about early is much more flexible in a party game. A player can leave a game of Pictionary or The Game of Things or Taboo or Scruples, and it won’t make too big a difference to the play of the game or its outcome.

You can accommodate this challenge by focusing the game on a moderator player with the rest of the players forming a loose structure. For example, in Cards Against Humanity, one player is “Card Czar,” a judge who asks the questions and reads the player’s responses. Even if a player gets too grossed out by the other player’s answers and leaves the game, you can still play. . .provided that not too many players leave the game. The rules and goals of your game should be flexible for the game not to “break,” even if a player or two leaves the game. Don’t let the rules get in the way of the fun. And don’t let keeping score get in the way either. Players play party games to have fun. Winning and

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scoring points is often secondary to watching your friends acting goofy or saying something awkward or silly. It doesn’t matter who wins, as long as they had fun. Some party games can be played for as long as the players want. Trivia games (like Trivial Pursuit—­played without the board) or games where player’s response is judged (like Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity) often end either when the players become tired of playing the game or when the novelty of the game wears off. This isn’t the most desired way to end a game as it tends to fatigue players and they might not be so quick to replay your game again in the future.

Trait 7: Scoring at a Party You could also end your party game when your players reach a predetermined score. However, I find keeping individual score during a party game to be. . .a bit of a drag. Sure, there are some games that have players track points by holding on to cards they have successfully answered or earned through judging, but I believe that the feeling of success is more important to the player than keeping score.3 To avoid the problem of the “endless game,” consider creating a natural stopping point or ending to your game. For example, the game could end once every player has had a chance to have a turn to be the judge/moderator/card czar. Or you could end the game once all players have been eliminated. The game could end after a predetermined number of rounds.4 It’s more important to leave your players wanting more than have them get burned out on your game.

Trait 8: Ageless The last trait is that most party games can (mostly) be played by people of all ages. Party games are often the “first point of contact” for younger players. If we want more players to get into the tabletop hobby, then party games are the best way to start them off. Another way to look at it is this: if your game is playable by people of all ages, then people of all ages will play your game. More important, more people of all ages will buy your game. Keep in mind that just because a game is a party game, that doesn’t mean that it’s for children. There are some party games that children should never play due to things such as the subject matter or the inappropriate language on the cards. It is up to us adults to determine

3   Keeping score often works better when the players of a game are divided into teams. Team-­based play by its very nature fosters a greater spirit of competition. 4   How many rounds is just enough? I always start by using the magic number three. The best answer to “When should the game end?” is “Right before it gets boring.”

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whether a game is appropriate or not for the younger players at the party. Take responsibility, party people.

The Five Ps of Party Games Hmm. We still haven’t answered the question “What is a party game?” A standard definition is “a type of game played at social gatherings to facilitate interaction and provide entertainment and recreation.” Hmm. That’s a bit too clinical for my taste. My friend, game designer Gil Hova, defines a party game as “a game that involves repeatedly performing a simple and rewarding social interaction.” Repeatedly is one of the important factors; social is the other.5 My own definition of a party game is “A game in which several players or teams interact using social, knowledge, dexterity, or communication skills.” Regardless of your definition of a party game, I believe that every party game’s design utilizes what I call the “five Ps.” ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Permission Predictability Pace Presentation Props

Permission Most party games are “social experiences in a box” that allow you to express yourself in ways that you normally wouldn’t in polite company. You can act silly, sexy, scary, or strange. You can let your imagination and creativity run wild. You can accuse other players of terrible things and say terrible things about them—­all without the fear of judgment or scorn. The magic circle of the party game provides a space for you to safely explore these things, allowing you to enjoy it and have fun with it. However, some party games, like Cards Against Humanity, offer a deferment of responsibility. The game is essentially saying “It wasn’t me who thought up that filthy sentence; it was the cards!” The danger with this is that there must be consent and buy-­in from all the players. The game must provide a “safe area” for this type of behavior. If someone becomes

  ludology.libsyn.com/the-­life-­of-­the-­party

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uncomfortable with the content or actions of a game, they should be able to opt out without being questioned or embarrassed about it. Another aspect of permission is the power of embarrassment. Twister, for example, uses the embarrassment that you might feel about being in close or intimate contact with another player to great effect. You might feel embarrassed about looking silly in front of others. However, a big part of the fun of playing Twister is that feeling of embarrassment, which is diminished because everyone playing is also feeling that embarrassment! The laughter that arises from a game of Twister is just as much from embarrassment as it is from fun! While embarrassment is a powerful tool that game designers can use in their game design, you want to be careful of relying on it too much; it may drive a player away from playing your game. Some partygoers might be keen to play Spin the Bottle (circa 1920) or Truth or Dare? (1712), while others might dread the game but cave in to peer pressure. If there is any chance that a player might feel uncomfortable during the game, then you might want to consider the use of an X-­Card, a tool created by game designer John Stavropoulos.6 The X-­Card is a physical card that you can pick up or point to at any time during the game to end an uncomfortable situation. All players agree to change the course of the game if someone uses the X-­Card during a game. The X-­Card is most often used during role-­ playing games, but I could see where it might be useful during a party game. Some gamers have issues with the X-­Card and prefer not to use it at all, citing that its presence invites using it unnecessarily. That it can cause disruption of the game. I believe that the X-­Card is a tool that can be used well or poorly, just like any tool. In the end, if a problem arises, it’s best to discuss and resolve the issue. No game system is a replacement for actual compassion and conversation.

Predictability I’ve already said that one of the most important things you can give gamers in your design is variety, there is something to be said about the power of repetition. Gamers often look for patterns in the game’s rules when trying to understand how to play a game. Therefore, when you do the same thing (or similar actions) each turn, not only does it allow you to take a quicker turn but it allows you to plan in-­between turns. The best part is that once you understand these patterns, you can break them to create unique strategies and take unpredictable turns.

  You can find expanded notes about the X-­Card at highlevelgames.ca/blog/5-­reasons-­to-­use­the-­x-­card.

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Unpredictability, especially in party games, is great too! As a designer, creating situations that create unpredictable results is fantastic, as this is often where the humor during the game comes from. Unpredictability can come from a variety of sources—­from the surprise of new information on a card to a guess based on your own knowledge, humor, or experience—­something only you know or would have thought of. This randomness creates surprise, which is just variety that you aren’t expecting!

The interesting thing is this randomness eventually can turn back around into repetitiveness—­ especially in games where running jokes can develop—­where you “call back” to something funny you might have said or done earlier in the game. The classic game Salad Bowl7 strongly relies on callback as communication becomes more and more limited over each consecutive round of play. As a designer, you want to capitalize on these unpredictable results and incorporate them into your rules. The game Just One (2018) does this. If two or more players select the same answer, those answers are cancelled out. This creates tension for both the active player (who is worried that the same word will be selected by more than one player) and the other players (who are worried that there will be fewer clues that help the active player guess the mystery word). Within the magic circle of the game, that tension creates fun! Since all the players’ scores are tied to each other’s performance, everyone either benefits or fails.

Pace When designing your party game, consider the pace in which it is played. A game can be either fast ’n’ frantic or slow and thoughtful.   Also known as Fish Bowl, Celebrities (1999), Time’s Up! (1999), Monikers (2015), and Tossed Salad (2018).

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Fast ’n’ frantic games like Scattergories (1988), Taboo (1989), 5 Second Rule (2010), 20 Second Showdown (2019), and Speed Charades (2019) are just a few party games that challenge you to guess as many answers as possible within a short time. Part of the fun comes from the embarrassment factor when someone panics in their rush to provide clues. These games usually come with sand or electronic timers, although you can keep track of the time using your watch or phone. Just make sure to mention that in the rules. While your game design might be slow and thoughtful, you still might want to enforce a time limit on a player’s turn. If a turn drags on for too long, it will kill the momentum of the game.

Slow and thoughtful party games such as Codenames (2015), Dixit (2008), Pantone the Game (2018), Concept (2013), and Spyfall (2014) require you to consider the clues. You must think and analyze before giving answers. Wrong answers mean reducing points or forfeiting a turn. Slow and thoughtful games often require you to act as a moderator or judge to determine whether another player or team’s answer is correct. Sometimes you create the answer, while other times it is found on a card or some other prompt. This is an important choice to make as a game designer. Having your players create their own answers can slow down the pace of a game. In the party game Cards Against Humanity, the game’s designers discovered the length of the game shortened significantly when players used preprinted responses instead. If your game design does require players to write down their own questions and answers, don’t forget to include a pad of paper and a few pencils. Alternatively, you could provide dry-­ erase markers in the game like Just One and Telestrations do.

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Presentation As we have already seen, the lexicon of tabletop game design is filled with terms with multiple, often conflicting, definitions. Presentation is just one of them. The presentation of a party game might refer to its premise, a loose story or theme that helps you get into the mood of the game. For example, the game Mafia is about lawmen rooting out criminals, but that social deduction game can just as easily be about a village infested with werewolves or witches, an artic base infected with a shape-­changing thing, or a spaceship carrying an unwanted alien passenger. What I find fascinating is that while humans love stories, party games don’t have to be about anything, other than the challenge presented to the players. What is the theme of Apples to Apples, Just One, or Taboo? Who cares?! It only matters that we are having fun playing! Do you want to give your party game a premise? Then great! It will help guide not only the players but the graphic design of your game. You don’t have to be a graphic designer to design card and board games, but you do want to have an idea of what the final version of your game might look like. Create a mood board using Pinterest or even just a folder of images you’ve captured from Google Images that you can use as inspiration for yourself and any artists that you hire to work on your game. If you create a unique enough presentation, it could affect every game that comes after yours.

Take, for example, the distinctive black cards of Cards Against Humanity (CAH) with its stark white Helvetica Neue 75 Bold font. That simple design choice influenced the visual design of every party card game for the next 10 years.

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CAH’s graphic designer, Amy Nicole Schwartz, talked about how the design came about: “The design of Cards Against Humanity itself in a graphic design context isn’t groundbreaking. But in a tabletop card game/party game context, it’s groundbreaking in its simplicity. The visuals don’t get in the way of play. It’s a legible game—­you understand what you’re doing, and a lot of other games are thrown together. They sometimes use cheesy graphics, sometimes the information hierarchy on a card doesn’t really aid in playability at all. The experience of playing the game was foremost in designing the product itself.”8 That information hierarchy Schwartz mentioned is an important aspect when you are designing game components, especially in card games. The first aspect to address is “what information is most important for your player to see?”

In the example of a Séance card, the most important information is the letter on the card. Since the player scores points by spelling the word Séance, it should be the clearest thing to read. Depending on your gameplay, you might want to make the card’s cost, attack, or victory point value the largest thing in the graphic design.

  fastcompany.com/3058912/cards-­against-­humanity-­designer-­graphic-­design-­ doesnt-­have-­a-­critical-­dialogue

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You don’t have to always use size. Color, font, location, shape, scale, texture, or any of these in combination will add visual interest to focus the player’s attention on the information. Making this happen subconsciously for the player is better than not at all. Speaking of location, remember that we discussed card layout in Chapter  5, “Let’s Make a Card Game.” If you’ve already forgotten it, go back and review it. Look at several card games to get ideas for how you can lay out your cards. Find good and bad examples to help guide your decisions.

Props Props are things that come with your game (or things that you have readily available in your home) that you use to play your game. These can be some sort of toy or device to spice up your game. If you were going to design a party game with a prop, what would it be? My prop would be a: _________________________________________________

While you don’t really need Taboo’s bright pink and blue buzzer or Poetry for Neanderthals’ (2020) inflatable club to play their respective games, they do help you get into the theme and generally make things more fun! You could create a game that is totally dependent on a device or prop to play. You can’t play Musical Chairs without the titular chairs. Watch Ya’ Mouth (2016) just isn’t the same without a plastic mouthguard. Wavelength (2019) is useless without its spinner dial; and what would Don’t Step In It! (2017) be like without the simulated doggie poo made from “molded compound”? On second thought, maybe don’t answer that question. Regardless of what kind of prop you use, the key is interaction.

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The Sixth P Is for Player Of course, you need players to play a party game. What type of interaction those players have with each other makes a big difference in how the game plays. First, players can be organized either as individuals or as teams. There are distinct advantages to both setups. In Trivial Pursuit: Genus Edition, Beer Pong, and We’re Doomed, individuals are trying to compete for points or position to win. It gives players a chance to feel smart, keep a secret or exhibit a talent that might get overlooked when participating as a team. Teamplay benefits from multiple minds working toward a common goal. Having many players allows knowledge gaps to be filled and fosters cooperation. The game Codenames thrives from this. However, it can also back­fire! I have seen a group of players determine the correct answer through group-­think, only to talk themselves out of it minutes later! This causes delicious tension for both the players and the clue-­giver! Another factor to keep in mind is how players congregate in a room. This can be impacted by the type of party game they’re playing—­a thinking game or an action game. Thinking games are much more leisurely and require less interaction between players. Players can spread out around the room and don’t have to be congregated around a central location. Action games, on the other hand, benefit from the players being in proximity or even contact with each other. The type of space your party takes place in can make a big difference in how a game is played. Finally, consider the rules of your game. Are they chaotic or lawful? If a mistake happens, can the players “go back” and re-­adjust or redo, or are they stuck with the consequences of their actions? Ultimately, keeping things fun is the most important thing! It’s a party after all!

Party Game Mechanisms As we’ve seen, party games thrive on interaction, and there are several mechanisms that designers can use to create that interaction. Let’s review them!

Knowledge Knowledge is the key to winning and designing any trivia game. Ask a question, and if you answer it correctly, you score! The trivia found in these games can be broad as in the general

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topics9 found in Trivial Pursuit: Genus Edition or very specific as in Trivial Pursuit: Classic Star Wars Trilogy Edition (1998). These targeted trivia games can be great fun if you and the other players are die-­hard fans, but not so much if you don’t know your Ponda Baba’s from your Mowma Nadon’s. This genre of party game tends to be popular as they are simple to design; just be sure to include plenty of cards! I find that you should have a minimum of 300 cards but preferably closer to 1000. Players also enjoy trivia games as they make the player feel smart. I always say that a good game makes a player feel smart, powerful, or rich—­preferably all three! However, if you don’t know the answers, it can get frustrating. This is why people either love or hate trivia games. These games are also very populous on today’s market, so you’d have to come up with an original take on a trivia game to get modern publishers interested in making one. But that hasn’t stopped some designers. In fact, there are some games like The Wrong Game (2006), Best Wrong Answer (2020), and So Wrong It’s Right (2021) where you win by answering questions incorrectly! Trivia isn’t the only way to use knowledge for game play. The game Carnelli (2007) has players creating associations between two words (such as a book, movie, or song title). For example, you could connect the TV show Star Trek with the book Baby and Child Care. Only by knowing something about these two titles would you know the connection.10 Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (1997) also relies on knowledge of films and their contents to create connections. Even your knowledge of spelling can be turned into gameplay as in the classic game Hangman (17th century) and its modern equivalent Hangman (1976) and card games like Quiddler (1998) and Wordical (2013) and Snippets (2016).

Word Play Language has been the inspiration for parlor and party games since the 1800s. In Our Granny Doesn’t Like Tea (circa 1800) you must say alternative foods or drinks for Granny in five seconds but words that contain the letter T are forbidden. The Minister’s Cat (circa 1800) has players listing adjectives that start with the same letter, as long as no two players repeat the same answer. Classics of the genre persist in today’s market. Scrabble (1948), Boggle (1972), and Scattergoires (1988) are easily found both in stores and online. Newer word games continue to be made such as Wordsy (2017), Letter Jam (2019), and Wordle: The Party Game (2020).

  Geography, Entertainment, History, Art and Literature, Science and Nature, and Sports and Leisure.   The connection? Mr. Spock and Dr. Spock.

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Dabble (2011) and On the Grid (2015) have you creating as many words as possible from a selection of letters. Dictionary also known as Fictionary (1984) and Balderdash (1984) has players make up definitions for an obscure word, and you must guess the real definition. While a game like this relies upon knowledge, it also requires some creativity to think of a convincing and deceptive answer. Many of the same ideas and mechanisms found in word-­centric party games work for regular word games. I’ll be talking much more about word games in the next chapter. Stay tuned!

Guessing While guessing leads to answers, it is a different way to get there than knowledge. Sometimes the act of circling around an answer by guessing aids the clue giver as the players try to narrow down the answer. I find it fun when guessing becomes a stream of consciousness and absurdity ensues.11 This is a phenomenon that I have witnessed when playing games such as Charades, Head’s Up Party Game (2013), and Pictionary. Guessing games lend themselves to creating a loud and rambunctious atmosphere, which is often what you want from a party game! Your choice, as a designer, is to decide how many guesses the player gets and what happens if they happen to guess wrong. Or what happens if a player guesses when it’s another player’s turn!

Memory In the days before smartphones, more party games relied on memory. After all, you had to remember which movies Kevin Bacon appeared in before you could connect another actor to him! Memory games can be based on remembering what another player previously did or said as in games like The Copycat (2016). When designing a game based on memory, make sure all players set aside their connected digital devices to prevent temptation. You could even make the phone part of the prize—­ make a player answer trivia question without using their phone to “win” it back!

  I guess it would be too ancient to make a “baby fish mouth” reference here, wouldn’t it?

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Acting The most famous party game that uses acting is Charades, but there are many variations that have been created over the years. Some are variations on traditional Charades like Cranium and Guesstures (1990), while others have taken a different approach. For example, in Moods (2000), you say a word in a way that conveys the mood found on a card, and in Spontuneous (2010) players sing to gain points! Acting can also be used to enhance the theming or experience of a party game. Acting “in character” during a game of Werewolf, Mafia, Snake Oil (2010), or Pitch Storm (2018) can enhance a game’s fun. Other party games don’t just encourage play acting but demand it! The How to Host a Murder series recommends or even includes props and costumes for the players to wear during the game. Party games have started to combine storytelling and word guessing mechanics. Once Upon A Time: The Storytelling Card Game (1993) has players create a cooperative story while emptying their hand of cards. When I Dream (2018) has players acting as “spirits” who give words to a blindfolded player who must weave the words into a story. As role-­playing games become more popular and commonplace thanks to video conferencing and podcasts, I predict that we will see more of these story-­centric party games in the future.

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Drawing/Creating Another popular mechanism is drawing. It doesn’t have to be drawing; it can be artistic expression of any kind, whether it’s sculpting with clay or towers of junk. These games scratch your itch for creativity and give you a chance to show off a little! In a drawing game, players might draw clues as in Pictionary or Telestrations, or they might draw a communal image like in Exquisite Corpse. Often, the results are hilarious! Don’t let “not being an artist” get in the way of your fun! When designing a drawing game, keep things loose to allow for a variety of interpretations. Always include drawing implements. Consider using a dry-­ erase board in lieu of pads of paper.

There are many different drawing games available including Draw Something Party Game (2013), Scrawl (2016), Drawing without Dignity: An Adult Party Game of Uncensored Sketches (2016), and A Fake Artist Goes to New York (2011), which is my personal favorite. A Fake Artist Goes to New York has an incredible title, plus the game plays like the deduction game Spyfall (2014)—­in which one player is the fake artist who is trying to help the other players draw a picture cooperatively without knowing what the subject is. The other players must deduce the identity of the fake artist. It’s a great example of how a drawing game can be combined one from with another genre.12 Much like with acting or trivia, some players get embarrassed or sensitive about having to be creative in front of others. I’ve already relayed the story of how I replaced drawing with colored cards in my design for Pantone the Game to reduce this embarrassment factor. If players see that others are having fun drawing regardless of talent, perhaps it might ease the

  You deduced that it is social deduction, right?

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stress for them. The goal is to make the player feel as comfortable as possible when playing the game. Drawing in the game should be fun, not stressful! Some party games require the player to write—­that’s kind of like drawing, right? The Game of Things (2002), Just One (2018), and Herd Mentality: The Udderly Hilarious Party Game (2020) require players to write down clues for other players or answers to score points. Be aware that some players might be able to differentiate one player’s handwriting from another’s, giving them a possibly unfair advantage. You might also want to avoid using different types or colors of writing implements if you don’t want the identity of the author to be known.

Betting We’ve talked about betting in the previous chapter, but betting can really spice up a party game because of the excitement it creates, as seen in Wits and Wagers (2005) and Ready Set Bet (2022). There are three factors to be found in betting games: ■■

A way of generating unknown information. This can be decided upon by a player or generated. This can be a player selecting an answer that is bet on, a randomly drawn card, or a dice roll that when combined with a few knowable factors creates a result.

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A central event that you bet on. This can be “the pot,” where the players reinforce their belief (or bluff) in the strength of their position. It can be an event, such as a race as used in Circus Maximus (1979), Winner’s Circle (2001), or Camel Up (2014). Whatever it is, the state of that central event is constantly changing and, with it, the state of the things you are betting on. Also, players can blame their misfortune on the event rather than themselves. It helps keep things a little more lighthearted, and everyone comes away feeling better in the process! Multiple rounds of betting to create tension and allow you to create evolving strategies. Playing a single hand of Poker is fine, but the game gets much more interesting the longer the players play, and the pot of bids grows and shifts during play.

Be aware that sometimes players might feel like they are getting “ganged up on” when other players bet against them. Additionally, if that player loses several bets, that “take that” aspect of the game can really turn them off from playing. However, the risk/reward of betting games is a big draw. Betting games often have big swings of fortune, and it is more exciting to come back from a losing position than having a foregone conclusion. That dopamine rush that you get from winning is what keeps players coming back for more.

Another fun mechanic to add to a betting game is a zero card—­a betting card or token that is worth nothing but still allows you to participate in the betting round of the game. It’s a great mechanism for promoting bluffing in your design.

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Bluffing There are some who say that every party game is a bluffing game. However, bluffing can be used as a significant part of your game design. Classics like Liar’s Dice (1800), Two Truths and a Lie (circa 1980), and Mafia are probably the most well-­known bluffing games (especially, when you are the werewolf), but there are newer entries in this genre such as Skull (2011), Sheriff of Nottingham (2014), Secret Hitler (2016), and We’re Doomed (2019).

My friend and game designer James Ernest (Kill Dr. Lucky [2006], Tak [2017]) says that a bluffing game is not just about deception, but deduction. In a bluffing game, every player has a secret that they are trying to prevent from being discovered; if the other players were to discover it, they would gain an advantage. There needs to be ways for you to determine what other player’s secret is—­whether through process of elimination, contextual clues, or ways to gain information. James warns that bluffing games should not be too complex. They should be short on rules and long on choices. James even suggests that the players should be able to make poor decisions during the game on purpose—­partially to defend their own secret, without breaking the rules of the game or destroying their chances of winning. He recommends that the designer ask themselves, “When I make a decision, what is my range of freedom and what information does that convey? Can I make the ‘wrong choice’ as an act of concealment and does that have the potential to benefit me even more than making the right choice?”13 Again, it comes down to giving the players choices, especially meaningful ones!14

  To read more about bluffing games and many more game design topics, please visit James’ site at crabfragmentlabs.com/lecture-­hall/bluffing-­games. 14   It’s almost as if that were the theme of this book! 13

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Repetition A common trait that you’ll find in a party game is repetition, small repeatable actions, or segments of play. This helps the players understand the game quickly and over just a few rounds of play. Word play party games also thrive on repetition, to the point where they transform into memory games, as seen in the folk games King Elephant15 and tongue-­twisting game Rigamarole.

Movement Party games centered around physical movement date to the parlor days and earlier with classics such as Blind Man’s Bluff, Musical Chairs, and Pass the Balloon/Orange/Tennis Ball/ Water Bottle. Modern versions of these games include Twister, Throw Throw Burrito (2019), and Yogi Guru (2019). Players must quickly or carefully execute an action, race to a location, or avoid another player, commonly known as “it.” These types of movement party games can be quick or slow. These types of games are often known as dexterity games. Slow party games require precise movements and actions to be successful. Careful aim is required for PitchCar (1995) and Tumblin-­Dice (2004). A steady hand is needed for Beasts of Balance (2016), Meeple Circus (2017), and Junk Art (2016). Fast-­paced party games like Spoons (1972), Cranium Hullabaloo (2003), and Cat in the Hat: I Can Do That (2007) will keep players moving! Just remember to remind players to play these games in a clear space; that way nothing or no one will get banged and bumped during the game. There is another classification of party games that is focused on drinking,16 preferably alcohol. Games like Quarters, Beer Pong, King’s Cup, Never Have I Ever, and Thumper are either dexterity or memory games—­two attributes that become impaired the more drinking you do. The “fun” of these kinds of games comes from watching other players screw up trying to do somewhat simple tasks while under the influence. I personally advise against drinking to excess, so testing these types of games can be challenging. If you see that your playtesters are overdoing it, then take responsibility and cut the session short. As the person running the playtest, you should also provide a way for your inebriated players to get home safely so that they don’t have to drive themselves.

Observation In observation games you must closely watch other’s actions or listen for words over the course of the party. Classic examples include I Spy (1889), Kim’s Game (1901), and Auto

  Also known as Elephant King and Animal Kingdom.   They also say that any game can be a drinking game. Who is this mysterious “they,” and why do they have so many opinions?

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Bingo17 (circa 1965). Observation games can last a short, predetermined period or may last hours or even days depending on circumstances! Observation might also be combined with other games such as with the Little Girl role in Werewolf. The Little Girl player may peek to see if they can spot the werewolf players, but if she is caught by the werewolf players, she is eliminated. Another great example of this mechanism is found in designer Sid Sackson’s The No Game (1969), which has party guests receive a ribbon upon arrival. When another player hears a guest say the word “no,” they collect all the ribbons they have. The last player to collect all the ribbons wins! Whatever type of observation-­based game you design, make sure that everyone engaged in the game has an opportunity to observe it. We want our players to feel like they have an equal and fair chance to win!

Judging Judging games are games in which a player is designated as a judge and must pick a winner from the other player’s entries. Apples to Apples, Cards Against Humanity, Dixit (2008), and Judge Your ‘Friends’ (2021) all use this mechanism. Judging is not my favorite mechanism. It’s too driven by personal tastes. In some cases, a judge might give in to nepotism or favoritism, which skews the game’s outcome18 and generates sore feelings.19 Swapping the role of the judge over the course of the game such as during each turn or over the course of several rounds helps to elevate this problem.

Let’s Make a Party Game Now that we have all the tools to make a party game, let’s (finally!) make one! The first step in designing a party game is to gather the components. Hmmm. Do we really need many components to make a party game? It depends on the type of party game you want to design. Do you want to design a complex party game that uses cards or some other component or do we want to create a simple game, that is light on components? I want my design to be (circle one):

SIMPLE

  Also known as Interstate Highway Travel Bingo, Road Trip Bingo, and Bingo Travel.   This can get particularly bad when playing with couples or families. 19   It’s not that I’m still mad about not having my clever answer chosen. Honest. 17 18

COMPLEX

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For the game we will create here, I chose simple, so let’s make a party game about wordplay and memory.

Step 1: Create the Rules As we’ve done with previous games, we need to create our first draft of rules: Memory Party Game Rules for Four or More Players 1. All players assemble in a circle around the room, the table, etc. 2. The first player says a single word related to a topic (food, school, work, games, animals, etc.) Example: “Cat” 3. The next clockwise player says a new, but different word related to the topic, as well as the previous word said. Example: “Cat, Dog” 4. The next player does the same (say a new different word) but must also say all the words that preceded it. Example: “Cat, Dog, Elephant” 5. Play continues around until one player makes a mistake or repeats the same word as a previous player, and then the game ends.

Step 2: Playtest the Game When playtesting a party game, you should playtest with variable groups of players. If you can get them, playtest in groups of 4, 6, and 8, and if you can get enough players in the same room, use 10 or 12 playtesters. It can be a challenge to find that many players to playtest at once, so if you can attend a party or some other social event where you can playtest your game, take advantage of it! The number of players can also change the dynamic of the game. For example, in a game like this, if there are fewer players, a player might be able to remember more words more easily, especially since each player has come up with more of the words. It might get harder when a player must remember someone else’s words. Playtest our Memory Party Game with a few groups of players to see what differences happen with larger player counts. Log the differences you see here: When I played with 4 players: _________________________________________ When I played with 8 players: _________________________________________ When I played with 10 players: ________________________________________

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Step 3: Change the Rules This party game is fine, but what can we do to spice it up? Let’s make things more complicated. Memory Party Game Rules for Four or More Players 1. All players assemble in a circle around the room, the table, etc. 2. The first player says a phrase that is longer than one word. Example: “Sally sells seashells” 3. The next clockwise player says a new but different phrase that is related to the topic and continues the theme but includes the previous phrase. The player can use conjunctions (and, but, or) to connect their phrases. Example: “Sally sells seashells” and “I hate sand” 4. The next player does the same (say a new different phrase) but must connect it to all of the phrases that preceded it. Example: “Sally sells seashells” and “I hate sand” and “a sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal.” 5. Play continues around until one player makes a mistake, and then the game ends. Changing the rule from a player saying a single word to a longer phrase gives each player an opportunity to trip up the other players. Tongue twisters, movie quotes, advertising slogans, nonsense phrases—­anything is fair game!

Step 4: Change a Number Next, change a number related to the game. We should first revert to our original rules, where each player says one word, but now with each new word, the next player must repeat it the number of times that it is in the progression. For example, if the first player says “cat,” the second player has to say “cat, dog, dog.” Then the third player says “cat, dog, dog, elephant, elephant, elephant.” What could be fun about this design is that the longer the repetition goes, the more absurd the repetition becomes. Plus, this version gives the players three ways to mess up: accidentally repeating a previously said word, messing up the order in which they occur, and not repeating the word the proper number of times. Playtest this new version of the game and record what happened here. If you can, playtest both versions (or all three!) and see which one your playtest group liked the best! What happened: ___________________________________________________ The version they liked best was: ________________________________________

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Step 5: Change the Objective No matter how many times you play this game and no matter how many players you play the game with, this memory game is going to end the same. Someone will forget a word, get tongue-­tied, or mess up the number of times they say something. But what if there were a different way to win? How could the winning condition of the game change to make it a totally different game? What if the goal of the game was to get someone else to mess up? What if we added player elimination to the game? With player elimination, when someone screws up, they are out. The goal of the game becomes who can survive the longest. Playtest the new version of the game and log the changes you see: The result of that change was: ________________________________________ Now you come up with a different objective change! Playtest it! My objective change is: _______________________________________________ The result of my change was: ________________________________________

Step 6: Add a Mechanism Add a mechanism from the list presented earlier in this chapter. Memory and repetition are already being used in the game, so let’s add. . .acting! Have each player write several names of famous personalities with distinctive voices (Morgan Freeman, Lady Gaga, Frankenstein’s monster, etc.) and put them in a hat (or cup or bowl or whatever). Now, whenever the player must list all the phrases, they must do it in the “voice” of whichever character they’ve selected! Maybe acting’s not your cup of tea. Okay, what mechanism would you add to the game? I’m adding: __________________________________________________

Step 7: Change the Theme Up until this step, our party game has been pretty themeless. That’s fine, but sometimes a theme helps the players understand why they are doing an action or activity. So, let’s change that! What if all the players were waiters/waitresses in a diner or fancy restaurant and all the words or phrases had to be food items? Essentially, the players would be repeating orders for the customers (to an invisible chef, I guess), and if you screw up the order, you don’t get a tip! The player who collects the biggest tip (lasts the most rounds) wins the game. See how just by adding a theme can help guide the gameplay?

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Order Up! A Memory Game for Eight or More Players 1. All players assemble in a circle around the room, the table, etc. 2. The first player says the name of a food item followed by the phrase “Order Up!.” Example: “A plate of Spaghetti! Order up!” 3. The next clockwise player says a new and different food item but must also repeat everything said by the previous player. The player can use conjunctions (and, but, or) to connect their phrases. Example: “A bowl of hot soup and a plate of Spaghetti! Order up!” 4. The next player does the same (say a new different food item) but must connect it to all the phrases previously said. Example: “Four and Twenty Blackbirds baked in a pie, a bowl of hot soup and a plate of Spaghetti! Order up!.” 5. Play continues around until one player makes a mistake either by forgetting a food item or by forgetting to say, “Order Up!,” at which point the game ends.

Now it’s your turn to add a different theme! Rewrite the rules to reflect your new theme and how it changes your gameplay.

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My party game’s theme is: ________________________________ Write the rules here: ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________

Ten Party Games to Play Well, look at that! You’ve just designed your very own original party game! Nice work! While you are thinking of your next party game design, you should gather your friends together and try some of my favorites. Perhaps they’ll spark some new ideas! ■■

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The Minister’s Cat: A classic word game where you name words starting with the same letter until someone says the same word as a previous player or is stumped. Play continues around the alphabet. Exquisite Corpse: A parlor game from the 1800s in which you take turns drawing a figure onto a folded sheet of paper. When the paper is unfolded, a strange, shared creature is revealed.

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In The Game of Things: In this game, players write down their answers to statements like “Things you should never put in your mouth.” You then must guess which player wrote what answer. Pictionary: This is a charades game, but with drawing. Players have a limited time in which to guess what the active player is drawing. Werewolf: I talked at length about Werewolf, but it really is a wonderful game that can accommodate many players. You should play it at least once. Wits and Wagers: This is a game that doesn’t care if you know the right answer or not, but whether you can guess which answer will get the most votes. Codenames: This game casts the players as spies who attempt to give one-­word clues that allow their teammates to guess as many cards as possible. Just One: Players of Just One provide one-­word clues to a guesser; however, if more than one clue is the same, the matching clues are disqualified. Wavelength: This is a game that uses a unique dial that helps players narrow down their guesses between two choices. Captain Sonar: This game simulates submarine warfare, like a multiplayer game of Battleship. Communication is key to winning this eight-­player game!

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Party games should: Be simple to learn. ■■ Not use too many components. ■■ Accommodate many players. ■■ Be quick to play. ■■ Promote multiple plays in one session. ■■ Be playable anywhere. ■■ Be interruptible without disrupting the game. ■■ Use props (or not!). Party games thrive on interaction. Party games are either fast ’n’ frantic or slow and thoughtful. ■■

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Chapter 

L e t ’s Ma ke a B o ard Game WITHIN THIS AND the next two chapters, you will be learning how to make games that use a board. We will focus on three types of board games in particular: an abstract strategy game, a European-­style strategy game, and a thematic strategy game. First let’s talk about board games in general. While you’ve been reading this book, I suspect that you’ve been wondering: what’s the difference between a tabletop game and a board game? The difference, of course, is the board!

According to game historian David Parlett,1 the word board is from the word that originally means “plank” or “table,” as in any flat surface such as a table or the floor. You need that flat surface to play a board game, unlike a card game or a party game, which can technically be played anywhere.

  Parlett is the author of the other great book on board games. You should read The Oxford History of Board Games (Oxford Press, 1999) once you’re done with this one.

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The board might be the single most recognizable component in all of gaming, especially the distinctive black and white squares of a Chess board. And other than dice, the board is one of the oldest components discovered by archeologists.2

A board represents an important part of a game’s play experience. It is the player’s focal point. Remember the central zone of the six zones of play? It’s the game board. A board’s dimensions and limitations help create the magic circle we talked about earlier. It is (metaphorically) a portal to another world, the realm of the player’s imagination. The board is a place where things are instigated and happen in the game. Most importantly, it is where the players interact with each other and with the systems that you create!

Board Games of Antiquity The use of boards in games is old. I mean really, really old. Before modern civilization old. Before written history old. Maybe even before spoken word old. We don’t know exactly how old they are, and we definitely don’t know who designed them.3 As many modern abstract games evolved from these games of antiquity, let’s take a look at some of the more famous ones.

  The only component discovered that is older than a board is dice, but that’s because dice are made from bone or stone, while boards were made from wood, which rotted with age! 3   Typical. The game designer is once again not getting any credit. 2

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Mancala Even before there were boards, gamers dug holes in the sand or wore out holes into rocks that were used to play games like Mancala. Evidence of Mancala “boards” have been found all over the world—­from ancient Egypt to the Hawaiian Islands—­that date all the way back to the Neolithic period. This ancient game4 uses a rectangular board with 14 holes (depressions/indents)—­6 on each side of the board and 1 larger one at each end. Four beans (or pebbles or seeds) are placed into the six holes, and the end holes are left empty. On a player’s turn, they pick up the contents from one hole and then, moving counterclockwise, deposit one bean at a time in each consecutive hole. No more than four beans can be in any one hole. If a bean drops in an empty hole, it is the end of the player’s turn. If it drops into a hole with other beans in it, the player captures those beans for points. The large spaces on the end are where the player stores their captured beans. When the board is down to four beans, the player with the most beans wins.

  This is the variation of the game known as Wari.

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The Royal Game of Ur Archeologists discovered intact boards and components for another board game at a royal cemetery in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, near the modern Iraqi city of Nasiriya. This Royal Game of Ur (also known as the Game of Twenty Squares) dates to around 2,500 BC. The rules to the game were unknown and thought lost for centuries until a cuneiform tablet was translated by Dr. Irving Finkel of the British Museum in the 1980s. The tablet explained a complicated version of the game, and Finkel was able to backward engineer the simpler version of the original game.5 Finkel discovered that the Royal Game of Ur was a race game, where the players move down a track to their destination, like the Game of the Goose or Candy Land or the Game of Life or Magical Athlete (2002) or hundreds of other games it inspired after it. These ancient Ur boards were often inlaid with precious stones and shells and were mostly owned by royalty—­ the people of the ancient world who actually had leisure time to play games.

  You can learn how Dr. Finkel discovered how to play the Royal Game of Ur at  academia.edu/15173145/On_the_ Rules_for_the_Royal_Game_of_Ur/, and you can watch him play the game at youtube.com/watch?v=WZskjLq040I&t/.

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Mehen Another board game from antiquity is Mehan from about 2650, which has a distinctive board in the shape of a curling snake. This copy of Mehan was found in the Egyptian tomb of Hesy at Saqqara. Parlett describes the game as having 3 pieces that represent lions, 3 that represent lionesses, and 12 spheres but “how they were used is a mystery, and it has to be said that none of the surviving pieces are small enough to fit on the individual spaces of the board they are associated with.”6 In the 1920s, British colonial administrator Reginald Davies noticed the similarities between Mehan and a game called Lib El Merafib or The Hyena Game. Noting the similarities between the two games, Russian game historian Dmitriy Skiryuk created his own rules for Mehan, which involve traditional throwing sticks (that work as dice) and rolling the balls to the head of the snake and then returning to the tail with the help of a lion, who eats any opponents in his way!7 Whether this is the way the game was meant to be played, you have to admit that it sounds pretty cool!

  David Parlett, The Oxford Book of Board Games (Oxford, 1999), page 89.   You can find an English translation of these rules at https://otagomuseum.nz/athome/how-to-play-mehen.

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Senet Senet is a more well-­known game than Mehan thanks to copies of the game found in Egyptian tombs. The boy king Tutankhamun had several copies of the game, one of which was a miniature “travel-­sized” version! Senet is a race game, like The Royal Game of Ur, but it is laden with religious symbolism. It is said that those who mastered playing the game could navigate their way down the treacherous path to the afterlife! As exciting as that game sounds, player interest in Senet died out around 500 BC in favor of more playable and less preachy games.

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Nine Man’s Morris The term Morris come from the Latin merellus or game piece.8 There are many variations of this game, including Three-­, Five-­, Six-­, and Twelve-­Man’s Morris, and Cowboy Checkers. You might know this ancient game if you’ve played the Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag video game. It’s a game that dates to back to Egypt around 1400 BC where players add, move, and capture stones on a nine-­point grid to be the last one standing. It became exceedingly popular in Europe. The game is even mentioned in one of Shakespeare’s plays!9 A fun fact is that gaming archeologists believe that when the game was incorrectly10 played by gamers who placed their stones inside the spaces instead of the connection points on the lines, they created the game Naughts and Crosses or Tic Tac Toe. This capture-­the-­space gameplay evolved into games such as Hex (1940), Twixt (1970), and Connect Four (1974).

Chess It’s Chess! Who doesn’t know Chess? Do I really have to explain Chess? You have 16 pieces per player on an 8×8 grid. The pieces—­king, queen, bishop, knight, rook, and pawn—­have different movement types. The goal is to capture your opponent’s king. Chess is arguably the most known of all board games. Its pieces are iconic. The game has been the poster child of board gaming for more than 1,000 years in the Western world. No game in human history has been more analyzed, scrutinized, and revered. There have been entire books, plays, documentary films, and TV shows dedicated to the game,11 and its popularity doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

  The original name of this ancient game is Merels or Mills, which is a corruption of Miles, which is Latin for “soldier.”   That would be A Midsummer’s Night Dream from the 16th century. 10   Or was it purposely? You know how gamers love to come up with their own house rules for games! 11   If only that would happen to one of my board game designs! 8 9

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Chess historians claim that the game evolved from Chaturanga, which was invented in 7th century Persia. The game spread across the Middle East to Europe during the Crusades, where it dominated Western board gaming for the next 1,422 years. It also spread to Asia where it evolved into Xiang-­qi (China), Chaggi (Korea), and Shogi (Japan) among others. Its cousin, Draughts or Checkers, evolved not from Chess, but rather from Alquerque, an 11th century game.

Backgammon Backgammon in its modern incarnation first evolved from the 6th century game Nardshir. By the 17th century, the game was worldwide and maybe even more popular than Chess. Did you know it’s the national game of eight Middle Eastern countries? Did you know that archeologists discovered two medieval manuscripts each depicting a couple playing a game of “strip-­ backgammon”? Did you know that the liquor manufacturer Seagram and a deposed Russian aristocrat mounted a million-­dollar campaign in the 1970s to promote the game? It’s all true. A big part of Backgammon’s popularity is its simplicity. Each player uses dice to move their pieces around to the other side and off the board. The player who gets all their pieces off first wins. Opposing pieces can land on your pieces during movement, sending them back to the beginning—­much like in Senet. Protecting your pieces as you move them is a major strategy of the game.

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Hnefatafl Another exciting game from antiquity is Hnefatafl (pronounced “Nef-­a-­Ta-­ful”) is a grid-­ based board game that originates from medieval Scandinavia. In this two-­player game, one plays a Viking clan that is outnumbered by a larger army. The army tries to capture the king by surrounding him, while the Vikings protect the king while eliminating the army’s soldiers.

Snakes and Ladders From the 13th century, 13th century India’s Gyan Chauper (The Game of Knowledge) was later called Snakes and Ladders. Snakes and Ladders is a metaphor in board game form for the ups and downs of life as the players try to climb the board’s 100 squares to reach spiritual enlightenment. With the colonization of India, Snakes and Ladders came to Britain where it was almost immediately patented and sold. American game publisher Milton Bradley rebranded Snakes and Ladders as The Checkered Game of Life (1860), launching his board gaming empire.

Ancient Games Are Still Around It’s amazing to realize how old many of these games are and the fact that you can go into your local store and still buy many of these ancient games. As a game designer, it’s a sobering thought to realize that these games of antiquity are still your competition as a game designer. It doesn’t matter how cool or awesome or innovative your new game design is, you are still competing for shelf space with game designs that are hundreds, if not thousands, of years old! If you want to learn more about the history of these ancient games, I suggest reading Parlett’s book as well as watching this great lecture given by Quintin Smith of the Shut Up and Sit Down YouTube channel (youtube.com/watch?v=Gov-­qrjvOTc). Smith covers several thousand years of history in less than 40 minutes, and he’s quite entertaining too! My favorite game from antiquity is: _____________________________________

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Types and Elements of Game Boards Up until now, we’ve been designing games that don’t necessarily require a board to play, but there are reasons and distinct advantages to having one in your design. Let’s examine the different types of boards, what makes them different from each other, and how you can use those elements in your design.

  The board carries the information about the game’s location, the player’s interactions, and their choices. The layout of a board can be simple like Pictionary (1987), complicated like Shadows Over Camelot (2005), or wildly complex like Kanban EV (2020). It can be a variety of shapes from square to rectangular to a circle.

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Game Board Grids A grid indicates all the places that pieces can be placed or moved onto. The series of crisscrossed lines of a game board can be a simple 8×8 grid like in Chess or a large 19×19 grid as found in Go.12 Depending on the rules, pieces can be moved on the spaces between the lines such as in Checkers or along the lines like in Nine Man’s Morris. While a simple grid is often a great place to start when developing a new game design, many game publishers believe a chess-­like grid to be “too basic” for modern players. I’ve seen too many games by amateur designers who have created “a new version of Chess”—­a concept that I personally don’t find very interesting. If the last 40 years of game design have proved anything, it is that there are so many more types of games to be made than just another rehash of a centuries-­old game.

Game Board Tracks A track, or racetrack, is a path on which players move along or race to a destination. A player might just go around and around the track for the entire game. A track is found on some of the earliest board games from the Royal Game of Ur to The Game of Life (1969). Board game tracks are divided into spaces (or squares) that the player travels along, moving one space at a time or sometimes more often determined by a roll of a die or by action points. In Candy Land, the player’s movement along the track is guided by whatever colored card the player draws. Most of the time, the player moves forward toward the end of the track, but sometimes they might go backward!   They can also be ridiculously large like with Shogi’s 36⋅36 board!

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Track games are sometimes considered by some publishers to be too “old fashioned” for modern gameplayers. However, I refuse to believe that as there are many modern game designs that use or even improve on this element, games such as Jamaica (2007), Great Western Trail (2016), Flamme Rogue (2016), and Heaven and Ale (2017). Space

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Game Board Spaces The space is a place to be filled, where the line is something to be followed. This philosophy about these two board elements can be used to influence the direction of your design. Boards with lines are faster paced—­think of the long slides in Chutes and Ladders (200 BC) or long swooping lines of Tsuro (2005). Compare that to the slower (even exploratory) movement found in the game Clue (1947) or Nemesis (2018). Unlike lines, spaces can be filled with information, special rules, and situations that impact gameplay. Think of them as mini cards that are permanently (but not always; we will talk about that later) set in the game. There are two types of locations on a game board: a shared space and a unique space. A shared space is some place that multiple players can take advantage of or might have a resource that all players can access. A unique space is available to only a single player or component at a time. Gameplay often revolves around trying to gain control of that space. Let’s examine the different types of spaces available to us as designers. ■■

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Information spaces are spaces on a track that can be used to display text, colors, or images/icons that represent information. This information might change the game’s rules or add special cases or temporary rules. For example, in the Royal Game of Ur, if you land on a flower space, you are protected from getting “jumped” by your opponent. On the track found in Candy Land, there are

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spots with candies such as a peppermint, gumdrop, etc. When a player draws a card with that image on it, they move directly to that space.13 When making these types of spaces, be sure to use clear fonts and colors (avoid white or red text on black, for example) and that your artwork/icons are distinguishable from a distance. Your players are going to be looking at them from across the table, so don’t make them too small to see! Worker spaces are spaces on a board where a worker (represented by a pawn, token, or meeple) is placed to collect a resource or gain an advantage. We will be talking more about worker placement games in detail (and even making one) in the Chapter 8! Resource spaces are spaces where resources are kept and collected—­whether it is coins, wooden resources, or tokens. This location doubles as an organizational space (think of it like a bank) and a space for players to collect the resource like in the previously mentioned worker space. Make sure to use text or visuals to indicate where the resources are placed. You can also use symbolic imagery such as coins being placed in the bank, apples being placed in the orchard, etc. In ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo (2020), icons on the board correspond with icons found on the cards that were generated. This helps the players see where the resources are to be placed. You can never provide enough information to help players find things quickly and speed up gameplay. Card spaces are where decks of cards go. It helps if the space is sized to the actual card size. You might also want to put the image on the card back on the space to help guide the player during setup. Spawn spaces are spaces that spawn components such as enemies, resources, etc. The icon should be distinct from all other game images, and the space should be clearly marked so that players can place the components quickly during the game. Enemy spawn points should never be the same as a player spawn point. It’s no fair for a player who is returning to play to have to immediately deal with enemies as well. . .unless you are designing a difficult game! Art spaces are spaces that feature artwork to keep the game board track from looking too boring or empty. However, when creating an art space on your board, be careful that the art doesn’t look like a space that has a function in the game. For example, if your game has players creating and placing little houses onto spaces on the board, don’t show artwork of a little house on a space where a little house isn’t meant to go. If the player sees a little house, then they will assume this is where a little house is meant to go.

  Drawing a candy card is great fun for a young child when it works in their favor, but get ready to hear them howl when they end up moving backward and away from the finish line! However, don’t deprive these young gamers of this valuable lesson about playing games—­things don’t always go the way you want them to.

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Victory Tracks The victory track is separate from the racetrack. It is often found going around the perimeter of the game board, or it can be on its own board entirely. It is used to track the player’s scores during the game. Sometimes a victory track might have icons that award players certain benefits (like card draw or additional resources) as they move around it. If a player reaches a certain point on the victory track, it might trigger an end game as in Ark Nova (2022). In some games, a player might earn so many points that the player’s token “laps” the victory track. To solve this, you can create a second track that moves every time one of the big numbers (usually 50 or 100) is reached. The Quacks of Quedlinburg (2018) gives you a “50 token” that indicates that you have reached the end of the track, but the token keeps going. The player just adds 50 to whatever their score is at the end of the game.

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Maps Designers have been using maps to represent play spaces on a board since the early 1800s. It’s true! Some of these earliest printed board games were also maps because their creators were printers of maps. Early games like Walker’s Tour of France (1815), The Traveler’s Tour through the United States (1822), and the Royal Geographical Amusement or the Safe and Expeditious Traveler Through all the Parts of Europe by Sea and by Land (1823) doubled as geographic maps for those who preferred to travel from the safety of their parlors. It doesn’t matter if the map is of a planet such as Earth like Pandemic (2008) or Mars like Terraforming Mars (2016) or of a planet in another galaxy like Dune (1979) or Alien Frontiers (2010). The map can be set in a country like in Ticket to Ride (2004), Fury of Dracula (1987), and Power Grid (2004) or in a city either real like Scotland Yard (1983) and Tokyo Sidekick (2018) or imaginary like in Lords of Waterdeep (2012) or Townsfolk Tussle (2022). Basing your game board on a pre-­existing map is not only a quick way to start a design, but it easily establishes your game’s theme and location. Real features such as borders, roads, or rivers can act as the spaces and lines of travel for your players.

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Plains Forest Marsh River

Terrain Terrain can be used to add flavor, variety, or realism to the spaces on your map. These diverse locations can help or hinder a player’s travel or define where they can and cannot go. Traditionally, here are what some of the more common terrain types do: ■■ ■■

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Mountains slow down player movement or block it completely. Cities and towns are places where players can gain or buy resources such as money, cards, or additional workers. They might be where players need to return to after a quest or objective to “cash it in” for money or points. Desert, tundra, and ice plains are used to slow down player movement or limit resources. Water (such as lakes or oceans) often blocks a player’s movement completely, unless they have a ship, plane, or some other alternative form of travel. Plains/grasslands are usually “safe” locations where players can place their pieces, find, or grow resources or move unhindered. Fields are often bountiful locations, perfect for finding or growing resources. Forests, jungles, and swamps can slow player’s movement, but they are also often where encounters with hostiles such as wild animals, monsters, or bandits happen. Volcano/lava fields/thorns prevent players’ movement unless they want to sustain damage.

You can use different colors on your map to distinguish different terrain types. I recommend using an icon or artwork in addition to color in case the player is color blind. Having a legend on the map or on a player guide (as well as in the rule book) can cut down the time the players need to take to determine the effects of the terrain on gameplay. Terrain is especially impressive when it is three-­dimensional! The toy-­like nature of three-­ dimensional terrain creates what is known as good table presence. Have you even been at a gaming convention and walk by someone playing a particularly cool-­looking game? Notice

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how your attention snaps to it, you can’t take your eyes off it, and you want to immediately know what the game is? That’s good table presence! That’s a desirable thing for a game design to have. Here are a few games, in my humble opinion, that have great table presence:

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Heroscape Master Set: Rise of the Valkyrie (2004)—­Dragons, Army Men and Valkyries battling on 3D modular terrain? Fantastic!

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Dark Tower (1981)—­If you were an 80s kid, you couldn’t resist the lure of this massive black tower. It was so cool; they remade the game as Return to Dark Tower (2022).

Bosk (2019)—­Recently, tree-­themed games such as Everdell (2018) and Photosynthesis (2017) have become quite popular, (but this grove of autumnal trees is very pleasing.

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The Shivers (2023)—­The pop-­up play space in The Shivers isn’t just innovative; it’s lovely to look at and explore with fantastic illustrative artwork.

You don’t need to have pop-­up terrain or cool miniatures to create great table presence. Some game boards (and their components) are just plain beautiful to behold such as Ian O’ Toole’s porcelain plate design of Lisboa (2017), Villo Farkas’ minute city and stage details in Trickerion: Legends of Illusion (2015), Sandara Tang’s charmingly illustrated dragon town of Flamecraft (2022), and Michael Menzel’s cutaway view of the French palace of Rococo (2013). But you don’t even need beautiful illustrations to make an impression. Many of the abstract games we’ll be talking about have a beautiful simplicity all their own.

Abstraction and Symbolism

To paraphrase the artist Rene Magritte, this game board is not a place, but it is a symbol of a place. Even thematic games can be abstractions of a place like Tokyo being simplified as two large circles King of Tokyo (2011) or the eastern coastline of Japan represented as a line in Tokaido (2012). These are not realistic maps of actual places but more like the idea of a place.

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King of Tokyo

Detail from Tokaido

Game boards may also be illustrative as if they were pages taken from a storybook, as in Islebound (2016), Feudum (2017), and Septima (2023). The works of designer Jerry Hawthorne in Mice and Mystics (2012), Stuffed Fables (2018), and Familiar Tales (2022) use the pages of a storybook as gameplay maps. When designing a game board, a decision that game designers must ask themselves is, “How abstract do I want/need my game to be?” The answer depends on the type of game the designer wants to create. The less symbolic a game is, the more of a simulation it is, while the less realistic a game is, the more symbolic it can be. Let’s look at three different games and how their different levels of representation and abstraction affect their gameplay and visual design.

Railways of the World (detail)

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In Railways of the World (2009), the player’s goal is to connect cities with tracks—­which is common to all three of our games. However, Railsways features realistic maps of the Eastern US seaboard (and Mexico). Players are concerned with building railroad tracks across the map as well as moving their detailed little plastic trains to the connected cities. Railway’s simulation goes moderately deep where players are concerned with upgrading their trains, earning income, taking out bonds for extra income, and transporting goods. The player with the most money wins.

Ticket to Ride (detail) Ticket to Ride (2004) has gameplay that is more abstract than Railways. In Ticket to Ride, players are also concerned with connecting cities across an accurately represented map of America (and other countries in later versions) using their supply of little plastic trains. Ticket doesn’t concern itself with upgrades, transporting goods, or money for that matter. The trains are almost a metaphor for the intercontinental network of rails.

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TRAINS (detail) Finally, there is Trains (2012). The map of Tokyo is a “blob” of hexagons that don’t really try to match the topography of the city. Train cards, which are “bought” by the player, are represented by cubes on the game board. However, the trains are never moved, and the players aren’t even trying to create routes on the board! Out of the three, it is the most abstract of all. Because we aren’t concerned with the minute details such as transporting goods or where the tracks go, the design of the game can be more abstract—­giving the impression of the theme, rather than slavishly adhering to it. All three of these examples are fine train-­themed games. You can see how the level of abstraction helps determine the level of detail the game requires during play. A board’s two primary functions are to provide a play space for all the players and to communicate the gameplay to the players. The following are the key things to remember when designing a game board: ■■ ■■ ■■

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Areas of play must be clearly marked. Plenty of room should be allowed for the components to “fit on” the space on the board. “Negative space” should be created between the elements on the board so that players can visually differentiate the spaces on the board. Text on the board should be large enough for players to see and read from across the table.

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How to Make a Game Board Whenever I start a prototype for a board game, I invariably must start by making the board. The first boards that you make probably won’t be great, but with some patience and practice, you’ll be able to make a great-­looking prototype board! These are the tools and supplies you might need to make one:

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Poster board, hot or cold press (like Bristol) illustration board, or foam-­core board Clear tape Scissors Ruler Craft knife (like an Xacto blade) Colored pens and/or colored pencils Graphics program (optional) Color printer (optional)

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You can hand draw your board to start, but while it’s faster, unless you have some talent as an artist, it will be very rough. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy at the initial stage, but as you get closer to a prototype you’ll want to share, you should make it look as professional as possible. Straight lines and clearly written text go a long way. I prefer to create my game board first in a computer graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. It’s faster and easier to change a digital gameboard. When you have finished your board, print it onto paper. You might have to print it onto several sheets and then trim and fit them together like a puzzle. Glue your printed sheets onto a heavier, stiffer material like poster board, hot or cold press illustration board, or foam-­core board.

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You can assemble your board just by taping the sheets of printed paper together, but it tends to rip and will be destroyed if someone spills their drink on it. I don’t recommend making your game board out of “brown” cardboard. It easily creases and don’t look very aesthetically pleasing. Just like with playing cards, I don’t recommend laminating as you will likely make frequent changes to your game board. If you want to make a dual-­layered board, use a craft knife to cut out the top layer and then glue that onto another layer of board. Make sure your craft blade is always sharp and replace them often. If you want to spend the money, you can also create your board digitally and then send it out to be printed at a printing service like Print and Play (printplaygames .com) or the Game Crafter (thegamecrafter.com). I find that there’s nothing sharper looking than a professionally printed board!

Understanding Abstract Games There are technically two classifications of board games: representational and abstract. Representational (or the term I prefer, thematic) is when there is a strong pretense, theme, or story—­as in Monopoly with buying property in Atlantic City, New Jersey, or in Blood Rage with angry Vikings fighting Ragnarök. In contrast, an abstract game design concentrates solely on the game’s most basic element such as a core mechanism. There is no need to have a story or theme to distract from the pleasure one gains from the simplicity of an abstract game. Some players feel that a game that concentrates only on mechanics can be “dry” and that a game needs a theme to make it engaging or enjoyable. Some abstract games attempt to solve this concern by adding on a theme after the game has been designed. This can lead to the criticism that the theme feels “pasted on” and has nothing to do with the gameplay. There are some games that walk the line, with Chess being the perfect example. Chess is considered a classic abstract game, but I believe it to be a thematic game. In Chess, there is a hierarchy to the pieces that is represented by their rank and ability. This hierarchy never changes no matter how the game is represented even when its form or theme is changed.

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I own a Batman chess set where the two kings are Batman and the Joker, and the two queens are Catwoman and Harley Quinn. The king and queen pieces could have been any character from the Batman universe, but of course the lead characters must be the most important pieces.14 This, to me, indicates that theme is very important to the game of Chess and wouldn’t be the same game without it. .

We will be talking about thematic games a lot in the Chapters 8 and 9. For now, we will dive into abstract games!

  I would argue that Batman is more appropriate as a queen piece based on that piece’s power and flexibility in the game.

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Traits of an Abstract Game An abstract game is also known as a combinatorial game. The word combinatorial is sometimes used to distinguish it from games with randomness or hidden information. Abstract games are often considered “themeless” games because they are focused primarily on the game’s mechanisms without the artifice of story or premise. Other traits used to distinguish an abstract game include the following: ■■

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Minimal number of components—­Most abstract games have a low number of components. Everything is used during gameplay without any additional frivolities such as victory point tokens or resource cubes. Efficient components—­The components themselves are simple as well but are also used efficiently. For example, look how much information is packed onto a standard playing card deck. Fifty-­two cards. Thirteen cards of a particular suit. Four cards of each rank. Twenty-­six cards in each color. A card on its own has three levels of information: suit, rank, and color. They can be read upside down. They can be lined up in rows and columns. It is this efficiency that allows for so many games to be played with them. Minimal rules—­You shouldn’t have to look up the rules during play. The game should be easy to teach orally. As your game doesn’t have much backstory or thematic setup to explain, it should be quick to learn. Minimal goals—­Game theorist Christian “Mindsports” Freeling says there are only two types of abstract games: ones that “eliminate the heart” (as in capturing the king in Chess) and ones that “eliminate the body and limbs (as in capturing the most pieces in Mancala or moving all of your pieces to the end as in Backgammon). Little to no board setup—­The depth of the game comes from the strategy, not the number of spaces/pieces that can fit on the board. Player count—­Many abstract games are for only two players. Obviously, this isn’t a hard and fast rule as there are plenty of games that can accommodate more than two players. Little downtime—­ Downtime is generally regarded as a bad thing in a game. Downtime is when players are not doing anything, usually on another player’s turn. Giving the players simple, clear choices that are fast to execute is a good way to reduce downtime. Deep strategy—­As the box of the abstract game Othello says, “a minute to learn, a lifetime to master.” It isn’t a puzzle to be “solved” after a few plays. You enjoy learning the strategy and tactics with repeat plays. Strive to create emergence for the player to keep the game interesting. They find that emergence elegant, fascinating, and even beautiful. No “luck”— ­Everything is visible to the players. There is little to no hidden information. In Checkers, everything is precisely what it appears to be on the board. You take

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alternating turns with your opponent, attempting to eliminate their pieces. The most strategic player wins, not due to good or bad chance. Lacks a theme—­The game and its components are vague. The game doesn’t try to simulate a narrative. Names, when used, are used to help the player remember what pieces do.

The Concept of Elegance There are some abstract games that are so well designed that their players refer to them as “elegant.” It sounds like a goal that you would want to achieve with your design, doesn’t it? I mean, who doesn’t want to have their work considered elegant? But what exactly does it mean to be an elegant game? A simple definition is “an elegant game is one in which you can do a lot of stuff without too much stuff.” A game with a simple rule set, efficient turn actions and limited components. There are few other concepts that promote elegance in a game as well such as the following: ■■

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Affordances—­Let the components help explain the rules. Use physical attributes and graphic design techniques such as color, shape, and size to suggest what the components do and how players can use them. When applicable, match colors, shapes, and sizes on the board to help players understand where things can be placed or played. Change—­The game state must change as a direct result of the player’s actions. The player must be able to predict what change will happen when their opponent takes an action too. However, the game must have enough depth so that the player cannot “solve” the game by predicting how it will end. Depth—­W hen talking about elegance, players often refer to a game being “deep” in contrast to it being “simple.” Depth often correlates to the number of possible interactions between components or the number of choices a player can make compared to a simple game, which offers only a few and can lead to a game feeling repetitive or boring. Interconnectivity—­Players love to discover connections between rules and actions. They enjoy being able to do or achieve something more complex in a way that is as simple as possible. They get excited by combinations and making chain reactions happen, such as jumping multiple pieces in Checkers. Complexity—­There is often the notion that an elegant game must be simple. But that isn’t the case. Instead, you must design the game so that the gameplay becomes exponentially more interesting as you ratchet up the complexity. Players can learn more complex ideas as they play the game; just don’t start the game by trying to explain all of them. Balance—­Despite players loving big moves, they also admire a game that is balanced. By this I mean a game that doesn’t feel weighted in one player’s favor more than another. There aren’t exceptions to the rules. Players often start off on equal footing. At the end of the game, the player’s scores should not be wildly apart from each other, like a score of 3 to 25 points. Ouch.

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With all these ideas in mind, let’s look at the mechanisms that can be used to design an abstract board game!

Abstract Game Mechanisms As we know, mechanisms are the tools that a game designer has when creating gameplay. The following are several game mechanisms used in designing an abstract game: ■■

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Alignment/connection—­You must connect a certain number of pieces in a row, pattern, column, or square to score points or win the game. Games that use this mechanism include Tic Tac Toe (–1300), Connect Four (1974), Tantrix (1991), Qwirkle (2006), and Quantic (2019). Configuration game—­You must create special, predetermined shapes or patterns to complete objectives or score points. Creating these configurations can be found in games such as Dragon Castle (2017), Azul (2017), Tiny Town (2019), and Holi: Festival of Colors (2020). Capture—­You must maneuver your pieces to either land on or surround a piece or space to win the game. Examples include Chess (1475), Martian Chess (1995), GIPF (1996), Onitama (2014), and Hive (2000). Territory games—­You place pieces onto a board as you try to either block off areas—­or territories—­so an opponent cannot access it as you try to control areas for points or as a victory condition. Often, these games use tetrominoes and resemble the video game Tetris. Blokus (2000), FITS (2009), Cathedral (1978), and NMBR 9 (2017) are examples of tetromino-­style game. Pushing them off—­Your goal is to push an opponent’s piece off the board to either remove them from play or score points. Games like Abalone (1987), Shobu (2019), Baby Boom (2010), and Scram! (2023) use this mechanism. Return—­You can return “lost pieces” back into play. Strategy might require purposely losing a piece early in the game to have it return for use later. You can find this in The Royal Game of Ur (–2600), Trouble (1965), GIPF (1996), and War Chest (2018) Movement—­Your design can feature pieces with specific or unique movement. These pieces can move a predetermined number of spaces, or a number determined by a randomizer (such as pieces in Senet). The movement can be based on a pattern (such as the “L” shape of the Knight in chess). Movement can be orthogonal or diagonal or a combination of both. Your rules can restrict movement  – as in that you can never move a piece backward or diagonally—unless you want the player to, or a special circumstance arises (such as “kinging” a piece in Checkers). Race/destination—­You are trying to get a single piece or several pieces to a destination, usually at the opposite side of the board. Games like Onitama (2014), Camelot (2015), Quoridor (1997), and Squadro (2018) have this as scoring or victory conditions. Pylos (1986) has players trying to get their piece to the top of a stack to win.

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Restricted placement—­You play with specific rules that prevent players from just playing any old piece wherever they want. This can be color, shape, number, or some other restriction that makes the game more challenging as the game progresses. You can find this escalation of challenge in games such as Sagrada (2016) and Spots (2022). Route-­building/connection—­You place component pieces to create a path and route on the board. Completion of this route or meeting the victory condition leads to completing objectives, earning points, or winning the game. Quoridor (1997), PÜNCT (2005), Hex (1942), and Tak (2017) are all abstract games that use this mechanism. Stacking—­You stack components onto other components to block, score points, gain dominance, or achieve a victory condition. This can also be reductively where stacks are reduced over the course of the game. There are even games where the stacks fluctuate over the course of play. The stacks can be the components themselves or block other components that are nestled inside of them. Examples of this include “kingmaking” in Checkers (1150), the capstones like Tak (2017) and Santorini (2016), reducing stacks in Battle Sheep (2010), and towers that “grow” and “shrink” in Die wandelnden Türme (2022). Flipping tokens—­You flip or rotate components to give new abilities or functions. In both Reversi (1883) and Othello (1971), tokens are flipped to either their white or black side to indicate their allegiances. In Tortuga (2007), turtle pieces are flipped to “neutralize” their movement. In Fearsome Floors (2003), flipped tokens change the distance the character can move on a turn. Sometimes these tokens may be used only by a single player, in other cases, they may be a shared pool of tokens between all players as in Quarto (1991) or Scram! (2023). Elimination games—­You work to be the last player standing usually through eliminating the opponent’s pieces. Chaturanga (550) paved the way for many other games over the ages including Feudal (1967), Tiny Towns (2019), and Tsuro (2005). Mancala games—­You move components around a board in either a clockwise or counterclockwise fashion as they are deposited onto spaces for later collection. Named after the ancient game of Mancala, this mechanism has more recently shown up in the designs of Dead Pan (1956), Swahili (1968), Trajan (2011), Five Tribes (2014), Planes (2014), A Fistful of Meeples (2019), and Ostia (2022).

These mechanisms are excellent for strategy games, but there is another kind of abstract game: word games.

Word Game Mechanisms While we discussed word games in the chapter about card games (Chapter 5), there is a type of word game that is played on a board. Just like with their card game cousins, word game players must spell words to score points or as part of the victory condition. Boards are used partially for thematic reasons and partially to help the players organize the game’s tiles or

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cards. They might also help guide players to how long of a word they may spell or might provide bonuses in conjunction with points on a tile, as seen in Scrabble (1931).

Scrabble (detail) According to Tony Augarde, the author of the Oxford A–Z of Word Games, word games have appeared in every period of history, in every part of the world. The oldest recorded word game is a riddle found in Babylonian school texts. Several card and tile word games were published in the 19th and early 20th centuries such as Hangman (1894) and Anagrams (1910) and later games like Scoralet (1936), Anex-­A-­Gram (1938), and Questo (1939) provided blank grid boards for the players to lay their cards or tiles on. It wasn’t until Scrabble15 (1948) where the board became an important component to the gameplay with its spaces that doubled and tripled the scoring of letters and words. After the success of Scrabble, word games became a staple of board games. They have their own unique set of gameplay mechanisms and objectives.

  Originally released in 1931 as Criss-­Cross Words.

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Forming words—­Players spell words using components (usually tiles or cards) that have a single or several letters printed on them. Words can be short or long. Some games (Quiddler, 1998) require words to be of a predesignated length. Often words must be longer than a single letter, and in many games, proper nouns or words in other languages (than native to the players) are not allowed. Restrictions—­Some word game rules enforce restrictions on the players to make the game more challenging and fun. For example, in Boggle (1972), players can use a letter only once. In Tapple (2012), players can use words only in a specific order or starting with a specific letter. Wordsy (2017) makes players share letters from a pool. Other games create restrictions such as you can only overlap letters on an already existing word (Letterbox, 1977) or the word must already contain letters from an already played or constructed word (Bananagrams, 2006, and Upwords, 1982). Substitution—­If a word can be created or transformed by substituting letters—­such as changing the word CAT into RAT—­that’s known as the Levenshtein Distance.16 This formula is the basis for the iterative word game Wordle: The Party Game (2022). Muddle—­W hen letters are muddled or scrambled in some manner, words tend to become obfuscated to the player. Pulling tiles from a draw bag or drawing cards from a deck is a good way to muddle letters. Words that are purposely muddled by the designer are called an anagram. Letter Jam (2019) is a good example of a game that uses anagrams. Distribution—­W hen creating a word game, you want to make sure that you have enough letters to allow the player to spell out plenty of words. For example, you should have several vowels (a, e, i, o, and u), but you don’t need very many y’s because it’s less common in the English language. For Scrabble, inventor Alfred Butts scoured the New York Times newspaper to see what the frequency of each letter of the alphabet was. He then used that frequency to determine how many of each letter he should include in his game and their point value based on rarity. Placement—­Found primarily in tile-­based spelling games, this is when the location where the tile is placed on the board can give you a scoring bonus, complete an objective, or give you an advantage such as drawing an additional tile. Guessing—­These are word games that have players create or read a word from a prewritten card. Other players must then guess what the word is from clues. Games using this guessing mechanism are varied from Hangman (1894) to Probe (1964) to A Little Wordy (2021). Theme—­The theme of the game influences the words that can be spelled or how they are spelled. For example, in the fantasy-­themed Paperback Adventures: Damsel (2022), a

  If you want to learn more about the Levenshtein Distance, I suggest reading “Understanding the Levenshtein Distance Equation for Beginners” at medium.com/@ethannam/understanding-­the-­levenshtein­distance-­equation-­for-­beginners-­c4285a5604f0/.

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“critical hit” can be scored against enemies if all the letters in your hand are played on a single turn. In the Lovecraftian-­themed game Unspeakable Words (2007), the more angles that appear in the words spelled, the greater their mystical value, but they also sap your sanity! Just because I’ve classified these mechanisms as native to word games doesn’t mean you can’t combine them with any of the other mechanisms we’ve talked about in this book. You can create some extremely original games this way. Now that we have all the knowledge and tools to design an abstract game, let’s (finally!) make one.

Let’s Design an Abstract Game We are going to design an abstract strategy game that uses the following mechanisms: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Placement Movement Pushing them off Territory control Shared components

First, the components will be needed. Let’s start with some tokens. We are going to need 32 of them, and they should look like this:

We want them to be flat disc-­like tokens about 1.75″ (4.5 cm) wide. They should be made from a blank material so we can write on them or place a sticker on top of them. They can be cardboard, wood, or plastic. You will be picking them up and setting them down frequently in this game, so they should be somewhat thick and not fold when handled. You can find these kinds of tokens either online or at an arts and crafts store. Set aside nine of the tokens and paint them completely black. Spray paint or a Sharpie pen works fine for this. Paint the remaining 23 tokens white.

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On the white tokens draw or painting the following symbols. Alternatively, you can draw or print the shapes onto sticker paper. The symbols can then be cut out and placed on the tokens. A straight line with an arrowhead at one end (five of these)

An “L” shape with arrowheads on both ends (four of these)

A straight line with a “double arrowhead” at one end (three of these)

An “L” shape with “double arrowheads” on both ends (two of these)

A “T” shape with arrowheads on all ends (three of these)

A “T” shape with double arrowheads on all ends (two of these)

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A “cross” shape with arrowheads on all ends (two of these)

A “cross” shape with double arrowheads on all ends (two of these)

Finally, you will want to create a 10″ × 10″ game board. While you can use a sheet of paper, if you want it to last, I suggest using poster or illustration board. On the board, draw a 7×7 grid like what is shown in Figure 7.1.

Figure 7.1  Initial game grid

Color the squares in your grid red, blue, purple, and yellow as indicated in Figure 7.2. There are also white squares. It might be a little tricky, since the illustrations is in gray tones, but the letters should help you determine the colors.

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Figure 7.2   

It’s so mysterious! By the way, this game is called SCRAM! You’ll understand why in a moment as we build out the game in the following steps.

Step 1: Create the Rules The first step we need to do to make our game playable is to explain the setup and create the rules. Setup 1. Place the board in the center of the table. 2. Each player selects a color on the board: red, yellow, blue, or purple. 3. If there are two players, select five black tokens, if there are three players, select seven black tokens, and if there are four players, select all nine black tokens. 4. Place the remaining (if any) black tokens aside. They are not used during the game. 5. Put the remaining black tokens with the white tokens into a common pile. The Rules of Scram! 1. The first player places one token of their choice onto the board. The token can be rotated in any direction. 2. When a token is placed, pay attention to the direction of the arrows. Any adjacent token being “pointed at” by the arrow is affected when the token is placed. 3. Tokens with single arrowhead move an affected token one space in the indicated direction. Double arrowheads move the affected token two spaces in the indicated direc-

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4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

tion. A token must be adjacent to be affected by the arrows. For example, if Chris plays a double arrowhead token, it does not affect tokens that are two spaces away. If a token collides with another adjacent token while being pushed, it will push the adjacent token as well that number of spaces. This can cause large chain reactions across the board, so be careful where you play your tokens! The second player selects and places one token of their choice onto the board. If a token is affected by the arrow on a white token, move the adjacent token accordingly. If a token is at the edge of the board and is knocked off the board (“scram’d”), then it is removed from play. A “scram’d” token may not be used again during play. Continue placing tokens until all the tokens have been placed, at which time the game ends. Calculate victory points. White squares are considered “neutral” spaces and do not score. Players get one point for each white token on the player’s color. Players get three points for each black token on the player’s color. The player with the most victory points wins the game! In the case of a tie, the player with the most black tokens on their color wins.

Step 2: Playtest the Game You are now ready to playtest the game. Try playtesting it with different numbers of players. Remember to ask your playtesters questions about what they liked and didn’t like about playing the game. Record the responses here. When I playtested the game with two players: ______________________________________________________________________ When I playtested the game with three players: ______________________________________________________________________ When I playtested the game with four players: ______________________________________________________________________ Also, pay attention to how long it takes to play the game. Abstract games usually shouldn’t take longer than 15–30 minutes to play. If it takes your playtesters longer to play, observe why that happened and write down some ideas on how to make the game in less time. Play time (2 players): ______________________________________________________________________

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Play time (3 players): ______________________________________________________________________ Play time (4 players): ______________________________________________________________________ Ideas regarding playtime: ______________________________________________________________________

Step 3: Change the Rules Next, change a rule. Where do we have the flexibility to change gameplay? Is it how the pieces move? Is it how the players select tokens? What if the players started the game with their own pool of tokens rather than drawing from a shared pool? My rule change is: __________________________________________________________________ Go ahead and write down your new rules here. Notice how one change might affect the rest of the gameplay.

 _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________

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Once you’ve playtested that change, record the results here. When I playtested the game with my new rule change: __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

Step 4: Change a Number What numbers do we have to change? The number of tokens. What if there were fewer black tokens or more black tokens? What if there were no white squares? What if the number of colored squares were different? What if there were fewer groupings of colored squares? Go ahead and change a number. My number change is: __________________________________________________________________ Once you’ve playtested that change, record the results here. When I playtested the game with my new number change: _________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

Step 5: Change the Objective Change the objective of the game. What if the objective is to be the first to push all the black pieces off the board? What if it is to get as many black tokens as possible on the squares of your color? What if it is to score the least points? My objective change is: ________________________________________________________________________ Once you’ve playtested that change, record the results here.

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When I playtested the game with my new objective change: ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

Step 6: Add a Mechanism Add a mechanism to the game. Here are some ideas: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

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Instead of bumping another piece, stack the tokens on top of each other. Add tokens with arrows pointing in different directions such as diagonal. Allow double arrows to affect pieces that are two spaces away. The white squares are “holes” and any piece that stops movement on it “falls through” the board and is discarded. Add a red token that, if it collides with another token, “explodes,” removing the piece from play no matter where it is on the board.

You can see how any of these new mechanisms can radically change the gameplay. Go ahead and come up with one of your own! The mechanism I added is: ________________________________________________________________________ Once you’ve playtested that change, record the results here. When I playtested the game with my new mechanism: ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

Step 7: Change the Theme Even though SCRAM! was designed as an abstract game, abstract games can be difficult to sell. At the time of this writing, there are only a few game publishers that will publish a true abstract board game. I find that you might want to consider giving your game even the slightest theme to help your chances of selling it to a publisher or even the gaming audience.

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Since pieces are being pushed around on a board, what theme could be applied to SCRAM!? Penguins slipping around on ice? Hockey players fighting for control of the puck? Aliens fighting for control of a planet? Bumper cars at an amusement park slamming into each other? It could be anything! Go ahead and determine your own idea to re-­theme SCRAM! My new theme for SCRAM! is: ___________________________________________________________ Of course, once you’ve rethemed your game, you might need to change some of the components to match that theme. Perhaps change the art around the edges of the game board or the images on the tokens or the colors on the grid. Of course, the rules might change to reflect the new theming. Creating thematic terms for your components and gameplay help get the player in the mood of your theme. Write the new rules here:

 _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________

The theme can make a big difference to a game, which is why the next chapters are going to address this very topic.

The Mensa Select Award There is one benefit to designing an abstract game, and that is they are often nominated and awarded the Mensa Select Award, an award given out by the Mensa organization.

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Mensa is a club for people with high IQs and often love the challenge that abstract games present. As a game inventor, it’s a big deal to win a Mensa award,17 so if you design an abstract board game, make sure that you or your publisher submits it to the Mensa organization for consideration at mensamindgames.com/register/submit-­your-­game/. If you want to learn more about Mensa and the Mensa Select Award, you can go to mensamind games.com/about/mensa-­recommended-­games/.

10 Abstract Board Games You Need to Play Now that you’ve designed an abstract game of your own, you could try some of my favorites. I always find it inspiring to play new games and learn from them. ■■

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Mastermind (1971)—­A favorite from childhood, this two-­player code-­breaking game still holds up. It’s simple to learn and fast to play. I love the 70s version’s iconic box cover. Hive (2000)—­Capture the queen bee using unique tiles in this simple but deep strategy game. Zendo (2001)—­Guess your opponent’s hidden pattern. Zendo remains the best example of inductive reasoning I’ve seen in a board game. Tsuro (2005)—­Your pieces swoop around the board as you try to outlast your opponents in this beautiful abstract title.

  My own game Pantone the Game was nominated for a Mensa award in 2018.

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Qwirkle (2006)—­This is one of my favorite abstracts; collect and try to create connecting patterns with colored tiles. If you line up one of each shape, don’t forget to say “Qwirkle!” Onitama (2014)—­This chess-­like two-­player strategy game has its roots in titles such as Kung Fu (1978) in which you maneuver your pieces to defeat your opponent’s and control their temple space. Letter Tycoon (2015)—­This is a clever twist on word games; not only do you try to build words, but they earn you money to claim the patent on letters that your rivals might use. Tak (2017)—­Inspired by the works of author Patrick Rothfuss, two players compete to build a complete road using tiles that can stack or stand on edge. Azul (2017)—­Draft and place colorful tiles to create point-­scoring patterns. War Chest (2018)—­This is a modern take on Chess where each piece has its own special ability. Recruit, bolster, and maneuver your way to controlling the hex-­grid battlefield.

Important Chapter 7 Concepts and Takeaways ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

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Board games are ancient. All board game designs, no matter how old they are, are your competition. Game boards help create the magic circle for players. Game boards have both shared spaces and unique spaces. Use the game board to help create table presence. The less symbolic a game is, the more of a simulation it is, while the less realistic a game is, the more symbolic it can be. All game boards, no matter how detailed, are an abstraction. Abstract games are known as combinatorial games. The easier an abstract game is to play, the more depth can be created with its gameplay. Word games are abstract games too!

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Chapter 

L e t ’s Ma ke a E u ro- ­S t y le S trate g y Game IT WAS ON the Internet in the mid-­1990s when American gamers started to hear the buzz about a new kind of board game—­board games that weren’t about forcing opponents into bankruptcy, exploring dungeons, or driving a little car through one’s life. These games were about building farms and factories, and their themes were about building, nurturing, and growing. They had beautifully illustrated boards and charming components made of wood instead of plastic. And they could be bought only in Germany. This new kind of game—­this German game—­would have a profound effect on the entire board game design world.

A Short History of the “German Game”

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Nuremberg, Germany, had long been known as the toy capital of the world. As far back as the 1400s, the city had been home to doll-­makers, tin-­toy craftsmen, wood carvers of hobby horses, and inventors of parlor games. In 1883, Bavarian bookseller Otto Maier moved to Nuremberg and founded a publishing company that printed instructional pamphlets. In 1884, he published something new, a board game called Reise um die Erde: ein humoristisches geographisches Gesellschafts spiel.1 The game became a huge hit, and by 1892, Maier concentrated his printing and publishing efforts primarily on board games. He called his new publishing venture Ravensburger. By 1902, Ravensburger was printing more than 100 board games and translating popular foreign games into other European languages. When World War I broke out, production of all toys ceased in Nuremburg. The factories that had once produced tin soldiers were now producing weapons for real ones. Military production continued through World War II, and there was even a general ban on all toy production issued in 1943. After World War II ended, Germany started to rebuild its factories despite a boycott on German-­produced goods, and by 1950, German toy production had returned. Sick of war and war-­themed things, Germans turned their toy-­making efforts from producing toy guns and tanks to less violent toys including board games. The German toy industry boomed, and to celebrate its return, the first International Toy Fair was held in Nuremburg. Board games emerged as part of Germany’s national identity. German families would often play board games together, and they became synonymous with “family values.” As a result, interest in board gaming started to rise. However, many of these games weren’t German in origin. American and British games such as Monopoly, Scrabble, Cluedo, and Acquire were popular in German households. Ravensburger realized they needed to start publishing original games, so they nurtured an in-­house design team to develop distinctly German games.

  Translation: A trip around the world: A humorous geographic parlor game

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Other German game publishers and designers followed suit; however, customers were unsure just which games were worth their time and money. German newspapers started running reviews of games. Specialty magazines Spielezeitschrift, Spielbox, and Die Popple-­Revue emerged and were devoted exclusively to board and card games. To help consumers decide, the Spiel des Jarhes (Game of the Year) prize was established in 1978 with the purpose of rewarding family-­friendly game design and promoting excellent games in the German market. The criteria are that the game must be published in Germany and is judged by a panel on four categories: game concept, rule structure, layout, and design.

Publishers soon noticed that the winners experienced a significant increase in sales, sometimes as high as 500,000 copies after winning the award. Since its creation, other categories were added including best children’s games (KinderSpiel) and the Connoisseur’s choice (KennerSpiel) as well as the Sonderpreis Schones Spiel (most beautiful game), Sonderpries Komplezes Spiel (best complex game) and the Sonderpries Literatur im Spiel (best use of literature in game). By the 1990s, there was a wide selection of board games for German consumers to choose from. Early hits include Modern Art (1992), Manhattan (1994), El Grande (1995), and Die Siedler von Catan (1995), which became one of the best-­selling board games of all time. Another major influence on German board gaming culture was the rise of gaming conventions. The Essen Game Fair (or The Spiel) is the largest board game show in Germany, drawing crowds of more than 140,000 attendees. It is estimated that more than 1,000 new board games debut every year at The Spiel alone! This opportunity to sell games to such a large audience attracted independent game designers to The Spiel. These self-­publishing creators soon grew in numbers, giving rise to a growing indie publishing scene. Many of these self-­starters who began at The Spiel have gone on to become some of the industry’s biggest names including Friedmann Friese, Richard Breese, and Matt Leacock.

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As German gamers learned the names of their favorite game inventors and eagerly awaited their next creators, the designers themselves weren’t always getting credit. In those days, if you weren’t publishing your own game, it was unlikely that you were getting your name on the front of the box. We will discuss why this is so important to you and all game designers in Chapter 10 when we talk about the business of board games.

In 1988, 13 German game designers attending the Nuremburg Toy Fair signed their names to a document (actually a drink coaster from the hotel bar!) on which was written “we commit to not sell games to companies that would not print the designer’s name on the box.” This “Beer Coaster Proclamation” was an important step forward for all game designers. Apart from a few larger publishers, it is standard practice for hobby game publishers to credit the game designer on the box’s cover.

The German Game Becomes the Euro-­Game Gamers from other countries started attending The Spiel and other German gaming conventions. They bought and brought these “German games” back home to their native countries. Bilingual speakers translated their rules and posted them online. Discussions started to appear on the forums of rec.games.board, the Game Closet, and Board Game Geek. Their players raved about their simplicity, elegance, and beauty. The popularity of German games spread throughout the board gaming world. In 1990, designer Alan Moon held a get-­together known as the Gathering of Friends. In attendance were several American game designers who got their first taste of German games, and soon their mechanisms and traits began showing up in their designs. As a result, the term German game just wasn’t applicable anymore. They no longer described games designed and

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published exclusively in Germany. These types of games were rechristened as Euro-­games and subsequently Euro-­style games.

If you want to read more about the origins and evolution of Euro-­games, I highly recommend the book Euro-­games: The Design, Culture, and Play of Modern European Board Games by Stewart Woods (McFarlane and Co., 2012).

Euro-­Game Traits So, how does a Euro-­game differ from all the other styles of games we’ve already discussed? I’m glad you asked! There are several traits that a Euro-­game exhibits—­especially in those games from the late 90s and early 2000s—­that are unique to this genre. These include the following: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Lack of “luck” Lack of conflict Loss Emphasis on construction/growth

NOTE

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Exotic settings Lack of theming Goals Balancing mechanisms Catch-­up mechanisms Shorter playtime Wood components rather than plastic

Let’s look at them, the good and bad.

Lack of “Luck”2 While many Euro-­games may include randomizers such as decks of cards, drawn tiles, and even dice, their results usually don’t alter the outcome of the player’s action. Rather than generating “good” or “bad” luck, they create opportunity, introduce diversity, and give you more choices. For example, in Stone Age (2008), you roll dice3 to see how many resources are available for your cave people to collect, while in Tiny Epic Galaxies (2015), you roll dice to determine which actions you may perform on your turn. If randomization occurs in a Euro-­game, it happens before the player acts—­which is called input randomness. Remember input randomness from Chapter  3? Euro-­gamers love input randomness because they can see the result of the randomizer and then have time to think and plan how to use the result.

  Ugh. There’s that word again. As a game designer, we really know it means randomness and probability.   You roll dice using a very thematic leather cup!

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But when the random occurs after your plans are set, the random result can screw up all your carefully made plans and strategies. This is, of course, output randomness. This is why so many Euro-­gamers don’t like playing games with dice in them! They hate the lack of predictability and the lack of control on their turn. Heck, I know some Euro-­gamers that won’t even play a game if there is a die in it! (That’s crazy! Dice are great! Besides, don’t they realize that cards and bags of tokens are randomizers too?) There are many ways that dice (and other randomizers) can be used in a Euro-­game. We covered many of them in Chapter 4, and we’ll discuss other mechanisms and strategies later in this chapter.

Lack of Conflict After the two world wars, German society was understandably fed up with anything to do with warfare, conquering, and destruction. German game designs moved away from these themes. That’s not to say that these themes of conflict (or even games set during this era) are nonexistent, but the conflict found in them is often de-­emphasized or represented symbolically. For example, sometimes combat is represented by area control, but the results of that interaction can vary—­from a player losing a piece to a piece retreating to where it came from. More importantly, conflict between players is often avoided or nonexistent in Euro-­ games. That’s not to say that there isn’t competition between players, but direct conflict and “take that” mechanisms are often minimized or excluded altogether. Gameplay that can lead to bad feelings or antagonism is usually missing—­giving a Euro-­game a much more “peaceful” feeling for the players during play.

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A by-­product coming from this lack of conflict is a lack of player elimination, in which a player loses and is “out” for the rest of the game. Players might be able to reset their status, choose a new character, get a temporary penalty, or return to play but with a slight handicap. Personally, it is my favorite aspect of Euro-­ games. No one wants to not be able to play the game! Of course, some detractors feel that this lack of conflict deprives the players from interacting with each other. Multiplayer solitaire is a pejorative term sometimes used to describe these kinds of Euro-­games. It is used to describe the lack of interaction found, as in the other players might as well not be present as you play!

Loss Loss is another thing that is de-­emphasized in Euro-­games. There may also be loss during the game, but it is often conditional. In Catan (1995), when you encounter the robber piece, you must reduce your hand by half but if you have more than seven cards in your hand. It is only the “richer” players who are being punished when this event occurs.

Emphasis on Construction/Growth When the German game industry avoided publishing games about warfare, conquering, and destruction, German game designers looked elsewhere for inspiration. Remembering games from their childhood such as Acquire (1964), 1829 (1974), Diplomacy (1959), and Hare and Tortoise (1974), they concentrated on themes such as building, growth, negotiation, and racing.

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Dirk Henn, the designer of the game Wallenstein (2002) remembers, “I wanted to get the game away from games like Risk, where you easily know what to do—­conquer as much as you can. I really wanted to give the player an alternative way of winning the game, a more defensive and constructive one. And when the girls in my testing groups liked the game, too, I knew that it was as I wanted it to be.”4 Certain themes became prevalent: castle and city building, farming, route-­building (especially train tracks), political intrigue, racing (automotive and other), and economic simulations.

Exotic Settings A hallmark of Euro-­games are their settings based on real-­world locations. Why is this? Is it that Europeans like to vacation abroad so they are exposed to these foreign lands? Are Euro-­ games an inexpensive way to “see the world”? Perhaps. If a Euro-­game isn’t set in Northern Europe (Troyes, Bruges, Carcassonne), then they are set in the South Seas (Bali, Goa, Java, Macao), South America (Puerto Rico, San Juan, Havana, El Dorado), Southern Europe (Concordia, Pax Romana, Advanced Civilization), or the Middle East (Marrakech, Timbuktu, Thebes, Alhambra). Dice Tower host and reviewer Tom Vasel once joked that there are so many Euro-­games set in these locations that the genre should be called “trading in the Mediterranean.”5

  shakespearetheatre.org/watch-­listen/an-­interview-­with-­wallenstein-­board-­game-­ designer-­dirk-­henn 5   Game designers Geoff Engelstein and Ryan Sturm took inspiration from the trope when they designed their own Eurogame Trade on the Tigris (2018). You can hear the development of the game on their podcast Ludology, starting with episode 37: ludology.libsyn.com/ludology-­episode-­37-­the-­empty-­box 4

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Another trope of Euro-­games is that they are set in either the medieval or renaissance period: Caylus, Orleans, The Castles of Burgundy, Fresco, Medici, Pax Renaissance. Is it that ancient times are more romantic and simpler than modern times? Or is it that Europeans are constantly surrounded by their ancient past more than American designers? In the earlier days of Euro-­gaming, many titles took place during the era of European colonization, which led to the criticism that Euro-­games glorify or at least potentially ignoring the wording to the horrors of that era, including genocide and slavery. In 2017, an article on the website Vice criticized Andreas Seyfarth’s 2002 board game Puerto Rico, “It feels disrespectful for Seyfarth to disregard slavery so completely. By using slavery as a gameplay mechanic without acknowledging the human cost of it (or even using its name directly), by rendering the institution to a mere tool, the true costs of running your economic engine are ignored. It almost seems to uncritically adopt the slavers’ mindset, without any self-­awareness. The effect is to make players gathered around a table for a game of Puerto Rico into unwitting moral accomplices in the horrors of human servitude.“6 As a result of these changing views, the game industry and designers have shied away from making games about colonization. Puerto Rico (2002) was redesigned into Puerto Rico 1897 (2022). In it, the game takes place after the country attained autonomy from Spanish colonizers and abolished slavery.

  vice.com/en/article/vvj39m/how-­board-­games-­handle-­slavery

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Lack of Theming Another criticism leveled at Euro-­game designs is that they focus so strongly on mechanisms that theming is treated as an afterthought. Loot (1992), Lost Cities (1999), Splendor (2014), Codenames (2015), and Great Western Trail (2016) are all popular Euro-­games that have been accused of having pasted-­on themes. This criticism comes when the theme isn’t strongly integrated with the mechanisms, as is the case of thematic games. However, this criticism can be unfair for two reasons. First, we don’t know what the designer’s initial thoughts and designs were when creating the game.7 Second, there is a semi-­true belief among the gaming audience that publishers will change the theme of a game (almost) arbitrarily if it means reaching a bigger audience.

Goals What Euro-­games might lack in theming, they more than make up for in giving a player goals. Goals can be small steppingstones or prerequisites that lead to obtaining larger rewards, or they can be the big reward at the end of the game. Or they can be an ongoing goal that the player can focus on over the entire course of the game. There are three types of goals—­short-term, mid-­term, and long-­term. As a designer, we should strive to give players all three of these types of goals over the course of the game. In my opinion, the best strategic games are ones that have you constantly shifting your strategy and your goals over the course of the game. You might collect coins early in the game to buy cards that activate abilities or actions during the middle of the game, which then allow you to

  A problem that I tried to somewhat rectify with my own Biography of a Board Game segments; heard on both the Dice Tower and Ludology podcasts.

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increase the output of your engine or build your card deck to generate even more points or take bigger, riskier actions at the end of the game. This escalation of goals and the risk involved in getting them is a big part of why we find board games so exciting! During a Euro-­game, there will often be opportunities for you to score your goals as the gameplay progresses or even during rounds. In Quacks of Quedlinburg (2018), players score after they’ve either “busted” by going over seven points or decided to stop and not push their luck any further. The game is scored, and the distance between the players may give trailing players a handicap for the next round. In the farming game Agricola (2007), the scoring is more complex. There are 14 game rounds occurring in 6 stages, with a harvest at the end of each stage (after rounds 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14). There were so many diverse ways for players to score points in The Castles of Burgundy (2011)—­such as placing a particular type of tile, filling in particular areas on the board, shipping goods, or having cash or resources left over at the end of the game—­that the term point salad was used to describe the diversity of points. Critics of point salad say that by having so many ways to earn points makes it hard to strategize, especially if you are new to the game. And focusing so much on points as a concept takes the player out of the theme of the game. There are those who defend it saying that by having so many ways to earn points, you can try new strategies in each game. You can also get positive feedback when they earn short-­term rewards that keep the player excited and engaged. Just like eating a salad, I think it’s just a matter of taste.

Balancing Mechanisms Going first often gives you better choices and puts other players at a disadvantage. Fairness and balance are important to a Euro-­gamer, and designs often try to mitigate or remove this first-­player advantage. In Through the Desert (1998), the first player gets one action on their first turn, while all other players get two actions on the first turn. From then on, all players get two actions. In Magic the Gathering (1993), the player who goes first isn’t allowed to draw a card on their first turn. In Go (–2200 AD), the second player gets additional points at the start of the game.

Catch-­up Mechanisms Catch-­up mechanisms allow losing players an opportunity to still win. It might create a handicap for a player who is doing better than the rest. In the game Kingsburg (2007), the player who rolled the highest at the start of the round is the last to place their dice during the round. The victory track of The Quacks of Quedlinburg has illustrations of rats on it. The number of rats between the winning player’s position and the other’s grants a rat token, which is placed in the player’s scoring cauldron to advance its starting value.

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Other mechanisms include giving players lower in the turn order more resources at the start of the game, drafting hands of cards to equally distribute “good” cards to all players, or penalizing players with more resources such as the robber in Catan.

Shorter Playing Time Another hallmark of Euro-­games is a short playing time. The average Euro-­games plays in about 60 to 90 minutes, or 25–30 minutes per player. However, this isn’t always the case. Some Euro-­games have been criticized for not having the playtime listed on the box be the actual playing time. For example, a game’s box might say it takes 60 minutes to play, but in reality, it takes the players 90 minutes to play, or even longer if players are learning the game for the first time.

Wood Components Rather Than Plastic When I first discovered Euro-­games, one of the most striking features of them was their use of wooden components. These games featured wooden cubes and discs, wooden dice, and whimsical player pieces in the shape of little people. When gamer Alison Hansel first saw the wooden people in Carcassonne, she exclaimed, “I love my people!” However, it somehow came out as “I love my meeple!” and the term stuck. A meeple can be any wooden character—­a pirate, a jungle explorer, a farmer, an elephant8—­that the player uses in the game. Up until I discovered Euro-­games, I was used to board games having either plastic or metal pieces. Wooden components, especially wooden components that were either painted or carved into interesting shapes, felt luxurious, looked charming, and were interesting to the touch. Remember, the tactile and aesthetic elements of board gaming are one of the great pleasures for many.

  The one exception is the sheeple, while used to describe sheep-­shaped meeples, the term was first popularized by conspiracy theorist William Cooper.

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Crunchiness and Weightiness If you have been exploring the world of Euro-­gaming, you might have come across the term crunchiness—­as in “This game is crunchy.9” Calling a game crunchy tends to mean that there are several interacting rules that can be manipulated to the player’s benefit and mechanisms that can be manipulated by the player to interact in interesting ways. A game can have a “low crunch,” “medium crunch,” or “high crunch” depending on its complexity. Dice Tower podcaster Eric Summerer describes crunchiness this way: “A crunchy game offers lots of levers to pull, parameters to tweak, and paths to follow. Small decisions that can have sometimes unforeseen consequences, and a need to think through these decisions, are also hallmarks of these games. Contrast this with a game that you can play more intuitively, from the gut, without having to process too many steps at once.”

Crunchiness is often viewed as a positive attribute for a game to possess, but some players can be turned off by it. “This game is too crunchy!” you might say.10 (Don’t talk with your mouth full.) These games are often called brain-­burners because they offer so many options that it becomes hard to determine what is the right or optimal choice. Your brain “burns” thinking about all the choices and what consequences there are for a decision. Even a simple card game can be considered a brain-­burner because of the decision space it offers. Complexity and what to do to mitigate it in your design will be discussed in the next chapter! While Euro-­games have traditionally been known to have lighter, easier rulesets and shorter playtimes, there are also Euro-­games with complex, elaborate rules, many components, and interacting mechanisms and arcane scoring systems. Games such as Civilization (1980), Kanban: Automotive Revolution (2014), Food Chain Magnate (2015), and Root (2018) all spring to mind when thinking of crunchy games. If you look at a game’s entry on Board Game Geek.com, you’ll see a rating referring from 1 to 5 regarding a game’s weight. Weight, like crunchiness, refers to a game’s complexity, but in slightly different terms. Weight refers to questions such as “How easy is it to learn?” and “How hard is it to play?” and “How long does it take to play?” These factors all apply to a game’s weight. Candy Land (1949), which has almost no decision space, is a light-­weight game with a rank of 1.1 on BoardGameGeek. Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition (2017), which has tons of decisions to be made, is a heavy-­ weight game11 with a 4.29. And just like crunchy games, some players love a weighty game, and other players shy away from them.

  The term has its roots in the mathematical term “number crunching”—which generally refers to taking large amounts of related numerical data and organizing it into a more useful format. 10   What do you expect from a game made from wood and plastic? Pro-­tip: Never put games in your mouth. 11   Twilight Imperium isn’t even the highest weighted game on boardgamegeek.com! That honor currently belongs to The Campaign for North Africa: The Desert War 1940-­43 (1979) with a weight rating of 4.74. 9

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There’s nothing wrong with a game being or not being crunchy or weighty. It all comes down to the kind of game you want to design. Now that we know Euro-­gaming’s traits, let’s look at the mechanisms used to create its unique style of gameplay.

Euro-­Game Mechanisms While we’ve talked about some of these mechanisms before, the following are the mechanisms that are predominantly found in most Euro-­games. These mechanisms tend to promote the gameplay found in this genre—­a lack of conflict, an emphasis on growth, a “race” toward victory by tracking points and de-­emphasizing output randomness. These are examples of how they can be used to make a Eurostyle game: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Action points Action/role selection Arrangement Auction/bidding Building Bag builder Buying/market Choosing Cooperation Engine-­builder Income Negotiation Placement Follow action Seeking information Set collection Trading/deal-­making Rondels Victory track

Action Points Action points (APs) are a specified number of points that players “spend” on gameplay actions. Common actions in Euro-­games include movement (a single piece or multiple pieces), building something, placing workers or tiles, crafting items, drawing a card, and rolling or re-­rolling dice, or they can even be used to grant another player an action! It’s like wishing for more wishes! Some games allow a player to spend their points on the same action several times in a row or on another player’s turn. The game Flashpoint: Fire Rescue (2011) allows you to save actions for use on another turn.

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Each action has a predetermined cost dictated by the “strength” of the action. For example, in the game Tikal (1999), players have 10 action points to spend each turn. Actions cost anywhere from 1 to 10 APs. Moving a member between two camps costs 1 action point and may be performed many times on your turn. Excavating a treasure costs 3 APs, while establishing a forward camp costs 5 APs. Your choice becomes “How do I best spend my points to gain the best results each turn?” Sometimes the number of action points that a player can spend is situational. In Photosynthesis (2017), the number of actions you have available to use each turn is determined by how much light falls on your pieces. I like to use action points in my designs, because it gives players many meaningful choices regarding what they can spend their points on. Of course, the actions must all be helpful to the player in some way. It’s even better if players can combine the actions so that they can create powerful combos.

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Action/Role Selection The term action/role-­selection can be applied to two different types of mechanisms. The difference between the two is when the player can make the selection. The first type is when you choose a character or role from several at the beginning of the game. The choice is usually a unique ability that can be used situationally (such as once a game) or on every turn. In most games, the roles are personified by characters and their special ability matches the action. For example, in Pandemic (2008), if you are playing the dispatcher role, you can move other players on your turn. If you play as the researcher, you may give any card to another player if they’re in the same city, or another player may take any city card from the researcher if they’re in the same city. Both roles have their usefulness, but each of them requires a totally different strategy to play. When designing this type of character role, you want to make sure each player’s action is radically different from the next, so playing them will give the player a totally different play experience. This also motivates the player to replay the game and try new roles. The other type of selection occurs on your turn. It is often known as action selection because you are usually selecting an action, not necessarily a role. This means that on every turn you can choose an entirely different character and use its unique ability on your turn. An example of this is found in Citadels (2000). On your turn, you select a new role. The selection not only grants you a unique power but also determines the order that it is played as cards are prioritized in numeric order from lowest to highest. Lower-­numbered card abilities are activated before higher-­numbered cards, sometimes affecting or nullifying the abilities of the higher cards. I used action selection in my game Rayguns and Rocketships: Retaliation (2024). Players have a hand of action cards, and they select one each turn. Cards are revealed simultaneously and are resolved in order from lowest to highest. This allows for certain actions to happen before others—­which may protect a player from more powerful attack actions on higher cards. However, if players reveal the same action on the turn, they are penalized by having limited actions to choose from. When you design an action selection game, make sure that the actions are distinct from each other. The choices should all be good so that it comes down to when the player plays them to make a difference between success or failure.

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Arrangement Arrangement often plays an important part in tile placement games. In Carcassonne, tiles must be positioned so that they connect in “legal” ways. Roads must connect to roads, castle walls must help complete castles, etc. But tile placement games aren’t the only type of games where the concept of arrangement matters. Some games require players to arrange resources in a particular pattern to complete objectives and score points, such as creating buildings in Tiny Towns (2020) or creating tile patterns to score points in Azul (2017). In Honey Buzz (2020), each tile represents a different action. Whenever a group of tiles creates a specific pattern, a series of actions is triggered. The Castles of Burgundy (2011) has players match settlement tiles with colors on their player board to gain special abilities and end-­game points while players of Calico (2020) arrange tiles into colorful patterns to lure cats onto their cozy quilts!

Auction/Bidding An auctions and bidding mechanism has you place a bid, usually money but sometimes resources, on a good or an action. Players compete for the good by placing bids until one winner is established, allowing the winner to take control of the good or perform the action. Once the items are purchased, new items will be offered. Usually, the item bid on becomes useful later in the game. In Power Grid (2004), players take turns to bid on four power plants. Once a bid is won, the player adds the power plant to their inventory. Provided the player has the resources to power it, it will create power for the player that turn.

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Sometimes there is a rule where the pot (a pool of resources) increases if the good or action isn’t purchased or the cost of the good or action decreases, making it more appealing for you to try players to bid on it.

Building The theme of many Euro-­games is about building—­whether it’s a city, a castle, a farm, or a spaceship. This emphasis on construction is in stark contrast to destruction featured in Ameritrash games.12 The classic game Acquire (1964) has players placing square tiles onto a grid city. Hotel chains grow, merge, and expand, increasing the player’s share in stock. In Expancity (2018), building is much more literal as you stack and construct tiny buildings on a shared city map. Suburbia (2012) forgoes the literal buildings as you expand your urban sprawl in the form of hexagonal tiles. Galaxy Trucker (2007) has players construct a spaceship out of random parts. The ship is then flown through meteor storms as they hope that enough of the ship is left over to reach their destination! Buildings in these types of games can often be upgraded. A great example of this is found in Machi Koro (2012), where players can pay to “build” a landmark card that increase your abilities and the rewards you get on your turn. There are some games where the building is even more literal, where the player constructs physical structures that then are scored in a variety of ways. In The Climbers (2005), your goal is to race up a structure of blocks that you move and rotate. In Pueblo (2002), you cooperatively construct a home for the Hopi chieftain, who inspects your work and awards points. Santorini (2004) has you build temples for your loyal followers to climb and reach the Greek gods. For these types of designs, you can use wooden building blocks for your prototype, such as LEGO or other construction toys, or if you have the means, you can 3D print your components. We’ll talk more about this when miniatures are discussed in Chapter 9.

  Which we talk about in Chapter 9!

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Bag-­Builder A bag-­builder mechanism involves a draw bag and some components—­usually tokens or cubes. Despite its title, this mechanism isn’t about building a bag but rather its contents. On each turn, players purchase or draft resources to be added into a cloth bag. The bag usually starts with an assortment of good and bad resources. Adding to the bag increases the probability that the player will draw something good on their turn. However, more bad resources will occasionally be added to prevent the player from drawing only positive results. Back building and draw bags can be used in a variety of ways. The Quacks of Quedlinburg (2018) has you begin with a small amount of good and bad resources. Players buy more good resources to add to their bag. Each turn, the player draws resources until they either decide to push their luck or go bust by drawing resources that exceed a predetermined number. The game adds bad resources halfway through to keep things interesting. Clank! A Deck Building Adventure (2016) starts with black cubes in a dragon bag. Over the course of the game, you add “noise” cubes to the bag whenever certain cards are drawn. If a dragon attack is triggered, you draw from the bag. If a black cube is drawn, nothing happens. If your color is drawn, you lose health. Thebes (2007) has several bags—­each represents an archeological site. Players spend actions to draw tokens from a bag. If you draw a treasure token, you keep it. If you draw a sand token, it is added back to the bag. The more times you visit the location, the less likely you are to find treasure and only sand.

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When creating a bag-­builder, make sure that the components are the same size, shape, weight, and texture. You don’t want a player to be able to tell the difference of the component by feel!

Buying/Market Several Euro-­games feature a market where players can buy and/or sell resources—­such as items, cards, or resources. The prices of these goods can vary over the course of a turn or the entire game, often driven by a track or a deck of cards that informs the current price. When creating a market, you will want to offer the player several choices. I find three to five items in the market (cards, resources, etc.) is a good number to start with (you can always adjust it with more playtesting). You might want to let players also choose to buy the top card of the market deck as a blind buy at a fixed price. This is risky because the player might buy an item that is worth less than the fixed price, but on the other hand, they might buy a card that is worth more! Some games have market items phase out or be replaced if they aren’t popular using what is called a river mechanism. The cards on the river “flow” down. Think of it as a conveyer belt of cards that gets pushed down as a new card is added. The cost of the cards decreases as the card travels down the river, but once the first card in the river reaches a predetermined point (for example, the market can have only five cards in it), then it is discarded from the game.

Choosing In Euro-­games, choosing is often a way to balance out the game—­preventing one player from getting too many advantages or powerful cards. One such application of this is known as “I cut; you choose.” One player creates two or more pools of resources/cards/dice with revealed values, and the other player gets to pick which one they get first. There is a strategic element to this in which you might want to make one pool more desirable than another while handicapping it at the same time. For example, let’s say we are playing a game where we roll six dice, and I must make two pools of dice. I roll 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 6. I create one pool of 1, 1, 6, and the other are 2, 4, 4. Will my opponent pick the high number die or go for the other pool with lower but more distributed values?

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The other application of choosing is to give a player a choice rather than or in addition to a blind draw. In Ticket to Ride (2004), players can choose from five face-­up ticket cards, or they can draw from the face-­down deck. If they choose a more versatile wild card, they cannot choose a second card. However, if they blindly draw a wild card first, they may still draw or select a second nonwild card. The risk of the blind draw mitigates the benefit of knowing that they are getting a wild card. Yet another application of choosing is drafting, which we covered in Chapter 5. Remember, this is where all of the available cards or resources are passed around the table and the player is allowed to select one and pass the rest around to the other players. Drafting allows for an equal and (somewhat) fair distribution of cards/resources to all the players.

Cooperation Cooperation games are where players must work together to win. If one player is eliminated or if the players fail to accomplish several objectives within a predetermined time limit or number of rounds, they lose the game. Reiner Knizia’s Lord of the Rings (2000) is an early example of a cooperative Euro-­game.13 Each player plays one of the hobbits in the fellowship, each of which has a unique power. The players all work together to overcome hardships as they approach Mount Doom. All players either win or lose together. Often players will be playing against an overlord player or an AI system that is working against them, as in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (2021), or a player who is helping the others but in a limited or restricted capacity, such as the “ghost player” in Mysterium (2015). We’ll talk more about designing AI in Chapter 9 when we discuss thematic games.

  Knizia’s Lord of the Rings was an inspiration to game designer Matt Leacock to design the cooperative game Pandemic.

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Engine-­Builder Engine building is a subgenre of the building genre. In it, players construct an “engine” made of components that, when activated, score points and generate resources for the player. The player’s goal is to create an efficient engine that gets better and yields a higher output each round. After the first round or two, players will have many more resources at their disposal, giving the player more choices and options. In 7 Wonders (2012), players stack cards under their “wonder board” to gain more and more resources on each consecutive turn. Wingspan (2018) has players building an engine out of nests of birds. Then they spend resources to chain their bird’s special abilities and create as many combos as possible for even more rewards and points. The challenge for players of engine-­builders is to anticipate their need later in the game. There’s a good chance that they might end up with a surplus of goods that they can’t use or don’t want while other goods become difficult to obtain as other players have taken them. There are a few ways to mitigate this: either allow for players to exchange resources at a higher rate such as 2:1 or 3:1 or allow players to trade resources during a dedicated trading round. By adding these rules, players won’t feel so “jammed” by their resources even if they’ve made poor choices early in the game. Another gameplay aspect you want to consider is allowing players to “switch gears” later in the game. I’ve found that often in engine-­builders, if you’ve made uninformed or poor choices early on, you are stuck for the rest of the game with the consequences of your choices. While this is a good lesson to help improve players learning to play the game, no one likes to sit through a game knowing that they are going to lose. Letting players exchange, trash, or trade elements of their engine (with some sort of penalty for doing so) at least gives the player a “fighting chance” to try to win the game even if the beginning of their game is not optimal. No one is perfect, so create gameplay mechanisms to compensate for that.

Income Income is where you gain an allotment of resources, either money, meeples, cubes, tokens, etc. This can either happen by performing an action—­such as placing a worker onto a space or during a specific phase during the game. For example, in Troyes (2010), you receive 10 coins at the beginning of a new turn, while a player of The Isle of Cats (2019) begins each round with 20 fish! Others offer players a choice of income. In Western Legends (2018), every player starts their turn by choosing to draw either $20, or two poker cards, or $10 and one poker card.

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Some income is granted only if you have achieved a goal, position, or status in the game. In Risk (1959), you get armies at the start of every turn based on what territory you control. In Rival Restaurants (2019), at the start of the “money and move” phase, every chef gets an income of 300 coins (or more if they have upgraded their restaurant). Income is a great way to start players off on equal footing or to get them to the “good parts” of gameplay faster. Designer Klaus Teuber discovered this when designing The Settlers of Catan (1995). His playtesters liked the game but complained that it was too slow at the beginning. He discovered the solution was to “start the game on turn 3” by giving them resources they could place and play right away.

Negotiation Games with negotiation encourage players to make deals and alliances with each other. Sometimes negotiation can take the form of a blatant offer—­which can be accepted or declined. Negotiating might be an outright bribe to another player, which might be a way to prevent a more powerful opponent from attacking you or taking an action you don’t want them to. You might even try to bribe another player to convince them to team up with you or another player! If your design utilizes negotiation, have the rules allow for time for the players to negotiate. In Werewolf (1986), players get three minutes to debate about which players might be the traitorous werewolf. Of course, just like with trading, you need to provide the player with valuable resources that they can negotiate with. Follow the same rules as mentioned earlier to help stimulate negotiation in your games.

Placement Another popular action found in Euro-­games is placement. This is where a player has a choice of components and places them on a board or in relationship to another component to gain a benefit. Three different mechanisms using placement are dice placement, tile placement, and worker placement.

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Dice Placement In a dice placement game, the dice are rolled first14 and then are placed onto the board or player mat using their value or color to score points, bid for resources or points, or control a territory. They often have some prerequisites for placement. For example, in Sagrada (2017), players can choose to place a die by number or color provided they aren’t in conflict with the rules of placement (i.e., you can’t have two dice with the same number adjacent to each other). In Achaia (2015), the value on dice is used to represent the strength of a warrior unit. A 6 value on a die represents 6 strength, making it more powerful than a die with a value of 4. The player with the most strength gains control of the space. In Dice Hospital (2018), low scores on the dice indicate the low health of a patient. The closer a patient gets to 1, the closer they are to dying! These games often have ways for the player to mitigate the results of the dice—­such as an ability or item that can be purchased by the player. Please see Chapter 5 for more information on dice mitigation.

  More input randomness!

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Tile Placement Tile placement games require you to place a tile on your turn (usually a square cardboard tile) to trigger actions, score points, or complete a map or some other geography. Tiles can be positioned based on color, visual information (such as an image of a road on the tile), or even trying to complete a specific shape or pattern. Carcassonne (2000) is one of the most famous tile-­laying games. In it, players place square tiles to create a board. Roads, castles, and pastures are connected on which meeples are placed and scored. Kingdomino (2016) has similar play, but in this game the tiles are domino-­ shaped, making placement more challenging. Qwirkle (2006) requires players to connect tiles to score based on a sequence of color or patterns. In Castles of Mad King Ludwig (2014), you build a castle out of random room tiles. Rewards and penalties are given if specific rooms are adjacent to each other—­such as the music room placed next to a bedroom. Turn off that chamber music! Tile placement is also commonly found in the 18xx family of games. Starting with designer Francis Tresham’s 1829 (1974), this subgenre is about building train tracks and manipulating the stock market to earn dividends. The tiles used in 18xx games are hexagonal—­which allows for more directions for route connections to occur.

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Worker Placement In a worker placement game, a set of actions is available to all players, usually defined by spaces on the board. In turn, you place a component onto a space indicating that you want to take that action. However, often there are a limited number of available spaces, resulting in another player being “blocked” from using that space. Once all the components have been placed, actions are resolved, and you gain the resources, benefits, etc., indicated by the action space. Sometimes, a space might have a requirement or cost for you to place your worker there. It can be the color of the meeple or a cost in coins or resources. Some spaces might accommodate many meeples. This is often a space that generates “common” resource—­such as a single coin or food resource. Other times the number of resources available might be randomly generated using dice, as seen in Stone Age (2008). In some

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games, there might be a queue for the workers. Depending on the order in which workers are “in line,” you might come away with a low number of (or even no) resources. Some worker placement games allow workers to remain on a space over subsequent turns to continually generate a resource or benefit. Another player can “bump” your worker from that space and place their own worker there. Either your worker is returned to you for reuse or you might suffer a temporary penalty for being bumped. In Raiders of the North Sea (2015), you may choose to replace a previously placed worker (placed by anyone) with one of your own. The worker is returned to its owner, who can then use it again on their turn. The turn ends once all players have placed their workers. The benefit of this happening is that you might get more actions on your turn, giving you more opportunities on that turn. In all these types of games, you cannot keep replacing workers that have been placed that turn (preventing an “infinite replacement loop” exploit). In the game Dwellings of Eldervale (2020), if a worker is removed from play (usually during combat), they go to an “underworld” location where they gain an additional benefit. This removes some of the sting of having that piece removed from play. Dwellings of Eldervale also have workers with abilities different than the “common” workers. The wizard can be placed anywhere (doesn’t need to be adjacent to an already placed worker), while the knight and the dragon grant two or three dice during combat, respectively. These are represented by differently shaped and slightly larger meeples that help you tell the difference between them.

Follow Action A follow action is a great mechanism because it not only acts as a balancing mechanism but also keeps players engaged when it isn’t their turn. A follow action happens this way: I place a worker at a space to gain its benefit, say five coins. You may then take follow action by placing a worker there too, but the reward is often reduced from the original action, so in this case you might get two coins. (Hey, it’s better than nothing!) In other games, a follow action costs resources instead of a worker, so your participation is limited by whatever funds you might have. You can find follow actions in Euro-­games Puerto Rico (2002), Villages of Valeria (2017), Tiny Towns (2019), and Fort (2020).

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Seeking Information Social deduction and the traitor mechanisms were previously discussed, but there are other ways to seek information in games. Some games allow players an action to see a card, such as in the deduction game Rear Window (2022). In The Mind (2018), a player can choose to discard a card, allowing the number of that card to become public information. A card might grant you the ability to look at another player’s hand of cards or look at the top card or cards of a deck to see what’s coming and take steps to avoid or gain it. The results of getting this information can help inform voting or what actions to take. When designing a game with this mechanism, think about how this knowledge will help the player. Remember that you will lose the element of surprise if you allow this to happen too often. It’s better that this is used as a “sometimes” mechanism.

Set Collection Players are awarded points for collecting sets of things—­most often cards, but it can be other components or even actions or locations on a map. Points might increase the more of each thing you have. Often, these points are awarded at the end of the game, giving players incentive to collect during the game. Set collection is one of the older mechanisms found in gaming—­showing up in older games like Gin Rummy (1909) and Monopoly (1935).

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It’s quite popular in modern games as well. In Ticket to Ride (2004), you collect sets of cards to lay down trains and complete routes. In Azul (2017) you collect matching tiles to earn points. We’ve already talked about the escalating points “dumpling scoring mechanism”15 from Sushi Go (2013), which is also found in other games including Bohnanza (1997), Tokaido (2012), Valley of the Kings (2014), Cascadia (2021), and more. When designing set collection games, keep in mind that the individual set components can be just about anything, as long as there are common characteristics between the set items. “Collect green” can mean the color of the cards or the items shown on the cards such as trees, dollar bills, or green slime monsters. This type of set collection can be done with any type of components if they share common characteristics: cards, tokens, or dice can have the same shape, color, text, or pattern to compose a set. You can also collect sets with no commonalities. The game of SET (1988) is a great example of all the variety that can be done with this. Often with set collection, players can either “turn in” their collection on their turn for points or collect sets that are scored at the end of the game. The other type of set collection is collecting a group of thematic components that when the set is assembled, the player receives some sort of permanent bonus—­such as if a medieval knight were to collect a helmet, breastplate, and shield—­completing a set of armor and receiving a defensive bonus during the remainder of the game. Or sets can be collected to form an engine that generates resources for the player. See the “Engine-­Builder” section presented earlier for more details.

Trading/Deal-­Making Trading and deal-­making require players to trade resources with each other. Trading can happen on a player’s turn, like in Bohnanza (1997); it can happen on a designated trading round as in Traders of Genoa (2001); or it can happen at any time during the game as in Pit (1904)—­creating a chaotic flurry as bidding. However, it can be challenging to get players to trade. Sometimes players are reluctant to trade. You must encourage them from the start of the game. You need to encourage players using the rules of the game by creating a mandatory trading round or have a dedicated trading round to get them used to trading. The secret to getting players to trade is to make sure that they have a surplus of resources that are not very

  Known to math nerds as a “Triangular numbers.”

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useful or even useless to them but are useful to other players. My personal theory on getting players to trade is this: 1. If a player has only one of something (resource, coin, etc.), they won’t trade it because they think that they might need it, that it will have value later in the game, even if it doesn’t have value for them now. 2. If a player has two of something, they still might not be tempted to use it because they believe that even if they spend one thing (resource, coin) now, they might still need the other one later. 3. But if a player has three or more of a resource, then they will be more apt to trade it, especially if they realize that another player has a resource that they want.

Rondels A rondel is a wheel-­shaped board on which you move a pawn in a certain direction—­usually clockwise. The board is divided up into several actions—­like slices of a pie—­and on each pie slice is an action. When your pawn lands on that slice, you perform the action. In games with rondels, the player usually has a limited number of spaces the pawn can move each turn—­for example, you can move up to three spaces. In some games, pawns cannot occupy the same space on the rondel and are “bumped” to the next space. This can thwart your plans, and you must wait to travel all the way around the rondel until you can use this space. It is common for players to not be able to perform the same action twice in a row in a rondel game.

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Good games to play that utilize a rondel include Vikings (2007), Heaven & Ale (2017), and the games of German game designer Mac Gerdts including Antike (2005), Imperial (2006), Navegador (2010), and Concordia (2013).

Victory Track A victory track is a section of a board or a sideboard on which the player’s points are tracked during the game. A victory track is a great way for you to visualize who is winning during the game; it also encourages other players to advance along the track, giving a game the feeling of a race. In some games, there are bonuses given to players for reaching a space on the victory track first, while other games give lagging players a catch-­up bonus to help them keep up with the pack of players.

Gaming Is for Everyone There is one more trait that has emerged from Euro-­gaming, and that is inclusiveness. The benefit is that the more players feel welcome to your gaming table, the more players will want to play. Many designers have realized the importance of inclusiveness—­whether it is addressing a disability or rethinking the presentation of a game’s themes and components. These are three ways that game designers can be more considerate and inclusive with our designs: ■■ ■■ ■■

Color blind accessibility Language dependency Character diversity and portrayal

Color Blind Accessibility Not all players perceive colors the same way, resulting in difficulty perceiving components and information during play. To address this, I suggest the following for your game’s graphic design: ■■

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Be aware of the types of color blindness. Red and green are the classic combinations, but there are others as well. I use an app called CVSimulator to perceive colors the way those with color blindness do and steer away from using colors that are too close to each other. In addition to colors, patterns, icons, textures, and words can help players distinguish between cards. In 2017, Hasbro did just this when it released a color-­blind-­friendly version of its card game UNO.

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Language Dependency If you want to sell your game in another country or if your game becomes successful, it may be translated into other languages. But translating games requires being able to speak (or at least write) in that language. Rather than relying on Google Translate, consider hiring a translator to do the work for you. It’s a worthwhile investment especially since a translator can communicate your game’s rules and theme better—­or, even better, strive to keep the text in your design to a minimum. Games with less words tend to get translated more often because only the rule book requires translation.

Character Diversity and Portrayal For decades, board games have been primarily created by male European and American designers. As a result, most characters in board games were represented as male Caucasian characters. There were some exceptions, but more than often that was the case. Modern designers recognize this and have been striving to make changes throughout the industry. This means having characters in your games that are different races, gender, ages, and even sexual orientation (when appropriate). Representing characters of only one race or gender, especially if your game takes place in modern or futuristic times, just doesn’t make much sense. Players like to see themselves represented in games, and it sends an especially important message to your players that by showing people of all types are in your game, then all are welcome to play your game! Board gaming thrives when all can play; don’t make your game an exception.

Let’s Design a Euro-­Game Now that we know the mechanisms used in a Euro-­game, let’s think about how to design a game. Many Euro-­games are named after geographical locations, so we should do the same. Instead of naming the game after a location in Europe, let’s use a location in America that inspired me. Riverside, Illinois, was the first planned community created in the United States. Created in 1869 by landscape designer Frederick Law Olmstead, Riverside is a quaint village designed to exist in harmony with its landscape.16 Our Euro-­game Riverside is a worker placement game where you will be building homes for points.

 You can learn more about historic Riverside here chicagodetours.com/frederick-­law-­olmsted-­ riverside

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Components of Riverside Let’s start by gathering and creating our components. Nothing says “Euro-­game” to me like cubes and meeples, so let’s grab several of those! If you don’t want to take parts from an existing game, you can buy them online at sites such as Amazon.com, The Game Crafter, Print and Play, or Mercadi. Just look for 8mm wooden or plastic board game cubes and 16 mm wooden or plastic meeples.

We’re going to need 30 cubes—­six cubes in five different colors—­and 24 meeples (or pawns), again, six for each player in four different colors. We’ll also need a first player token. This can be anything from a cardboard token to a toy or miniature. It should be something that can be easily passed around from player to player during the game. Next, let’s make a board. First, get a black pen, and sheet of 8″×11″ paper (or A1, 59.4×84.1 cm) and draw nine squares on it like this:

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Within those squares, we are going to designate the actions the player can take, like Figure 8.1. If it helps to color code the squares, then do so. You’ll need colored markers of five different colors (red, blue, yellow, green, and brown). Sadly, this book is printed in black and white. Next, to create a deck of cards, you will need 26 blank cards for the game. Refer to Chapter 5 on how to make (or buy) blank cards. On each card you are going to draw the following numbers and images: ■■

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Six cards with the number 1 on them and two squares each. Color each square with one of the five colors (i.e., red, blue, yellow, green, and brown). Do not repeat the colors. Five cards with the number 2 on them with two squares each. Color each square with one of the five colors. Do not repeat the colors. Five cards with the number 3 on them with three squares each. Color each square with one of the five colors. Do not repeat the colors. Five cards with the number 4 on them with four squares each. Color each square with one of the five colors. Do not repeat the colors. Five cards with the number 5 on them with six squares each. Color each square with one of the five colors. Do not repeat the colors.

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Figure 8.1  The Riverside board with text

Figure 8.2 shows examples of the cards.

Figure 8.2  Sample cards

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Step 1: Create the Rules Riverside is designed to be a simple worker placement game—­one that teaches a player the basics of the mechanism. The following is the first draft of the basic rules for the game.

Riverside Rules for Two to Four Players Setup 1. Place the board in the center of the table. 2. Place all the cubes within reach of all players. 3. Each player picks a color. Give each player three meeples of their designated color. Place the rest within reach of all players. 4. Shuffle the cards and create a market of cards equal to the number of players plus one. 5. The player who is reading these rules takes the first player token. Gameplay 1. The first player places a worker meeple onto the board to collect a resource or perform the action. Workers are placed from left to right. If there are no spaces left to place a meeple, then you cannot place it there. When a worker is placed, collect the resource, or perform the action. 2. Going clockwise, players take turns until they have placed all their workers on the board. 3. Once all the workers have been placed, they are returned to their owners. 4. The first player who builds 12 points worth of buildings wins.

Step 2: Playtest the Game Now that we have the basic rules, let’s play! Gather some friends to play! Don’t forget to try the game with different player counts. When I played with two players: _________________________________________ When I played with three players: _________________________________________ When I played with four players: _________________________________________ What were your playtester’s reaction to the game? Did they find it too confusing or too easy to play? How long did it take to play? Like I’ve said before, getting an accurate playtime of the game is important information about your game.

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Step 3: Change the Rules Riverside is a fine game, but what can we do to make it even more interesting? My biggest issue with the design right now is that it doesn’t feel like we’re building a city. Perhaps if there were different types of structures, then it would give the game a little more variety. Let’s go ahead and give each of the building cards names. The 1-­point cards are “houses,” the 2-­point cards are “parking lots,” the 3-­point cards are “parks,” the 4-­point cards are “stores,” and the 5-­point cards can be unique structures like “theater” or “post office” or “town hall.” Now let’s change some rules.

Riverside Rules for Two to Four Players Setup Same as before. Gameplay 1. The first player places a worker meeple onto the board to collect a resource or perform the action. Workers are placed from left to right. If there are no spaces left to place a meeple, then you cannot place it there. When a worker is placed, collect the resource, or perform the action. 2. Going clockwise, players take turns until they have placed all their workers on the board. 3. Once all the workers have been placed, they are returned to their owners. 4. You must build buildings next to each other by lining up the cards as you build them. However, you cannot build certain buildings next to each other: 5. You cannot build a park next to a parking lot. 6. You cannot build a store next to a house. 7. You cannot build two unique structures next to each other. 8. The first player who builds 12 points worth of buildings wins. Following these new rules, our town might look something like Figure 8.3.

Figure 8.3  A new town in Riverside

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Did that make the game better or worse? Was the game more challenging or more frustrating? Don’t forget to playtest these new rules! When I played with two players: ___________________________________________ When I played with three players: __________________________________________ When I played with four players: ___________________________________________ See if you can come up with a rule change of your own. Go ahead and write it down and playtest it! The rule I changed is: _____________________________________________________

Step 4: Change a Number Let’s change something about the game. It could be the number of worker meeples the players start with. (Two instead of three? Four instead of two?) It could be the number of spots on the board where you place meeples. What if there were only two spaces under the “build 1 building” space? What if all of the resource spaces had two worker spaces instead of some of them having three? Remember, when you change a number, you change the experience. Play around with these variables. These are the “knobs” we can turn to adjust the design. Don’t be afraid to turn things all the way up or down to see what happens and how your game breaks as a result! Don’t forget to playtest these changes! The number I changed was: ______________________________________________ What happened when I changed it was: ________________________________________________________________________

Step 5: Change the Objective If I’m adding or changing an objective, I like it to still work thematically with the game I’m making. In this case, we’re still building a town, so maybe the goal is to build a 3×3 grid of buildings—­still using the existing placement rules. The player with the most points after doing this, wins the game. Let’s rewrite the rules to reflect this change.

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Riverside Rules for Two to Four Players Setup Same as before. Gameplay 1. The first player places a worker meeple onto the board to collect a resource or perform the action. Workers are placed from left to right. If there are no spaces left to place a meeple, then you cannot place it there. When a worker is placed, collect the resource, or perform the action. 2. Going clockwise, players take turns until they have placed all their workers on the board. 3. Once all the workers have been placed, they are returned to their owners. 4. You must build buildings in a 3×3 grid, placing the cards within that grid as you build them. However, you cannot build certain buildings next to each other: ■■ You cannot build a park next to a parking lot. ■■ You cannot build a store next to a house. ■■ You cannot build two unique structures next to each other. 5. The game ends when one player’s grid has been filled. 6. The player with the most points in buildings wins. Figure 8.4 shows what that 3×3 grid might look like. What happened when I playtested this new objective: ________________________________________________________________________ My new objective is: ________________________________________________________________________

Step 6: Add a Mechanism Here’s where things get interesting. Let’s change a mechanism. A large list of them to choose from was presented earlier. I’ll wait while you go back and review them. When adding a mechanism, you want to make sure it is something that complements your existing mechanisms. Depending on what you pick, you might need to add components. That’s fine if the game is light on components like Riverside is, but you want to avoid what’s known in the video game industry as feature creep.

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Figure 8.4  A 3×3 grid example

Feature creep is when you keep adding mechanisms and components to your game. It is a common problem for new game designers to get bored with their designs or find them too easy to play (after several playtests) and as a result keep adding elements to the game to compensate. There are a few problems with this. First, game designs are often a delicate balance of elements, and piling things onto your design might disrupt what is good about it in the first place. Second, adding rules and components and mechanisms to a game adds to its complication—­both in the rules and testing the game. These complications can add confusion for your players and length to the playtime. Third, the more components you add to the game, the higher the cost of production will eventually be. We’ll talk more about this aspect of game design in Chapter 10. Let’s not worry about all of that right now. We are experimenting, so don’t let reality stand in our way! If I were going to add a new mechanism, I would add a trading mechanism where players can trade either resources or building cards with each other. However, we might need to increase

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the number of resource tokens or cards to accommodate this. What about you? What mechanism would you add? My new mechanism is: ________________________________________________________________________ What happened when I playtested this new mechanism: ________________________________________________________________________

Step 7: Change the Theme Finally, let’s change the theme. We can do this with a light touch, such as we are building structures on Mars. Our houses become biodomes, parks become oxygen scrubbers, parking lots are space ports, stores are trading posts, and unique buildings could be radar dishes, hydroponic labs, and alien zoos! By just changing the names and maybe some visuals, we have a slightly different game. Sometimes changing the theme can change the entire game and might even necessitate changes to objectives, components, and mechanisms! A big change like this might require us to go back and redesign the game! You must be careful with retheming, especially if your gameplay mechanisms are tightly tied to the theme! I once had a publisher interested in a game design of mine, but he wanted to change the theme. He tried for a year to come up with a different theme, but every time we playtested the game with each new theme, it just didn’t feel the same. He eventually gave up and returned the game to me unpublished. Don’t let that discourage you from retheming Riverside. Go ahead and come up with an interesting new theme. You could take inspiration from other Euro-­games and make it about building a castle or a medieval town or have the game take place in ancient Egypt (of course, you would want to build your cards in the shape of a pyramid!). Go ahead and write your new theme down here. My new theme is: ________________________________________________________________________

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Write the rules to your rethemed game here:

Congratulations! Or should I say Herzliche Glückwünsche! You’ve just designed your very own original Euro-­game!

Some Euro-­Games to Play There are many great Euro-­games still to play. Here’s a list of some of my favorites that I think you should try:

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Carcassone is a tile-­laying game that popularized the term meeple. There are dozens of expansions and variations including The Ark of the Covenant (2003), Mists over Carcassone (2022), Carcassone Gold Rush (2014), and Carcassone: Star Wars (2015). Ticket to Ride designed by Alan Moon has players completing train tracks to connect cities. Like Carcassone, it has lots of great expansions and a variety of maps to play. Stone Age is another great gateway game that uses the worker placement mechanic. It’s easy to learn and quick to play and very thematic for a Euro-­game. Pandemic is a cooperative Euro-­game where players race against the clock to prevent the global outbreak of disease. The game can get very tense! Expect not to win! 7 Wonders has players drafting decks as they build the wonders of the ancient world. It’s a little more complex than the previous games, but it’s a good game to introduce the concepts of resources, engine-­building, and card drafting. Wingspan is another good engine game with some lovely production values (art and components). If you like birdies, then you might like this! Lord of the Rings by Euro-­game designer powerhouse Reiner Knizia (who has more than 700 published games to his credit!) doesn’t always design thematic games, but this one is a doozy. It captures the race to Mt. Doom and the pursuit of Sauron so well that it hardly feels like a Euro-­game, and yet it almost single-­handedly introduced cooperative gameplay to the industry. A classic. T’Zolkin the Mayan Calendar might come off as gimmicky—­a worker placement game that plays on a series of rotating gears that double as rondels—­but not only is it a crunchy game but a beautiful one. I liken Karuba to Indiana Jones meets Bingo. It’s a fascinating game in which all players are given the exact same resources, but what you do with them is what matters. Flamecraft is a charming worker placement engine-­builder designed by my pal Manny Vega. From its charming artwork (by Sandara Tang) to its “You help me, I’ll help you” gameplay to its adorable components (buttered toast meeples! So cute!), this game is a delight. The Quacks of Quedlinburg is a fantastic bag-­builder where you push your luck to draw potion components without busting. It’s fast to learn and addictive to play. If you get the opportunity, upgrade the tokens with the resin ones sold at BoardGameGeek .com. You’ll never look back!

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Important Chapter 8 Concepts and Takeaways ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Euro-­games concentrate on mechanisms over theme. Euro-­games concentrate on building and growth over destruction and conflict. Euro-­games minimize “luck” whenever possible. Strive to be accurate with your game’s playtime. Games are for everyone—­make sure your own game is inclusive and accessible. Remember to check your game for accessibility issues such as color blindness. Use rules and balancing mechanisms to reduce or remove first-­player advantages. If your game starts too slowly, consider starting it on “turn 3” instead. Be aware of the crunchiness and weightiness of your game. Beware of feature creep! No one is perfect; create gameplay mechanisms to compensate for that.

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Chapter 

L e t ’s Ma ke a T he m at ic S trate g y Game LET’S TALK ABOUT Eurogaming’s older cousin—­the genre known as thematic games also known as American-­Style games but most commonly known as Ameritrash. I know that the term Ameritrash sounds insulting, but only if you don’t know it’s fascinating history. Despite its title, Ameritrash descends from the convergence of no less than three different genres of tabletop gaming, two of them European in origin: the English parlor game, the German Kriegspiel or war game, and the American role-­playing game.

A History of Thematic Games We’ve seen that before the 1800s, most board games were thin on theme. Senet, Chess, and Hounds and Jackals have what is called representative theming, where traces of theming are present, but it doesn’t permeate the entire game. The rest of classic board games like Backgammon and Nine Man’s Morris fall squarely into the abstract game category. Things changed in 1800 when George Fox published The Mansion of Happiness: An Instructive Moral and Entertaining Amusement. Using a “track-­style” board layout like Snakes and Ladders (and what you created earlier in this book!), The Mansion of Happiness structured its gameplay around a narrative—­in this case, a 66-­space spiral track depicting virtues and vices—­with the player’s goal being to reach heaven at the track’s end. The game was later published by American game makers Parker Brothers in 1894, where it became a popular game played in American homes. Milton Bradley’s version of the game, The Checkered Game of Life, is later reinvented as the Game of Life (1960).

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Games like The Mansion of Happiness and The Checkered Game of Life created the foundations for American board gaming: a track-­style board, pawns representing players, and a spinner or dice to randomly determine movement through a thinly themed journey-­style narrative. This model served as the foundation for the American board game until about the 1960s. Board games of this type were published with admittedly pasted-­on themes such as Uncle Wiggly, Candy Land, Buck Rogers, Huckleberry Hound, James Bond, and Batman. Even to this day, this style of roll-­and-­move game is what most Americans think of when they are asked to describe a board game. Meanwhile, over in Prussia, Lieutenant Georg von Reisswitz created his version of the German war game KriegSpiel. Invented in 1780 by German mathematician Johann Hellwig, KriegSpiel was an attempt to simulate warfare on the tabletop in a more detailed manner than Chess provided. In his excellent book It’s All a Game,1 author Tristen Donovan explains how von Reisswitz creates a three-­dimensional play environment—­a sandbox if you will—­ that better simulates the terrain of a battlefield.

  It’s All a Game: The history of board games from Monopoly to Settlers of Catan (Tristen Donovan, Thomas Dunne Books, 2017)

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The sons of Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III heard of the game and invited von Reisswitz to demonstrate his creation. Von Reisswitz upgraded his game into a sturdier version featuring highly detailed and painted porcelain miniatures and modular plaster terrain pieces that could be reassembled in a variety of ways to represent any battlefield. The game became the favorite pastime of the king and his sons and inspired them to utilize maneuvers first developed on the game board in real battles. The young princes continued to improve upon the game, adding dice to determine artillery effects and replacing the tiles with actual military maps. By the fall of 1824, KreigSpiel had become part of Prussian military training, and clubs dedicated to the game existed all across the kingdom. KriegSpiel proved to be a successful tool in Prussia’s battles against France, and it was soon adopted as a military training and a planning tool by other nations. The commanders of World War I and II rely on tabletop simulations to plan their battle strategies. Meanwhile, a Lighter Version of Kreigspiel was being played in Victorian parlors—­complete with miniature towns and cork shooting pop-­gun cannons. Victorian authors Robert Lewis Stevenson and H.G. Wells enjoyed playing this game. Wells penned the first war gaming rulebook entitled Little Wars: A Game for Boys from Twelve Years of Age to One Hundred and Fifty and for That More Intelligent Sort of Girl Who Likes Boys’ Games and Books. Despite these codified rules, the miniature game outlined in Little Wars remained a niche hobby.

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In 1957, French film director Albert Lamorisse invented a faster, lighter version of KriegSpiel that he called La Conquête du Monde or The Conquest of the World, which Parker Brothers bought and retitled Risk (1959). Traditional war gaming picks up again in the 1950s, thanks to Jack Scruby and his War Game Digest, a quarterly publication aimed at war gamers. The community of war gamers grew around the digest including manufacturers of miniatures. In 1962, publisher Avalon Hill started its own war gaming periodical called The General and attracted the interests of a young Wisconsin war gamer and writer, Gary Gygax, who created gameplay scenarios and several articles for the magazine. Traditionally, KreigSpiel focused on the Napoleonic wars between France and Europe, but war gamers of the 1950s and 1960s started to introduce other conflicts onto the tabletop such as the American Revolution, the American Civil War, trench warfare of WWI, and the campaigns of WW2. Despite all this variety, Gygax and his fellow war gaming friends burned out on these historical battles and turned their attention to the European medieval period of knights and castles.

The Adventure Is Yours Gygax, a long-­time fan of science fiction and fantasy, concluded that if there were knights on the battlefield, why not magic-­using wizards like Merlin? Why stop there? How about adding a dragon or giant like those found in medieval fairy tales? Gygax and Jeff Perrin teamed up to create the fantasy gaming system Chainmail (1971). Meanwhile, Gygax’s war gaming friend David Arneson concocted a scenario for his own medieval-­themed war gaming group—­a siege against a castle. The party entered the castle through the dungeon but ended up having so much fun battling the guards and exploring the twisting hallways that they didn’t want to leave! The real breakthrough came when Gygax and Arneson realized that their players especially loved the story-­telling aspects of their games where they became the heroes of their own story. Their players demanded that they play the adventures several times a week. The two designers transformed Chainmail into a new set of rules that focused even more on storytelling and character-­building. It ended up being equal parts KreigSpiel and the fiction of Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien, and H.P. Lovecraft. They called it Dungeons and Dragons (1974).

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Dungeons and Dragons, or D&D, hit the gaming world like a bomb. Gygax created a company, Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), to sell the hit game. As D&D started to heat up the tabletop gaming world, Dave Meggary, one of Arneson’s players, noticed that Arneson was doing all the work as the dungeon master while the rest of the players were having all the fun. He designed a streamlined board game version of the Dungeons and Dragons experience called Dungeon! (1975). Dungeon! was the first of a new breed of board game; it bears resemblance to the roll-­and-­ move games of old but incorporates the combat and strategy of KriegSpiel and the storytelling and character advancement of D&D. It’s also the world’s first dungeon crawl game!

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Dungeon crawlers is a subgenre in which a party of (usually) fantasy heroes explore an underground complex—­often a network of caves or the hallways of a castle dungeon—­in search of treasure. More often, they encounter horrible monsters, deadly traps, and head-­ scratching puzzles that bar their way. This subgenre has become incredibly popular over the years. Notable dungeon crawl games include DungeonQuest (1985), HeroQuest (1989), Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2005), Arcadia Quest (2014), and Massive Darkness (2017). There are non-­fantasy-­themed dungeon crawlers too including DOOM: The board game (2004), Level 7: Omega Protocol (2013), Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients (2014), and Star Wars: Imperial Assault (2014). My favorite dungeon crawler is: _______________________________________

Meanwhile Over in England Jon Peake, Ian Livingstone, and Steve Jackson ran a board game store called Games Workshop when they discovered D&D and became obsessed. They started a mail-­order service to import TSR’s games and publish their own board game version of D&D called Talisman (1983), a dice-­rolling, track-­moving fantasy board game with a snarkier edge, distinct artwork, and wicked take-­that gameplay. Many consider Talisman to be the first modern Ameritrash game.  .  .despite it being created in England! Games Workshop has since published some of the most Ameritrashiest games: DungeonQuest (1985),2 Blood Bowl (1986), Chainsaw Warrior (1987), Space Hulk (1989), and the Warhammer series. Thanks to the success of TSR and Games Workshop, the tabletop market expanded, and soon game stores were popping up across the United States and the United Kingdom. American board game publisher Milton Bradley bought the rights to several previously published independent games and republished them in ultra-­deluxe editions called the Gamemaster series. The highly thematic strategy games in the Gamemaster series were all bangers: Axis and Allies (1981), Broadsides and Boarding Parties (1982), Conquest of the Empire (1984), Shogun (1986), and Fortress America (1986). Each game was a lavish production that included scores of plastic miniatures, illustrated maps, and plastic scenery models, all packed in gigantic “coffin”3 boxes.

  DungeonQuest was an English-­language reprint of the Swedish game Drakborgen (1985).   Gamers would joke that the boxes were so big that they could be used as a coffin.

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The Gamemaster series titles are considered prime Ameritrash—­especially Fortress America, a strategy game with a theme clearly inspired by the plot of the 1984 action movie Red Dawn.

The Secret Origin of Ameritrash Ameritrash games filled the mass-­market shelves in the late 80s through the early 2000s. Dark Tower (1981), Fireball Island (1986), Thunder Road (1986), HeroQuest (1989), and The Omega Virus (1992) found their way into the homes and hearts of young gamers. These gamers soon found their way onto the Internet, which had become the place to discover, discuss, and debate board games. In an early Internet thread entitled “Dog Eat Dog” posted on January 8, 2000, on Google’s gaming forums,4 poster Kaspian first mentioned the term Ameritrash. In the same thread, Robert Hutnik writes, “I think [this] is a reason why I dislike most games produced in America. Why is it, [as] a rule, they are bound to produce games run amok with randomness, and the old Parcheesi method of dice rolls governing movement on a track-­like structure? Come up with a novel game theme and then slap it on the same old brain-­dead game mechanics.” The term Ameritrash then turns up again in Robert Martin’s geek list on BGG: “A Tribute to Ameritrash.”5 In it, Mr. Martin makes a tongue-­in-­cheek list of the traits that make up an Ameritrash game: dice, fantasy/sci-­fi/horror/military or sports theming, excellent titles, millions of chits, insane rulebooks, chrome, plastic minis, slews of cards, franchise tie-­in, nukes, gadgets, garish artwork, guns, player elimination, conflict, and randomness. It’s worthwhile to note that these are all traits found in either the Gamemaster’s or Games Workshop’s published titles. While the term Ameritrash is used in Kaspian’s post as “American games are trash,” Mr. Martin uses it in a more tongue-­in-­cheek manner, as a play on the term Eurotrash, which

  groups.google.com/g/rec.games.board/c/1qRveuVF420   boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/16485/tribute-­ameritrash

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was a popular term in the early 90s. Eurotrash first referred to a certain style of techno-­pop music that originated in Europe but later was used to refer to the fans of that music—­rich European socialites, especially those living or working in the United States. It was never a term of endearment. To the Ameritrash fan, the title is not an insult but rather a celebration of over-­the-­top theming, the excessive “chrome” found in the game, the tons of miniatures, the gimmicky gameplay elements, and the unpredictable randomness that creates high moments of drama during the gameplay. The Ameritrash community has embraced the term in the same way that garage rockers of the 1970s embraced the insulting term punk and made it their own. Unfortunately, not all gamers view the term this way. They find it insulting or even distasteful. In 2006, on BGG’s forums, the discussion came to a head as the user boards were inflamed by a series of debates about which was better: Eurogames or Ameritrash games. Things got emotional, feelings were hurt, and members were banned. Since then, the two groups generally decided to leave the other alone to their own style of games. Others have attempted to create alternate classifications for the genre such as Amerigame, Amerithrash, dramatic game, but I like the term. I think of Ameritrash as a term of fondness, in the same way that friends will sometimes jokingly insult each other. Ameritrash captures the spirit of excitement and trashiness of the genre in the same way as “grindhouse” movies and “trashy” novels. I find that the term thematic game captures the same spirit without sounding like an insult to the game or its creators. What would you call them? I call them _____________________________________________________. No matter what they are called, the best distinguisher between Eurogames and thematic games is that Eurogames are about managing resources, whereas thematic games are about managing chance. Recently, modern board game designers have been merging the two genres. Are games such as Fearsome Floors (2003), Terra Mystica (2012), The Voyage of Marco Polo (2015), and Blood Rage (2015) considered Eurogames or thematic games? Who’s to say?

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BGG user Sphere writes, “.  .  .people are forever trying to assign games to clearly defined ­buckets. Thankfully good designers are cleverer than that and borrow from one another, and in doing so blur those lines. A sensible approach would be to stop worrying about which camp lays claim to which game and enjoy each on its own merits. . . .”

Sounds like good advice to me!

Traits of Thematic Games Let’s take a closer look at the traits that make thematic games so different than all other game genres. It stands to reason that if you want to design a thematic game, you first need a theme. I find theme to be a funny word. Not ha-­ha funny, but odd in its usage. According to the dictionary, theme is defined as “a unifying or dominant idea, motif, etc., as in a work of art.”6 Examples of theme are “good versus evil” or “greed is good” or “absolute power corrupts.” Many board games have these kinds of themes, but the term theme as it is most used by the board gaming industry and community is as a replacement for “topic” or “subject matter” as in “the theme of this game is space pirates.” I sometimes use the term story genre (as compared to game genre) when referring to theme, but since theme is the commonly used term, let’s stick with it.

  dictionary.com/browse/theme

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As you remember from earlier, themes are a shorthand to help classify games. They inspire a designer when making creative design decisions. Theme helps players remember the rules. They let players play pretend. They help a player choose which game to play or buy. The themes of thematic games are often geeky subject matter like the following: ■■

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Fantasy—­Games dealing with fantastical worlds and creatures such as found in Dungeons and Dragons or The Lord of the Rings. Science fiction—­“Hard” sci-­fi like The Expanse or Star Trek or “soft” sci-­fi like Star Wars or Warhammer 40K Horror—­Creepy, spooky, or frightening games including favorites like Zombies and Lovecraftian horror Adventure/pirates—­Games that allow you to be characters such as Indiana Jones or Jack Sparrow, or at least unlicensed versions of them Superheroes—­Games that emphasize action and combat, which makes superheroes a great subject matter for thematic games War—­A genre that might be dwindling, but in the earliest days of thematic gaming, this was the most popular theme of all with its focus on war and war-­related topics

What theme are you most interested in? ____________________________________ What theme do you dislike the most? _______________________________________ There are many, many more themes than are in this tiny little list. Some general themes like horror or science-­fiction have subgenres like slasher or cyberpunk. You can even combine themes to create a hybrid theme like sci-­fi horror!

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Intellectual Property Some board game companies pay big money (up to hundreds of thousands of dollars) to license intellectual property (IP). Many game designers want to make games based on their favorite IP. I have seen unlicensed game prototypes created by fans, but since they don’t own or have access to the IP, those games will probably never get published. But how do you design a game with an IP? There are a few ways to approach it. If you have an idea for a game that is based on an IP, you can only pitch it to a publisher who has the rights to that IP. You’ll have to do your research to find out who owns the rights to the license. This isn’t commonly found information, but you can intuit who has what rights by seeing which publishers are publishing licensed games. Some IPs are treated as multiple licenses that are sliced up like bread—­with different parts of the license going to different publishers. One publisher might hold the rights to card games using an IP, another to board games using an IP, and yet another might have the rights to make a miniatures game using the IP. The older and more established an IP is, there might be different versions of the same license! For example, DC Comic’s Batman is divided up in the following ways: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Batman from the comic books Batman the animated series Batman from the movies (each movie is usually treated as a different license) Batman ’66 (the old TV show) Batman appearing in the Super Friends cartoon LEGO Batman (which is a dual license that requires working with and paying two licensors!)

Since I don’t work with DC Comics, I’m sure there are other sublicenses that I’m not aware of. These sublicenses only allow the publisher to work with the elements from those specific licenses. For example, if you were making a Batman the Animated Series game, you probably couldn’t use a Batman villain from the comic like the Killer Moth because he never appeared on that show. Have you ever wondered why so many board games are themed to zombies and the Elder God Cthulhu? That’s because these monsters are in the public domain. That means no person or company owns the rights to these characters.

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Anyone can make a game using these public domain characters. Characters in the public domain include the Lovecraftian Elder Gods, Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood, Zorro, Sherlock Holmes, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wizard of Oz, characters from fairy tales, and the heroes, gods, and monsters found in various mythologies. However, you must be careful which version of a character to use. You can use Alice and the characters found in the Wonderland books, but you cannot use the version of the characters from the Disney animated film or live-­action movies as they are still protected by copyright. Being protected by a copyright doesn’t mean you can’t make games using those characters, but this intellectual property must be licensed from their copyright holders. For example, Ravensburger had the license to the movie ALIEN. I was contacted by their creative director and asked to submit a pitch based on the ALIEN movie license. I didn’t “own” the license, but I was asked to design something using it. Other designers had been contacted and (presumably) submitted their own pitches, but it was my design that was good enough to “win” the deal. If the IP that you are pitching isn’t held by a publisher (there are still a few out there), you can always try to get the rights yourself. To do this, you can each reach out to the license holder and ask them how much the license costs. This could be an expensive process, but it is doable. If you have thousands of dollars to spend (or hundreds of thousands depending on the

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license), there’s nothing stopping you from securing an IP on your own, but it helps greatly to have a publishing partner. The IP holder wants a guarantee that the game will come out as well as be good (in that order). Another way to gain access to an IP is to directly reach out to the IP’s creator and form a partnership. I’m working on a design with an artist friend of mine who holds the rights to his comic book creations. I’m designing the game, and he is doing the art. However, if you really must design a board game about Batman but you don’t have access to the license or have connections to the publisher that holds the rights, then I suggest you create your original superhero character instead. Or create your own Legend of Zelda. Or your own Star Wars. That’s what the designers of Tokyo Sidekick (2018), Tiny Epic Quest (2017), and Rayguns and Rocketships (2017) did! Once you do that, now you are the IP holder. Perhaps there will be a game designer who will want to make a board game about your intellectual property!

Any Theme Can Be a Game What I love about board games is that they can be about any theme, no matter how mundane, nerdy, unusual, or bizarre. Here are just a few more examples: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Romance: Marrying Mr. Darcy (2014) The fashion industry: Prêt-­à-­Porter (2010) Quilting: Patchwork (2014) Beheading royals in the French Revolution: Guillotine (1998) Standing in line: Kolejka (2015) Being a frog that eats galaxies: Cosmic Frog (2020)

I always try to reinforce the theme of my game designs using mechanisms. You can create some powerful moments in your game when you let your theme guide your design and game mechanisms. For example, one of my favorite thematic mechanisms in all of board gaming is the Haunt roll from Betrayal at the House on the Hill (2004).

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Every time a player reveals a new haunted item, there is a chance it will trigger the Haunt—­a bad event in which one of the players might be revealed as a traitor who tries to kill the other players. When the Haunt item is revealed, you roll dice. If the number of Haunt cards in play is larger than the number rolled, then the Haunt is triggered. What’s so great about the Haunt Roll is that it will eventually happen, but players don’t know when it will happen. This mechanism perfectly simulates the tension and dread when searching through a haunted house. This is a great example of the mechanism being tied to the theme. The gameplay should match the theme in a thematic game. If someone is playing a fantasy game, they would expect there to be dungeons and dragons and wizards. A player would expect to find magic swords and treasure and to level up.

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If a game doesn’t match your expectations, then you might experience Ludo narrative dissonance.7 This is the feeling you experience when a game “doesn’t feel right” or a mechanism “doesn’t make sense” because it conflicts with the theme. One way that this can happen is if the game’s theme is “too weird.” I have a theory called the triangle of weirdness8 that states this: In a game (or story or movie, etc.) you have a world, characters, and actions that the characters are doing. One of these can be “weird” (strange, unusual, unconventional) but if you have more than one, you will alienate your audience and significantly reduce your chances for success.

There’s nothing wrong with being weird, but if you want to make something more than a niche game, don’t violate the triangle of weirdness.

Stories in Games In addition to theme, thematic board games usually have stories. Stories are different than themes in that they always have a beginning, a middle, and an end—­also known as acts. You can use these different acts of the story to change the player’s focus during the game. Players might be able to perform different actions or have different priorities during each act, which helps reinforce the game’s theme. For example, the story of the board game Clue (1949) starts with a murder. Someone is guilty, and to win, you must discover who it is. The middle of the game is when you gather evidence to narrow down choices and discover the suspect. The end of the game is when you finally guess who the murderer is. Will you guess correctly? Or will you be wrong and the murderer gets away?

  “Ludo” meaning play or game and “narrative” meaning story.   There is a deeper explanation of the Triangle of Weirdness (with examples) in my book Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design (Wiley & Sons, 2010).

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Some board games have very involved stories called branching narratives. These are games that are inspired by the Choose Your Own Adventure books of the 70s and 80s. In these games, the story can change and diverge in different directions depending on the choices that you make. Examples of story games with branching narratives include Tales of the Arabian Nights (2009), Mice and Mystics (2012), SeaFall (2016), and designer Ryan Laukat’s games including Above and Below (2015), Near and Far (2017), and Sleeping Gods (2021). Board games with branching narratives often take a long time to play and are designed to be played over multiple sessions. They come with a large story book that is read during the game. Remember to organize these story books like you would a rule book—­being able to quickly find a passage or paragraph is of primary importance. There are pros and cons to designing these types of story games. If you love writing stories or lore, then this is a great way to express yourself! The appeal of these story games is that it is supposed to be different every time you play it. But that isn’t always the case. Be mindful of how many times a player reads the same content during multiple play sessions. Try to structure your story so that the player is reading some new content often. These story games can take a long time to write and even longer to playtest since you have so many different choices and there are many ways that the game can go! Just remember that a branching narrative can get fractal very fast, meaning you might end up writing many divergent paths and you will end up losing control of the overall story. A trick that I use when writing these types of stories is to bring the player’s choices back to a bottleneck that looks something like what is shown in Figure 9.1.

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Figure 9.1  Picture of fractal branching narrative

Following this structure will allow you to take control of the story again and make it go where you need it to go. Remember, this is a board game, not a role-­playing game, and unless you have a player acting as a gamemaster, the game needs to control the narrative! Another type of storytelling in games is a campaign. This is where the story is loosely connected by encounters and events. Just like branching narrative games, campaigns are meant to be played over many sessions. An advantage of a campaign game is that they provide natural break points for the players. Make sure you provide an easy way to recap the story, so if a long period of time lapses between sessions, you won’t forget what’s going on!

Players Have Wishes There’s another great thing that stories in games provide—­the opportunity to be someone else for a short period of time. Board games give players a chance to be something they aren’t in the real world, such as another person who lives a totally different life or even a different gender or species! A game should make a player feel something that they aren’t normally experiencing in the real world, which is why I believe that a game should make a player feel either powerful, rich, or smart—­preferably all three! Most game players aren’t these things in real life, but thanks to board games, they can be, if only for a short while! Gloomhaven (2017), Massive Darkness (2017), and Dwellings of Eldervale (2020) can make you feel more powerful as you gain new skills, strength, or weapons to vanquish more difficult enemies over the course of the game. I enjoy playing games like Chinatown (1999), Food Chain Magnate (2015), and The Gallerist (2015) because they create tension between earning more money (which you need to win) and having to spend it (to buy things that will help you win). Plus, who doesn’t like ending the game with a big pile of money?

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Knowledge games such as Trivial Pursuit: Genus Edition (1981) and Cranium (1998) aren’t the only way to make you feel smart. If you construct a productive resource generating engine or execute a clever play that results in a chain of combos or pull off a tactic despite the odds being against you, that makes the player feel smart. Who doesn’t like to feel smart?

Adding Drama and Conflict Another trait of thematic games is conflict. Conflict is the struggle that happens when opposing or incompatible needs, wishes, or internal or external demands clash. It can be a mental struggle—­such as having to make a difficult decision or a physical struggle—­such as two armies battling against each other. Conflict can take place during a competition where you are trying to outperform another player, or it can be a battle of wits where you are trying to out-­think or out-­guess another player.

My friend and game designer Kathleen Mercury outlines9 three types of conflict. ■■ ■■ ■■

You want something, and someone else wants it. You want to do something, and someone else gets in the way. Someone else has something, and you want it.

  kathleenmercury.com/conflict-­in-­game-­design.html

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Conflict occurs at two different scales—­large scale and small scale. Large-­scale conflict often is the object or goal of winning the game. In Risk (1959), the large-­scale conflict is to control the world. Small-­scale conflict happens when you are trying to gain control of a country. There are many small-­scale conflicts over the course of a game of Risk, but fewer large-­ scale ones. Because they are so important to the game (that’s how you win!), large-­scale conflicts feel more important when they happen. That’s because conflict creates drama. Drama is a powerful tool in a game designer’s toolkit. Drama keeps players engaged; it generates emotions—­fear, greed, jealousy, as well as hope, surprise, and excitement—­that motivates the players to act or make decisions. Drama creates tension, which is important to maintaining the player’s interest during the game. Designer Alan R. Moon describes the tension found in his game Ticket to Ride (2004) this way: “The tension comes from being forced to balance greed—­adding more cards to your hand, and fear—­losing a critical route to a competitor.” The following are a few dramatic situations that help create tension: ■■

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A close race: When all the player’s final status or score are very close, players want to be able to win the game even if they have fallen behind. You don’t want the gap between the winner and the other players to be too large. If your player’s final scores are 21, 12, and 3, then you might want to reexamine your design. If the final scores are 21, 20, and 19, then you are doing great! You can use handicapping, first-­player disadvantages, and catch-­up mechanisms to help narrow the gap. A close call: This can be when the players narrowly escape a bad situation or loss. Often this takes the place of a character ability, a rules exception, a power on a card, or gaining a benefit like a re-­roll or extra action. If your game is about danger, you want your player to feel like they are going to be in danger, but they don’t have to be in danger all the time. The feeling is much more important than the reality. The illusion of a “no-­win” situation: Even better is when the players feel like they are doomed but still manage to succeed through their own cleverness or even luck of the draw or roll. Stacking the odds against the players is one way to create this feeling of doom, but the designer should provide players with a way to “cheat.” Think of Captain Kirk and the Kobayashi Maru,10 which was supposed to be an unwinnable situation, but he still found a way to beat it. Because he cheated. But we don’t feel bad that he cheated, because we like the hero and want him to win, no matter what.

In the game Cosmic Encounter (1977), there are many ways the player can “cheat” to get an advantage or win an encounter. One way to achieve this is to temporarily upset the balance of the game. Many game designers are obsessed with balance, but in a thematic game,

  First seen in the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).

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sometimes it’s good to throw that out the window for the sake of drama. As Peter Olotka, one of Cosmic Encounter’s designers says, “Balance is for wienies!” These are all great ways to create drama, but do you know what another great way is? Randomness! Yes, our old pal “luck!” But randomness isn’t bad, especially in thematic games. Some players enjoy the risk and thrill of getting a great roll or a disastrously bad one! Remember, there are two types of randomness—­input randomness and output randomness. In previous chapters, we’ve already talked about how dice and cards can be used to generate random results, but thematic games sometimes have unusual and interesting ran­ domizers to create interesting and exciting gameplay. ■■

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In Incan Gold (2005), a deck of cards reveals a good or bad result. Players must choose whether to remain “in” or “out” before the card is revealed. In Cuphead: Fast Rolling Dice Game (2021), enemy cards are randomly drawn from a deck to determine which results the player must roll. Players then quickly roll dice to match those results within a time limit. In Roll Player (2016), dice are randomly drawn from a bag, rolled for results, and assigned to locations on your character board. In Texas Chainsaw Massacre the Board Game (2023), tokens are collected by the players and put into a draw bag. Players can see “good” and “bad” tokens going in. Then the player draws from the bag, trying to get as many good tokens as possible before their luck runs out. Im Zeichen des Kreuzes (2001), uses a “combat tower” in which cubes are dropped. Players drop all battling armies in the top: everything that comes out at the bottom fights. Armies that do not fall through stay in the tower until dislodged by armies from a following battle. In Dark World: Village of Fear (1993), a plastic cross holds colored beads, which, when shaken, fall into the narrow passage on the cross. The order of the colored beads determines player turn order.

What’s your favorite randomizer in a game? ________________________________ You’ll notice that some of these random systems use cards, while others use dice, tokens, or even cubes to generate random results. Which one is best? It totally depends on how you want your game to play. The following are things to consider for each: ■■

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Dice: The benefit of dice is you can roll many at once. Who doesn’t love throwing a big handful of dice? You can use dice with different sides and customs faces. We learned many ways to use dice in Chapter 4. Cards: Cards can have pictures, multiple icons, values, text, and adding more cards is cheaper and easier than other components. You can have decks that do different

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things—­combat, treasure and weapons, AI for enemies, maps—­all the different uses we discussed in Chapter 5. Colored cubes (and meeples): These are great because they can change what they represent during the game. A red cube could be a demon if a card indicating it is in play, but later it could represent a dragon. The components can be tossed into and drawn out of a bag, pulled from a cube tower, or shaken in a box to generate random results. Tokens: Tokens are a flexible component. You can make a token have a “blank” side and flip it to reveal a random result or encounter like a card. They can have images like cards, they can be flipped like a coin (or a POG—­remember those?), they can be tossed onto a target, and they can be drawn from a bag. They are relatively inexpensive to create. Mobile app: Mobile device apps often include randomizers. These can include sound effects, music, and animation to create a more exciting play experience.

Strategy vs. Tactics “Tacticians know what to do when there is something to do; strategists know what to do when there is nothing to do.” —­Chess Grandmaster Savielly Tartkover

Because many thematic games are centered around conflict and warfare, players must utilize tactics and strategy if they hope to win. But what is the difference between strategy and tactics and how can games be designed to enable players to utilize them? First some definitions: ■■

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Strategy is the overarching plan that you create and execute to lead you to that goal. You will need a strategy to plan your actions and tactics to execute them. Tactics are the actual actions, means, and decisions that you take to achieve goals and objectives—­whether they are short‑term or long‑term.

Strategy and tactics are complementary concepts. You will need both to be successful at playing a game. For example, when playing the game Pandemic, a strategy would be to concentrate on curing diseases at research stations, rather than flying around the world stemming the rise of disease cubes whenever they appear. Your tactics would be to leave cities with single cubes alone as they don’t present an immediate threat and concentrate your efforts on collecting city cards. When five matching cards are discarded, the disease will be cured, and it will be faster to remove them from the board when they appear. I was once playing a friend’s prototype when I realized that if I kept playing using the strategy I was using, I was going to lose. I was aiming for a big splashy objective that awarded lots of points, but when I did the math, I realized I could gain more points by changing my current strategy. The new objective was riskier and not as obvious, but it paid off! I was able to win the game even though I had begun at a big disadvantage.

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This is a sign of good game design. A player should always have a chance to win by switching tactics midgame. This means there should be multiple objectives to pursue. Remember, the best thing that you can give a player is a choice, especially a meaningful one. Also remember, more choices mean more complexity.

Unraveling Complexity Thematic games can be complicated. As a result, another trait of thematic games is that many of them have a complicated rule book. Thematic games often have many systems and mechanisms that the player needs to understand in order to play: movement, combat, and objective rules; explaining specific mechanisms, examples, and exceptions; scoring and victory conditions. As a result, it can be common for modern gamers to “play the game wrong” on their first playthrough due to missing or not understanding a rule. It’s even worse when all those rules are front-­loaded to the player. Complexity applies to any sort of characteristic or development in a game that adds cognitive load for the players. Cognitive load is the amount of information that working memory can hold at one time. Educational psychologist John Sweller said that since working memory has a limited capacity, instructional methods should avoid overloading it with additional activities that don’t directly contribute to learning.11 This applies to many things, especially games. The truth is, since the 1990s, games have become more complex. Twilight Imperium (1997) takes about 8 hours to play a full game. There are dozens of rule books for games like Dungeons and Dragons, which new players can find intimidating. Rulebooks can get large when a designer is trying to tell a complex story as in Tales of the Arabian Nights (2009), Trickerion: Legends of Illusion (2015), or The 7th Continent (2017). Other games strive to model complex simulations like in Kanban: Driver’s Edition (2014), which simulates working in the automobile industry. The more complex a game becomes, the more cognitive load it adds on to the player while learning the game; or maybe even worse, a player might not want play because it “looks or sounds too complex.” Complexity is not inherently bad; it’s just important to understand and recognize the complexities in your game. Once you know what complexities exist in your design, you can take steps to reduce them or group them for easier learning. The following are a number of complexity types that can be found in games: ■■ ■■ ■■

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  onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4

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Rules and Mechanics Complexity Rules and mechanics complexity is based on the number of rules that you must keep in mind. When a player must check a rule in the rule book, it interrupts the flow of gameplay or even causes conflict between players. It gets even worse when a player must find and deal with an exception that deviates from the core rule, which some rule books might not have accounted for. Player aids can help players minimize search time and highlight important rules. You can break rules into “small bites” of states/phases or triggers. Don’t overload players by requiring them to learn everything at once. This is like how “chunking” is used to break up ideas, numbers, scoring for memorization, and learning purposes. Changing or adding new rules over the course of the game can help ease the cognitive load. In Fluxx (1997), the game’s rules and win conditions are constantly changing to create a chaotic, random, funny game. In Friedemann Friese’s Fast Forward series of games, new cards are revealed over the course of the game that add new rules. This is what legacy games do well—­techniques like stickers that add rules to the rule books pace out the rules when the players need to know them. Planning Complexity Planning complexity arises when you consider all the optimal strategies for success. Chess is the classic example of this: if I move this pawn and then they move that pawn and then I move this knight, what will the board look like? Which of these paths are the right path? The longer it takes to win the game, the less predictable the strategies are. Nested Complexity Nested complexity is complexity that is not obvious at first, but as more rules are combined or added to the game, the game’s complexity grows. Even a simple game like Onitama (2014), where there are significantly fewer pieces and a smaller board, offers many choices for the player to make. If the player has too many options, they may become paralyzed with indecision. This is called analysis paralysis in board gaming circles. Success depends on planning out your moves in advance, being able to intuit what the game state will look like in the future after several moves have been made.

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Some games will provide charts or diagrams to help the players visualize their options. Scrabble (1948) displays the tiles, their points, and their regularity to help players make decisions. In Kingdom Death: Monster (2015), the bosses’ AI card removes the player’s confusion by clearly showing in what area its attack or movement path will be. The characters in ALIEN Fate of the Nostromo (2020) have special abilities to help players strategize at the start of the game. This helps speed up the gameplay. Spatial Complexity Spatial complexity is concerned with the relationship of components to the player, each other, and the play area. Remember the Six Zones of Play from Chapter 2? Following those rules will help reduce this complexity. Even the graphics on a board can add to spatial complexity of a game. The gameplay itself might not be that complex, but first impressions count when it comes to visuals. Alien Frontiers (2010) has a lot going on visually on its board, but everything is regulated to its own section. The sectors of the central moon are clearly delineated. The sectors and their correlating satellites are clearly marked with dotted lines. This helps players understand the relationships and where the components need to be placed. Tile placement as found in Bärenpark (2017) requires players to “Tetris” pieces together. Play­ ers must determine how these pieces fit together and must plan to use spatial relationships. Some games are built around the concept of this complexity such as in the game Set (1988), which uses shape, color, and patterning to confuse the mind and eye. How many sets can you find? Other games, such as NMBR 9 (2017), are built around the “noise” created when components interact with each other. Khet the Laser Game (2005) uses spatial complexity as part of its gameplay. Players must predict the laser’s path before firing it off to see if they have scored. Component Complexity Component complexity is when there are lots of different components and economies. Sometimes it just becomes more than the player can handle or keep track of. They forget what things do or in what order they are meant to be used. As a general rule, you should never have a component do “two things” during a game. Some games include a lot of bits that aren’t used in a single game session, which means that there are lots of options for future play (Betrayal’s tokens)—­pointing the players toward what is needed right away and what is used later during play. Avoid adding new rules onto components (like Magic the Gathering [1993] often does) that only that player can see. It’s fairer to make sure every player knows the rules (or at least learns them at the same time).

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Arithmetical Complexity Arithmetical complexity pertains to the amount and complexity of arithmetic required for a game. Scoring in Russian Railroads (2013) can get quite complex what with point-­ generating structures, bonuses, doublers, and multipliers that all contribute to a player’s final score. Arithmetical complexity also pertains to the number of variables that one can keep in memory at any time. Sometimes the players have too many options, like too many actions that they can perform, and they start to get “stuck” while determining all the options they have. Mathematical complexity isn’t always expressed as equations. Logical Complexity Logical complexity is the foundation of deduction and induction games. This requires players to keep track of many factors to achieve victory. In Mystery of the Abby (1995), players must track different combinations of hair, clothes, body weight, and facial hair to determine which monk is the killer. The complexity is part of the gameplay as obfuscated facts are uncovered by the players using logic. The benefit of reducing complexity means there’s more time for play! If you want to hear an in-­depth discussion on this topic, check out my Ludology podcast.12

Bring on the Bling Another classic trait of thematic games is chrome. The term itself originated with war gamers in the 1970s. Chrome refers to extra rules, designed to simulate specific situations, that often add nothing to the gameplay at the expense of lengthening the rulebook and the game. The negative version of the term chrome is “fiddly,” as in “too much chrome can get fiddly.” As games started to evolve from mostly cardboard to fancier physical bits as a result of the use of miniatures in Dungeons and Dragons and Milton Bradley’s Gamemaster series, the term chrome gained another meaning. In this case, chrome referenced a game being “plussed up.” This is when components are included that don’t improve a game’s gameplay but rather make the game look better. This is like how chrome on a hot rod doesn’t make the car go faster; it just makes it looks cooler. Now chrome refers to custom dice, metal coins, resin tokens, plastic scenery, cloth play mats, or anything that will make you go “ooooh!” when you see the game. The most popular chrome in board gaming must be miniatures. While there are plenty of miniature-­based games that

  ludology.libsyn.com/ludology-­238-­unraveling-­complexity

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can be played without a board, that is not our focus here. Instead, let’s look at the three ways a player can be represented on a game board.

A pawn is fine for a quick-­and-­dirty prototype, but they convey very little other than the player’s color. You can buy them online or take them from another game that you already own. They’re not very exciting to look at, but they do the trick.

A standee is a flat cardboard pawn on a stand that represents a character or item. The advantages of standees are that they are very cheap to make, and you can use artwork from your game on them. To make a standee, get a stiff piece of cardboard (I recommend using comic book backing board) or Bristol board and print or draw your character on it. You can buy plastic stands for standees, but if you want to save money, you can just create the stand for the standee by folding and taping or gluing the ends together like this:

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Standees, especially die-­cut ones in games like Picture Perfect or Dead of Winter a Crossroads Game, look great thanks to their interesting silhouettes and artwork, but they can be flimsy. A stiff breeze or a bump into the game table can knock them over. And you can’t see what’s on them from a side view. That’s why you should use a stand for your standees. These are little plastic clips with bases to give them just enough weight from falling over.

A miniature is a plastic or metal figure of a player’s character or an enemy or a thing in the game. If you are strapped for cash, you can always take them from another game to use in your prototype. I’ve bought games just for the miniatures. You can buy them from your friendly neighborhood gaming store or online. Or you can make them yourself. But before we talk about how to do that, consider the following reasons why you would want to use miniatures in your game: ■■

Miniatures represent a player in the game’s world and are more interesting than a generic pawn or flat standee.

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Miniatures create a “miniature world” that many gamers find appealing. Table presence was mentioned earlier and how exciting that is for players. An exciting part of board gaming is its toyetic nature. Some games look like little worlds that you immediately are drawn toward. They draw your eye, making you want to pick up the pieces and join in on the fun! Miniatures are just cool. It doesn’t matter if you are a pewter dog from Monopoly or a giant Elder God in Cthulhu Wars (2015), a well-­sculpted miniature is a pleasure to look at and fun to move around the board. Many gamers enjoy painting miniatures. Painting miniatures is a pleasurable activity, a way to artistically express oneself and provides extra value from the game. You can get a great sense of pride seeing the reactions your painted figures get when showing them to friends or sharing images online.

I’m a big fan of using miniatures in game designs. I’ve designed five games with miniatures, which has helped me to learn why and how to best use them. Here are some tips and tricks I’ve learned about making miniatures:

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Know your scales: 28mm (1.10 inches) is the average size of a human-­sized miniature. Another common scale is 32mm if you want more heroic or detailed miniatures. The figures can be smaller or larger depending on whatever creature or character they are representing. Cthulhu Wars’ giant “bigatures” are still in 28mm scale, but the characters they represent are so large, they are several inches tall! Smaller miniatures such as those found in Risk or Axis and Allies are 1/72 scale: This scale is better if you need to have multiple miniatures in a single area. They can be tiny to hold and move around, but if you don’t want your miniatures to take up a ton of space, then go smaller. Give your miniatures a distinctive silhouette: This helps players quickly identify which miniature is which from far away and speeds up the time it takes for a player to find a mini during the play. Colored miniatures (either monochromatic or prepainted) help with this as well. Don’t make your character designs too top heavy: No matter how cool they look, miniatures still need to be able to stand up and not fall over. A good sturdy base can help with this.

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Design your miniatures to be easy to pick up: If a mini is spindly or thin, then make sure players can move it using the base. I once played a game with a monster miniature that was covered with spines, and it hurt to pick it up! Ow! Don’t do that! Account for the space for multiple minis to fit on your play area: When designing Rayguns and Rocketships, I had to make sure that the rocket miniatures could be positioned next to each other and rotated without bumping into each other. Consider the material to be used for your miniatures: Miniatures are made from a variety of materials—­from plastic and resin to pewter and polylactic acid (PLA). When designing your characters, be aware that some materials are more fragile than others, so a sword that will be fine when made in plastic or pewter might be too thin and snap when printed in PLA+ or resin. There are tools such as Shapeway’s Netfabb tool that can be used to “test” the thickness of your model before you produce it. Use miniatures for more than just characters: Consider adding miniatures as scenery, props, or other elements in your game. A huge part of the HeroScape series’ appeal is its 3D terrain. And of course, the best thing about HeroQuest is the tiny furniture!13

Making Miniatures Making original miniatures used to be prohibitively expensive. Hiring an artist (if you aren’t one yourself) to sculpt a figure out of wax or “green stuff”14 can cost hundreds of dollars. Once you have the miniature, you then need to use it to “cut steel” and make an injection mold. An injection mold is a steel box that has a reverse impression of your miniature inside. When making an injection mold, it’s always better to try to fit as many characters as possible into a model, so that you are making only one mold. Then, once you have made the model, usually one color of molten plastic is injected into the mold. They harden and voila! A plastic miniature! Some factories can make multicolored figures, but this increases the cost. Cutting steel for miniatures costs thousands of dollars—­that is, if you have access to a factory that makes them, which are usually overseas in Asia. The good news is, thanks to 3D sculpting tools like Blender and Mudbox and Zbrush, it’s now a lot easier and cheaper to create miniatures these days. You can sculpt your own digitally to create .stl files, which is the digital format used by most 3D printers. There are several artists from whom you can buy or download files for free. You can design your own 3D character at a site like HeroForge (heroforge.com).

  youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A   Green stuff is the nickname of Kneadatite, a two-­part compound putty that can be mixed to the consistency of chewing gum and then sculpted as it gets less sticky and more pliable. Kneadatite is readily available in ribbons or semi-­liquid form and is somewhat easy to work with, provided you do so in small amounts at a time. You must work relatively fast—less than an hour—otherwise it will dry and harden. It hardens to the consistency of plastic and then can be cut, sanded, primed, and painted (although you want to skip those last two steps if you are making molds from them.)

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I’ve used 3D printing services like Shapeways15 and FormLab16 to print my miniatures. Some local libraries now offer 3D printing series too! These printers offer a wide variety of materials, including metals, but it takes time to get your printed mini back in the mail. These services can be pricey, especially if you are on a budget. Fortunately, a 3D printer is a more cost-­effective way if you plan on printing out several miniatures for your prototype. At the time of this writing, there are two types of printers. Fused deposition modeling uses PLA—­a colored plastic filament—­that is melted to create the figure, and liquid resin printer exposes a layer of photosensitive liquid resin to a UV-­laser beam; the resin then hardens in the desired pattern, and the object is built layer by layer until it is complete.

  shapeways.com   formlabs.com/blog/3d-­printing-­miniatures-­and-­custom-­figurines

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PLA comes in spools of filament that are easy to store. They come in a wide variety of colors. 3D-­printed miniatures can leave a visible print line or layer artifacts, which, depending on the printer, has the texture of sandpaper and reduces the overall aesthetic of the model and makes painting difficult. Resin—­or vat photopolymerization—­printers can create figures with more detail, but if the model is too thin, it can snap if not handled or stored carefully. Its smoother surface is much better for painting. Because the resin is photosensitive, it needs to be stored in an opaque container and will start to lose its photo reactivity properties over time. You have to be careful when using a resin printer because they can produce toxic fumes. Make sure you operate a resin printer in a well-­ventilated area.

Collectability Another trait found in thematic games is collectability. This trend first took off in tabletop gaming with collectible card games (CCGs) like Magic the Gathering. Cards were ranked by rarity—­ common, uncommon, rare, and super-­rare. Super-­rare cards were usually the most powerful cards in the game, which drove players to buy multiple packs as they “chased” these hard-­to-­find cards.

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Seeing the success of collectability in the card market, publisher Wiz-­Kids followed suit with its miniatures game Mage Knight (2000). Players could buy a base set of 10 random prepainted, plastic miniatures, while “Booster Packs” contain 5  miniatures. Other miniature games that utilize collectability included Heroclix (2002), Pirates of the Spanish Main (2004), Dreamblade (2006), and many others. Kickstarter stretch goals have now become the place to offer collectible and rare components for games, but rather than go into that here, we will discuss Kickstarters in Chapter 10.

The Gimmick You gotta have a gimmick. That last thematic game trait we’ll talk about are gimmicks—­a device or trick designed to attract your customer’s attention. As they say, you don’t necessarily need a gimmick to make a board game, but it doesn’t hurt! Board games have used a wide variety of gimmicks over the years. The gimmicks can include the following:

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Paper craft: Paper craft is a featured three-­dimensional cardboard element used in gameplay. These can be relatively easy to make, provided they are sturdy enough to sustain wear. It helps if they are easy to assemble/disassemble for storage. Examples include the train in Colt Express (2014), the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek Panic (2016), the tree in Everdell (2018), the maze in Princess Jing (2018), and the charming little buildings in Dark World: Village of Fear (1993). Pop-­ups: There is a long-­time connection between book printing and board games. Essentially, anything you can print in a book you can make in a board game. Engineering a pop-­up book can be rather tricky, especially since they are meant to fold back down during storage. There are plenty of books and websites that can show you how to make a pop-­up. Pop-­up game boards used to be much more common in early board games

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although it has been “rediscovered” in modern times with games such as Disney Princess Pop-­Up Magic Castle (2014), Wonder Book (2021), and The Shivers (2022).

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“Startle” mechanisms: There is another type of “pop-­up” that startles you if you make a mistake or lose the game. These are primarily found in kid’s games like Perfection (1973), Pop-­up Pirate! (1975), Jaws (1975), Crocodile Dentist (1991), and Don’t Wake Daddy (1992). These toy-­like contraptions often are in the shape of a creature or person that springs to life when activated. These games are made from molded plastic so that they don’t break during repeat play sessions and are mostly manufactured by mass-­market toy companies like Mattel, Hasbro, and Goliath Games due to the complication of their design and manufacturing.

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Contraptions: A slightly simpler contraption is found in kids’ games like Mouse Trap (1963), Which Witch? (1970), or Fireball Island (1986) that use a Rube Goldbergian17 device to activate gameplay. Similar in construction are the plastic or cardboard cube towers found in Shogun (2006), Amerigo (2013), and Edge of Darkness (2019). Glow-­in-­the-­dark components: These components are found in my beloved Green Ghost (1965) or games like Barnabas Collins Dark Shadows Game (1969) and Ghost Party (1989). Other games use UV reactive plastics like Nexus Ops (2005) to make their sci-­fi pieces glow under a black light. Textures: Some games utilize unusual textures. Nyctophobia (2018) has blindfolded players trying to escape a killer using only their sense of touch. Dr Shark (2011) has players identifying pieces only by touch. Cranium (1998) and Barbarossa (2008) has players using sculpting clay to create clues for other players. “Red lens”: “Red lens” is a piece of red clear cellophane that players can look through to see “hidden” images. It requires you to print an image. These are often found in kid’s games like Jumanji (1995) and Rat-­A-­Tat Cat 10th Anniversary (2006) and mystery-­ themed games like The Mysteries of Old Peking (1987), Clue Mysteries (2005), and Decrypto (2018). Technology: If you really want to get complicated with your gimmicks, you can always add technology to your game! If a technology exists, then game designers have come up with clever ways to use it in their games. ■■

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Sound: Some games utilize sound. Voice of the Mummy (1973) has a miniature record player that gives commands and curses to the players. Other games like Escape the Temple, Last Night on Earth, and Touch of Evil come with thematic soundtracks that sometimes act as timers. Computers: Mall Madness (1988) and The Omega Virus (1992) has a primitive computer that generates random results for the players and produces an electronic voice and sound effects to enhance gameplay. Lasers: In Khet: The Laser Game (2005), players use lasers and mirrors to bounce the beam from one end of the board to another! Magnets: Bermuda Triangle (1975) features a storm cloud with magnets underneath. As it passes over the players’ ships (also with magnets), they might get sucked up in the storm! LED light: Vampire Hunter (2002) has a tower that shines either blue or red LED light onto the board. Depending on the color of the light, certain images appear or vanish, which changes the player’s path and activates traps. Waldschattenspiel (1985) is a unique game that requires a lit candle or LED light to play. In it, the

  Rube Goldberg (1883–1970) was an American cartoonist best known for his drawings of overly complicated contraptions to do simple tasks. Mousetrap is a perfect example of what is now known as “Rube Goldberg machine”.

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shadows of trees are thrown across the board in which players use to hide their little gnome characters from a seeker player.

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VCRs: In the early 90s, VCR (or VHS) board games were all the rage. These are games that used taped video content (played on a video cassette player) in conjunction with a board as a combination timer, randomizer, and tormentor to the players. Nightmare (aka Atmosfear) (1985) featured an evil gatekeeper that berated you while you searched a graveyard for hidden keys. For a few years, this format was very popular, and companies rushed to put out a game featuring their IP. You could be threatened by Darth Vader in Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game (1996), party hard with Wayne’s World VCR Board Game (1992), or experience Bij in Star Trek: The Next Generation  – The Interactive VCR Board Game  – A Klingon Challenge (1993)! Sports and quiz games were also popular in this genre. If you still own a working VHS player, I recommend trying one of these. They can be a lot of silly fun! Apps: Now that everyone has a mobile device, game designers can use applications (apps) to increase their game’s experience. Whether it’s a web-­enabled app that plays different musical timers like in Meeple Circus (2017), an app that acts as the AI for alien invaders as in XCOM the Board Game (2015), and app where you can use smartphone technology to pilot a virtual ship such as in World of Yo-­Ho (2016), or an app that creates a virtual reality that you must search for clues as in Chronicles of Crime (2018). One Night Ultimate Werewolf (2014) has a great app that doubles as a narrator for the game. However, I prefer it when the use of an app to play a game

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is optional, especially if the app is providing sound that is crucial to playing the game—that way if I’m low on power or I’m in a noisy convention hall, I don’t need to listen to the app to play. As a video game developer, please be aware that making these apps is very complicated and expensive—­you are essentially making a second game to go with your board game. If you want to learn more about making mobile games, check out my book Swipe This! The Guide to Great Touchscreen Game Design.

Thematic Mechanisms Whew! We’ve covered a lot of thematic game traits! Now let’s add some new thematic game tools to our game designer toolbox. There are a number of mechanisms you can add to your game. We’ll take a look at the following: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

Variable player power and characters Leveling Upgrades Crafting Action points Action selection Movement Take-­that Fighting and combat Player death and elimination Area control Timer Doom track Race Deduction Voting

Variable Player Powers and Characters With variable player powers, each player character in the game has a unique power that (usually) matches the personality or archetype of the character. For example, you would expect a pirate to steal something (another card, a coin, a resource), a warrior to get a bonus in combat or start the game with a weapon, and a doctor to be able to heal another player. Variable player powers were first inspired by the character classes from role-­playing games and were incorporated into fantasy-­themed board games like Dungeon! (1975), War of the Ring (1977), and Magic Realm (1979) but found their way into sci-­fi games like Cosmic Encounter (1977), OGRE (1977), and Dune (1979).

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When I was designing ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo (2020), I gave Ripley the ability to move other characters around on her turn, as she was the character who kept a level head and told the other characters what to do during the movie. Lambert, on the other hand, was a very cautious character, so I gave her the ability to look at the top card of the encounter deck and then could choose to put it at the bottom of the deck. When designing these types of powers, make sure to differ each power so they aren’t too similar—­such as the frost giant that does +1 frost damage and a fire giant that does +1 fire damage. Make every character’s power useful but distinct. Much like the characters in a fighting video game—­like Street Fighter—­having each character play differently will entice the player to try the other characters to see what “they feel like.”

There is another type of character found in thematic games, and that’s the enemy! This can be any sort of adversary that prevents the player from obtaining their goal. In thematic games, because there is often an emphasis on conflict, enemies must be defeated. Designing enemies can be great fun—­this is often where you can get really creative. But while it is fun to design zombies and bandits, space aliens, and pirates, you should also design the enemy’s function first. Here are a few tips to use when designing enemies: ■■

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Just like with a player’s powers, enemies should be as distinct as possible. Instead of designing a living skeleton and a living skeleton with a sword, I recommend a living skeleton with a sword and a living skeleton with a bow. Or even better, a skeleton with a sword and a ghoul with a bow! The bow-­wielding enemy is going to pose a different type of threat to the player that it can hit you from a distance. Part of the fun of combat for players is when you must assess a threat and then devise a strategy to defeat it. Enemies should have a chance to defeat the player. If an enemy is too easy, then the player is going to get bored with combat. Combat should be exciting! I’ve seen a few games that allow the enemy to level up just like the player can. In Massive Darkness (2017),

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players draw cards to represent the monster encountered. The number of monsters encountered increases based on the number of players. However, as the players descend into the dungeon, the monsters get stronger too. There are other ways to hurt players. Enemies’ attacks can temporarily remove player’s abilities, they can knock a player back or reduce their speed, and they can steal resources like money or cards from the player. Or they could be confused and think that their fellow players are the bad guys! Give enemies other things to do than just hurt the player. Giving the enemy an agenda or objective makes them feel more like real creatures. For example, a weaker enemy might make a beeline for a gate to let bigger, stronger enemies into the battle. Or maybe they might try to steal a weapon away from you so that they can use it in the fight! Finally, give the players other alternatives to fighting. Perhaps you can bribe an enemy not to fight with money or give them a gift in the form of a card or item to let you pass peacefully. Scare them off using some trick or spell. You could even convince them to join your side! By giving the player a different option to resolve conflict makes the game feel more like a story!

Asymmetric powers are the same concept as variable player powers, but with a greater difference between the roles. In Vast: The Crystal Caverns (2016), the knight, goblin, dragon, and cave roles all have vastly different powers, abilities, and even rule sets from one another. On the one hand, this creates great repeat playability as the player has a new play experience with each new character. On the other hand, the player must also be familiar with all the rules that the other characters can do to plan their strategy against them, which can be quite overwhelming for new players.

Leveling Another concept that comes from RPGs is leveling up. This is where your character’s statistics, powers, and abilities improve over the course of the game. Often, you will earn experience points or complete objectives to level up their character. Each time the player gains a level, they often improve their stats, such as gain more movement or deal more damage, or they might gain new powers and abilities. They might gain access to better equipment or unlock more challenging enemies or objectives. Some games have a cap to leveling up or might reset the player’s starting level with each new play session or adventure. Designer Rob Daviau thought about how games would reset after each play session, but the players would remember those previous games, and it would impact how they played the game. He wondered if there was a way that a game could “remember” what happened in the previous game and have it be reflected in the way it could be played.

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There were already games that maintain the player’s level over multiple game sessions—­ known as a campaign. Originally found in war games, campaigns became popular in tactical adventure games like Star Wars: Imperial Assault (2014), Kingdom Death: Monster (2017), Gloomhaven (2017), and Townsfolk Tussle (2022). These games have what are known as a campaign mode where your characters change over time so that the results of the previous game impact future games. This makes playing multiple games feel more like a grand adventure. In the best of them, the narrative evolves, the player’s goals change, new enemies are revealed and defeated, and characters grow and even die. Rob’s great idea was to take what happened during a campaign and make it permanently change the game. Risk Legacy (2011) was the first of a new kind of campaign game, known as a legacy game. Legacy games are designed to be played over the course of a campaign, usually with the same players, and permanently change over time. A legacy game has several distinctive design features from a campaign game. ■■

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Stickers: At the start of the game, Risk Legacy’s rule book includes blank sections. As certain objectives are achieved or after events happen in the game, you can take a sticker from a separate sheet and place it into a blank space in the rule book. Once the sticker is placed, the new rule goes into effect. This creates an element of surprise (as well as making it easier for you to learn a new rule. Optional rules: Some of the rule stickers in Risk Legacy give you a choice of two different rules. You must choose one and permanently dispose of the other. Tearables: Risk Legacy’s box cover warns you that “What’s done can never be undone”—­which foreshadows tearable components. Cards must be torn in half once they are used. Envelopes and cardboard boxes must be ripped open to reveal new components. For gamers who are used to keeping their games in good condition, this can cause some real stress! Personalization: In Risk Legacy, if you win a game, you can place a location sticker on the game board and name it. There is also a section for the victor to sign after a game. Hidden elements: Because some components are stored in envelopes and boxes, the mystery of what they are is part of the fun. I don’t want to give away any of the secrets of the game, but there is one hidden component in the game that delighted me when I discovered it. Good luck to you!

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The Legacy format made a big splash on the gaming industry, and by 2020 there were many other legacy games including SeaFall (2016), Charterstone (2017), Betrayal Legacy (2018), Pandemic Legacy Season 1 (2015), and Machi Koro Legacy (2019). Some of these were more successful than others, and I personally believe that legacy games work best using designs that have already been published. Because a legacy game plays with the fundamental rules, having a firm foundation to stand on is a much better starting position for the players.

Upgrades Unlike leveling up, which changes your character, upgrades are temporary—­like a sword has a chance to break in combat or a potion that is discarded once it is drunk. These types of consumables often are represented by tokens or cards that tell the benefit of the item or upgrade. Sometimes these upgrades are equipped into distinctive slots on the player’s board, giving the player a limited number of upgrades and items that can be carried. Kingdom Death: Monster (2015) has nine item slots on the player’s board. Some of the items can be placed only in a specific slot—­such as boots on the foot slot or a torch in a hand slot. Some items are larger or require two hands to use, which takes up more slots. Items, depending on where they are placed, can create synergies that grant additional benefits to the player. However, if the item is broken or lost, the player loses the benefit. Often, a player’s goal is to combine these types of upgrades to create combinations that give the player multiple actions, give them powers, cause more damage, or enact other effects during play.

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Crafting Crafting is another type of upgrade where two or more items are combined to create a more efficient or more powerful item. Crafting is usually centered around a technology tree—­a logical progression of items, vehicles, equipment, or powers. You might have to pay resources to climb up the tech tree, or they might be earned when leveling up. For example, a player might be able to evolve their magical ability from a weak flame spell to a stronger flame blast to a powerful fire ball.

Action Points Action points are a currency that allows you to perform a predetermined number of actions on your turn. They can be used to perform a wide range of actions—­from movement, to combat, to drawing card, collecting resources, etc. For example, if you have four action points, you can do four actions on your turn. Or you can spend them to do four points worth of actions, such as spending 1 point to move, 2 points to attack, and 1 point to grab an item. Actions that are considered more complex or beneficial can cost more action points. Action points, unlike upgrades, are usually a fixed amount, and giving the player “more actions” is considered a very powerful upgrade.

Action Selection Action points are used to select actions.18 But what action will you select? You might select a move action or an attack action or a collect resource action. You want to give your player a wide selection of actions to choose from during their turn. Want to make selecting actions even spicier? Have players select them in secret or simultaneously. This way, players cannot see what the other players are going to do, and this will create some surprising and exciting moments. Simultaneous action selection works particularly well in competitive games. I also find that it helps speed up the action selection process. Everyone gets to decide what to do and then reveal at the same time. No waiting around for someone to make up their mind! In my game Rayguns & Rocketships: Retaliation (2024), you can select from seven different action cards and then reveal one at the same time as the other players. If two or more players reveal the same card, they are penalized by getting to do only one of the actions. If you don’t pick the same card, you get to do two actions. It creates a bit of a mind game that is played

  Remember when I said that game design often uses the same term for different things? Well, action is one of those terms. You can take an action on your turn, but your character also gets several actions and you can select from a variety of actions available in the game. They’re all kind of the same thing—you are doing something—taking an action—­but the context and timing of those actions can be different.

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between the players as you must decide if you want to try to avoid revealing the same card or use it as a blocking technique to prevent another player from getting both actions.

In Colt Express (2014), simultaneously action selection works in another fun way. . .to create chaos! In the game, you select a sequence of action cards that are “layered” into a single deck. The cards are then revealed in the order that they have been stacked in the deck. With each card drawn, that player executes their action. However, because you often don’t know what the other player has picked or when it will be revealed in the deck, the actions can misfire, resulting in hilarious misfortune for you or the other players.

Movement I’ve mentioned that actions can be used for movement, but there are many ways that you can move around in a thematic game. Traditionally, dice or some other randomizer—­like a teetotum19—­determine how far your pawn or character can move. However, games that have you “roll your dice to move your mice” are considered mostly passé by the board gaming community. There are a few rare exceptions of roll-­and-­move games—­Formula D has its clever “dice as gears” mechanism—­but for the most part, until someone comes up with a new a clever way to use dice to move, I recommend using some other means. As a designer, I recommend letting your theme guide how something moves in your game. Some thematic games have characters move a predetermined distance. And players can

  A teetotum is a form of spinning top that is most used for gambling games. It has a polygonal body marked with letters or numbers, which indicate the result of each spin. A dreidel is a type of teetotum. During the early 19th century, dice in board games were replaced with a teetotum because dice were associated with gambling, and you can’t have gambling implements included in a game for the family! The problem with teetotums, is they kind of suck as randomizers. They take forever to spin; tend to fly off tables, they can give somewhat unreliable results and you can’t drop them down into something as cool as a dice tower that looks like a medieval castle.

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upgrade their movement—­a horse will move faster and further than a character on foot. And an airplane will move even faster and further than a horse. In Magical Athlete (2002), each character has a special way of moving down the board. Some of them are predetermined movement distances. Others may move only during conditional situations. Every character has some sort of wacky rule. Here are a few examples of the fun types of movement from this very original game: ■■

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Each time a male and female character share the same space, the cupid can advance five spaces. Instead of his turn, the merchant may change spaces with any other character. If another player is way ahead of you, you can exchange places with them! The martial artist skips over any space a character is in, allowing you to “hop” your way down the board. The ninja can choose to follow another character on their turn to the same space on the board.

The challenge, as a designer, is to make something simple as moving interesting to the player. What interesting movement mechanism can you think of? My interesting movement is: ___________________________________________

Take-­That Take-­that is a common mechanism in thematic board games. This is when an action done by one player has a direct negative impact on another. It could be stealing a card or resources from another player, forcing a player to discard, make a player move backward or into a trap or bad situation, suffer a penalty, lose a turn, etc.

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Take-­that effects are usually instantaneous or short-­term and rarely have an ongoing long-­ term impact. This is considered one of the meaner board game mechanics. Take-­that is often found in competitive games like Talisman (1983), Munchkin (2001), Guillotine (1998), Exploding Kittens (2015), and Sorry (1929)

Fighting and Combat A big part of many thematic games is combat, and there are many ways to do combat in a game. The simplest is rock-­paper-­scissors, which is named after the classic kids’ game. In rock-­paper-­scissors you have a minimum of three possible options, with each one having an advantage over the other. Rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper.  .  .you get the idea. However, rock-­paper-­scissors by itself is considered a bit too simplistic for today’s audiences.20 A more random, although no less dramatic method, is to use our old friend dice! Let’s look at some methods of combat that use dice: ■■

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In Dungeons and Dragons (and many other games), players roll a d20 to match or beat a predetermined number. The numbers are often modified with plus or minus values. If it is combat, a second roll is made to determine damage using a variety of sided die (i.e., a dagger uses a d4, while a sword might use a d8). In Last Night on Earth (2015), heroes roll a 2d6, while each zombie player rolls a 1d6. The more zombies there are, the more dice are rolled! Players can use cards to add dice or improve results. In Risk (1959), players roll dice equal to the number of units. You compare the results and then remove troops based on whose dice have higher numbers, while in Axis and Allies (1981), you want to roll low numbers instead. Games like HeroScape Master Set: Rise of the Valkyrie (2004), and Star Wars: X-­Wing Miniatures (2012) use dice with custom symbols that represent blocking, hits, and critical hits. The custom dice in Arcadia Quest (2014) have special critical hit symbols that, when rolled, allow you to reroll. If you keep rolling the critical hit icon, you can keep rerolling, doing more and more damage. This mechanism is known as exploding dice and can be very exciting when it happens during gameplay! In Dwellings of Eldervale (2020), battles are won by the single highest die rolled. Each combatant puts forward their highest die. The goal is to have multiple high number die results. In Rayguns and Rocketships (2017), an attacker and defender roll dice to sword fight. If the attacker’s result is higher than the defender, damage is dealt. If the defender’s die

  arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/win-­at-­rock-­paper-­scissors-­by-­knowing-­ thy-­opponent

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is higher, the attack is blocked. If the numbers are the same, the defender ripostes and then becomes the attacker. In Dice Throne Season One (2018), each character has a chart of results that equals the type of damage you can do. Dice are thrown Yahtzee style and if the symbols match the result, you cause that damage to your opponent.

Dice aren’t the only way to represent combat. Deterministic combat is when a piece overtakes another piece, such as in Chess or Onitama (2014). A deck of cards can be used for combat as well. Because cards can hold more information than dice, they allow more flexibility in your design. Cards can be used to hold information about attacking, damage, range, and blocking, as well as special abilities and exceptions. ■■

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Magic the Gathering (1993) has values for attack, defense, and special exceptions using keywords for combat. Blood Rage (2015) uses cards to increase the strength of the miniature unit in play. And you can keep playing cards to increase the unit’s strength. Scythe (2016) has a programmable wheel in which the player enters a value but can increase the amount with cards. Sleeping Gods (2021) has players flip a card onto an enemy board to indicate where and how much damage is caused. This is similar to Catacombs (2010) and Dungeon Fighter (2011) in which players flick tokens at a target to determine damage.

My favorite method of combat is: ______________________________________________________________________ Taking damage in combat means your characters need hit points. Hit points are a way to track the health of a character, enemy, vehicle, or building. Once hit points reach zero, the thing is removed from play. If it’s an enemy, you might earn experience, resources, victory points, or treasure. If it is you that loses all your hit points, then that means death.

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Player Death and Elimination If you ask many board gamers, their least favorite mechanism is player elimination. No one likes to be left out of the game, which is why player elimination has fallen out of favor as a mechanism. But just because players don’t like it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use it in your game design. Player death can be an interesting player motivator in your game. You just must be careful. One way to avoid player elimination is to give players control over multiple characters. In HeroClix (2002) or Unmatched: Battle of Legends Volume One (2019), players control a team of characters. In Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game (2014) or Blood Rage (2015), you can have a whole pool of characters. Characters in these games can still be defeated or killed, but because you have several pieces to play, it is less likely that you will be eliminated from the game. Some design resolves the player elimination problem by having the “dead” players join the bad guy team. In Zombies!!! (2001) dead players can move zombie miniatures—­which results in smarter, more aggressive zombies! In Who Goes There? (2018) human players work to prevent the Thing from spreading; however, when a player becomes a Thing, they are now trying to escape the camp. Your objective changes once your character’s state changes. Personally, I think this character elimination is a better solution than player elimination.

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Area Control You don’t always have to defeat the other players in a thematic game. You can just take over the world! In thematic games with area control, players win or get points for controlling a section of the board/map. This is most common in war games but can be seen in many other types of games as well. A variant of this is area majority where you only must control most of the board to win the game. You don’t even need to take over all the areas. The areas on the board might have different values, or you might score points based on the amount of control they have in an area. The player with the most pieces/units in an area is awarded the most points. Players in second, third, etc., often also get points, though less than the player in first. Area majority makes for a faster game than complete control does, which is why it is gaining more popularity. Another variant of area control is king of the hill where all players try to control the same space or spaces on the board. King of the hill games often use fewer characters than area control games, but they have special abilities or even health to make them more valuable and durable. Combat games use another type of area control that uses more specialized units is MOBA—­ which is styled after Multiplayer Online Battle Arena gameplay found in video games. In a MOBA, players are trying to defeat towers or a base to win the game. A stronger character piece is often supported by weaker “creep” units. The battle pushes back and forth across the

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board until one player destroys the other’s base. This is still a relatively new genre represented in games like Rum & Bones (2015), Mechs vs. Minions (2016), and LOAD: League of Ancient Defenders (2016).

Timer Because thematic games are about drama, sometimes you need a ticking clock to add tension to the game. This can be a literal sand timer in which you have a limited time to make a move or series of moves. If you want to get fancy, you can include a soundtrack or create an app that uses music or sound effects to count down the remaining time.

Doom Track One of my favorite systems is a doom track. This is a timer that, if the players don’t complete their objectives or win the game, causes them to lose! Sure, it’s evil but it is exciting! There are several ways that a player can push the doom track along—­draw a specific card, match a die roll with a number of cards in play, fail an objective, or it just might happen at the end of every round! There are many ways to torture your players!! Mu-­hahahahaha!

Race Another type of track is a racetrack! The first to reach the finish line is the winner! The earliest games like Mehan and Senet were abstract race games, but with modern thematic games

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they represent real-­world race events like Circus Maximus (1976), Formula D (2008), Flamme Rouge (2016), or Heat: Pedal to the Metal (2022). A race can also be the first player to finish an objective—­which can be as simple as reach 10 points first as in Catan (1995), be the first to escape a haunted house as in The Haunting House (2003), or be the first to safely evacuate all your people from a sinking island as in Survive: Escape from Atlantis! (1982).

Deduction A popular genre in thematic games is mystery. Usually, there’s been a crime committed—­ such as a theft or a murder—­and it’s up to you to deduce who the criminal is and, presumably, bring them to justice! The first and most popular of this genre is Clue (1949) in which three cards are removed from play—­a character, a weapon, and a location—­and through deductive reasoning (and looking at other player’s cards), you can determine who the culprit is.21 While the header of this paragraph says “deduction,” there are actually two types of reasoning that you can build your mystery around: inductive and deductive. When you use inductive reasoning, you use experience and proven observations to guess the outcome. The goal is to predict a likely outcome. Games with inductive reasoning gives you the opportunity to gather facts (such as looking at another player’s cards as in Clue or asking questions to another player such as in Twenty Questions) and apply the information gained. Inductive reasoning allows you to begin with a starting point and narrow down your assumptions to reach an informed conclusion. You might change your theory about who the criminal is several times over the course of the game as new facts come to light and prove

  It was Professor Plum, in the Conservatory with the Candlestick. It’s always that guy!

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your previous theory incorrect. The disadvantage is when you don’t have enough evidence but a condition in the game—­a timer or another player is ready to guess—­that cuts the evidence gathering process short. Deductive reasoning uses theories and beliefs to rationalize and prove a specific conclusion. The goal is to prove a fact. This is when you use logic to determine whether something is accurate. This allows you to make “leaps in logic” based on previously known information. For example, in Libertalia (2012), each player has the same hand of cards to play on their turn. An observant player can keep track of what cards the other players have played and use that knowledge to decide which of their own cards should be played. You can design your mystery game around either type of reasoning, but it’s often better to stick to one type of reasoning or the other—­otherwise players are just making guesses, which spoils the feeling of being engaged in a mystery. In a game where the players are cooperating against the game to solve a mystery (such as in the Exit or Unlock! series of games), this is especially important.

I recently played a Star Wars–themed game where we found a blaster. The very next thing we discovered was a door. Being familiar with the Star Wars movies, I used deductive reasoning to assume that we could blast the door open—­something that happens all the time in the movies. However, that wasn’t the case, and we were penalized. There was nothing in the game that warned that we couldn’t use the blaster to open a door, so getting the negative response was disappointing. The blaster was used later in the game, but by that point we had tried it on three other items (another door, a security camera, and an Imperial guard) with no results, so we were hesitant to use it in the way that eventually solved the puzzle.

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You need to be clear with clues and how they help a player solve the mystery. In the rules you need to be clear in explaining how solving the mystery is achieved. If the players can’t make connections between the clues and the solution, then it just becomes a guessing game. A good way to help this is to give players a way to check their reasoning over the course of the game rather than in one fell swoop. Sometimes player aids like notepads help with this, especially when data contradicts each other and starts to get too confusing. I’ve found that writing a mystery can be hard, so here are a few ways to do so using game mechanisms instead: ■■

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Start with a set of “knowns” and then remove one or more of them from the game (by using a deck of cards, for example). Since the players know the known, they will be looking at what is left to verify what is not out of the deck. This is what Clue does when you remove three cards at the beginning of the game. Have the game system narrow down the choices as you play. Werewolf does this by having werewolf players “kill” other players each night. The noose tightens as everyone guesses out of the pool of the remaining players. Have the game increase or decrease the likelihood of what the outcome will be. For example, in Tragedy Looper (2011), the mastermind player can add intrigue tokens to a suspect—­which either can activate that suspect’s ability or can be done to throw the detective players off the scent of the real suspect.

Often in mystery games, there is a traitor. The traitor mechanic was defined in Chapter 5,22 but let’s talk about how use this mechanism in our game design. To start, your design must be a cooperative game. Everyone must be working for a common goal. To work together, you need to build trust. And to cause betrayal, you need to violate that trust!

  I know. That was a long time ago.

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Next all players should have a secret—­whether it’s a role or an ability. All players, regardless of their role, must be able to do everything in the game. If a player can move, the traitor can move too. If the player can collect resources, the traitor should be able to collect resources too. The fun of a traitor mechanic game is when you realize someone you thought was on your side wasn’t—­that’s why so many games with traitor mechanics are sci-­fi or horror themed like The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 (2017), Who Goes There? (2018), Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game (2014), or Battlestar Galactica the Board Game (2008). Finally, when the traitor is revealed, does the game end, or does it keep going so the traitor gets a chance to escape? That’s for you to decide!

Voting Voting is when everyone gets to vote on something in the game. Players may each get one vote, or it could be based on several resources. You may be able to vote all or nothing, choose an effect, or bluff by making the other players think you are voting when you aren’t. The result of the vote may change the in-­game state or prevent it from changing. Here are a few ways voting can be used in a game: ■■

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In Mafia (1981), players vote during the day round to try to uncover members of the mafia. In Dixit (2008), all picture cards are shown face up, and then players have to vote on which picture was the storyteller’s. In The Resistance (2009), each round begins with discussion. When ready, the leader entrusts sets of plans to a certain number of players, and everyone votes on whether to approve the assignment. In Junta (1978), depending on the player’s office and the cards they hold, each player has a certain number of votes. These are used to vote on the budget that the president proposes. In Republic of Rome (1990), a player’s influence in votes is determined by the number of senators they have recruited and the level of influence those senators have obtained.

Let’s Design a Thematic Game Still with me? Ideally you aren’t suffering from cognitive overload! Let’s wrap our arms around everything we’ve learned up until this point and make our own thematic game! Whenever I think of thematic games, I think of classic fantasy dungeon crawls like DungeonQuest and Hero Quest and Dungeon!, so let’s make one of those! Here’s what you’ll need:

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1 sheet of illustration board (at least 12″ by 18″) Pencil Scissors 3d6 A sheet of sticker paper 36 tokens (1.25″ wide) A black marker pen 4 fantasy miniatures

When building a prototype, especially a thematic one, you should include a component of quality. This is a component that is close to the quality of what will be in the final game. When I designed ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo, I had a miniature alien figure (who my kids named “Alan”) to inspire me. Alan kept me and my playtesters in the mood of the game as we played.

For our game, you’ll need four fantasy miniatures. I recommend one knight, one wizard, one archer, and one cleric, but you can pick whatever you want! You can find miniatures at any tabletop game or comic bookstore that sells board games. You can order them from an online store. You can even “borrow” them from another board game.

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Now that we have your heroes, you need the dungeon for them to explore. In most dungeon crawls, the play space is constructed of either square tiles or a traditional board. We’re going to make something slightly different.

Step 1: Creating the Game Board/Tiles For our game, you’ll need a stiff cardboard—­something that is thicker than a sheet of paper because you will be picking them up and moving them on each turn. I suggest using an illustration board that is blank on both sides (it isn’t always) so that you can draw on it. If you don’t consider yourself an artist, you can scan the images in this book, print them out, and glue them onto the board. You will want to cut the board into nine 8″ × 2″ (20.32 cm × 5.08 cm) strips like what is shown in Figure 9.2.

Figure 9.2  Strips

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On each strip, mark the lower-­right corner with the letter A, like what is shown in Figure 9.3.

Figure 9.3  A strip

Flip the strip over and mark the lower-­right corner with the letter B. You could even draw it in a fancy medieval font like I did in Figure 9.4! This is so the back can be distinguished from the front of the tiles, which is important to gameplay.

Figure 9.4  B strip

Thematic games are all about drama, and there’s nothing more dramatic than a ticking clock—­a doom timer that counts down the time the player has left to survive. That’s what these tiles and letters are for. But first, our tiles need to be dungeon tiles! Draw three rooms on the “A” side of the tiles like Figure 9.5.

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Figure 9.5  Tiles with rooms

Connect the rooms on the sides with hallways and on the top and bottom with hallways so it looks like Figure 9.6.

Figure 9.6  Tiles with rooms with hallways

We’re going to do this for all of the remaining tiles, but feel free to mix it up a bit. Some rooms will have only a hall on the top and bottom; others could have a bottom and side hallway. You want to create a twisting labyrinth for your heroes to explore! Figure  9.7 shows more examples of tiles with rooms.

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Figure 9.7  More examples of tiles with rooms

What matters most is that the way in and out is through these tiles because they will be stacked in the game like what is shown in Figure 9.8 and they must connect; otherwise, the game won’t work.

Figure 9.8  Tiles stacked to show connections

Next, repeat drawing the three rooms and their connecting hallways on the “B” side of the tiles. Again, you can mix things up a little so that each side of a tile is a little different than the other. You might want to blacken in the “negative space” on the tile, as shown in Figure 9.9, to make it easier to see the individual rooms and hallways.

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Figure 9.9  Blacked-­in tile

Flip the tiles back over to their “A” side. Set aside half (4 out of 9) of the tiles. On the remaining 5 tiles, draw a skull icon onto one of the rooms on the tiles similar to what is shown in Figure 9.10. Be sure to mix it up from left, right, and center rooms.

Figure 9.10  A tiles with skull icon

Now on the “B” side, we are going to draw more skull icons, but this time, you will draw two skulls on each tile—­with two exceptions. One tile should have three skulls, and one should have no skulls. Your results should be similar to what is shown in Figure 9.11.

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Figure 9.11  B tiles with skull icon

Step 2: Creating the Characters Set aside your dungeon tiles. Let’s make our characters. You should have some illustration board left over. The character boards don’t need to be very big—­as small as 2″ × 4″ cards. Write the name of each of your four characters on them as shown in Figure 9.12.

Figure 9.12  Four player cards

Now let’s give our heroes asymmetrical powers! Write down the following on each card so that the player can always keep it in front of them. Extra points for drawing a picture of the character! ■■ ■■

Knight—­Turn one blank die result into a sword. Wizard—­Re-­roll one die on your turn.

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Cleric—­Remove one hit from an adjacent hero. Archer—­Attack enemies up to three spaces away.

Step 3: Creating the Denizens and Hit Tokens Next, some denizens are needed for your dungeon. You will need those tokens and a pen. Break out your magnifiers and write the information in Table 9.1 onto your tokens. Each line in the table should be written on a separate token, as shown in Figure 9.13. You’ll have one token for each line. Table 9.1  Denizens for the Dungeon Name

Attack

Special

Reward

Giant Rat

1 sword

NA

NA

Blood Leech

2 swords

NA

NA

Skeleton

1 sword

NA

1 coin

Skeleton Archer

1 sword

Fights from 3 squares away

1 coin

Skeleton Knight

2 swords

NA

3 coins

Goblin

1 sword

NA

2 coins

Goblin Archer

1 sword

Fights from 3 squares away

3 coins

Hobgoblin

2 swords

NA

5 coins

Thief

1 sword

Skull = lose 1 random token

5 coins

Bandit archer

1 sword

Fights 2 square away, Skull = lose 1 random token

10 coins

Troll

1 sword

Ignore 1st sword

10 coins

Slime

NA

Player cannot move, can only be defeated with skull

NA

Gorgon Queen

2 swords

Player cannot move from this row

15 coins

Evil Wizard

2 swords

Can attack from 3 squares away

15 coins

Flame Dragon

3 swords

Can attack from 3 squares away

25 coins

Lich Lord

NA

Can only be defeated with a skull

20 coins

Chest Mimic

2 swords

NA

10 coins

Treasure Chest

NA

NA

5 coins

Treasure Chest

NA

NA

10 coins

Treasure Chest

NA

NA

15 coins

Healing Potion

NA

Heals all hits

NA

Healing Potion

NA

Heals all hits

NA

Magic Wand

NA

Attack up to three squares away

NA

Magic Sword

NA

Plus 1 sword

NA

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Figure 9.13  Examples of tokens

On the token’s back, draw a skull to match those that you drew onto the dungeon tiles, as shown in Figure 9.14. These tokens will be randomly placed on those spots during the game.

Figure 9.14  Example of back of token

You should have some tokens left (12 of them). These are going to be your hit tokens. Draw the word “HIT” on each of them. You could even draw a blood splat on it like I did! (See Figure 9.15.)

Figure 9.15  Example of hit token

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Step 4: Creating the Dice Next, get your dice. Cut the stickers to cover the faces on the 3d6. You will then draw the following numbers and symbols on the dice: ■■ ■■ ■■

Action dice 1: 1/1/2/2/3/3 Combat die 1: sword/sword/sword/two swords/skull/blank Combat die 2: sword/sword/two swords/skull/skull/blank

Let’s see—­tiles, miniatures, character cards, tokens, dice. . .I think we have all the components we need to play this game. Wait, a second! We need the most important thing of all, the rules!

Step 5: Create the Rules I told you thematic game’s rules could be complex! There’s a lot going on in this game, which means there are lots of systems to test and lots of design “knobs” to tweak!

Dungeon Crawl Rules for 1–4 Players Setup 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Vertically lace all nine tiles in a stack with the “A” side up. Place all hero minis on the third tile from the bottom of this stack. On each skull token, place a token face down (skull side up). Place the remaining tokens nearby, skull side up. Each player gets a character card. Give each player three hit tokens. The player who most recently read a fantasy book goes first.

Gameplay Rules 1. Roll the numbered action die to gain actions: move 1 room, attack 1 enemy, pick up 1 token.

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2. You may move your character up to that many spaces on the die. 3. You may only move to rooms that are connected by a hallway. You may move up or down the stack to the next tile. 4. If you are one tile away from a skull token, flip it over to reveal it. You might be revealing several tokens at once. 5. You cannot move past an enemy token. It must move or be defeated. 6. To pick up an item, you must spend an action. Place it on your character board. 7. To attack an enemy, you must be in the same room as the token. Roll the two combat dice. Table 9.2  Combat Results Chart

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Die 1

Die 2

Result

Blank

Blank

Miss

Blank

Sword

Hero defeats 1 sword enemy

Sword

Sword

Hero defeats 2 sword enemy

Sword

2 Sword

Hero defeats 3 sword enemy

Sword

Skull

Hero takes 1 hit

2 Sword

Skull

Hero takes 2 hit

Blank

Skull

Move 1 token forward

Skull

Skull

Move 2 tokens forward

Check the combat results chart in Table 9.2. If your hero takes three hits, they are removed from the game. If all heroes are removed from the game, then everyone loses! If you defeat an enemy, place the token on your character board. After all heroes have taken their turn, move the “A” tile at the bottom of the stack, flip it to the “B” side, and place it at the top of the stack. Place skull tokens on this new “B” side if necessary. If a character is caught when a tile moves, they take one hit and are moved up into any unoccupied room on the tile above. Continue in this way until all “A” tiles have been moved and flipped to “B” tiles. When all the “B” tiles are showing, the game ends. Calculate how many points in gold (on the skull tokens) each player has. Minus the number of HIT tokens that player has. The player with the most points wins!

Solo Play Rules Play the game in the exact same way but use three or four characters to play.

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Step 6: Playtest the Game With your rules in place, it is time to playtest! Remember, every time you change something in your game, you need to know what effect it will have on your game. Pay attention to what players are enjoying or finding frustration with your design. That way you can adjust your gameplay to improve the game! Track the feedback from playtesting your game here: When I played with one player: ____________________________________________ Two players: ____________________________________________________________ Three players: ___________________________________________________________ Four players: ____________________________________________________________ A good thing to track when playtesting a game is how long it took to play. Go ahead and track your play times below: One-­player playtime: _____________________________________________________ Two-­player playtime: ____________________________________________________ Three-­player playtime: ___________________________________________________ Four-­player playtime: ____________________________________________________ What was the difference between all the playtimes? Always account for the “teach”—­the time it takes players to set up and learn the rules of the game.

Step 7: Change the Rules There are a lot of rules that can be changed. Here are the gameplay rules again with my change, which replaces rule 16 from earlier:

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Gameplay (Version 2.0) 1. Roll the numbered action die to gain actions: move one room, attack one enemy, pick up one token. 2. You may move your character up to that many spaces on the die. 3. You may move only to rooms that are connected by a hallway. You may move up or down the stack to the next tile. 4. If you are one tile away from a skull token, flip it over to reveal it. You might be revealing several tokens at once. 5. You cannot move past an enemy token. It must move or be defeated. 6. To pick up an item, you must spend an action. Place it on your character board. 7. To attack an enemy, you must be on the same room as the token. Roll the two combat dice. 8. Check the combat results on the table. 9. If your hero takes three hits, they are removed from the game. 10. If all heroes are removed from the game, then everyone loses! 11. If you defeat an enemy, place the token on your character board. 12. After all heroes have taken their turn, move the “A” tile at the bottom of the stack, flip it to the “B” side, and place it at the top of the stack. 13. Place skull tokens on this new “B” side if necessary. 14. If a character is caught when a tile moves, they take one hit and are moved up into any unoccupied room on the tile above. 15. Continue in this way until all “A” tiles have been moved and flipped to “B” tiles. 16. If a “B” tile is to be flipped, remove it from play. 17. When there is only one tile left, the game is over. 18. Calculate how many points in gold (on the skull tokens) each player has. Minus the amount of HIT tokens that player has. The player with the most points wins! This makes the game more deadly as the players run out of spaces! If you want to be a little nicer to the players, perhaps there is a different rule you could create: My rule change is: _________________________________________________ You always want to playtest any changes to the rules. Record your result here: When I played with one player: _________________________________________

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Two players: ____________________________________________________________ Three players: ___________________________________________________________ Four players: ____________________________________________________________ You might notice that a rule change works great for one or two players, but not so great with more players (or vice versa)—­it’s okay to write two or more sets of rules to accommodate for those player counts.

Step 8: Change a Number We also have lots of numbers to tweak. It could be the number of hits the player has, the numbers on the dice, the different symbols on the die faces, the number of monsters versus the number of treasures, or the number of dungeon tiles that are used in the game. I think for my game, I will use my revised rules, but I will reduce the number of tiles to seven in the stack rather than the original nine. The number I changed was: _______________________________________________ Be sure to track what happened. Did you like the results? What happened? _________________________________________________________

Step 9: Change the Objective Let’s change the objective for the heroes. The game ends whenever a hero defeats five enemies, rather than running out of tiles. The following is the new version of the gameplay rules: Gameplay Rules (Version 3.0) 1. Roll the numbered action die to gain actions: move one room, attack one enemy, pick up one token. 2. You may move your character up to that many spaces on the die. 3. You may move only to rooms that are connected by a hallway. You may move up or down the stack to the next tile. 4. If you are one tile away from a skull token, flip it over to reveal it. You might be revealing several tokens at once. 5. You cannot move past an enemy token. It must move or be defeated. 6. To pick up an item, you must spend an action. Place it on your character board.

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7. To attack an enemy, you must be on the same room as the token. Roll the two combat dice. 8. Check the combat results on the table. 9. If your hero takes three hits, they are removed from the game. 10. If all heroes are removed from the game, then everyone loses! 11. If you defeat an enemy, place the token on your character board. 12. After all heroes have taken their turn, move the “A” tile at the bottom of the stack, flip it to the “B” side, and place it at the top of the stack. 13. Place skull tokens on this new “B” side if necessary. 14. If a character is caught when a tile moves, they take one hit and are moved up into any unoccupied room on the tile above. 15. Continue in this way until all “A” tiles have been moved and flipped to “B” tiles. 16. If a “B” tile is to be flipped, instead remove it from play. 17. If a hero has defeated five enemies, gameplay ends. 18. Calculate how many points in gold (on the skull tokens) each player has. Minus the amount of HIT tokens that player has. The player with the most points wins! What happened when I playtested this new objective: ________________________________________________________________________ My new objective is: ________________________________________________________________________

Step 10: Add a Mechanism It’s time to add a new mechanism. While it can be exciting to have a lot of things going on in a game, we should be mindful of adding more complexity. Go back through the book and look at all the mechanisms we could add. There are so many to choose from! Which one would you add? My new mechanism is: ________________________________________________________________________ What happened when I playtested this new mechanism: ________________________________________________________________________

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Step 11: Change the Theme If you aren’t a fan of dungeon-­crawls or fantasy, that’s okay because you can always retheme the game! Think about the mechanisms—­the “moving” dungeon tiles, the enemy obstacles, the health points, the combat, and action dice. . . . Find a theme that makes sense using your existing mechanisms. Here are a few ideas for themes that could replace the fantasy one: ■■

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The heroes are spaceships flying through outer space. The tokens could be enemy ships and asteroids that you mine for fuel that lets you reroll the dice. The heroes are commandoes fighting enemy soldiers like those seen in classic video games like Contra or Metal Slug. You could even orient the tiles sideways to simulate those side scrolling games! Replace the heroes with post-­apocalyptic vehicles racing through dangerous terrain! The tokens are obstacles that must be dodged or destroyed. The first player to the finish line (the final B tile) wins!

My new theme is:____________________________________________________ Write the rules to your rethemed game here:

Hey! That’s a cool theme you picked!

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Some Thematic Games to Play Let’s talk about how you can get your new game out into the world! But first, here are few great thematic games I think you should try: ■■

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Nemesis (2018)—­If you like your games large, complicated, and mean-­spirited, then I recommend this unauthorized take on the Aliens franchise. It manages to capture the action and paranoia, especially of the movie Aliens, as the intruders evolve and stalk you and one (or more) of your allies might not be your friend. Heroclix (2002)/Horrorclix (2006)/Halo Actionclix (2007)/Star Trek Heroclix: Away Team (2012)—­Fondly known by its fans as “nerd chess,” the Clix system uses a clever dial system to track the health, powers, and stats of your characters as you fight on a grid-­ battlefield. The selection of characters is mind-­boggling, with fantastic sculpts. I recommend playing the basic game several times before diving into more complex scenarios. I’ve authored several thematic games myself including Rayguns and Rocketships (2017), which is a skirmish-­style action miniatures game set in a 1930s pulp sci-­fi universe; ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo (2020), a cooperative survival game based on the classic 1979 sci-­fi thriller; and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the Game (2023), a cooperative horror game based on the 1974 horror movie where you must reach in the “hideous draw bag” to retrieve tokens that help and hinder your escape from Leatherface! I’m proud of all three of these designs!

There are so many amazing thematic games, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface talking about them. It’s what I love about thematic games: anything can be turned into a game and there’s something for everyone! What’s your favorite thematic game? My favorite is: _____________________________________________________

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Thematic games are all about drama! Ameritrash doesn’t mean what you think it does. A board game can be about any theme. Don’t violate the triangle of weirdness. Let theme inspire your gameplay and mechanisms. The feeling of danger is much more important than putting the player in danger. Identify and reduce the complexity of your design. In thematic games, fun is more important than balance. Use a component of quality in your prototype to help you and your players get in the mood. Include rules for different players counts (solo, teams, etc.). The best game designs invoke emotions. Use the right mechanisms to help players experience them.

10

Chapter 

L e t ’s S e ll a B oard Game YOU’VE DESIGNED SEVERAL board games, playtested them, revised them, and maybe even created some artwork to make them look pretty. . .now what? If you are just making a board game as a hobby, then congratulations! You don’t need to do anything else. You’ve done it! You are a game designer! You have playable games that you can share with your family and friends at any time! However, if you want to be a professional game designer and earn money from your board games, then let’s talk about what it takes to sell your game.

Why Sell Your Board Game? When I started making board games, I did it because, frankly, I was bored. I lived in a house that was way up a mountain, my friends were far away, and I was too young to drive. I had played a lot of games, and possibly just like you, after playing many games, I started to think I could make one too. I enjoyed making the games. I like the craft element of making a prototype and seeing a game design develop. I shared my games with family members (well, mostly my little brother). When he enjoyed playing them, I got satisfaction, and that was enough. After I designed Rayguns and Rocketships (2017), I created a game that I wanted to see exist. My game already existed, per se, but I wanted it to be a real commercial product with artwork and components better than I could make by myself. I wanted to share my game with the world. I had a prototype, but I wasn’t sure how to get it published, nor did I know if anyone would even be interested in it! At the time, I was already a member of the online gaming community and had friends who had published their own board games—­either by licensing their game to a publisher or by publishing their game themselves. So, I asked them what they did. Never be afraid to ask for help. Most people are happy to help you and want to see you succeed. Just like them, I want to see you succeed, so let me tell you what I learned.

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First Things First Before you pitch your prototype, there are several steps that you should take to prepare for pitching your game. The first is to create a page for the game on BoardGameGeek.com. On the top bar of the web page, select Community and click the carrot. On the drop-­down menu, select Contribute and then select Board Game. This will open the Create Board Game page where you are going to enter a lot of information about your game including the title, the number of players, the time it takes to play, a description of the game, credits (which we will talk about in a moment), publisher information, and year released. Here are all the fields that you should fill out, including a couple of tricky ones: ■■

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Title: This is the name of your game. Double-­check the BGG database and Google search to make sure your name is unique. Description: This is an overview of your game and the gameplay. Think of it as what might be on the back of the game’s box. This description should be somewhat, but not too, long and should go into some detail about how to play and win the game. If you look at other examples of similar games on the website, you should get an idea of how detailed you will need to be. Short description: This is a newer feature on the site, and it can be tricky to write. You want to grab the reader but describe the gameplay at the same time. These are a few examples I’ve written: ■■ “Planeteers battle for control of the galaxy in this pulp sci-­fi action game!” ■■ “Guess the identity of characters created with colorful cards and clever clues.” ■■ “A cooperative superhero worker placement game that can be played on any comic book.” Year released: Since your game isn’t out yet, you can just estimate the year that it will be released. You can always change it later. Number of players: This is one of the three essentials and should be pretty obvious! Minimum age: This is one of the three essentials. If you want to determine the minimum age of your player, there are four axioms: reading, math, maturity, and complexity. Kids 8 and under might not have learned how to read bigger words.1 Children under 5 might not be able to perform basic math. If your game has mature themes such as violence, substance use, or sex, then it might not be appropriate for players 17 and under. Some games are just too complex for younger players. Playtesting will help you gauge this age range. Minimum playtime: This is one of the three essentials. It is extremely important to get this correct. If your listed playtime is incorrect, gamers might get angry as they feel like they have been misled in some way. There are a few factors that we, as game designers, need to keep in mind when calculating playing time.

  Yes, yes. I know that your kids are smarter than average kids.

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First, consider the time it takes a first-­time player to learn the game. Just reading the rule book alone—­depending on how complicated the game is—­might add anywhere from another 25 minutes to hours (!) to the playing time. Then add to that the time taken to make sure that you are playing the game correctly. As a rule, I assume that I will always get at least one rule wrong the first two times I play a new game. This is why I try to play any game at least three times so that way I feel like I am playing it correctly! Another factor that extends playtime is analysis paralysis that can be generated from having a game be too complex or giving too many meaningful choices to the player. While I’ve said that giving players a choice is one of the best things you can do in your game design, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing! Category: This is what we’ve been calling genre. BGG lumps both game genre and story genre under this listing. Mechanisms: You should know the mechanisms of your game, but if you have some doubts, I recommend looking at similar playing games and seeing what mechanisms they’ve listed. Also read the description of the mechanism. If yours is a match, then use it! People: This is the trickiest entry because it’s like what they say about getting a job as a cashier: You need cashier experience to get the job. If you’ve already made a game that’s listed on BGG, then great, just select your name and you’re good to go! My name on BGG is Scott Rogers (II). If you aren’t listed on the site yet, you have one more step before you can submit your game. On the top bar of the web page, select Community and click the carrot. On the drop-­down menu, select Contribute and then select Person. You will be taken to the Create Person page. Fill it out and at the bottom, under Note to Admin, explain that you are creating this listing as a designer credit for your game. You might have to wait a few days for the person to be approved before you can go back and create the board game listing. Why does this matter? Because credits are very important. (I have more to say on this.) Publisher: You can select unknown or looking for a publisher for now. Year released: You can tick the No Year Available square for now. Dimensions: Check N/A. Languages: Select any languages that your rules are written in.

So, why would you want to create a page on BGG even before the game is published? There are a few good reasons to do so. It establishes your game with an associated date. This will help dissuade others from naming their game the same as yours in the future. Since you will have a description of the game on the page, others can quickly learn what your game is about. You can post images of your prototype and your sell-­sheet (be sure to mark them “creative” since they aren’t of the final game) as well as post any how-­to-­play videos. Your page becomes a location where you can send potential customers, fans, and publishers to learn about your game. Don’t forget to subscribe to the page so you will get alerts when someone reacts or responds on the page.

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If you’d rather create your own website for your game or if you already own a web page or a blog, you can post all the previous information there instead. Giving your game a landing page—­which is an exciting looking page that showcases your game—­is a great way to get people excited about your game. You can even invest in a QR code (there are several QR code generators that are available online) that you can print onto a business card that will lead to your website or landing page. A QR code is a quick and simple way to promote your game to potential customers that you meet at a convention or other gaming events.

The Importance of Sell-­Sheets Websites are fine, but the best way to promote your board game to a publisher is with a sell-­ sheet. Figure 10.1 gives an example of a sell-­sheet for the Hungry Spiders game. Sell-­sheets are a promotional tool for your board game—­a game’s résumé as it were—­that describes what’s cool about your game. It also provides vital information to a potential publisher, which helps them determine the game’s genre, playtime, player age, and even how much it might cost to produce the game. A sell-­sheet is a “leave-­behind” the designer can give to publishers at conventions or to send to them via email. They are also often used as the first stage of entry in many tabletop design contests. You can find examples of sell-­sheets in Appendix B, but you’ll notice that all these sell-­sheets have many elements in common. Let’s look at what your sell-­sheet needs: ■■

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Your game’s logo: While every game needs a great title, that title also must have a great logo. The easiest way to create a logo is to go to a website like 1001fonts.com or Dafont.com. You want to pick a font that matches the theme of your game. If your game is playful, then find a “fun” font. If your game is scary, then pick a “horror-­ themed” font. If your game is “science fiction themed,” then pick a sci-­fi font. You can also hand-­draw your logo if you need something unique and you possess some artistic talent. Logos go far to give a game an identity and communicate the game’s genre. The “three essentials”: The Number of Players, Minimum Age of Players, and Time It Takes to Play Your Game are critical to have on your sell-­sheet. These provide key things about your game the publisher will use to determine whether they will want to publish the game. For example, some publishers won’t make games for two players, while others specialize in them. If your game supports solo play, then it is for one to four (or whatever) players. Gameplay overview: This is a brief overview of how to play the game and how to win the game. Keep this as brief as possible, no more than a sentence. If you can’t describe your gameplay in a sentence or two, you might have a problem. Here’s an example of a brief overview of a game from one of my own sell-­sheets:

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Figure 10.1  Hungry Spiders sell-­sheet

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This is based on a true story: For 16 years, the town of Kringa has been terrorized by an evil Strigoi named Jure Grando. While your family struggles to survive day to day, you must gather and build the tools, weapons, and courage to defeat the undead fiend! ■■

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Notice the elements that I highlight in this overview—­where the game takes place (Kringa), who the threat is (an evil Strigoi), what the player is doing (survive day to day, gather, and build tools, weapons, and courage), and how to win (defeat the undead fiend). If you can communicate that many elements in your overview, you’re on the right track! Game photos: Show at least one photo of the game in action, preferably with the game set up to show what it looks like to play. You don’t always need to show players playing the game in your photos, but if you do, make sure they look like they are having a good time. Fake the shot if you must. Nobody wants to buy a game if its players don’t look like they are enjoying themselves. When taking photos or videos of your prototype, you want to make your prototype look as professional as you can. While some designers feel like this is a waste of money and time, I believe that first impressions count. If your game looks “done,” then publishers are often more likely to want to publish it. This may mean spending some time and money to create and print professional-­looking cards or components. Gameplay description: Describe the action that is going on in the photos. Tell the reader how the game is played, what’s cool and unique about the game play, and why they would want to make it. Use short sentences or bullet points to get this across. Once again, beware of the blocks of text. I also think that “beautiful art” and “great story” are not valid bullet points. All games should have these (unless they are an abstract game). Components list: Include a list of all the components that come within the game. This is actually very important because they let the publisher know just how much your game will cost to make. If you have dozens of dice or miniatures in your game, then some publishers might think twice or reject your game completely based on that. Others might welcome it. Knowing who you are pitching your game to is an important part of the selling process. Your contact information: You should always include your name, email address, and/or phone number on a sell-­sheet. Otherwise, how will the publisher be able to contact you when they are ready to buy your game? I also put my studio’s logo (Bedbug Games) on the sell-­sheet. It gives me a little bit of a “brand identity” and makes me feel a little more professional. Graphics: Finally, make your sell-­sheet look nice. You don’t necessarily need pictures on your sell-­sheet, but if you are trying to create a mood or a theme, drawings, fonts, and graphics can go far. Even immediately, you can tell that A Town Called Showdown is a Western-­themed game while Rayguns and Rocketships is a pulp sci-­fi game all because of the color, graphics, and fonts I used on the sell-­sheet.

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When using fonts, don’t forget about the two-­font rule of graphic design. This is the rule that you should never use more than two styles of fonts on your documents: a “fancy” or thematic one for logos, titles, and headers and a simple font for body text. I am a big fan of using simple, legible fonts like Calibri, Cambria, and Helvetica Neue as body text.

The Pitch Presentation If a sell-­sheet can’t convey everything that you want or if the publisher asks for more elaboration on the game design you pitch, then I recommend you create a pitch presentation. These are created in programs like PowerPoint and Slides. The format of a pitch presentation is longer and more elaborate than a sell-­sheet and requires much more information. A good format for a pitch presentation would include the following slides: Slide 1: The first slide (shown in Figure 10.2) should contain the title logo and an evocative image. Think of this as the poster of a movie or the start screen of a video game.

Figure 10.2  The title slide

Slide 2: The second slide (see Figure 10.3) is usually a recap of the sell-­sheet including most of the information from it including the game outline, three essentials, etc. You can leave off the components list, but do consider including a short list of mechanisms found in the game.

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Figure 10.3  The game overview slide

Slide 3: The third slide (see Figure 10.4) can start to detail the gameplay. These presentations are meant to replicate what it is like to play the game, so start with who the player is playing, what they are doing, and why they are doing it. If you don’t have time to draw illustrations or build and playtest a prototype, then you might want to consider creating a mock-­up using other game components. Photograph this mock-­up in various gameplay states to show what it looks like to play your game. A mock-­up isn’t a playable prototype, and it isn’t a finished game, but it looks like one. It’s merely a way to show the publisher what you are intending to design. Be very clear to them that the game hasn’t been designed yet; rather, this is something that you have in mind when describing the game. Think of it as concept art for your game design. The irony is that in some cases, publishers have asked me to send them the mock-­up to play—­a game that I haven’t even built yet! Slide 4–9: The next few slides (see Figure 10.5 through Figure 10.10) should highlight gameplay features, systems, and components. Try to illustrate the gameplay as clearly as possible. You might need to use multiple images to illustrate the idea. For example, if a player has to draw a token from a bag, show a picture of the player’s hand going into the bag and then another of the player drawing out the token. The goal is to make the gameplay clear for the publisher. The last thing you want is for them to be confused about how your game plays.

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Figure 10.4  Replicating the playing of the game

Figure 10.5  Gameplay details slide

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Figure 10.6  Gameplay details slide

Figure 10.7  Gameplay details slide

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Figure 10.8  Gameplay details slide

Figure 10.9  Gameplay details slide

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Figure 10.10  Gameplay details slide

Slide 10: This slide (see Figure 10.11) illustrates how a player can win the game. Again, clarity is the key here.

Figure 10.11  Winning conditions slide

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When making a game pitch, publishers often want to know if you have any expansions planned. The answer should always be yes! You always want to extend the life of your game. Never design a game to be “one and done”—­the real money is in the extended life of your board game—­whether it is reprinted, translated, thematic reskins, made into a second edition, or adding expansions. Slide 11: I usually finish these presentations with an “any questions” slide (see Figure 10.12). You don’t need to have this, but it is good to include it just in case you need to present your presentation online or in person. Overall, just like with sell-­sheets, the content of these slides should be concise and to the point.

Figure 10.12  Wrap-­up slide

The Pitch Video Pitch videos (or how-­to-­play videos) are starting to supplement or even replace sell-­sheets. I know of some publishers that won’t accept a game submission without one. While a pitch video is the clearest way you can show off your game, it requires a lot of work to create. Making a video can seem somewhat daunting, but it doesn’t need to be anything more complex than you playing a sample turn or a round of your game, narrating what you are doing and telling the viewer why it is fun and unique.

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Describing how to play a game is like telling a story. Start with the premise of who the player is and how they can win. Then show what the player controls (a hand of cards, some dice, a mini with stats, or whatever basic action your game requires) and go from there. Show how the player interacts with the “world” of the game until they reach the goal. If you are going to hold your phone/camera, keep it as steady as possible. It might be worthwhile to invest in a stand or even a few LED lights. Figure  10.13 shows a basic setup for shooting a how-­to-­play video.

Figure 10.13  Camera setup

Your goal is to create a video that is two to three minutes long (or less) that adequately shows and tells the viewer how to play your game. Here’s what you will need to shoot a pitch video: ■■

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of the game and the play area. You might consider using a tripod or some other mount to keep the camera steady. I recommend keeping the camera on the game for the entire video. You don’t need to be in it. Your voice is enough. Shoot from a top-­down view whenever possible. If you must move the camera, do it slowly and in short increments. If you need a beauty shot of a miniature or some other component, be mindful of your distance. Too close and the image will be too blurry. Too far and components will be hard to see and read. Just like when shooting a selfie, be aware of what’s in your environment. You don’t want to show something embarrassing in the background. Lighting: Adequately light your play environment. Be mindful of the glare on sleeved cards or laminated boards. You can reduce this by lighting from the side rather than straight on or by using a second light. Also, this will help reduce shadows. Try not to cover up the game with your shadow. A neutral surface: Avoid using anything shiny like glass, metal, or a clear plastic table cover when shooting your video. I recommend placing a tablecloth to display a game. Avoid “hot” colors like red or yellow. But depending on your components, they might be hard to see against dark colors too. You can’t go wrong with a white tablecloth (as long as it is clean). Avoid using a tablecloth with a busy pattern. A script: Writing a script is especially helpful if you aren’t comfortable with speaking in public or have poor improv skills. Memorize it (or at least be familiar with it) so that way you don’t stumble over tricky words or phrases. Speak as clearly and loudly as possible. Don’t mumble. Take your time to speak, but don’t take too long. A trick I’ve learned is to spell complicated words out phonetically in your script; it’s easier to read them that way. It’s okay to read from a script since you won’t be in the shot anyway. If you aren’t good at speaking, you can have a friend or family member read the script for you. Within your script, if your game is complicated, just focus on the main gameplay. Don’t worry about lore, detailed mechanisms, systems, or expansions. A quiet location: Try to get your environment as quiet as possible to capture the best sound. Put the kids, pets, and any noisy family members into another room, and turn off any loud fan, TV set, and alarm on your mobile phone. You don’t want anything to interrupt you while you are recording. Edit. . .if you must: I’ve seen varying quality of pitch videos—­and the simple ones are just as effective as the fancy ones. Some creators feel compelled to edit their footage. This really isn’t necessary. You are selling your game, not your video-­editing skills.

When you are done, make sure that your video is in MP4 format. This is the most common media player format. If your video is too large to send via email, you can always upload it to a cloud drive (Google Drive, Dropbox) and send the recipient the link. I’ve even posted a how-­to-­play video on YouTube or Vimeo. The advantage to doing this is that you can then share it on BGG’s video section.

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If you need more inspiration, you can watch my how-­to-­play videos at studio.youtube .com/channel/UCBHnf-­yTvjZC33SNQ7u2OZg/videos/upload/

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The Digital Solution During the global pandemic, game designers faced a big problem. How are we supposed to playtest our game when we can’t interact with other people? Fortunately, Tabletop Simulator (TTS) was there to help! This “game” developed by Berserk Games is available on STEAM,2 and it allows gamers to play board games in a virtual environment. While it’s not my favorite way to play a board game, it works fine when you can’t leave the house. Where TTS excels is as a prototyping tool. You can rapidly prototype a game design and have it up and running in as quickly as an hour or so. However, the software’s controls and commands do take some getting used to. Fortunately, I’ve gotten pretty good at using TTS. Here are a few pointers: ■■

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TTS is best for games that use standard components. While TTS does have the ability to import custom miniatures and create custom components (like dice with custom faces or tiles with die-­cut shapes) it’s a lot easier to start with out-­of-­the-­box components such as cards, dice, tokens, and tiles. Items like game boards and player mats can be locked down so they don’t move during play. To lock down a component, select the component, and right-­click it. Select the Toggle menu and select the check mark next to Lock. Don’t forget to unlock it if you need to move it around! Create your card faces (front and back) digitally3 first before you start creating your game in TTS. Going back and forth between programs while setting up your game in TTS is a waste of time. Make custom tokens “stackable” when they are created in the custom component controls. Every rule book needs illustrations. Set up your game in TTS, move the camera around to look at the components, and then use your computer’s screenshot tool (Ctrl+PrtScn on PC/Shift+Command+4 on Mac) to capture an image. You might want to trim the image in a graphics program like WinPaint or Photoshop, and then you can import the image file (generally with an extension of .jpg) into your rules document. This is especially good for showing the game setup for play or for processes such as taking a particularly complex action.

  store.steampowered.com/app/286160/Tabletop_Simulator   Please refer to how to create digital card art in Chapter 5.

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There are many other things that TTS is good for. I have pitched games to publishers in TTS. Why read a sell-­sheet or watch a video when you can play the game? I have used it for playtesting sessions with out-­of-­town or international friends. Sometimes, I just push pieces around on the table while I’m brainstorming a new game design. While it will never replace real physical board games, TTS is a good tool, and a smart game designer should never turn their back on using a good tool.

Playtesting Events One of the best ways to network is to attend a playtesting event. They go by many names such as ProtoSpiel, UnPub, or FirstToPlay, but they all offer the same thing: an opportunity for game designers to get their prototypes rigorously playtested. These events are a great way to meet other game designers and even publishers. Playtesting events often require the game designer to pay a fee to “pay for the table” during the event, but admission for playtesters is usually free. I have attended many playtesting events and have a couple of tricks that you might find helpful. ■■

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Your pitch should answer the following questions (which differs depending on the genre of the game): ■■ What genre is the game play? (Card game, miniatures game, dice game, etc.) ■■ What theme is the game? (Horror, fantasy, abstract, etc.) ■■ What is the player doing? (i.e., gameplay) ■■ Who is the player? (Are they themselves such as in a party game, or are they a character?) The shorter and more intriguing your pitch is, the more likely it will capture the imagination of the audience.

The elevator pitch for my game is: ________________________________________________________________________

Selecting a Publisher So, you’ve got your prototype, you’ve made your sell-­sheet, and you’ve shot your how-­to-­play video. You might even have a digital version of your game on TTS. You’re looking pretty good! Now, you need to find a publisher! The thing to keep in mind when looking for a publisher is that you need the right publisher, not just any publisher. You want to research which publishers make what types of games. Some publishers might specialize in games with miniatures; others don’t want to make games with miniatures. Other publishers publish only card games or only Euro-­style games or only horror-­themed games. There are several ways to find a publisher. You could go onto BoardGameGeek.com, go into their advanced search tool, and under “publisher” enter in a letter of the alphabet and look at all the publishers listed. This would be the worst solution as it could take forever! (Don’t do this.) You could do what I did when I was looking for a publisher for Rayguns and Rocketships. I went to my friendly neighborhood game store, looked at every game on the shelf that had miniatures in it, wrote down the names of those publishers in my sketchbook, went home, looked up the websites of all those publishers, and emailed them with meeting requests for the next convention I was going to. It’s not a bad method, but it is time-­consuming. At least you get to visit a game store! A better way is to search online for the phrase board game publisher, look at the results, and go to their website. On their website, you will often find a “submissions” page. Here you will find what they are looking to publish and, more importantly, what they don’t want to publish.

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I don’t know about you, but I prefer a sure bet, or as close to a sure bet as I can get. If I can find out exactly what a publisher is looking for, I can make that game for them, and they will be much more interested in publishing that game. I find writing them an email is a great way to make first contact with a publisher. Send them a brief but polite message along the lines of the following:

Dear Publisher, I am a game designer with an exciting new game design called [game name here]. I will be attending [name of convention], and if you have a few minutes, I would love to show [game name here] to you. Please contact me so we can coordinate our schedules. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely, Your name here You can also include your sell-­sheet in your email message to get them excited about the game you are pitching. While I recommend contacting them before the show, I find that the best way to meet a publisher is by attending a gaming convention. Cold calls are risky as often the publisher is too busy or booked up to take an unscheduled meeting. However, it’s good at least to introduce yourself to a business development (“biz dev”) manager or whomever is in charge of talking to game designers. Sometimes, I will politely ask if they will have time to hear a pitch. If they do, then great, it’s off to the races! If you already have scheduled pitch meetings at a convention, make sure to give yourself time to get from one meeting to another; you’ll need 15 to 30 minutes depending on the size of the show! However, keep in mind that conventions are usually very busy for publishers, and they might not have time to meet with you right then or even at all. If they decline, give them your business card, and ask them if it is okay for you to reach out to them after the show. There are many gaming conventions held around the world, but if you are looking to talk to a publisher about selling a game design, I recommend attending at least one of these shows: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association)—­Reno, Nevada (held in the spring) Tokyo Game Market—­Tokyo, Japan (usually held in spring) Origins Game Fair—­Columbus, Ohio (held in late spring) Gen Con—­Indianapolis, Illinois (held in mid-­summer)

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The Spiel—­Essen, German (held in the fall) Board Game Geek Con—­Fort Worth, Texas (held in late fall) PAX Unplugged—­Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (held in the winter)

These are just the biggest shows. There are other gaming conventions happening all the time; just look online. I also recommend attending some of the larger comic book and anime conventions around the world (such as San Diego Comic Con, DragonCon, Anime LA, just to name a few), as often board game publishers will attend those events too. If you don’t live close to those bigger cons, you might want to go to a medium-­sized one. Any convention is an opportunity to network with a publisher and fellow game designers.

Meeting with Publishers Once you’ve contacted a publisher and you schedule a pitch meeting at a convention or online, then what’s next? The following list contains my advice when pitching: ■■

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To give a great demo, you might have to “stack the deck” in your game’s favor…just a little bit. You might want the most impressive combo in your game to “just happen” during the demo, or you might want to show off a particularly funny or cool card from the game. It’s okay to do this. You are not being dishonest; you are just showing your game in the best possible light. Practice what your “best game” might feel like and make sure that you are ready to quickly set up and show your game. It’s always better to simulate a game “in progress” than from the beginning. You will almost never get to play more than a round or two of your game. The more complex your game is, the more likely you will have to be prepared to do this during your pitch. Also, practice putting the game away quickly so you don’t lose or damage anything as you hurry to leave. Read body language: There are many websites and books that can teach you how to read body language. I won’t recount them here, but you must realize that a game pitch is essentially a job interview for your game (and you!). Treat the pitch the same way: arrive on time (or better, early), dress appropriately, and be polite. During the pitch, if you are observant, you can tell whether you are doing well just by seeing how others are reacting to you. In Figure 10.14, Ryan (the publisher on the left) is smiling, leaning forward, and his “system” is open. He is interested in what I have to say and maybe even the game I am pitching; John (on the right) is uncertain, leaning back and has what is known as a “closed system” (arms crossed is a big “tell”), which indicates he isn’t convinced with what I am showing him. I can try to get him to “open up” by addressing John more or perhaps use him as a positive example about my game. If I can get John to “open his system up” during the pitch, that’s a good sign that I am headed in the right direction.

Figure 10.14  Body language

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Bring a backup: I normally suggest that you pitch only one game at a time so that you don’t overwhelm the publisher, but I’ve learned to bring other prototypes “just in case.” Let me share a story related to this. I was packing for a ProtoSpiel where I was running demos for a couple of prototypes. I had a prototype for a small party game that I almost didn’t bring with me because I didn’t want to “muddy the waters.” It is possible to bring too many games with you to a show. I usually try to bring two: a “marquee” game that I spend most of my time and effort promoting and a secondary game to pitch in case there is an opportunity to do so. If you bring more than that, you end up carrying around too many games, which can get very heavy! Despite this, I ended up bringing the game with me. At the show, I ran into a publisher who I had always wanted to work with. I asked if he had time to look at one of my games, and he said he had only 15 minutes. I realized the only game that I had that was short was the little party game. We played a few rounds. Long story short, he loved the game, and we made a handshake deal on the spot to sign the game. While it didn’t get published in the end, that’s okay. (It happens.) The lesson is, if I hadn’t brought the game, I wouldn’t have signed it. If you aren’t sure, bring it with you. You never know what might happen! Leave a “takeaway”: A physical takeaway like a business card might seem old-­ fashioned, but publishers look at many games over the course of a convention. Without these visual reminders of your game, they might forget about you after the show. If you have a business card, make sure it includes detailed information to remind the publisher who you are and what game is yours. I will usually make several cards, one for each game that I am pitching at a show. The business card, along with your sell-­ sheet, helps keep you and your game connected with the publisher when they later sit down and try to remember what the heck they saw at the show! You might want to consider bringing extra copies of your game with the intention of showing it to interested publishers. But beware, giving a prototype to a publisher is no guarantee that it will be published. I am torn about leaving a prototype behind with a publisher. I often can’t afford more than one or two copies of one of my games (printing prototypes can get expensive), and leaving one with a publisher to evaluate means I have one less copy to use for other pitches or for demos at a show. Additionally, publishers usually don’t look at your prototype right away (they have other shows to attend and their own projects to work on). I know some designers who have waited months or longer for a publisher to get around to playing their prototype. Most publishers I know have a big stack of these prototypes to play and only so much time to do so. I find it much better to try to play the game (or at least a few rounds) in person with the publisher so that way you know they have at least looked at it. I also find that it is always better to play a game with the publisher—­your enthusiasm for the game can help get them excited about the game. Pitching in person guarantees that you have presented your game in the best possible light.

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Make a friend first: Often, my goal isn’t to sell a game during a pitch, but just to meet the publisher as a fellow person who likes games. Sometimes I even make a new friend! The board game industry is built on relationships. If you are a decent person (and a good designer), others will want to work with you. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather work with a friend. Even if your game isn’t a fit with a publisher, they might be friendly back by suggesting a company or publisher who they think might like your game. People are much more inclined to help an up-­and-­coming designer who is polite and friendly! Never give up: Even the most successful game designers have their moments of doubt. The rejection can wear you down, but if you are persistent and you want to have a published game bad enough, (and if you have designed a good game), then odds are that you will eventually get published. There are many game publishers out there, and each one is a potential opportunity to get your game published. Don’t stop until you’ve talked to everyone! Always thank them: No matter what the outcome is of your pitch, no matter how badly it went, no matter how much they didn’t like your game, always thank the publisher for their time. Not only is it polite, but even if you don’t sell your game, you are selling yourself. There might be other opportunities in the future for you to work with that publisher, and no one wants to work with a rude jerk. The game industry is too small, and word gets around. “Be friendly, be helpful, and be grateful” has served me well in my career.

Contracts and Money Money is often an awkward thing for people to talk about. Creative people, like game designers, often are uncomfortable talking about money and asking for money. But you need to know something about contracts; otherwise, you might find yourself in a bad situation. Let me start out by saying that I am no lawyer. If you have any questions, consult a lawyer, preferably one with experience in the entertainment or publishing world. All the knowledge I’m about to share with you, I’ve learned the hard way during my career in board gaming.

Licensing Your Game There are two ways that a publisher can “own” your game. The first is by selling your game. The publisher buys your game outright. You are selling your game to the publisher. They own all of the rights; they own the intellectual property. Everything. Once you have been paid for your game, you are expected to not be involved in the game; it is out of your hands. Some designers don’t mind doing this. Once they’ve made the game, they trust the publisher to do what is best for it.

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I prefer licensing when working with a game to a publisher. You are not selling it or creating it as work-­for-­hire, you are letting the publisher publish it for a predetermined period of time. Your contract should state when the license expires and thus the rights return to you. Common time frames are 5 or 7 years. There can be a stipulation in the contract that if the publisher decides not to do another print run, the rights return to you. It is important to have the rights of your game return to you because a good game design can be resold to another publisher. Accomplished designer Reiner Knizia often does this with his many popular games. They are often either re-­issued with new artwork or a new theme.

Credit Where Credit Is Due While money is great, fair credit might be the most important thing for a game designer to include in a contract. In the end, while the money is nice, all you really have are your credits. Your contract should specify that your name is credited on the box (preferably the front) and in the game’s manual. You’d be surprised at how often designers have been robbed of credit from publishers. Be aware that often, especially with licensed games, the licensor won’t want your name on the box cover. Fight for credit if you must, but at least push to get your name on the back of the box! Be firm on how you are credited. Game designer? Inventor? Creator? Also demand to be listed on the BGG website, in Amazon listings, and in the game’s promotional material. Even if you aren’t credited on the front of the box, you want proof that you designed the game.

The Advance Games take time and money to make. Your time (and your money) is worth something. A game designer should always get paid to sign their game to a publisher—­just like how screenwriters are paid for their scripts by a film production company. The question is, how much should you get paid? This amount is called an advance because it is the money you get in advance of the production and sale of the game. An average advance is anywhere from $500 to $3,000, often depending on the experience of the game designer. In your contract, you need to specify how long after signing the contract you will be paid the advance. You should clarify whether your advance comes out of your royalty—­that is to say, when your game starts earning money, how much money does it need to earn before you start getting paid? For example, some publishers will let you keep the advance if the game doesn’t get made, and others will want that money back, so don’t rush out to spend it!

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Royalty Rate A royalty is the money that you earn for each copy of the game that has been sold. Because the publisher takes most of the financial risk and has other financial obligations (such as licensing, printing, distribution, etc.), they get the larger share of the profits. However, I believe that a game designer should share in that profit. The average royalty rate is between 2 percent and 10 percent of money received for each copy of the game sold. I’ve heard of larger rates—­around 20 to 25 percent—­but those rates are commanded only by “famous” designers who have designed big hits or have a reputation for repeated success. That’s not to say that you can’t get those larger rates—­sometimes a publisher is generous. My advice? Negotiate for as much as you can without causing financial hardship to the publisher; it’s just as much the responsibility of the designer to be a good partner to the publisher as it is for the publisher to be a good partner to the designer. You can negotiate for a higher rate, but you run the risk of appearing too greedy and damaging your relationship with your publisher. That said, it never hurts to ask. The worst they can say is “no.” There are other factors that can determine your royalty rate. For example, when I was designing a game based on a big-­name intellectual property (IP), a big part of the publisher’s cost was paying for that IP. I was told I had to take a smaller royalty because of the high cost of the IP. To figure out your anticipated royalty rate, ask the publisher how many copies of the game will be made. In my experience, 3,000 copies of a game is a standard run for a hobby game publisher, while 30,000 copies are a standard run for a mass-­market publisher. If the publisher prints 3,000 copies of your game (an average print run) and the game is sold for $20 each and you’re getting 10% royalty, then you’re going to get $6,000 for that entire print run. Well, $6,000 for all that work and effort into making your game might not feel like a lot of money to you. This is why it is so important for a game to have more than one print run; you often won’t earn much on the initial print run. It’s good to know how much you will earn so when you receive your royalty check, you’re not disappointed at how small it is. A royalty should be paid to the designer each financial quarter (there are four a year), and the publisher should provide records of how many games were sold. You will want to make sure that your contract says when you will be paid, usually quarterly but sometimes annually. Some contracts say that the royalty will be paid only if a minimum amount is earned (often around $100), and if that doesn’t happen, the royalty rolls over into the next quarterly payment. Once the profits get over the predetermined amount, a payment will be issued. Make

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sure to clarify how often you get paid. What happens if there is a missed payment? Is there a penalty that must be paid by the publisher? How are you receiving your payment? Is it paid electronically or via a check that is mailed to you? Get answers to as many of these questions as possible so that everything is clearly defined within your contract. One way to increase your royalty rate is to add a clause in your contract that says if a game sells more than a predetermined number of copies, your royalty rate goes up—­this is known as a sliding scale. For example, your initial contract might be for 5 percent, but if 10,000 or more copies are sold, your royalty rate increases to 8 percent on all additional copies sold. The more games that are sold, the more you earn. It helps to ask the publisher how many copies they are planning on making ahead of time. It does you no good to have this clause in your contract if they aren’t planning on printing more games. If the publisher prints a second print run (or more) of your game, you should have your royalty rate go up—­ usually by a few percentage points. This is different than the second edition, which usually involves changes to the gameplay, rules, or artwork.

Other Rights and Issues Another way to earn money in your contract is from internationally translated copies of your game. When a game is translated into a foreign language (one that is different than the language the game is originally printed in), you should get a percentage of the sum of the game when it was sold to the foreign publisher and also royalties from the sale of the game in the foreign country. This should be a higher percentage than your standard royalty—­ sometimes as high as 25 percent. Another thing to include in a contract is the first rights of refusal for expansions, second editions, or any other derivative works that could be created based on your game. This means that you get “first crack” at creating any new material based on your core game. If you refuse, the publisher might have another designer create it, meaning no profits for you. However, you can negotiate whether you get an advance or royalty on those derivative products. If your game is being offered on Kickstarter or some other form of crowdfunding, then you should negotiate a higher royalty rate. Often the production run of games printed for Kickstarter is different than those for traditional distribution. You could also ask for a different rate for any games sold via an electronic medium such as Amazon or some other website.

Complimentary Copies Comps is the industry term for “free” copies of the final game you will receive for making the game. I usually ask for either six copies or a case of games that I’ve worked on. These comps are great for self-­promotion (such as handing out to the press or gifting to a gaming café’s library), you can give them to friends and family as gifts, and don’t forget to save a copy for your own library.

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Another subject you can write into your contract is whether you have the option to buy more copies of your game from the publisher. What price can you buy them for? Can you buy them at the wholesale cost? Lower than wholesale cost? Can you buy the remaining stock if your game ever goes out of print? It will go out of print one day.

Rights Reversion There’s about a 99.9 percent chance that even if your game is published, it will eventually go out of print. However, if you are licensing your game, then you can write in your contract that the rights will revert to you when this happens. This means you get back the rights to your game to do what you will with it. You must specify what aspects of the game reverts to you. Is it the game’s design only, or does it include the art and other assets created for the game? Do you own the title of the game, or is that trademarked by the publisher? Getting your rights back is important for a designer because board games can have life after their initial publication. For example, after the rights to Reiner Knizia’s movie studio–themed game Dream Factory (2000) reverted to him, he was able to sell it to a different publisher to make the horror movie game Nightmare Productions (2022). Dr. Knizia can once again earn a profit from a game he designed more than 20 years ago!

Media and Products As Hollywood realizes that games are bigger and bigger influences on popular culture, they will turn to them as a possible source of intellectual property. I will tell board game publishers that if they want to negotiate for the toy, video game, clothing, or media (film, TV, or streaming) rights, then they must do it as a separate contract. It’s a totally different type of financial structuring deal. There are wildly different things to negotiate for, and they have their own pitfalls. However, a publisher might ask for the rights in your contract that focus on “ancillary” products like game mats, Kickstarter stretch goals, and miniature sets. I personally think these types of products are fine because they make your game a better product.

Always Be Selling There’s an old saying: “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” The only way to get “lucky” with a publisher is by getting your game out there and letting people know about it. Attend speed-­dating events to get your game in front of the world.

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Promote your game at conventions, and in between playtest sessions have meetings with publishers to introduce them to your game. Don’t be discouraged if these meetings do not result in a sale (it is rare to walk away from a meeting with a publisher with a deal). It’s just as important to make friends at these meetings as it is to show that you are a talented designer. You never know where a meeting with someone will lead! Promote your work on social media. Don’t be afraid to share your game (remember, no one is going to “steal it”—­we’re all too busy making our own games!). I have been scolded by some people who think that I’m promoting my games too much, but my thinking is “If I don’t promote myself and my games, then who will?” The answer is no one will. You must do it yourself. Whew! That’s a lot to know about licensing a game to a publisher. But that’s just one way to get your game out into the world. Let’s look at another.

Self-­Funding If you have the means, you can always self-­fund your game. This is where you pay for everything yourself—­from the printing of the game to distribution. I always think of Merle Robbins, the inventor of UNO (1971) who created 5,000 decks to sell out of his barber shop and the trunk of his car. I have seen plenty of other designers create small runs of their games and sell them at local conventions and to their friends and family. You know what? That’s a perfectly fine way to get your game into the world. After all, the goal as a game designer is to make games that make people happy and forget their troubles for even just a little bit. But just remember that you have to pay sales tax on your games and declare income (or loss) when it comes time to file taxes. If you think pitching to a publisher is a lot of work, publishing the game by yourself is even more work. As you are developing the game, are you also prepared to market your game by contacting the press? Are you ready to contact overseas printers to produce the game, willing to contact distribution companies to help get your game where it needs to go, and able to reach out to game stores all around the country or world to request they sell your game? Do you have space in your house or garage or storage unit to store thousands of copies of your game? If none of these scare you, it should. If you still think it sounds like it could be an adventure, then let’s talk about crowdfunding.

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Crowdfunding In 2015, 228 backers pledged $14,885 to bring the board game Alien Frontiers to life. This sci-­fi worker placement game was considered the first big success on the six-­year-­old crowdfunding platform Kickstarter (kickstarter.com) and kicked off a revolution in the board game industry. Since then, thousands of board games have been kickstarted. The highest-­grossing games include Frosthaven (2023) with $12.8  million, Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5 (2015) with $12.4 million and Exploding Kittens (2015) with $8.7 million. But keep in mind, these are outliers. Many Kickstarter game projects are barely funded, and others never fund at all. Regardless, the excitement generated by Kickstarter and other subsequent crowdfunding platforms such as Indigogo, GameFound, and BackerKit created a gold rush of games as designers rushed to these platforms with dreams of getting their games published and striking it rich. Crowdfunding is a very deep topic. If you choose to do crowdfunding, then it’s important to get it right, as there are many mistakes that can be made along the way—­costly ones. If you are serious about learning what it takes to run a crowdfunding campaign, then you need to read the following websites presented by experts on the topic. These sites go far deeper than this book can cover. ■■

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Stonemaier Games blog run by Jamey Stegmaier, the publisher of Scythe, Wingspan and other popular games found at stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter/ full-­list-­chronological/ League of Gamemakers includes contributions by Eduardo Baraf and Luke Laurie who have run many successful campaigns including The Dwellings of Eldervale (2020), Andromeda’s Edge (2024), Herbaceous (2014), and Skulk Hollow (2019), which can be found at leagueofgamemakers.com/category/kickstarter/

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Marketing Previews The campaign Add-­ons and stretch goals Production Pricing Shipping, storing, and distribution

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Marketing Crowdfunding lives and dies by awareness. You want to start marketing your game at least 6 months ahead of when you are planning to run your campaign. You will need to start showing your game publicly, preferably at gaming conventions where it will get some attention. Start a mailing list to gather the emails of potential customers. Take interesting pictures and videos of your game to show on social media including sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, TikTok, and Twitch. Start a page on BBG or create a landing page website and post the rules so players can learn how to play your game before it comes out. Get pictures of people playing your game, painting the minis, and buying your game. Ask stores to carry your game. Go onto podcasts and talk about your game. When it comes out, do in-­store signings of your published game. Remember, no one will be more excited about your game than you are. Do whatever it takes to let people know that your game is coming.

Previews The average crowdfunding page has three video previews/reviews and at least that many written recommendations from influencers and reviewers. There are many influencers and content creators who specialize in crowdfunding previews. Some of these creators charge money to create a preview video. Others will review your game if you send them a review copy. If you watch these preview videos, you’ll notice that the copies of the game that their designers have sent look very close to the finished product. You will want to make sure the review copy of your game is presentable, even beautiful. There is a danger to sending a game to a reviewer: they might not like your game, and a negative review will do you no good! There is really no way to mitigate this risk, as it is up to the reviewer to be as honest as possible. It’s just a risk you’ll have to take.

The Campaign Back in the early days of Kickstarter, all you needed was a short video explaining why you wanted to make the game and a couple of pictures to get people excited. Today’s crowdfunding pages are extremely elaborate affairs that utilize graphic design, motion graphics, video, and other visuals to explain the game and what you are offering to the backer. Countdown timers, shipping cost outlines, production trackers, cargo ship trackers, and frequent updates that engage with the backers in the comments section will keep them coming back to your page during the campaign. Two of the most important things to consider when running a campaign is the length of the campaign and the goal of the campaign. The average crowdfunding campaign runs 20 to 30  days. Some claim that the month that you run it during is critical. Some swear spring months are best, while others claim fall is better. Whenever you run your campaign, you need to be aware what other games are going to be running during your campaign.

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The last thing you need is an expensive and popular campaign sucking all the air and funding away from yours. The goal is the amount that you are asking your backers for to fund the production of the game. Kickstarter expert Jamey Stegmaier4 asks you to consider these questions: ■■ ■■ ■■

What is the minimum amount of money needed to make the game a reality? How much lower than that minimum amount of money can the funding goal be? What is the cost to you if you receive funding for 500 units? 1,000? 1,500?

In the comments of this blog, poster Derek Sheridan offers up this simple formula to determine costs and fees: (Minimum order quantity * Landed cost per unit) – Personal investment {not art and marketing, but rather the amount of personal investment you will put into manufacturing}) + Kickstarter and Stripe5 fees. Then round up (always up) to at least the nearest thousand. He continues with this example: If you have a minimum order quantity (MOQ) of 2,000 units and a landed cost per unit of $15 ($12  manufacturing and $3 freight—­including import duties and taxes), with no personal investment, your absolute minimum funding goal is: (2,000 * $15) – $0) + $3,000 = $30,000 + $3,000 = $33,000 Sheridan says that this will ensure that the manufacturer is paid, the freight shipping is paid, and Kickstarter is paid. All that’s left to do is collect fulfillment shipping costs and pay fulfillment companies—­plus warehousing, etc., that is incurred after the game is made. That’s a lot to account for just to make sure you are setting your goal to the correct amount. If this is a lot to take in, trust me it is. But there is help to be found. Some of the sites that I mentioned earlier have excellent checklists for running a crowdfunding campaign. Some even have a timeline for you to follow as you march toward your starting date. While I haven’t run a crowdfunding campaign by myself, I do know from my friends who have that they tend to be exhausting. During the entire time your campaign runs, you still have many things to do. You will need to advertise what is happening on social media and

  This is taken from Jamey’s excellent blog found at stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-­lesson-­7­the-­funding-­goal. 5   Stripe is a payment processing platform used to process a backer’s support. 4

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in-­person at conventions and in-­store appearances. You will want to field all of the questions and criticisms about your game from the public who know very little about your game. You will find yourself tempted to look often as the number of backers (and their pledges) climbs toward your goal. Dealing with the anxiety of a Kickstarter (even if you aren’t running it, there is still the anxiety of being involved) is a real issue. Take a break from your campaign. It will still be there when you come back. Elan Lee, the designer behind Exploding Kittens, says that he runs his campaign like a party. He’s less worried about funding and more interested in the backers having fun. Publisher Cardboard Alchemy’s Kickstarter campaigns (Flamecraft [2022], Dwellings of Eldervale) tend to be full of puzzles and games for the backers to play. If they solve them, they can win extras like exclusive miniatures and collector’s coins. Many publishers are obsessed with funding a game within a short time span, such as the first 24 hours or within a week, but don’t be discouraged if this doesn’t happen. These are just arbitrary marketing targets to get buyers more excited or make them experience FOMO (fear of missing out). In the end, all that matters is that your game funds.

Add-­ons and Stretch Goals The term stretch goal was first used in a board game campaign on Kickstarter in CMON’s Zombicide (2012). A stretch goal is an additional goal, above and beyond the initial funding goal requirements of the project. They are small bonuses—­such as improved card quality, bonus cards, miniatures, UV spot printing, upgrading components from paper to wood, etc.—­that are unlocked to give more content to your backers. It’s an exciting way to keep backers engaged as the funding grows. The more backers you get, the more stretch goals they unlock, encouraging more backers to join in the fun. Stretch goals are usually spaced out along funding milestones. For a small, new game, these goals might be every $5,000 or $10,000 from the original funding goal. Stretch goals can be a way to get content into your game that you originally intended but just couldn’t afford. The mercenary captain miniatures, the upgraded plastic tokens and draw bag, and the raygun models are examples of stretch goals we had in our campaign for Rayguns and Rocketships. Some of them were planned for the game such as the mercenaries, while others like the raygun models were created specifically as stretch goals for the campaign. How is it that stretch goals can be offered for “nothing”? That’s because printers will reduce the cost per copy of a game by printing additional copies; thus, this per-­copy savings can be applied to the cost of the stretch goal items! The more you earn, the more you save! There are pros and cons to having stretch goals. They can make your game more appealing to backers, as well as increase traffic to your campaign page. You can even have backers suggest

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or vote on new goals to keep them engaged. However, there are potential downsides too. All of the additional content may increase productions costs, the weight of your game box, and the cost to ship it as well as delay your production. These issues are not to be taken lightly. The slightest change of weight can push you into the next pricing tier. This means your backers will have to pay more for shipping, which will anger your backers if they don’t know it is coming. This happened to CMON’s Marvel Zombicide campaign in 2022 when backers were informed that they would have to pay up to an unexpected $200 for shipping! Add-­ons are items that a backer can add onto their pledge for an additional cost. These can be an expansion, miniatures, or plussed-­up components. Add-­ons are a less risky way for you to offer more content, but it does complicate preparing orders and creates wildly different shipping costs.

Production Knowing how much your game will cost is critical. To determine that, you are going to have to contact a printer. There are dozens of companies that can print a game. You can find a list at boardgamemanufacturers.info. But which company is the best? That depends on your budget, the size of your print run, and what components you need for your game. There are other differences between printers too. For example, some print only cards, whereas others can print miniatures; some can make metal or wooden components or can print using special techniques or inks. You also want to consider where a factory is located. The majority are in China, which means you will have to ship your game overseas, and that takes time and can be very expensive. The first step is to determine the minimum viable product. This is your game with the minimum number of components that it needs to be playable. You might have created other content, but depending on the cost, you might want to save those for an expansion, an add­on, or a stretch goal. A good way to double-­check what you’ll need is to use a site like the Game Crafter (thegamecrafter.com), Print and Play (printplaygames.com), or Board Game Makers (BoardGameMakers.com). These companies have lists of sizes and scales of components, as well as templates that you can use to help create your game. They also do small print runs that are useful when creating prototypes. Make sure you know your component’s measurements (length × width × height) in centimeters. It also helps to know what

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materials and finishes you’ll want for your components. Some common materials and finishes include the following: ■■

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Cardstock is thicker and stiffer than regular writing or copier paper but thinner and more flexible than illustration or cardboard. It’s best for cards, especially larger Tarot-­ sized ones. Illustration board is even thicker than cardstock. It comes in two surfaces, hot and cold press, which gives them different textures. (Cold is smooth; hot is rough). Chipboard is usually thicker and hardier than ordinary cardstock. It’s good for small projects that need to be sturdy—­like paper craft items such as standees and dice towers. Plastic cards are waterproof and great for cards that will be handled over and over or by messy players like very young children. Laminate cards have a surface that you can draw on with a dry erase marker. They are also shinier and tend to hold up better when handled frequently or roughly. Black core refers to the inside (or “core”) of a card. Black core doesn’t allow for light to shine through so that players can’t see the other side of the card. Foil cards can refer to several different treatments to cards that make them shiny or even hold holographic images. Matte refers to a texture or treatment on the surface of a card that absorbs light, making it easier to read. Gloss refers to a texture or treatment on the surface of a card that makes it reflective and harder to read in bright light. Transparent cards are made of plastic and can be seen through. Images are screened onto the card. Acrylic is a thicker clear plastic that is often used for standees or guides. An image is often screen printed onto them. Linen is a textured coating normally found on playing cards. To many, the term linen evokes a sense of refinement, and linen cards are often offered as an upgrade. Neoprene is a synthetic rubber often used for card mats. Images can be printed onto them. Spot UV is an ink that reacts to light, making it look “wet” or shinier under the light. The “spot” refers to the details that the reflective ink brings out on the box cover or board. Die-­cut is when a board is cut to an unusual shape. A die is used to cut standees, tiles, boards, puzzle pieces, and more. A die punch is used to cut shapes in thicker board. Two layers of punched boards are glued to create dual-­layered boards.

Remember, this is all on top of playtesting your game and commissioning (and dealing with) artists and graphic designers, game developers, and rulebook editors/layout artists!

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Pricing Once you have figured out the dimensions and materials of your game, you will send that information to the printer for a quote based on the number of games that you want to print. Part of that cost will include the price to assemble all the pieces into the game box. Someone has to do it! Sometimes, components come from several different printers and factories and must be sent to a central location. That’s an additional cost that you will have to pay. The average hobby board game print run is 3,000 copies. A mass market game sold in a “big box” store (like Walmart or Target) might print 10 times (or more) that amount. Ten thousand copies sold is considered a success in the board game industry. If you sell 100,000 or more, you’re a big hit! Passing the one million mark isn’t unheard of, but those numbers are usually achieved by games that either are sold internationally or have been in publication for a while. Board games (and all factory-­made items) benefit from economy of scale: the more that you make, the cheaper it is. Once you have your estimate of the overall cost and the individual cost per unit, you can figure out how much to charge for your game. The average board game is priced five (or more) times the cost of printing it. Considering the economy of scale, a single die might cost 10 cents, but it costs 6 cents if you have one in 500 games. And it would cost 2 cents apiece if you are printing 3,000 games. Similarly, a single card might cost only 2 or 3 cents, but if you have a deck of 52 of them, now it costs $1! Now add in the box (one of the most expensive components), the tray, the rulebook, and any other items to get the cost. You need to know how many of each component and what each component costs when determining the cost of your game. If your game costs $20 to produce and ship but your price is $19.99, then you have a big problem! Setting the price of your game is where you have some flexibility. The price of what you sell your game at is known as the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP). The MSRP is set high to give the store some flexibility when selling the game. Those “buy one, get one half-­off” sales at the big-­box stores? Those prices are set so that they are still making money at those reduced prices. The best strategy for setting your game’s MSRP is to look at games of comparable box and content size, but you have to consider the customer’s perception of what a product should cost. For example, a game that is “just” a few decks of cards usually sells for $20 or less. Anything higher than that and the consumer will say that it is too expensive. Then again, the gaming community appears to have no problem spending hundreds of dollars on games in big boxes with lots of miniatures!

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And after all of this, once you finally get your money from your successful crowdsourcing campaign (minus the fees the crowdfunding site charges), you still need to pay all associated parties and keep good tax records! Speaking of taxes, you need to be aware of what you will have to pay come tax time! Should you incorporate and file as a limited liability company (LLC)? Can you deduct expenses? What kind of accrual method should you use? I’ve found an excellent guide online to help answer these questions (boardgamedesignlab.com/ wp-­content/uploads/2021/03/Board-­Game-­Design-­Lab-­Tax-­Guide .pdf), but when in doubt, please consult a tax professional.

Shipping, Storing, and Distribution All those games that you’ve printed at an overseas factory, they’ve got to get to you somehow. And once they arrive, they must go somewhere. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the space in my house to store 3,000 board games. Shipping can be one of the biggest pitfalls for a creator who is publishing their own game. I’ve heard many horror stories about this step of the process, such as the cost of shipping containers going up in price by a factor of 10! There can also be extra fees that you might not think about such as the extra cost for having multiple boxes (or cases) of your game sent using a pallet. The ship carrying your games might even sink in a storm! There are dozens of different methods available for shipping that have various pros and cons, which usually balance speed with cost, but also includes who pays shipping and who is responsible for shipping. There are too many options to be covered here, but all I can say is do your research, reach out to people who might have used these shipping companies, and compare several companies before making your choice. Storing games can be expensive. You can rent a local storage unit to hold them, or you can have them shipped to a distribution center, which is a warehouse that holds your games for you (for a fee) and ships them to your customers when they are bought (for a fee). Will you offer international shipping? Most modern campaigns do. As a result, many publishers have made deals with distributors in other countries because it is cheaper to ship cases or pallets of their games overseas direct from the factory. These foreign distribution centers then ship the game to buyers in their native countries. Sending games to customers is known as fulfillment. There can be lots of problems during this stage. A game might not have been packed correctly and be missing components. A box (and the game inside) might get damaged during shipping. A thief might steal the game from the porch of the customer even though it arrived safely. It is your job, as the game’s publisher, to field these problems. If pieces are lost, you should replace them. . .as long as you have the pieces to send to the customer. Other issues such as damage or theft are trickier to deal with. Sometimes a publisher will take a loss to make a customer happy. Other times, not so much. Which kind of publisher do you want to be?

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My return/damage policy is: ____________________________________ As you can see, crowdfunding is extremely complicated with many working parts. My hat is off to anyone who has run a crowdfunding campaign. They are so much work and so stressful. But there are those who do it again and again. Maybe they like the excitement?

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Making friends with publishers is the best way to get your game published. Create a sell-­sheet for your game. Make a how-­to-­play video of your game. Determine your game’s minimum viable product to determine its cost. Crowdfunding is difficult and complicated. Be prepared. There’s nothing wrong with self-­promotion. No one is more excited about your game than you are. If you believe in your game, then don’t give up on it. You don’t need to have your game in a big store to be a success. It’s important to get proper credit as a game designer.

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L e t ’s Do I t A ll O ver A gai n! GIVE YOURSELF A pat on the back. You’ve created six game designs! That’s amazing! At the beginning of this book, I said that you would learn to make games by copying me, but now it’s time for you to make a game from scratch. Many find a blank canvas to be daunting, but I know several tricks you can use. The following are areas that can help you get started: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

A mechanism (or two) The theme A story The title Components The player count A “moment” An experience or mood The publisher’s need

Each of these is a unique way to get started in creating your very own game. Let’s dig into them.

Starting with a Mechanism (or Two) We’ve covered dozens of mechanisms in this book. Are there some that you find more interesting than others? Is there a particular game you like that you want to see if you can make your own version? The designer of UNO (1971) was inspired by the classic card game Crazy Eights. The designers of Quarriors! (2011) wanted to make a deck builder like Dominion (2008) but with dice instead of cards. A great way to do this is to combine one mechanism with another. For example, Stone Age (2008) is a worker placement game that adds dice rolling. You must spend resources to “feed” your workers after you have placed them in Agricola (2007). Dwellings of Eldervale (2020)

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allows you to convert a worker in play into a dwelling for points. These “small” differences in how the mechanisms work end up making each of these games feel unique. There really is no limit to the number of mechanisms you can combine, but remember, the more mechanisms that you use, the more complicated your game will become. It’s easy to keep adding things to a design and create a complicated game, but it’s harder to create something simple and elegant. Sometimes simpler is better.

Starting with the Theme Before I designed Rayguns and Rocketships (2017), I watched movies, read books and comics, and researched images until I was extremely knowledgeable about the genre of 1930s pulp science fiction. (It didn’t hurt that I was already a fan before I started designing the game!) I find that designing a game by starting with a genre can inspire many aspects of your game’s design—­from gameplay and mechanisms to artwork and story. Where it gets interesting is when you try to design a game based on a genre that is less commonly used in board games. There are countless games about fantasy, science fiction, horror, history, and adventure, but few about comedy, romance, biographies, and melodrama. It might be more challenging to design a game around these lesser-­used genres. The following is a list of topics that I’ve never seen board games about: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■

A dungeon-­crawler set in the human body A game about the Paris to Madrid automobile race of 1903 A game about the stonecutters who cut marble for Italian renaissance artists A science-­fiction game about love A game about writing dime-­store novels set in the 1880s

Who knows, perhaps there is an audience who has been waiting for a board game about these themes. Sometimes you realize that there are just too many games of a particular theme. Or that you just aren’t an expert on a theme, despite any research you do. You might need to change your theme even as you are working on the game. Twilight Struggle (2005) designers Ananda Gupta and Jason Matthews were working on a game about the Spanish Civil War but learned a similar game was being made by a designer in Spain. “We’re probably not going to do a better job than he is,” Gupta joked, so they eventually settled on the Cold War.1

  fivethirtyeight.com/features/designing-­the-­best-­board-­game-­on-­the-­planet/

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Starting with a Story Designer Jerry Hawthorne was inspired to create Mice and Mystics (2012) after he told his young daughter a bedtime story about the adventures of mice. Designer Mike Fitzgerald realized the connection between the card play in the classic card game of Rummy and the structure of a mystery story, so he combined them to create Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper (1998). Both games started with a story, whether they were fictional or factual. Board games are wonderful storytelling devices; after all, they use all the tools that a storybook does: words, images, characters, and conflict. The classic three-­act structure and the dramatic arc offer game designers a strong framework that can be used to design a game. Some games tell a “fixed” story such as The 7th Continent (2017), T.I.M.E. Stories (2015), and Fury of Dracula (1987). Other games offer stories with multiple paths such as Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger (2018), Tales of the Arabian Nights (2009), and Betrayal at the House on the Hill (2004). What story will you tell?

Starting with the Title Titles are powerful tools. They can capture the spirit of a game immediately. A good title quickly and effectively communicates the story, theme, or mechanism to the player from the moment they pick up the box. Looking for more inspiration? Here are some ways you can choose the title of your game: ■■

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Name it after a character or a place: The Batman Game, Merchant of Venus, Sagrada, Carcassonne. Name it after an activity in the game: Twister, Kill Doctor Lucky, Acquire, Roll for the Galaxy. Give it a descriptive title: The Awful Green Things from Outer Space, Hey Pa! There’s a Goat on the Roof! or Dead of Winter: A Cross-­roads Game. Give it a “cinematic” title: Fortress America, Through the Desert, Shadows over Camelot, Fury of Dracula, Everybody Knows. Give it a purple cow* title: Jenga, Qwirkle, Qwixx, Qwiddler, Farkle.

A “purple cow” title is a marketing concept where you choose a name for a product that “makes your audience stop in their tracks and wonder why the title was chosen.”

When starting with a title, make sure you do your research first. Choose a title that hasn’t been used before or isn’t too close to the title of another published game. I recommend doing both a Google search as well as a thorough search on BoardGameGeek.com. If you find

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that your game has the same name, it’s generally better just to change it. If your game’s name is taken, don’t worry; there are plenty of words (in many different languages) out there to use!

Start with Components The good news is you can make a board game from just about anything. I’ve seen designers create games using toy dinosaurs, magnets, foam guns, an actual bell, inflatable caveman clubs, dental dams, and even lasers! Using a component in a clever way can make for an appealing game. Interesting components will draw players in. Never underestimate the “toy factor” of a component. The shape, size, and texture of a component can make a huge difference in how the component is used both in the game and by the player. The game Bootleggers uses standard wooden cubes to represent boxes of liquor, which look particularly thematic when they are placed in the backs of little plastic trucks! Some games use unique versions of standard components to create new mechanisms and game play. The games Gloom (2005) and Canvas (2021) both use transparent plastic cards but each in totally different ways. The Funkoverse Strategy Game (2019) was created when Funko wanted to make a board game using their Pop! Figures. Try looking at an old component in a new way and perhaps you can invent something new!

Starting with the Player Count Let’s say you want to design a game for a large number of players, such as those attending a family gathering or some other get-­together. You can design a fast-­paced party game that can accommodate a large number of players like Pictionary (1985), Pantone the Game (2018), and Cards Against Humanity (2009). What if your social group is smaller? You could design a game that plays better with fewer players such as Ticket to Ride (2004), Pandemic (2008), or Lords of Waterdeep (2012). But what happens if you have no one to play with at all? Then design a solo game! Solo games are popular, and more are coming out all the time. Games designed for a single player include Friday (2011), Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (2011), and Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island (2012), while multiplayer games like Mage Knight (2011), Massive Darkness (2017), and Scythe (2106) offer robust solo play modes. Here are a few tips when designing solo games: ■■

Create an objective: Solo players prefer a solid objective. Rather than “get a high score,” try to have the players aim for something concrete like raise enough gold to hire an army and take back the kingdom as in Barbarian Prince (1980), defeat all four boss

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monsters as in Unbroken (2018), or reach the “good” ending of a story as in Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger (2018). Reduce the number of characters or player positions used in your game to a single character: While it’s perfectly possible to play any board games “by yourself,” some players find it confusing to handle multiple characters. It can get confusing to remember which character moved what and when. Plus, you can’t keep secret information—­secret roles or hands of cards—­to yourself! Reduce the amount of upkeep (the times a component is manipulated) during gameplay: It’s a drag to do these kinds of mechanical operations: “First, I tap a farmland card for one mana, so I can play dairy cow. Because dairy cow is a dairy type and I have greenest grass in play, I get five milk counters, and if I sell the five milk counters to the grocery store, I get 15 dairy dollars.”2 These types of component gymnastics just get tedious, especially when you have no one to show them off for. Include a challenge: Solo gamers want a challenge, which means that a solo game can be more difficult than a “standard” board game because when the player wins a solo game, then it’s over. There’s usually not much of a reason to play it again unless the play experience was either really fun or really challenging. Solo games notorious for their difficulty include Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island (2012), Mage Knight (2011), and Under Falling Skies (2020).

Starting with a “Moment” Another way to start designing a game is around a moment that you want the player to experience while playing your game. It can be the rush of pleasure from gaining a pile of resources, the thrill of the tide of a battle turning, a sense of dread from the inevitable appearance of a horrible monster, or the sting of betrayal from a player you’ve trusted. Capturing these moments will help give players great memories long after they’ve finished playing your game.

Starting with an Experience Game designer Catherine Stippell has an uncle who is blind but loved to play games. She asked herself, “What if the tables were turned and we as sighted people had to adapt?” As she tried to capture that experience, she created the game Nyctophobia (2018). By focusing on creating an experience for the player—­making them feel powerful or helpless or hunted—­can be a great starting place for a game design. Then search out the mechanisms that will help you create those feelings within the players.

  For a full video of this nonsense, check out youtu.be/EBIsZlV1jHk/.

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Starting with the Publisher’s Need Designing a game is a lot of hard work and effort, and you want to give your game the best opportunity to succeed. Rather than create a board game that will be a “hard sell,” why not hedge your bets and find out what game publishers want? On many publisher websites, you will find their submission guidelines. A publisher might list what genres of games they are looking for. They might ask for a game to be a specific player count or take a specific amount of time to play. They might even specify the size of the box required for the product. By designing to the publisher’s specifications, you might have a great chance of getting your game published!

Carrying a Sketchbook

As a game designer, I have gotten into the habit of always carrying a sketchbook wherever I go. I never know when I am going to think of a good idea or see or hear something that inspires me to make a game. This sketchbook is particularly valuable at gaming conventions where I use it to write down or draw pictures of game mechanics that are new to me. I also write the names of games that I’ve not seen before so I can buy them later! It’s also great to track playtesting feedback (and the people who helped me with the playtest) so I have a record that I can easily access after the show.

Inspiration for Amateurs There’s a quote “inspiration is for amateurs,” which means that a creative professional can think of a new idea for a game at any time. While that’s not always true, it does help to exercise your brain to be creative. It is especially important to learn how to be creative quickly.

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A good way to practice this is to participate in a board game jam or a contest at a board gaming convention. The game you create under time pressure might not be the best game you’ll ever design, but it’s a good way for you to get better at making the most of the time that you have.

Preventing Game Designer Burnout Having a sketchbook is a good way to keep inspired. Making games uses a lot of creative energy, and I’ve seen other designers burn out, especially when they are wrestling with their designs and having trouble making sales to publishers. Here are a few techniques for preventing game designer burnout: ■■

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A little here, a little there: Do a little work on one part of your game, no matter how small or insignificant it feels to the design. It could be checking your rule book for types or doing an Internet search for just the right font to use on your cards. Eventually the work will add up over time. Play some games: Sometimes you just need to turn off the “game designer” part of your brain and turn on the “game player.” Playing something new adds to your “tool kit” of design tools. Like I said earlier, a game designer plays all the games—­the good ones, the bad ones, the popular ones, the obscure ones. I challenge you to become an expert on games—­like me! Playtest other designer’s games: If you aren’t already friends with game designers, find a group in your area. Try Meetup or ask your local tabletop store if any designers come into playtest. You can post your own ad online or at the store! Not only will you be helping other designers out with their designs, but you might make some new friends too! Find a friend: Working with a partner who can help you work on a design when you no longer have the energy to work on it yourself is invaluable. You will feel better about yourself when you help your partner with their workload. If you can find someone that you like designing a game with, hang onto them. They are more valuable than diamonds. Help: Turn to another designer for help. I have a group of good friends (who are also awesome and successful designers) who I can turn to when I have a question or need to solve a problem. They are always smarter than I am and often have a better perspective on my own game than I have at the moment! Just remember that you have final say on what advice to use and what to set aside. Remember to say “thank you” no matter what. Write it down: I find it super-­helpful to write down the high-­level idea of your game somewhere. This becomes the “pillars” of your design—­the reason why you wanted to make the game in the first place. If your design starts to drift away from the pillars (and it will drift), consider modifying or cutting those mechanisms. Make a big change: I was working on a horror worker placement game, but it wasn’t working out very well. I completely changed the game board as well as the player’s

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objective, and it’s shaping up to a much better game design. Don’t be afraid to discard work or ideas. Just make sure you have backups either in your sketchbook or on your computer. Done is better than perfect: Knowing when to stop designing your game is just as important as what to do while you are designing it. There is a saying in the industry: “Fail faster.” This means the faster you fail at your design, then the faster you can decide whether to keep working on it (the “fail” is fixable) or discard it (the “fail” is not fixable). Don’t be precious about your game ideas. You will have more ideas, so don’t be afraid to start over. Take a break: Take a walk. Take a shower. Take a nap. Go to the movies. Go for a drive. Get some chores done. Do anything but design a game. Sometimes your creative brain needs rest too. Give it a chance to recharge, and it will be ready to go when you are. Avoid dwelling on the negative: All creative people are very hard on themselves. Remember that you will fail. Not all your designs will be good. Some games will never be bought by a publisher, but that’s okay. All game designers experience this. Instead, focus on your victories, no matter how small. Did you design one card today? Awesome! Did you put stickers onto blank dice! Congratulations! These little steps are just as important as the big events like finishing a design or publishing a game. Take time to celebrate.

One Last Bit of Advice Done is better than good. You can spend a lot of time trying to think of an original idea for a game. Ideas are cheap. I just came up with five totally original game ideas just a few pages ago. You can spend a lot of time making your game perfect and making sure everything is just right for the players. But perfection is a fool’s errand. There’s no such thing as a perfect game. Go look on Board Game Geek. There’s always someone complaining about a game, even the highest rated ones! You can spend a lot of time playtesting your game, but you can fall into a trap of never finishing your game. You are just polishing it over and over and over again. And what happens if you polish something for too long? You wear it down. The difference between a novice and professional game designer is that they know when to stop. When their game is done. To be honest, you’ll never really be done with a game, but you should know when to “ship it.” Only games that are done get played. Only games that are done get published. You can celebrate when your game is done.

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Speaking of celebrating, you have a lot to celebrate! You have designed six tabletop games and, more important, you have now finished reading this book! I hope that you have found Your Turn! The Guide to Great Tabletop Game Design to be instructional and inspiring. Or, at least, I hope you have enjoyed looking at the drawings! Please make sure to share your completed games with me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! I am so excited to see what you will create!

Congratulations! You are a tabletop game designer!

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There is no wrong way to start making a game design. Write down your design pillars so you can refer to them if you get lost. Get in the habit of carrying an idea sketchbook. Rely on other designers to help you when you’re stuck. Being creative, even when you don’t feel like it, is a good skill to learn. You will fail but it’s okay, it’s part of the process. Remember to celebrate your successes. Please share your creations with me online! Done is better than good.

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L e t ’s Ma ke a Game P ro to t y ping K i t! I HAVE A friend, Seth Johnson, who is a professional tabletop game designer. We were having lunch at Gen-­Con, the big tabletop gaming convention, and talking about game ideas. At one point in the conversation, he said, “That’s a great idea. I think I should make it!” He pulled out a little box that was filled with all types of useful tools to help him make games. By that evening he had a playable prototype. I was very impressed, not just because he was talented enough to take an idea and create a prototype in a few hours but that he carried all the tools that were needed to make a quick game prototype. A good game prototyping kit is like Batman’s utility belt—­it’s filled with all sorts of useful tools that help you solve any problem or realize any idea that you might have. What goes into a good game prototyping kit? I’m glad you asked! First, you will need a box of some sort. I suggest something that has a latch on it—­like a sewing box or a fisherman’s tackle box. Remember, you don’t want it to be so big that you can’t carry it around with you, and it is helpful if it has a handle. Next you will need materials to create a game. Start with a DECK OF PLAYING CARDS. In addition to being able to play thousands of games with playing cards, they have also helped inspire game designers for decades. You can find cheap decks of cards just about anywhere, from hobby stores to dollar stores. Since a pack of playing cards costs around $1–2, you won’t feel bad about defacing them if you want to write on them or put stickers or tape over them. You will also want a PACK OF INDEX CARDS. While they are slightly larger than playing cards, they are also very inexpensive and come in a variety of colors. I recommend buying index cards that are blank on both sides rather than having those horizontal lines. Get what you can afford. Index cards can always be cut down to other sizes, and they are so inexpensive you won’t feel bad if you screw up and have to throw one (or several) of these rough cards away.

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If you are a big nerd like me, you have lots of COMIC BOOK BACKING BOARDS lying around your house. They are a little more expensive than index cards and a lot bigger, but I find them useful. First, they are stiffer than index cards (they are the same thickness as “Bristol Board” that you can find in art supply stores), and they are bigger. With some scissors, you can make them into cards or tiles or standees or player mats or tape several together to make a board. Wow, I just mentioned a whole bunch of other things to add into our box: TAPE and SCISSORS. If you prefer, you could use a CRAFT KNIFE like an Xacto blade and a METAL RULER to cut straight lines. If you want to make some cheap and easy homemade cards, I suggest buying CARD SLEEVES, which you can buy at any comic book or gaming store (or online). You can cut your index cards to fit into them. Sleeving the card (which means that you slide your card into a card sleeve) gives you a slightly stiffer card that is easier to shuffle and also feels better in your hand. A colored sleeve also makes it so that the index card cannot be seen through, so that way the players can’t cheat by looking through the card. These supplies are not meant to be permanent. They are just tools to get you to a playable version of your idea. The faster you build your prototype, the faster you can determine if it is fun or not. Many designers just use simple colors and numbers to convey the information; others will draw on the cards instead. It’s up to you which you want. Personally, I like to draw on cards because I like to draw! What do you use to draw? A PENCIL, of course! And don’t forget the PENCIL SHARPENER. Many designers prefer using these because, well, you can erase pencil marks! It’s important to change and revise information as you go, because you will make mistakes, find out that a value should be lower or higher than you originally wrote, or change the card’s name. Don’t forget the ERASER to get rid of those mistakes. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. It’s the best way to learn. And once you’ve learned from your mistakes, you tend not to repeat them, and you become a better designer in the process! Let’s not forget a PEN. I suggest that you use two different types of pens. First you want a fine tip pen like a Micron pen. This is for writing information or drawing. Then you want a fatter MARKER like the ones Sharpie makes. These fatter pens are great for writing something that people need to see at a distance like numbers and symbols. Both of these pens come in a wide variety of colors. My friend, Seth, always carries pens in four different colors. Why? Because that way he can give each player a different color and make a game for up to four players. You also want to carry DICE. The dice can have 4 sides, 6 sides, 8 sides, 10 sides, 20 sides. You can find 6-­sided dice just about anywhere, and you can buy some of those crazier dice at a gaming store or online. Seth carries at least two dice in each of the four colors that he has in pens.

APPENDIX  LET’S MAKE A GAME PROTOTYPING KIT!

That’s a really smart idea because then each player can color-­code their dice! I like to carry BLANK DICE, which you can buy online, that allows you to draw onto if you want to have custom symbols or different colors on one die. TOKENS are useful, especially if you want to make a game with betting or resources or if you want to mark something on a board. You could also use COINS instead. You can also use different colored ACRYLIC GEMS like the kind you can find at a hobby store. You could use POKER CHIPS in different colors or draw on them with your pens or put stickers on them and draw on those if you want. Oh yeah, you will want blank WHITE STICKERS (like the kind you use as name tags at social events) to customize things such as playing cards, dice, or poker chips. You might need WOODEN CUBES of a variety of colors—­I often will have at least six different colors and at least 12 to 20 cubes of each color. I find that they work great as resources or counters. Wooden MEEPLES of various colors are great too. I usually have four to six meeples of six different colors. Or you can have MINIATURES instead—­often fantasy or sci­fi characters, although I carry “generic human” miniatures like those found in Betrayal at House on the Hill or Clue. You’ll want somewhere to write down the rules to your game, which is where that SKETCHBOOK (or notebook) you’ve been carrying around comes in handy! Finally, I suggest having resealable PLASTIC BAGS to prevent these components from spilling out or to keep them all together once you’ve earmarked them for a specific design you’re working on. Here’s a handy-­dandy checklist you can use to make your own game prototyping kit: ■■ STORAGE BOX ■■ DECK OF PLAYING CARDS ■■ 100 INDEX CARDS ■■ 4 colors of PENS (I recommend black, blue, red, and green) ■■ PENCIL ■■ PENCIL SHARPENER ■■ ERASER ■■ SCISSORS ■■ TAPE ■■ DICE (at least 4 six sided of colors that match your pens) ■■ POKER CHIPS/TOKENS/COINS/ACRYLIC GEMS (at least 20) ■■ BLANK STICKERS (several) ■■ SKETCHBOOK or NOTEBOOK ■■ RESEALABLE PLASTIC BAGS

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The following are optional items to include: ■■ CARD SLEEVES ■■ WOODEN CUBES (20 of 6 different colors) ■■ MINIATURES or MEEPLES (6 of 4 different colors) ■■ ACRYLIC GEMS (at least 20) ■■ METAL RULER ■■ CRAFT KNIFE

Appendix

B

S ell-­S he e t E x amples THE FOLLOWING ARE four examples of sell-­sheets that I’ve created to promote (and even sell!) my games to publishers. These will help give you an idea of what is expected as you create your own. You can find templates to help you create your own sell-­sheets at mrboss design.blogspot.com/2019/05/sell-­sheet-­templates.html.

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Who’s Hue? (2015; published as Pantone the Game, 2018) The sell-­sheet for Who’s Hue? is about as basic as you can create. It’s got a title/logo, a short description of the game, photos of the prototype that illustrate the gameplay, a list of components, the three essentials, and the designer’s contact information. Consider this the bare minimum for a sell-­sheet. The question to ask yourself is, even though it conveys all of the necessary information to a publisher, will the sell-­sheet get them excited?

A P P E N D I X  S E L L -­S H E E T E X A M P L E S

Who’s Who? sell-­sheet

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Dynamite Ridge Railroad (Unpublished) The Dynamite Ridge Railroad sell-­sheet presented is much more complex than the previous one. All the usual information is listed including game outline, three essentials, components, and contact information. The sideways orientation of the sell-­sheet  allowed more of the gameplay to be explained. Taking photographs of the prototype “in action” helps the publisher understand the game, but remember, a sell-­sheet is not a rule book; it’s just a tool to get the publisher interested in learning more about your game.

A P P E N D I X  S E L L -­S H E E T E X A M P L E S

Dynamite Ridge Railroad sell-­sheet

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Castle Climbers (2024) I wanted the Castle Climbers sell-­sheet to show off one of the game’s more interesting features—­the vertical castle that gets built during the game. At one point, the sell-­sheet included corresponding numbers and arrows pointing to each of the features of the gameplay, but it was too busy and took away from the images of the game. It is possible to overcomplicate a sell-­sheet. This sell-­sheet went through many iterations and designs. You can see my progress at mrbossdesign.blogspot.com/2020/09/ evolve-­your-­sell-­sheet.html.

A P P E N D I X  S E L L -­S H E E T E X A M P L E S

Castle Climbers sell-­sheet

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A Town Called Showdown (Unpublished) If your game has a strong theme, run with it! From the western font to the language used to the bullet-­hole bullet points, I wanted the sell-­sheet for the game A Town Called Showdown to scream “Wild West.” I’m pleased with how this turned out. Many publishers have mentioned that this is their favorite sell-­sheet. (Now if one of them would publish the game!)

A P P E N D I X  S E L L -­S H E E T E X A M P L E S

A Town Called Showdown sell-­sheet

411

I ndex A abstract strategy games about, 17, 193, 216–217 designing, 224–232 traits of, 218–224 abstraction, in board games, 211–214 accessibility, in Euro-­style strategy games, 266–267 acrylic, 384 acting, in party games, 179 action games, 176 action points (APs) about, 46–47 in Euro-­style strategy games, 249–250 in thematic strategy games, 321 actions dice determining, 85 in Euro-­style strategy games, 251 of players, 46–47 in thematic strategy games, 321–322 activation cost, in card games, 125 active player, 34 activity, in party games, 160 acts, in games, 295 additive game designers, 62 add-­ons, 382–383 advance, 374 adventure/pirates games, 290 affordances, in abstract games, 219 ageless nature, in party games, 168–169 alignment, as an abstract game mechanism, 220 Allies (1981), 324 amateurs, inspiration for, 394–395 Ameritrash, 281, 287–289 anagram, 223

analysis paralysis, 303–304, 353 appendix, 49 apps, in thematic strategy games, 315–316 Arcadia Quest (2014), 324 area control, in thematic strategy games, 327–328 area majority, 327 arithmetical complexity, in thematic strategy games, 305 Arneson, David, 284, 285 arrangement, in Euro-­style strategy games, 252 art spaces, on game boards, 205 assigning resources, 85 asymmetric drafting, 42 asymmetric powers, in thematic strategy games, 318 auctions in card games, 125 in Euro-­style strategy games, 252–253 Augarde, Tony, 222 automatic cube shaker, 91 Azul (2017), 234

B back, of cards, 123, 124 back page, 48–51 Backgammon, 200 backup, 372 bag-­builder, in Euro-­style strategy games, 254–255 balancing about, 72 in abstract games, 219 in Euro-­style strategy games, 246 game design, 12

414

YO U R T U R N ! T H E G U I DE TO G R E AT TA B L E TOP G A M E DE S IG N

banking dice, 82–83 battle of wits, 298 beginning of a turn, 131 bell curve, 95 Betrayal at House on the Hill (2004), 349 betting, 147, 181–182 bezique, 137 bidding in card games, 125 in Euro-­style strategy games, 252–253 black core, 384 blind play testing, 73–74 bling, in thematic strategy games, 305–309 Blood Rage (2015), 325 bluffing in card games, 125 with dice, 90 in party games, 183 bluffing games, 90 Board Game Geek Con, 370 board games about, 193–194 abstract, 216–217 abstraction and symbolism, 211–214 components of, 3–4 creating game boards, 5–11, 215–216 designing, 224–233 examples of, 233–234 game board, 2–3 getting started, 4 history of, 1 improving, 11–20 origins of, 194–201 traits of abstract, 218–224 types and elements of, 202–211 board space, as zone 4, 31–32 BoardGameGeek.com (BGG), 22 body language, 371 body text, 357 Bosk (2019), 210 bottom center, of cards, 122 bottom edge, of cards, 122 box, as zone X, 33

brain-­burners, 248 branching narratives, 296 bridge cards, 115 building, in Euro-­style strategy games, 253 burnout, preventing, 395–396 buying, in Euro-­style strategy games, 255

C callouts, adding, 35–36 camera, for pitch video, 364–365 Camp Grizzly (2013), 349 campaigns, 297, 319, 380–382 Can’t Stop (1980), 106 Captain Sonar, 191 capture, as an abstract game mechanism, 220 Carcassone, 278 card as a resource, in card games, 127 card as terrain/map, in card games, 126–127 card as vehicle, in card games, 126 card games about, 109–110 card mechanisms, 125–141 components, 142–143 creating cards, 110–115 designing, 144–149 examples of, 150–151 history of, 118–121 order of sides, 121–124 probability in, 143 sharing, 149–150 size of cards, 115–117 card spaces, on game boards, 205 cardstock, 113–114, 300–301, 384 Castle Climbers, 408–409 Catacombs (2010), 325 catch-­up mechanisms, in Euro-­style strategy games, 246–247 cells, in card games, 128 challenges, including, 393 change, in abstract games, 219 chaotic rules systems, 128, 176

I n dex

character biographies, 49 characters creating in thematic strategy games, 339–340 diversity/portrayal of in Euro-­style strategy games, 267 eliminating in thematic strategy games, 326 reducing, 393 in thematic strategy games, 316–318 Chess, 199–200 chipboard, 384 chips, in card games, 142 choices, creating, 39–40 chrome, in thematic strategy games, 305–309 chunking, 25 churn, 136 circular cards, 117 cities, on game boards, 208 Clair, John D. (game designer), 66 clear cards, 116–117 close call, 299 close race, 299 Codenames, 191 cognitive load, in thematic strategy games, 302 coins, in card games, 142 collectability, in thematic strategy games, 311–312 collectible card game (CCG), 112, 120 color blindness, 4, 266 colored cubes, in thematic strategy games, 301 colors, of dice, 86 Colt Express (2014), 349 combat dice determining results of, 82 in thematic strategy games, 324–325 combination matching, 87 combinatorial game, 218 combinatorics, 72 command statements, 34

communicating rules, 22 competition, 298 complexity budget about, 161 in abstract games, 219 in thematic strategy games, 302–305 complimentary copies (comps), 376–377 components about, 392 in card games, 142–143 changing, 13–15 complexity of in thematic strategy games, 304 in party games, 161 of quality in thematic strategy games, 333 on sell-­sheets, 356 computers, in thematic strategy games, 314 concealing dice, 84 concept art, 358 configuration game, as an abstract game mechanism, 220 conflict in Euro-­style strategy games, 241–242 in thematic strategy games, 298–301 connection, as an abstract game mechanism, 220 construction, in Euro-­style strategy games, 242–243 consumables, in thematic strategy games, 320 contact information, on sell-­sheets, 356 content creators, 380 context, for players, 38 contracts, money and, 373 contraptions, in thematic strategy games, 314 cool-­down counter, 90 cooperation, in Euro-­style strategy games, 256 copyright, 292 core, 114 Cosmic Frog (2020), 293

415

416

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cost, for actions, 46–47 counters in card games, 142 dice as, 89–90 crafting, 127, 321 crayon rail, 88 credit(s), 48, 374 crowdfunding about, 379 add-­ons, 382–383 campaign, 380–382 distribution, 386–387 marketing, 380 previews, 380 pricing, 385–386 production, 383–384 shipping, 386–387 storing, 386–387 stretch goals, 382–383 crunchiness, in Euro-­style strategy games, 248–249 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (psychologist), 14 custom dice, 78, 85, 106 cutting the deck, in card games, 128

D Dark Tower (1981), 210 Daviau, Rob (game designer), 22 Dead Man’s Draw (2015), 149 Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game (2015), 349 deal-­making, in Euro-­style strategy games, 264–265 deck bottoming, in card games, 128 deck building, in card games, 128–129 deck deconstruction, in card games, 130 deck depletion, in card games, 129 deck destruction, in card games, 130 deck topping, in card games, 130 deduction, in thematic strategy games, 329–332 deductive reasoning, in thematic strategy games, 330–332

deferment of responsibility, 169–170 demo, 370–371 denizens, creating in thematic strategy games, 340–341 depth, in abstract games, 219 desert, on game boards, 208 design of abstract strategy games, 224–232 of Euro-­style strategy games, 267–277 of thematic strategy games, 332–348 designer dice, 77 designer’s note, 47 destination, as an abstract game mechanism, 220 detailed sequence of play, 47 deterministic combat, in thematic strategy games, 325 dexterity games, 89, 130–131, 184 dice in card games, 142 creating in thematic strategy games, 342 modifying existing, 106 placement of in Euro-­style strategy games, 259–260 in thematic strategy games, 300 dice builder, 84 dice crafting, 89 dice cup, 79 dice game about, 75 basics of, 75–78 designing, 98–106 dice mechanisms, 78–91 examples of, 106–107 luck and, 96–98 probability, 91–96 Dice Throne Season One (2018), 325 dice tower, 79 die punch, 384 die-­cut, 384 digital solution, 366–367 discard action, 131–132 distribution, 223, 386–387

I n dex

distribution center, 386 Dixit (2008), 332 dominant hand, of player, 31 Dominion (2008), 150 Donovan, Tristen, 282 doom track, in thematic strategy games, 328 doomsday card, in card games, 132 double-­ended card, in card games, 132 drafting in card games, 132–133 in Euro-­style strategy games, 256 players, 46 drama, 71, 97, 298–301 draw bag, in Euro-­style strategy games, 254–255 drawing in card games, 133 draw and write, 88 in party games, 180–181 drinking, in party games, 184 dual-­layered boards, 384 dungeon crawlers, 286 Dungeon Fighter (2011), 325 Dungeons and Dragons, 324 Dwellings of Eldervale (2020), 324 Dynamite Ridge Railroad, 406–407

E economy of scale, 385 edge cases, 26–27, 72 18xx family, 260 elegance, in abstract games, 219–220 elimination games, as an abstract game mechanism, 221 embarrassment, power of, 170 emotion, 13 end of a turn, 131 end the game, 47–48 engine-­builder, in Euro-­style strategy games, 257 Ernest, James (game designer), 183 Essen Game Fair, 237

Euro poker cards, 115 Euro-­games: The Design, Culture, and Play of Modern European Board Games (Woods), 239 Euro-­style strategy games about, 193, 235–238 accessibility in, 266–267 crunchiness, 248–249 designing, 267–277 examples of, 277–278 German games, 238–239 mechanisms for, 249–266 traits of, 239–247 weightiness, 248–249 even chance, 70 exotic settings, in Euro-­style strategy games, 243–244 experience points, in thematic strategy games, 318 experienced game players, 63–64 experiences, 393 exploding dice, in thematic strategy games, 324 Exploding Kittens (2015), 149 Exquisite Corpse, 190

F face up/down, discarding, 131 fair credit, 374 fairness, importance of, 43–44 fantasy games, 290 Farkas, Villo, 211 feature creep, 63, 274–275 fields, on game boards, 208 fighting, in thematic strategy games, 324–325 first player, 42–44 first rights of refusal, 376 first-­player advantage, 42, 246 Flamecraft, 278 flat probability distribution, 92 flavor text, 48, 124 flipping, in card games, 134

417

418

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flipping tokens, as an abstract game mechanism, 221 foil cards, 384 follow action, 45–46, 262 forests, on game boards, 208 forming words, as a word game mechanism, 223 Formula D (2008), 107, 349 Fox, George, 281 fractal, 296 frequently asked questions (FAQs), 26, 48–49 friends and family, sharing games with, 73 front-­end information overload, in rule books, 24–25 Fullerton, Tracy (author) The Game Designers Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, 9 Fury of Dracula (1987), 349 fused deposition modeling, in thematic strategy games, 310

G GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), 369 gambler’s fallacy, 92 game boards creating, 215–216 in thematic strategy games, 334–339 types and elements of, 202–211 Game Crafter, 383 Gamemaster series, 286 gameplay about, 9 description on sell-­sheets, 356 overview on sell-­sheets, 354 gamers, 63–73 games. See also specific types of games about, 40–41 description of, 61–62 designers of, 62

genre of, 16, 289 logo on sell-­sheets, 354 photo on sell-­sheets, 356 setting up, 38 Games Workshop, 286 The Game Designers Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games (Fullerton and Swain), 9 The Game of Things, 191 gaming, 119 Garfield, Richard, 120 Gen Con, 369 general sequence of play, 40–47 genre, 16–20 German games, 238–239 German Kriegspiel, 281, 283 gimmicks, in thematic strategy games, 312–316 gloss, 384 glossary, 49 glow-­in-­the-­dark components, in thematic strategy games, 314 go fish, in card games, 134–135 goals of campaign, 380–382 in Euro-­style strategy games, 245–246 of the game, 38–40 stretch, 382–383 good table presence, 208 graphics, on sell-­sheets, 356 grasslands, on game boards, 208 grids in card games, 128 on game boards, 203 groups, 137 growth, in Euro-­style strategy games, 242–243 guessing in party games, 178 as a word game mechanism, 223 Guillotine (1998), 150, 293 Gygax, Gary, 284

I n dex

H Halo Actionclix (2007), 350 hand in card games, 135 depletion in card games, 135 limit in card games, 135 management of in card games, 135–136 Haunt roll, 293 Hawthorne, Jerry (designer), 391 heavy-­weight game, 248 Hellwig, Johann, 282 Henn, Dirk (game designer), 243 Heroclix (2002), 350 Heroscape Master Set: Rise of the Valkyrie (2004), 209, 324 hexagonal cards, 117 hexagonal tiles, 260 hidden elements in card games, 136 in thematic strategy games, 319 hit points, in thematic strategy games, 325 hit tokens, creating in thematic strategy games, 340–341 Hive (2000), 233 Hnefatafl, 201 hole card, in card games, 136 Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-­Element in Culture (Huizinga), 2 horror games, 290 Horrorclix (2006), 350 Howard, Robert E., 284 Hoyle, Edmund (author) Treatise on Whist, 119 Huizinga, Johan (author) Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-­Element in Culture, 2 Hutnik, Robert, 287 hybrid theme, 290

I ice plains, on game boards, 208 illustration board, 384

income, in Euro-­style strategy games, 257–258 index, 49 inductive reasoning, in thematic strategy games, 329–330 influencers, 380 information hierarchy, 174 information overload, in rule books, 24–25 information spaces, on game boards, 204–205 information-­sharing, in Euro-­style strategy games, 263 injection mold, in thematic strategy games, 309 input randomness, 70–71, 240 intellectual property (IP), 291, 375 interaction, 175 interconnectivity, in abstract games, 219 interruptions in party games, 167–168 of turns, 45 introductions, creating, 36–37 iteration, 11, 53

J Jackson, Steve, 286 Johnson, Seth, 399 judge, 160, 172 judging, in party games, 185 jungles, on game boards, 208 junk card, in card games, 136 Junta (1978), 332 Just One, 191

K Karnoffel, 119 Karuba, 278 keywords, 124 Kickstarter, 379 king of the hill, 327 knowledge, in party games, 176–177 Kolejka (2015), 293 Kriegspeil (wargame) design, 82

419

420

YO U R T U R N ! T H E G U I DE TO G R E AT TA B L E TOP G A M E DE S IG N

L laminate cards, 384 Lamorisse, Albert, 284 landing page, 354 language dependency, in Euro-­style strategy games, 267 Las Vegas (2012), 107 lasers, in thematic strategy games, 314 Last Night on Earth (2015), 324 lava fields, on game boards, 208 lawful rules systems, 176 League of Gamekeepers, 379 LED lights, in thematic strategy games, 314–315 left edge, of cards, 122 legacy games, 319 length of campaign, 380–382 of rule books, 25–26 Letter Tycoon (2015), 234 leveling, in thematic strategy games, 318–320 Levenshtein Distance, 223 licensing games, 373–374 lighting, for pitch video, 365 light-­weight game, 248 linen, 384 linen cardstock, 114 lines, on game boards, 204 linking cards, 122 liquid resin printer, in thematic strategy games, 310 list of components, creating, 37–38 live-­action, role playing (LARPing), 155 Livingstone, Ian, 286 location, for pitch video, 365 locked order, 136 logical complexity, in thematic strategy games, 305 logo, on sell-­sheets, 354 long-­term goals, 245–246 Lord of the Rings, 278 losing a turn, 45

loss, in Euro-­style strategy games, 242 Lovecraft, H.P., 284 lower center, of cards, 124 lower-­left corner, of cards, 122, 124 lower-­right corner, of cards, 122, 124 luck, 96–98, 240–241 Ludo narrative dissonance, 295

M ma diao, 118 Mafia (1981), 332 magic circle, 2 Magic the Gathering (1993), 149–150, 325 magnets, in thematic strategy games, 314 Maier, Otto (bookseller), 236 Mancala, 195–196 mancala games, as an abstract game mechanism, 221 manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP), 385 manufacturing, 106 many in, many out interactions, 159–160 many in, one out interactions, 159 maps, on game boards, 207–208 market in card games, 136–137 in Euro-­style strategy games, 255 marketing, 380 marriage, 137 Marrying Mr. Darcy (2014), 293 Mastermind (1971), 233 matte, 384 meaningful choices, 39 mechanics complexity, in thematic strategy games, 303 mechanisms about, 389–390 in abstract strategy games, 220–221 adding in abstract games, 231 in card games, 147 in dice games, 103–104

I n dex

in Euro-­style strategy games, 274–276 in party games, 188 in thematic strategy games, 347 of cards, 125–141 of dice, 78–91 in Euro-­style strategy games, 249–266 in party games, 176–185 in thematic strategy games, 316–332 in word games, 221–224 media and products, 377 meeples, 3, 247, 301 Mehen, 197–198 Meier, Sid (game designer), 39 meld, in card games, 137 memory, in party games, 178 Mensa Select Award, 232–233 Menzel, Michael, 211 middle center, of cards, 122, 124 middle center left, of cards, 124 mid-­term goals, 245–246 Milton Bradley, 286 mind, as zone 0, 32–33 The Mind (2017), 150 mini cards, 115 mini Euro cards, 115 miniatures, 3, 307–311 The Minister’s Cat, 190 Mister X (2009), 349 mitigation, 80, 85, 96, 143 Miyamoto, Shigeru (video game designer), 13 mobile apps, in thematic strategy games, 301 mobile devices, 315–316 mock-­up, 358 moderator, 172 moments, 393 money, contracts and, 373 mood board, in party games, 173–174 Moon, Alan R. (designer), 238, 278, 299 mountains, on game boards, 208 movement

as an abstract game mechanism, 220 dice determining, 81 in party games, 184 of players, 46–47 in thematic strategy games, 322–323 mover, 3 MP4 format, 365 muddle, as a word game mechanism, 223 Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA), 327 mystery, in thematic strategy games, 329

N narrative, 162 natural stopping point, 168 negotiation, in Euro-­style strategy games, 258 Nemesis (2018), 350 neoprene, 384 nested complexity, in thematic strategy games, 303 neutral surface, for pitch video, 365 Nine Man’s Morris, 199 nondominant hand, of players, 31 notebook, 59–60 “no-­win” situation, 299 numbers changing, 12–13 changing in abstract games, 230 changing in card games, 146 changing in dice games, 101–102 changing in Euro-­style strategy games, 273 changing in party games, 187 changing in thematic strategy games, 346

O objectives about, 7–9 changing in abstract games, 230–231 changing in card games, 146–147 changing in dice games, 102–103

421

422

YO U R T U R N ! T H E G U I DE TO G R E AT TA B L E TOP G A M E DE S IG N

changing in Euro-­style strategy games, 273–274 changing in party games, 188 changing in thematic strategy games, 346–347 creating, 392–393 observation, in party games, 184–185 obvious choices, 39 Olmstead, Frederick Law (designer), 267 one in, many out interactions, 157–159 one in, one out interactions, 157 Onitama (2014), 234 optional rules, in thematic strategy games, 319 order of operations, 40 Order Up!, 189 Origins Game Fair, 369 O’Toole, Ian, 211 out of print, 377 output randomness, 70–71, 241 over-­powered players, 72 overview, creating, 36–37

P pace, in party games, 171–172 Pandemic, 278 paper craft, in thematic strategy games, 312 Parade (2007), 150 parlor games, 153–154 party games about, 153–156 creating, 185–190 examples of, 190–191 five Ps of, 169–175 mechanisms of, 176–185 players in, 176 types of, 157–169 pasted-­on theme, 245 Patchwork (2014), 293 pawns, 3, 306 PAX Unplugged, 370 Peake, Jon, 286 pegboard, in card games, 143

penny sleeves, 111 pentagonal cards, 117 permission, in party games, 169–170 Perrin, Jeff, 284 personalization, in thematic strategy games, 319 phase, 44–45 physical copy of prototype, in pitch video, 364 physical dexterity, 83 Pictionary, 191 pictures, including, 34–35 pitch presentation, 357–363 pitch video, 363–366 placement of dice, 82 in Euro-­style strategy games, 258–262 as a word game mechanism, 223 plains, on game boards, 208 planning complexity, in thematic strategy games, 303 plastic cards, 384 platforms, crowdfunding, 379 play testers, 54 play testing about, 53–54 abstract games, 228–229 blind, 73–74 card games, 145–146 designing, 62–63 dice games, 100 in Euro-­style strategy games, 271 events, 367–368 friends and family, 73 gamers, 63–73 getting started, 56–59 party games, 186 problems with, 54–56 publisher, 74 solo, 59–62 in thematic strategy games, 344 player aids, in thematic strategy games, 303 player count, about, 392–393

I n dex

players about, 27–28 death/elimination of in thematic strategy games, 326 lack of elimination of, 242 in party games, 162–166, 176 powers of in thematic strategy games, 316–318 reducing positions of, 393 in thematic strategy games, 297–298 playing time, in Euro-­style strategy games, 247 point salad, 246 poker cards, 115 polyhedral dice, 77 Pop-­O-­Matic, 91 pop-­ups, in thematic strategy games, 312–313 positioning players, 28–34 predetermined score, 168 predictability, in party games, 170–171 premise, 162, 173 preprinted score sheet, 87 presentation, in party games, 173–175 Prét-­á-­Porter (2010), 293 previews, 380 pricing, 385–386 Print and Play, 113, 383 probability, 91–96, 143 production, 383–384 products and media, 377 props, in party games, 175 protagonist, 27–28 prototype kits, 399–402 public domain, 291 publisher play testing, 74 publishers meeting with, 370–373 needs of, 394 selecting, 368–370 purple cow, 391 pushing them off, as an abstract game mechanism, 220 pushing your luck, 80, 97

Q QR code, 354 The Quacks of Quedlinburg, 278 Quiddler (1998), 149 Qwirkle (2006), 234 Qwixx (2012), 107

R race, in thematic strategy games, 328–329 race type board game, 1, 98, 220 ramping points, in card games, 137 random number generators, 76 randomizer, 9 randomness about, 70–71 in party games, 171 in thematic strategy games, 300 Rayguns and Rocketships (2017), 324–325, 350 readers, of rule books, 23–24 reading experience, 26 real-­time rolling, 87 “red lens,” in thematic strategy games, 314 reductive game designers, 62 repetition, 170, 184 representational abstract games, 216 representative theming, 281 Republic of Rome (1990), 332 rerolling dice, 80 reshuffling, in card games, 137–138 The Resistance (2009), 332 resource spaces, on game boards, 205 resources, dice determining, 85 restricted placement, as an abstract game mechanism, 221 restrictions, as a word game mechanism, 223 return, as an abstract game mechanism, 220 review copy, 380 right edge, of cards, 122 rights, 376 rights reversion, 377 Risk (1959), 324, 349

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risk, luck and, 98 Risk Legacy (2011), 349 risk versus reward, 80, 96, 182 river mechanism, 255 rock-­paper-­scissors, in thematic strategy games, 324 role-­playing game, 281 role-­selection, in Euro-­style strategy games, 251 roll and draw, 88 roll and write, 87–88 Roll Player (2016), 107 rolling dice, 79, 87 rondels, in Euro-­style strategy games, 265–266 rotating, in card games, 134 rounding tool, 115 rounds, 41–42, 137 route-­building/connection, as an abstract game mechanism, 221 Royal Game of Ur, 196–197 royalty rate, 375–376 rubber-­banding, 66–67 rule books about, 21–22 components of, 36–51 problem with, 23–27 requirements for, 36–51 tips for writing, 27–36 translating rules, 51 as zone 6, 32 rules about, 6–7 for card games, 144–145 changing about, 15–16 in abstract games, 229–230 in card games, 146 for dice games, 100–101 in Euro-­style strategy games, 272–273 in party games, 187 in thematic strategy games, 344–346

complexity of in thematic strategy games, 303 creating for abstract games, 227–228 for dice games, 99–100 in Euro-­style strategy games, 271 for party games, 186 in thematic strategy games, 342–343 runaway leader, 66–67

S Sagrada (2017), 107 scale, in thematic strategy games, 299 Schwartz, Amy Nicole, 173–174 science fiction games, 290 scoring, in party games, 168 scoring sheets, in card games, 142–143 Scotland Yard (1983), 349 screens, 84 script, for pitch video, 365 Scruby, Jack, 284 scrying, in card games, 130 Scythe (2016), 325 second edition, 376 second print run, 376 secret role, in card games, 138 self-­funding, 378 Sellers, Mike (game designer), 32 selling, board games about, 351, 377–378 add-­ons, 382–383 campaign, 380–382 contracts and money, 373–377 crowdfunding, 379–387 digital solution, 366–367 distribution, 386–387 importance of sell-­sheets, 354–357 marketing, 380 meeting with publishers, 370–373 pitch presentation, 357–363 pitch video, 363–366 playtesting events, 367–368 previews, 380

I n dex

pricing, 385–386 process for, 352–367 production, 383–384 reasons for, 351 selecting publishers, 368–370 self-­funding, 378 shipping, 386–387 storing, 386–387 stretch goals, 382–383 sell-­sheets about, 354–357 examples of, 403–411 Senet, 198 sequence of play, 40–47 set collection in card games, 138–139 in Euro-­style strategy games, 263–264 sets, 137 setup, of card games, 144 7 Wonders, 278 Seyfarth, Andreas, 244 shared pool of tokens, 221 shared space on game boards, 2, 204 as zone 4, 31–32 sharing card games, 149–150 shipping, 386–387 short-­term goals, 245–246 The Shivers (2023), 211 show of hands, 135 shuffling, in card games, 137–138 Shut Up and Sit Down YouTube channel, 201 sideboard, as zone 5, 32 simplicity, of party games, 161 simultaneous action selection, in card games, 138 simultaneous turns, 46 six zones of play, 28–34 size, of cards in card games, 115–117 sketchbook, 394 Skiryuk, Dmitriy (game historian), 197 Sleeping Gods (2021), 325

sliding scale, 376 Smith, Quintin, 201 Snakes and Ladders, 201 social deduction, 155 Solitaire, 119 solo play testing, 59–62 solvable game, 67 sound, in thematic strategy games, 314 spaces, on game boards, 203–204 spatial complexity, in thematic strategy games, 304 spawn spaces, on game boards, 205 The Spiel, 370 spin-­down dice, 90 spot UV, 384 stack, 131 stacking as an abstract game mechanism, 221 dice, 89 stage game, 137 standees, in thematic strategy games, 306–307 Star Trek Heroclix: Away Team (2012), 350 Star Wars: X-­Wing Miniatures (2012), 324, 349 starting point, 7 “startle” mechanisms, in thematic strategy games, 313 stat, 82 stealing, in card games, 140 Steve Jackson Games, 105 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 283 stickers, 106, 319 Stippell, Catherine (designer), 393 stl files, in thematic strategy games, 309 Stone Age, 278 Stonemaier Games, 379 stories about, 391 in games, 295–297 rules as, 27–28 storing, 386–387 story genre, 16, 289

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story text, 48 strategy tips, 47, 301–302 stretch goals, 382–383 structure, of games, 22 subgenre, 290 subjectivity, 13 sublicenses, 291 substitution, as a word game mechanism, 223 suits, in card games, 140 superheroes games, 290 surplus, 140 Sushi Go (2013), 150 Swain, Chris (author) The Game Designers Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, 9 swamps, on game boards, 208 symbolism, in board games, 211–214 synchronicity, 56

T table of contents, 49 table presence, 59 tableau, as zone 3, 31 Tabletop Simulator (TTS), 366–367 tactics, in thematic strategy games, 301–302 Tak (2017), 234 takeaways, 372 take-­that, in thematic strategy games, 323–324 Tang, Sandra, 211 Tang Dynasty, 118 tapping, in card games, 134 target number, 145 targeting, dice for, 83–84 Tarochi, 119 tarot cards, 115 tearables, in thematic strategy games, 319 technology, in thematic strategy games, 314 technology tree, in thematic strategy games, 321

tension creating, 40 in thematic strategy games, 299 terrain, on game boards, 208–211 territory games, as an abstract game mechanism, 220 textures, in thematic strategy games, 314 thematic abstract games, 216 thematic strategy games about, 193, 281 Ameritrash, 287–289 designing, 332–348 examples of, 349–350 history of, 281–287 mechanisms in, 316–332 traits of, 289–316 themeless, 104–105 themes about, 10, 390 changing about, 16–20 in abstract games, 231–232 in card games, 148–149 in dice games, 104–105 in Euro-­style strategy games, 276–277 in party games, 188–190 in thematic strategy games, 348 in Euro-­style strategy games, 245 in party games, 161–162 as a word game mechanism, 223–224 thinking game, 176 thorns, on game boards, 208 Ticket to Ride, 278 tiles creating, 334–339 placement of in Euro-­style strategy games, 260–261 timers, 46, 328 titles, 391–392 tokens in card games, 142 in thematic strategy games, 301

I n dex

Tokyo Game Market, 369 Tolkein, J.R.R., 284 tools, choosing for dice, 91 top center, of cards, 122 top edge, of cards, 122 top loaders, 112 A Town Called Showdown, 410–411 towns, on game boards, 208 toyetic nature, in thematic strategy games, 308 toy-­like nature, of terrain, 208 track style board game, 1 tracks, on game boards, 203–204 trading in card games, 140–141 in Euro-­style strategy games, 264–265 traitor in card games, 138 in thematic strategy games, 331 traits of Euro-­style strategy games, 239–247 of party games, 160–169 of thematic strategy games, 289–316 translations, of rules, 51 transparent cards, 384 Treatise on Whist (Hoyle), 119 triangle of weirdness, 295 trick taking, in card games, 140 tricks, 140 trump suit, 145 Tsuro (2005), 233 tundra, on game boards, 208 turn, 45 two-­font rule, 357 typical turn, 45 T’Zolkin the Mayan Calendar, 278

U Unearth (2017), 107 unique space, on game boards, 204 units, dice as, 90, 104 unlicensed game prototypes, 291 Uno (1971), 150

unpredictability, 9, 171 untapping, in card games, 134 upgrades, in thematic strategy games, 320 upkeep, reducing, 393 upkeep stage, 136 upper-­left corner, of cards, 122, 123 upper-­right corner, of cards, 122, 124 UV reactive plastics, in thematic strategy games, 314

V variety, in games, 67 VCRs, in thematic strategy games, 315 victory condition, 8 victory tracks in Euro-­style strategy games, 266 on game boards, 206–207 volcanos, on game boards, 208 von Reisswitz, Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann, Jr., 82, 282–283 voting, in thematic strategy games, 332

W war, in card games, 141 War Chest (2018), 234 war games, 290 water, on game boards, 208 Wavelength, 191 websites BoardGameGeek.com (BGG), 22 Game Crafter, 383 League of Gamekeepers, 379 Mensa, 233 Print and Play, 383 sell-­sheet templates, 403 Shut Up and Sit Down YouTube channel, 201 Stonemaier Games, 379 weightiness, in Euro-­style strategy games, 248–249 Wells, H.G., 283 Werewolf, 191 Who’s Hue?, 404–405

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Wilhelm, Friedrich, III, 283 win condition, 47 Wings of Glory: WW2 Starter Set (2012), 349 Wingspan, 278 Wits and Wagers, 191 wood components, in Euro-­style strategy games, 247 Woods, Stewart (author) Euro-­games: The Design, Culture, and Play of Modern European Board Games, 239 word games, mechanisms of, 221–224 word play, in party games, 177–178

worker placement, in Euro-­style strategy games, 261–262 worker spaces, on game boards, 205 writing, in party games, 181

X X-­Card, 170

Z Zendo (2001), 233 zero card, 182 zones, of play, 28–34

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