Page: Guide.ModelingDesign11 - Last Modified : Mon, 22 Sep 14 - 1750 Visits

A brief back ground history

I started designing board games in 2006 after desiding to stop making computer programming. With years I played plenty of board games, had a huge cultural clash with abstract euro games and many other stories. I worked on many board games but I tried to put more focus on 1 game to be able to see all the development step from head to tails. In 2010, my game "Fallen Kingdoms" was released for the first time. It has been revised in 2011, and again in 2013. Mean while, since 2010 I tried to work on the games without really any success. I have little game ideas right now that are in playable state.

Many events occurred near 2014 and I started to question myself on the goal or need to continue designing board games considering the time investment and the lack of rewards due to the abundance of game. See those thread for the complete discussion:

Board Game Geek: Too many games is like not enough; Why continue making games?

Board Game Designer Forum: Too many games is like not enough; Why continue making games?

But the most important event is when I tried designing a mod for Warlock 2 the exiled. When I start working on it, everything was clear in my head, I knew where I was going, I had fun while designing the game. And now I realized that there was something going there that was no way similar to the experience I had in board game design. I seem to be struggling much more to find the right mechanic, with a lot of failure and try again. But when I was modding that video game, I know it was going to work before I even tested.

So I have been questioning myself what where the differences between both. Why they do not ask similar thinking from the designer. Some could say that modding was like designing a variant, but even then, I designed many variants and it never was anything close. The full discussion can be found here:

Board Game Geek: why modding video games is easier than designing board games?

Board Game Designer Forum: Why modding video games is easier than designing board games?

I realized that since board game design are more abstract it's more about finding the right mechanic you need. Since mechanic searching is very hard, it becomes way easier to start with a mechanic and then apply the theme. This is why all my projects which are mechanic based are much closer to be playable.

While in video game you do not have to do such searching, there is an implementation method to make software and you just apply it. Then you could refine your product to make it better, but at least you have something working to start with. So this is what I am trying to do, create a method that will allow to create a working game in a small amount of time that could then be refined until judged complete. This has many challenges and impact that I will explain.

Mechanic Searching

The main problem with board game design is mechanic searching. Trying to find the right mechanic that will match your theme can be a very long process. I remember in my game Fallen Kingdoms, I wanted an alternate way to conquer territories than war, I searched and tested various mechanics for at least 1 year before stumbling on something very simple that was later modified in the revised edition. If you design a game from mechanics, or by enhancing another game you know, you already have a mechanic base that you could build on. But when you start a new game from a theme approach, you have no mechanic base.

In computer software, let say I want to make a calendar app and I never actually seen a calendar app in my whole life. As a computer technician, I can build you a calendar app without needing to look at other apps to see what has been done before. I just need your needs, apply a method and you have an app. It might not be very convenient or user friendly, but it would work. Then the refinement process could get in to increase it's usability. This is why I want to design a similar method for board games.

When you have something working, it's much more easier to refine the game after ward. You also have something testable that you could play, so it gives you a feeling that you are progressing. For me, my strength lies in refining games, that could be the reason why I want a working game as fast as possible to be able to use my strengths and make sure I am not burned when I have a chance to use my strengths.

Sense of Progress

When I was making my mod, I knew what I wanted to change and I knew what has been done so far. So if you asked me how far have you completed your mod, I could give you a percentage value and estimation of the time it will take me to complete the mod. So I could say, my mod is complete at 30%, it took me a month, so I expect that in 3 months it should be over.

But in board game design, you cannot do such planning. Searching a mechanic can take 1 week, 1 month or even 1 year. I have no clue what to expect and when the mechanic will be discovered. Which adds a huge amount of uncertainty, and it gives you no idea on how far you have progressed. Which in the end seems psychologically depressing, because you are spending time on something that you do not see the progress. No company could handle that much uncertainty, this is why most designer are freelancer, since they can take the time they want to make the game.

The only aspect of board game design that has a "Progress Bar" is when you are launching the production of the game, which mean design the graphic layout of components, complete the rules with illustrations, etc. At that phase, you have a list of task to do, and when it's over, it's over. But the design phase is never over. This is why companies only produce game, because that can be planned and evaluated.

Adding Structure

When you design board game, you are swimming in a ocean without any platform to attach yourself to and then we ask you to build something. Unless you start with a set of mechanics, designing from theme leaves you with many nice ideas roughly working together that you cannot see in action because it is a struggle to build a game to start testing them.

If a method could be used to design game, it would add structure to game design not only giving you a sense of progress, but telling you where you should put your energy. What are the next decision you should consider.

To make a metaphor comparison, board game design seems like an open world sand box video game, a bit like Skyrim, you can go anywhere and do whatever you want. It's a good experience for playing a game, but a very bad experience for designing a game because you are not accomplishing much toward a specific goal. While what I am looking for is something like a scripted story game that goes in a specific direction with a couple of choices on the way. It's much less interesting to play, but you know where you are going and you know how far you have progressed.

Compression and Abstraction

Board game design is also a lot about compressing and abstracting. I understand that sometimes, you could have the same results with a simpler abstract mechanic. But when you need to abstract and compress all the time, you end up with a complete different game that sometimes does not meet your expectations.

That was one of my main nemesis in my attempt to make a board game of Master of Magic. There was too many information and details to be playable as a board game, so compressions were required. But the game ended up being so compressed that now it was impossible to design unique spells to affect the game since there was not enough details and variables to have a good variety of spell. So the game became paradoxical, you need to abstract it make it playable, but once it's playable you can't design spells anymore.

There are various reasons that foces designers to make such compression

• Play time: The game need to fir in a certain time frame according to the type of audiance you are targetting.
• Complexity: A game too complex will be very hard to teach and learn.
• Multiplayer: One thing I realised is that multiplayer game forces compression and simplification to be playable.
• COmponents: You cannot have an infinity of components.

This is why I am thinking of focussing on solo games, to avoid most of the restrictions listed above. Turn based strategy video games (even if scarce) seems to have avoided the problems above. This is why it makes it easier to design.

Subdivision of the task

Designing a board game can be a daunted task, if having a more structured game development make it easier to organize the work, then task can be subdivided and be accomplished independently. It is much easier to accomplish a large task subdivided in smaller one that accomplishing a larger task. The problem with board game design seem that you always need to think of the game as whole which could be different in video game design.

For example, when I designed wizardry legacy, if I am now ready to implement spells, I can start designing and implementing just that. While I was designing or programming other aspect of the game, I needed to know little about how the spells would work besides that I need MP for spell, there will be a cast spell action and there would be 4 school of magic. So the link between modules seems much thinner.

Another advantage of task subdivision and modularity is the ability to switch from a project to another. In board game design, you cannot constantly work on the same project all the time. So you should be allowed to rapidly switch from a game design to another. Having a certain structure reduce the time lost due to switching. If the game is very modular, you could switch from a module to another module so that it looks like you are doing a different kind of work. Again in my wizardry legacy video game, I try to alternate between a release that enhance the game rules and another release that enhance the game engine.

Who knows if with a development structure you will need to switch from a game to another anymore since you could have less chances to get stuck somewhere where you need to restart the mechanic searching again.

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