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To kick off some dicussion, how long do you feel is the most time a single player should have to wait before making a decision of some kind. For example, Ascension, which is a game I love, can crawl to and absolute crawl in 4 person games, especially if there are new people. If its not my turn, there's no decisions for me to make, and I get bored if the time between turns grows to more than a minute or two. So two questions, how long is an acceptable wait, and how do you minimize the lack of interactions between turns? I personally think if you arnt doing something at least once a minute, the game is failing on this level. As for techniques, anything that allows you to trade, a la Settlers of Catan. Magic also has this off turn interaction, with blocking and instants, but this can obviously be circumvented based on player choice.
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Nov 22, 2012 00:49
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jmzero posted:I appreciated a point Richard Garfield made about Monopoly - the positive events (people landing on your properties) mostly happen to you when it's not your turn, and that makes other peoples' turns more enjoyable. I prefer games where there's a continuous flow of decisions and interactions (7 Wonders and Space Alert come to mind here), but barring that (it won't be possible for all games) I think it's worthwhile to consider other ways of making downtime more pleasant. I do agree this does make it more pleasant, but I'm not sure this counts as a decision. It's also robing Peter to pay Paul, since the active players turn worse and not offering them a choice. Not that Monopoly is held up as a good example of design.
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Nov 22, 2012 01:14
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Just because nerds like to classify things, would this be a list that encompasses the skills that exist in board games (no it is not, but its what I can come up with at the moment, please add more) 1. Probability evaluation - games with imperfect information, but enough that the most probable best move can be calculated. Examples - evaluating where to build in Settlers, poker, deck building games 2. Thinking ahead - evaluating games of perfect information, examples tic tax toe, chess 3. Information hiding- tricking other players to think the gamestate is something different than it is. Examples - Being a Cylon in Battlestar, bluffing in poker 4. Trivia - knowing information outside of the game - Trivia Pursuit 5. Memory - recalling things - Scene It, where you answer a question about a scene you just watched 6. Communication - Usually within some restriction, getting an idea to someone else - Pictionary, Charades 7. Physical Stuff - a broad catagory for reflex, strength based tasks - Spoons, Jenga 8. Negotiation - trading, buying and selling with other players. Trading in Settlers, auction in Powergrid
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Nov 22, 2012 17:30
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xopods posted:By the way, I hope I'm not driving anyone off with all these extremely nerdy megaposts about defining things. As one of those hippie story gamers, I really like conceptually what "Aye Dark Overlord" does, but wish it had a more vigorous mechanical structure. The game is you are goblin minions returning from a botched heist. You make excuses, adding story elements with cards. You can "pass the buck" or interrupt other players with other cards. You lose by contradicting yourself, being unable to pass the buck, or generally displeasing the Dark Overlord, who is a player that acts as a quasi-GM, or judge.
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Nov 24, 2012 16:59
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Somewhat board game design related, but definitly more on the board games as art side of things http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/28/4157884/game-designer-jason-rohrer-designs-a-game-meant-to-be-played-2000 quote:Rohrer's A Game for Someone was presented at the 10th (and final) Game Design Challenge at GDC. This year's challenge was themed "Humanity's Last Game." I'm fascinated on few levels, one being the sheer amount of pretension, but still really neat concept of a game that might get played by someone long after you are dead. The second is his process of black boxing the rules. As a software engineer and a fan of automated testing, I'm wondering how he did it, and if you could generalize it in such a way as to create a toolkit for other games. A rigorous, automatic, mechanical way to ensure game balance would probably be a good thing for the industry, especially if you could get it out to the little guys, who just don't have the budget for large playtests. Ulta fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Mar 30, 2013 |
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Mar 30, 2013 13:13
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