The Three For ME
I may be the odd one out here, so feel free to stop reading at any time, but I’m fascinated by trying to distill designers in the board game space down to what they are known for in games. It’s fun to take a designer's catalog and try to make up a common thread they look to keep from game to game they design.
For Example:
Uwe Rosenburg - Resource Efficiency is what I think of when I look at his notable designs. Agricola, Caverna, and A Feast for Odin all have that as a main focus, but I can also see this exist in his other designs. Patchwork has the buttons (ok, still a little obvious); Bonanza, you are working to efficiently work through your different bean resources in your hand to play them out (maybe a stretch on that one); Luna capital, you are working not only efficiently to place out all your discs to win, but you are also looking to efficiently use your “time” not to allow others to have more optimal turns than you.
Sure, I may be cherry-picking games from Uwe’s catalog or possibly stretching what “resource efficiency actually means in games, but to me, the exercise of finding a common theme is fun!
If I were to do the same exercise to my designs, here are three common themes that I see that I hope others would too.
Easy to learn and quick to set up, but enough depth to reward multiple plays
Being able to set up and teach a game as quickly and effectively as possible helps get more people to the table. Having a game feel different play after play and revealing more depth to the game (in my opinion) keeps the interest of more experienced gamers to continue to play.
Streamlined components and multi-use cards
These are the results from the previous bullet. Fewer pieces to explain and keep track of have allowed me to teach my designs to gamers at all levels, which is very important to me. Multi-use cards I’m a sucker for and find to be a useful tool for creating replayability and helps to create moments of easy decisions to understand but tough decisions to make.
The games build to moments you want to share
For Everstone, it might be a turn that your engine planning pays off and you score multiple legendary points; For Rumblebots, it could be revealing the one-time effect you reveal to keep you from losing your last hit point; For Trickery, it could be winning a hand with a two changing the trump suit which nobody expected. I find those moments are the ones that continue on past game night. I hope to have my designs continue to create that.
If you found this thought experiment fun and want to share what common themes you design around or have a different designer you think has a common theme that carries across their game catalog, help continue the conversation in the comments below!
