Balance, snowballing and the design problem of keeping success meaningful without making failure permanent A player can be behind without having lost. In fact, being behind is often one of the most interesting positions in a game. It changes priorities, encourages risk, forces adaptation and creates the possibility of a comeback. The problem begins when
If Falling Behind Means Losing, Why Keep Playing? Read More »
Failure has an unusually positive reputation in games. We accept that players will lose a level, make a bad move, waste a resource or discover that a strategy does not work, and we often describe those moments as part of learning the game. It is tempting to turn this into a general principle: failure is
Failure Works When It Creates Feedback Read More »
In most games, turns are treated as part of the basic structure. I act, then you act, then someone else acts, and eventually the opportunity comes back to me. Because this structure is so familiar, it is easy to think of turns as containers for the real design decisions rather than as design decisions themselves.
Every Action Is an Opportunity Read More »
When we talk about board game components, it is easy to treat them as the physical layer that comes after the design. First we decide how the game works, then we decide whether a particular piece of information should be represented by a card, a token, a die, a miniature or a track. From that
Components Are Part of the Design Language Read More »
Competition and Cooperation Are Not Opposites We often talk about competition and cooperation as if they sit at opposite ends of a scale. A competitive system encourages people to pursue their own success; a cooperative system asks them to work toward a shared success. From a design perspective, however, this distinction is much less useful
Competition and Cooperation Are Not Opposites Read More »
Most multiplayer games allow players to talk, and because conversation feels natural around a table, it is easy to treat it as something that happens around the game rather than inside it. The rules tell us which cards we can play, where pieces can move and how points are scored; meanwhile, players explain plans, warn
Communication Is a Game Mechanic Read More »
When we talk about board game design, we tend to talk about mechanics. We talk about cards and dice, actions and resources, scoring systems and victory conditions. These are the things we usually think of as the game itself. Then there are all the other details printed on the box: 2–5 players. 60–90 minutes. A
A Board Game Is More Than Its Rules Read More »
The word gamification creates a slightly misleading first impression. If we are gamifying something, it sounds as though we must be turning it into a game: adding points to a learning platform, creating a leaderboard for employees, giving customers badges for completing actions, or perhaps adding an avatar and a few levels to an application.
What Is Gamification? Read More »
