Welcome back to Tabletop Tastes: My favorite flavors in board games! This is a series where we spend each episode diving deep into an essential element of game design. For hobbyist gamers, this series will help you to explore your own tastes in the hobby and perhaps discover your next favorite game that fits those tastes. For game designers, this series will offer you more tools to add to your utility belt and metrics to measure your projects by. 

If you missed the previous episode, then go on and check out Tabletop Tastes #13: Purposefully Potent Meanness.

If board games are like a tall glass of ice water, then replayability is the thirst that keeps me coming back for more gulps.  Without that thirst, forcing yourself to drink more water (or replay a board game) can be tough to do.  It’s important for a game to introduce unique wrinkles, dynamics, or challenges to keep the experience refreshing.

Lack of replayability is one of the most common causes of death in my collection.  It’s like the heart disease of board gaming.  It can go easily undetected through the marketing, reviews, and initial plays all the way until play two or five or ten comes around, and suddenly the game just keels over dies right on the table.  Usually, the symptoms suddenly come on mid-game when you find yourself far less engaged than before, experiencing deja vu from previous plays.  Let’s explore some of the ways that games have succeeded and failed at fighting this disease.

One of my first board game conventions was at Origins in Columbus, Ohio.  During this convention, I had the chance to sit down and play a full game of Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done.  I was quickly swept up in the fancy production and novel mechanism of using a Mancala-style rondel to build up and execute actions.  This cyclical puzzle is combined with a more standard player-board engine builder that allows players to travel across the map and claim territories and bonuses with increasingly more powerful actions.  The novel experience was further enhanced by simple rules, brisk pacing, and a surprisingly succinct playtime.  From that one play, I was eager to enjoy Crusaders more, so I brought home my own copy.

We proceeded to play it only 3 more times over the course of a year, and despite the huge stretches of time between plays, I couldn’t quite find the refreshment I was looking for.  The problem was that every game felt like it played out in basically the same way.  Anything you do earns you points, and the map is too wide open for opponents to get in each other’s ways.  By the time I logged my fourth play, I was already tired of retreading the same path.

Another engine builder that is still going strong after even more plays is Roll for the Galaxy (and Race for the Galaxy).  This game is packed with a wide variety of paths and challenges thanks to the emerging planets and technologies that come from a huge draw pile.  This game also provides several core strategies you can select to build up a point generator.  Race & Roll for the Galaxy force their players to develop their strategies and adapt on the fly as cards come out or tiles emerge and dice are rolled.  You’re constantly weighing the relative value of your options against each other, deciding where to commit your resources and actions, and developing a unique tableau of benefits.  Thus, one play has never felt like another.

These refreshing sessions are what keep me coming back for more, while the lack of refreshment can quickly get a game booted from my collection.  Pendulum and Calico are two such games that quickly lost their luster for me, despite having strong starts.  Both games initially presented interesting and engaging challenges, the problem was that these challenges remained static from one play to the next.

Pendulum’s test is all about finding the most efficient route through the unchanging game board.  While unique player mats may start at different strategic locations, their optimal paths seem to always merge very early in the game to make for a samey experience.  Being a low interaction and low variance game, with enough practice the puzzle begins to feel solvable.  

Calico likewise had us quickly finding our strategic niche.  It doesn’t provide enough reasons for one to budge from an optimal strategy, and thus began to feel stale over time.  Plays one and two were fresh, interesting, and thinky.  Play three felt no different from the first two.  The problem is that I felt I had maximized my skill potential in this solitaire game, and any future plays will simply be retreading the same ground.

You’ll notice that all three games that lacked replayability at my table share a common thread: they provide minimal player interaction.  All three games see players living in their own little world, with heads down and brains steaming as they strive to calculate and execute the most efficient plays.  Rarely do you have a reason to care what other players are up to.  Opponents merely serve as occasional inconveniences to your own plans—bumps in in the unchanging road—rather than major factors that cause massive detours or major shifts in one’s strategy and tactics.

When the challenge boils down to player vs. game, the design carries all of the burden of keeping things interesting and fresh from one play to the next.  Without plenty of variable tricks up its sleeve or dynamic effects within mechanisms, it’s all too easy for a solitaire game to quickly feel solvable.

Speaking of solitaire solvability, I’ve seen one saucy game solve this problem far better any other… That game is My City.  Indeed, one of my Top Games of 2020, and my all-time favorite Polyomino Game.  THIS is how you do multiplayer solitaire.  Simultaneous play.  Evolving, legacy-style sessions.  Interesting new challenges layered on to each successive play.  Providing catch-up mechanisms for those who fall behind in the overall objective while ramping up the difficulty for those who pull ahead.  Not once during my TWENTY-FOUR plays did I think to myself, “Well, this is getting a little old.”  Let us, once again, take notes from the legendary Dr. Knizia’s work!  

Of course, I’ve found far more games solve the issue of replayability by simply baking the infinitely dynamic factor of player interaction into the core design.  Cutthroat and meaningful player interaction are the reasons why Caylus 1303 and Azul remain on my shelf while, the lack thereof is why Pendulum and Calico quickly left them.  I can introduce the former games to different people and instantly have a new challenge of adapting to their unique play style.  And with experienced players, I have to constantly up my game as we surf the meta of play from one session to the next.  As I mentioned in my tabletop tastes episode on salty player interaction: a game with high player interaction is a game with high replayability and balance built right into its core system.

One final interesting example to explore is between two games from the same designer, Andreas Steding.  These games are Gugong and Hansa Teutonica.

The interesting gift mechanism is where Gugong really shines.  In order to take an action at what is essentially a worker placement spot, one must exchange the card at that location with a higher value card in their hand.  The numbers go from 1-9, and a 9 can only be replaced with a 1.  

Players must decide the best order and location to play out these cards, and the limitations surrounding how and when you can play them are the beating heart of this clever worker placement game.  Gugong entices you with a constant stream of good reasons to exchange one gift for another…. the action locations, the card actions, the destiny dice, the cards available to claim, the cheap action opportunities, barring other players from an action, etc.  It’s an exquisite flow of sneaky cultural corruption across a well-balanced expanse of interesting options.

After hearing my enthusiasm for this concept, it may surprise you to also hear that I quickly got rid of Gugong from my collection.  My main issue with Gugong is that after three plays, it already started to feel samey to me.  By session three, I had dabbled in every strategy that the game offers and determined my personal optimal way to play the game.  While my approach to the game is tactical and fluid, I had no reason to change my approach.  This considerably dampened my interest in exploring the game further.

The second biggest issue is that several of the “worker placement” action spaces are considerably less interesting than others.  These different spaces are essentially multiple mini games globbed together into one larger worker placement game, but some of these mini games don’t compare favorably to others.  The travel action lacks tension and interaction (simply go forward or backward for your next bonus), the jade action lacks heart (pay cubes for some points), the intrigue action feels dull (move your marker up a tiebreaker track).  Basically, the ship action and wall action are more dynamic and engaging… making the others look flat in comparison.  Contrast this with something like A Feast for Odin, which has dozens more action spaces that are nearly all enticing and rewarding, and Gugong’s disguised issue becomes more apparent.

So if I want to have the most fun with Gugong, I’m stuck with my increasingly stale go-to strategy.  And then mixing it up with other strategies results in a less engaging affair.  When a game traps me between these two options, I’d much rather just pick a more replayable game like Mr. Steding’s Hansa Teutonica.

With Hansa Teutonica, strategic options are less like the mixed results buffet of Gugong and more like the opportunistic Hunger Games.  If many of my opponents are tangled up in the chaotic Cornucopia of upgrades, that may be the perfect time for me to stealthily snake my trade network across the board or lie in wait to pounce on their plans when their backs are turned.  Depending on the group dynamics, I can be a trading post point leech, a meddlesome route-infesting merchant, an all-powerful ability glutton, or a combination of those things.  Yet these options are not equally weighted; their effectiveness depends on how long players allow the game to go.  It’s much better to gun for the upgrades when you expect to have enough late-game turns for your meaty engine to pay off.  

With each new play of Hansa Teutonica, I find myself better able to read the game state and adapt accordingly.  Yet my regular gaming group improves their abilities as well, thus the punches and counter-punches are ever evolving.  Far more than Gugong, Hansa is a game whose depth increases with its players’ experience.  

The thrill of new challenges, the engagement of evolving narratives, the joy of unexpected discoveries….  These are the elements that keep a tabletop game refreshingly replayable.  Yet there are still plenty of games worth trying even when they have a very obvious and limited lifespan, especially when they are the best in their genre.

Tune in next time for Tabletop Tastes #15: Savage Spoilers.

More refreshingly replayable games:

• Highly variable setups/game states: Sidereal Confluence, Root, Pax Pamir (Second Edition), The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, Sprawlopolis, Curious Cargo.
• Drastically different depending on your group: Chinatown, The Estates, Men at Work, Scape Goat, Wavelength, Cosmic Encounter.

What games are the most replayable in your collection?

Article written by Nick Murray. To follow his designs as they come to fruition, subscribe to our newsletter and follow Bitewing Games on social media!

The post Tabletop Tastes #14: Refreshing Replayability appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Have you ever opened a box and discovered a dementor emerging from it to give you the dreaded kiss of death as all light and hope is vacuumed from your body?  Even worse, have you ever bitten into a tasty looking sandwich only to encounter a mouthful of soggy bread? I have… several times. These boxes or “sandwiches” were called things such as Phase 10, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Mexican Train, Monopoly, and more.

Some games just make me die inside, and the ones that do it best are the ones that completely lack meaningful decisions.  If the game is playing me and my actions are on autopilot, then I might as well be soulless. But I’ve found that meaningful decisions are not always a black and white affair.  There are plenty of games that get stuck in that gray area of mildly amusing yet ultimately hollow decisions.

My most recent hollow encounter with a somewhat soggy game was the 25-year-old classic known as Take 5 or 6 Nimmt! It comes close to hitting that sweet spot with its simple gameplay and suspenseful reveals. The issue is that there is not enough structure to the design where choices feel clever or victories feel earned. You see a player have to “take 5” because of the card they revealed, but no other player reaps the psychological reward of directly causing their opponent’s misfortune. The game is not tight enough to be able to take calculated risks or make clever predictions.

For Sale, on the other hand, absolutely wipes the floor with Take 5. It is likewise a filler card game from the 90s with simple gameplay and suspenseful reveals… but For Sale’s decision space has a real crunch. In the first phase, a set of houses is auctioned off each round where passing earns you the lowest house of the set (at half the price of your stopping bid) while the highest bidder pays full price for the best house of the set. One must bid wisely during the first phase, as leftover money counts as points; furthermore, the houses in your hand are then sold for even more points in secret auctions where selling a better house relative to your opponents will earn you a better money card. This tasty combination of bluffing and bidding morph an appetizer game into a fantastic feast of fun.

One game that I love to appreciate but not to play is Flamme Rouge.  From a design standpoint, the game is a delight. The rules and mechanisms form a sweet melody of authentic cycling; the winding track and classy bikers stir the heart with their thematic charm.  Unfortunately, from a decision standpoint, this game lacks purpose and thrill. Each turn feels a bit too arbitrary and random as players are unable to predict their opponents and can only hope to succeed at the single interesting decision of the game: when to start sprinting.  The game succeeds at being safe family fun, but not in making me feel clever or keeping me fully engaged. At least if you asked me to play Flamme Rouge, I would rarely turn down the opportunity to enjoy this mildly amusing bike race… unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Betrayal at House on the Hill.

Betrayal is the Toby Flenderson to my Michael Scott in every conceivable way.  This average, unassuming game somehow manages to suck my soul from my body and rid me of all happiness and hope.  Fun theme and concept aside, the game amounts to moving, stopping, drawing a card to discover what happened to you, and rolling some dice to determine a result. Now you can decide to move upstairs or downstairs… you can decide to move left or right… you can decide whether you want to try to win or try to lose… but that is unfortunately as deep as the well goes. Never did I encounter a tough decision, an interesting puzzle, a tricky situation. Never did I feel clever, crafty, or mentally stimulated.  If you want an experience where random thematic stuff happens to you and your friends until somebody eventually pulls out the win, then you may enjoy Betrayal. As for me, I will keep singing, “Goodbye, Toby!” as I have no intention of seeing this one again.

I prefer experiences that frequently allow me to take a calculated leap of faith.  Who doesn’t love that feeling a game offers when every option of a decision feels too essential to reject, yet only one can be selected?  Or when a seemingly simple choice makes you hesitate as you realize the ripple effect it can have? There is something about the agony of those decisions that hurts so good.

My top games with meaningful decisions would no doubt include Arboretum with its tight scoring qualifications and juicy hand management, Tigris & Euphrates with its deep well of action ramifications from the simple placement of a tile, A Feast for Odin with its wide sandbox of worker placement fun and tasty challenge of covering the dozens of negative victory points, and Inis with its clever balancing act between passing to gain hand advantage and playing to gain board momentum.

I recently had the chance to try 2019’s Watergate which was a complete playground of meaningful decisions.  Each card provides an opportunity to play it for token movement along the tug-of-war track or for a unique event that may result in the card being trashed due to its one-time use limit.  Determining the specific benefits and sequence to use from your hand feels critical in staying one step ahead of your nemesis.

Gugong is another example that takes itself from good to fantastic with the luscious decision space it provides.  The gift cards are where the game really shines. One must decide the best order and location to play out these cards, and the mechanisms surrounding how and when you can play them are the beating heart of this clever worker placement style game. Gugong entices you with a constant stream of good reasons to exchange one gift for another…. the action locations, the card actions, the destiny dice, the cards available to claim, the cheap action opportunities, barring other players from an action, etc. It’s an exquisite flow of sneaky cultural corruption across a well-balanced expanse of interesting options.

While every game in my diet needs to have interesting choices, because I dread a soggy-sandwich game that lacks meaningful decisions, the most memorable ones often contain theme-inspired mechanisms.

Click on to explore Tabletop Tastes #5: Juicy Theme-Inspired Mechanisms

LOOKING FOR MORE GAMES WITH A CRUNCHY DECISION SPACE? TRY CHOMPING ON ONE OF THESE:

• Optimization Decisions: Scythe, Brass: Birmingham, Concordia
• Gut-Feeling Decisions: The Mind, The Quacks of Quedlinburg, Skull
• Deep Strategy Decisions: Onitama, Tzaar, Samurai
• Risky Decisions: The Estates, Treasure Island, Startups
• Costly Decisions: Patchwork, PARKS, Isle of Skye
• Sandbox Decisions: Five Tribes, Great Western Trail, Dominion

What games give you the crunchy decision space you need?

The post Tabletop Tastes #4: Crunchy Meaningful Decisions appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Introduction

I dove into the deep end of the board game community over a year ago. With helpful guides including Shut Up & Sit Down’s recommended games, The Dice Tower’s Top 100, Board Game Geek (BGG) rankings, Geekbuddy comments, and more, my hunt has led me through the “Cult of the New”, Cult of the Classic, and many games in between.

I’ve played and purchased more board games in the past year than I have in my entire life, and it has been a blast! The true catalyst that launched me into the hobby was when I discovered a passion for designing board games during the summer of 2018. My experience learning and playing new-to-me tabletop games has been one of both research and adventure, discovery and inspiration. As I’ve sought to feed my creative drive, I’ve also uncovered an explorative hunger and developed a personal palate. Playing board games and creating board games are cyclical interests for me that have consumed much of my free time since they began.

So while I feel my understanding of the board game industry is well researched and experienced on one hand, I realize my complete amateur status on the other. Perhaps my perspective will offer you something new to consider, and I certainly hope you won’t hesitate to offer me suggestions as well.  

If you feel we may have similar tastes, and you have a BGG account, please feel free to add me as a Geekbuddy! I’m always eager to hear what you fine folks think of any games I am curious about, and I’ve found the Geekbuddy tool to be invaluable in narrowing down my wishlist. It’s also possible that your suggestion for me is already on my wishlist, so check out my most anticipated new-to-me games list!

So without further adO, I present to you my current Top 50 Games!

#50 Roll for the Galaxy

Recommended for: Gamers

I seem to like this game more every time I play it. Always engaging and interesting with loads of variety. The rules and symbols can seem intimidating at first, but the player shields contain basically all the information you need to play the game (and remember the rules). Very well done production.

I realize how popular Terraforming Mars is, but Roll for the Galaxy is my preferred space engine builder thanks to its zippy play time, better production, and higher fun factor.

#49 Skull

Recommended for: Everyone

Skull is a game of bluffing filtered down into its purest form. I love those moments when I can get on a roll and make my opponents feel like I am reading them like a book.

If you enjoy bluffing games like Poker, but you want a game that throws out everything but the good old bluffing, then Skull is for you!

#48 Takenoko

Recommended for: Everyone

Fantastic family game. We absolutely love the theme and components; the presentation is a home-run. The feeling of watering bamboo tiles to build bamboo towers and moving the Panda to eat bamboo comes together so nicely.

The event die is interesting in how it encourages players to adapt their strategy on each turn.

There is definitely a significant amount of luck involved in drawing the right or wrong objective cards (especially late in the game). This can make some plays quite frustrating for competitive players.

The Takenoko: Chibis expansion helps with mitigating some bad luck and adds some really interesting mechanics to the game, so I would suggest getting the expansion if you enjoy the base game.

#47 The Quest for El Dorado

Recommended for: Everyone

There’s something about this game that is so slick, streamlined, and satisfying. Perhaps the obvious answer is: Reiner Knizia. I love how this deck-builder makes you plan ahead and consider the long-term consequences of buying all those machete cards when a dense area of water and villages lie ahead in the distance.

There’s also something to be said of a game that contains all the essential rules on the thin rectangular player boards, making for an easy-breezy teach leading to an epic, tense race.

The Quest for El Dorado has served as a major case-study and inspiration for the snowboarding deck-builder that I’ve been designing myself.

#46  The Fox in the Forest

Recommended for: Everyone

I grew up playing Rook from time to time with relatives. Having an auction based on your hand of cards always felt like such a clever way to mitigate luck in a trick-taking game. It never occurred to me that losing a trick could be just as much fun as winning a trick.

Enter The Fox in the Forest. I love how players can spend early tricks baiting their opponent, testing the waters, while late tricks find them desperately struggling to balance their wins and losses. Man, I need to play this again.

As I’ve been designing a trick-taking game inspired by hot air balloon competitions, The Fox in the Forest has been instrumental in helping me refine the mechanisms of my design.

#45 Startups

Recommended for: Everyone

I picked up Startups very recently (thanks to the fine folks at SU&SD), and found it to be delightfully similar to Arboretum. Both games reward clever hand management among calculated discards and well-timed plays. Startups is certainly the milder of the two, but still a solid card game I’m hungry to play again.

Startups is also my introductory game to Oink Games; their minimalist design and production is actually quite charming, in my opinion. I stumbled across Startups in a random board game store while out of town, and now Insider is next on my list to try. I’m also quite familiar with the famous A Fake Artist Goes to New York, although I haven’t played it, as it shares some similarities with a party game that my wife and I have in the works.

#44 Dominion (Second Edition)

Recommended for: Everyone

Dominion reminds me of a good bowl of vanilla ice cream. It’s nothing flashy, but it’s a fine-tuned base of deck-building that seemingly goes well with almost anything. Sometimes it’s just nice to go back to some smooth, quick simplicity and bask in Old Faithful.

To me, this game has plenty of tension within the decision space of cards to purchase and cards combinations you hope to draw; but for those looking for more player interaction, it seems that the later deck-builders it inspired fill this need better. I’m particularly enamored with Arctic Scavengers adding in the option to save a card for combat (even as a bluff) rather than play or discard it; this particular mechanism fits perfectly into my snowboarding deck builder design of storing cards as a snowball stash.

#43 Watergate

Recommended for: Everyone

Watergate captures and streamlines the element of tension that I’ve so come to love in my favorite games. This is the only game that I don’t own and haven’t played multiple times (yet), but it left a massive first impression with its novel historical theme and focused gameplay. I love that the cards have multiple uses and provide a deeper decision space beyond just deciding which card to play but how to play them.

#42 Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Recommended for: Everyone

Deception takes the ever popular Werewolf/Mafia style of social deduction gameplay, combines it with the basic premise of Clue, and gives it just enough mechanical framework to satisfy everyone involved. The cognitive deducers can feel clever as they narrow down the probable weapon and key evidence, and the social influencers can steer the discussion and cast suspicion.

#41 Decrypto

Recommended for: Everyone

Decrypto blows the ever popular Codenames out of the water for me. I love how the clues you offer contain long-term consequences. The game forces you to think outside the box by avoiding new clues that are to closely related to old clues. One of my favorite moments is during a tie-breaker when teams must guess the exact words of their opponents.

If you enjoy Codenames, you have gotta try Decrypto!

Next Page: Games 40-31

The post Top 50 Board Games: Nick’s Cream of the Crop appeared first on Bitewing Games.