To Be Exciting, or Not to Be Exciting

“Based on theme alone, I think this would be a tough sell. Hot air ballooning doesn’t feel that exciting.”

-Anonymous Judge

These words were written recently about my design, Balloon Jockeys, from a judge who was evaluating game design pitches.  It was for a contest of sorts known as the Pitch Project.  In this event, designers had the opportunity to submit a sell sheet (a 1 page elevator pitch) to be evaluated by judges based on 3 criteria:

1. How well does the sell sheet convey how the game works?
2. How original is the game?
3. How much do you think the target audience would want to play the game?

With roughly 750 sell sheets submitted, and only 50 being allowed through to the live online pitching event (where designers have 5 minutes to pitch their game to a few dozen publishers), I’m sure that there were more than plenty of sell sheets that were cleaner and better designed than mine.  But I have a hunch that this particular judge at least deducted points on my pitch based on the third criteria: how interested would the target audience be in playing Balloon Jockeys?

The “target audience” in this case is strategy board gamers, and clearly they wouldn’t find Hot Air Ballooning as “exciting” as something like trading in the Mediterranean….

Of course I’m being facetious here.  While it’s a bummer that Balloon Jockeys didn’t qualify for the pitching event, I’m honestly more put off by this judge’s thought process.  They must have been thinking 1 of 2 things (or both):

A: “Only games with exciting themes can attract publishers and succeed in the marketplace.”

B: “Hot air ballooning is not a marketable board game theme.”

Getting with the Times

When I first read this judge’s comment, I had to laugh because I immediately thought of the hottest game of 2019, Wingspan.  A game about birds, eggs, and bird food is not only ranked in the top 20 games of all time on Board Game Geek, but it’s also won countless awards including the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres.  Yet, I’m willing to bet that (before last year) if my sell sheet would have been for the game Wingspan, this judge would have made the exact same remark.

Let’s set aside the fact that this judge’s perspective is probably out of touch with the modern board game market and peer into the deeper truths behind this encounter.  Not long ago, hobbyist board gaming was divided into two buckets: “Ameritrash” games that put theme far above deep strategy and clever mechanisms, and “Euro” games that typically slapped a theme on a thinky, mechanical design, almost as an afterthought.

Fortunately, we’ve seen the line between these two categories blur in recent years as the barriers to creating board games have broken down and creativity has flourished.  What once was a hobby exclusively for “geeks,” has now evolved into an activity for everyone.  Where there was once only Sci-fi, Fantasy, and European mercantilism, we now have everything from migrating butterflies to kids building forts. A great combination of theme and mechanisms is becoming the new standard.

Despite this evolution, I’m still surprised to encounter people in the industry, be they judges, publishers, designers, or gamers, who believe that games can’t thrive unless they fit into their idea of worthy themes and settings.

What Makes a Theme Exciting?

Do we really need another pirate game?  Another cthulhu game?  Another viking or zombie or space game?  Granted, we’re still seeing plenty of exciting ideas coming from these exhausted sources.  But are these really the only wells that we can draw inspiration from?  The narrow-minded among us seem to think so.

The fallacy of these individuals is that a theme must be immediately and obviously exciting, otherwise it is not worth exploring.  I wish to push back against this notion and point all of us toward a higher truth:  

“Any theme can make a fantastic and exciting game, especially if the designer/publisher can capture the aspect of that theme which is most interesting and make it the focal point of the design/production.”

Me… just now

Now, please don’t take that out of context. I’m not implying that even endorsed immorality in themes can make for a great game… Space Biff provides a fascinating comparison of portraying vs. endorsing immoral themes in games, and there is no need for me to venture into that territory as well. Rather than the immoral, I’m thinking more about the mundane. Yes, even the most mundane of themes can make for an amazing gaming experience. What does this look like?  Let’s explore some examples…

When I think of buses, I think of slow trips, poor temperature control, motion sickness, and strange smells.  Years upon years of riding the bus to and from school have ingrained these negative feelings into my very DNA.  The day that I got a drivers’ license and a hand-me-down family vehicle to drive around was one of the greatest days of my youth.  There is simply no way around my bias against buses. So how on EARTH did Capstone & Splotter Games get me so excited about buses that I jumped at the chance to pay them SIXTY BUCKS for a game about buses called, you guessed it, BUS?!?

How does Viticulture get me hyped to make and sell wine when I don’t even drink alcohol?  How does Modern Art get me pumped to buy and sell pieces of art that I have minimal appreciation for?  Why did I lunge at a chance to play Q.E. when I couldn’t care less about global economics?  How come I’m so eager to recreate the events surrounding the Watergate scandal, something that happened long before my birth and merely received a quick nod in my US history class? 

All of these games with “unexciting” themes are wildly successfully and widely loved because they dig deep into their core source material, grasp the fascinating essence within, rip it out into the spotlight, and slap it down on a player’s table for them to explore and dissect like a still-beating heart from a strange creature’s chest.

Watergate pits players in a tense tug-of-war of information, incentives, and priorities between the Nixon administration and Washington Post.  

Q.E. makes each participant a powerhouse country handing out limitless checks left and right to struggling industries until one country finds that it spent far too much.  

Modern Art captures the peculiar trends and finicky tastes that drive the relative value of art up and down as players control greedy museums that are hungry for the next big thing.

Viticulture, with its round, glassy, aging grape/wine tokens satisfies the connoisseur within as they build up a beautiful vineyard in the rolling hills of Tuscany.  

And Bus spins the wheels of its scheming players’ brains as they seek to develop a route that can satisfy the most passengers during their daily routines.

Why was Wingspan such a smash hit that continues to soar above its competitors?  Because Elizabeth Hargrave and Jamey Stegmaier understood that birds are inherently fascinating in their function and diversity… their colors, their personalities, their behaviors, and their habitats.  So they created a game that puts this most fascinating part of birds at the forefront.  They invested time and money in making each and every card functionally unique and genuinely beautiful.  They tied each unique species to mechanical aspects of the game in thematically subtle but meaningful ways.  While the blind bats of the industry cried out from their drab comfort zones, everyone else took notice and at least appreciated the love and care that went into this project.

Irony in Ignorance

The irony of this Pitch Project judge’s remarks is that I set out to create Balloon Jockeys precisely because of its theme.  During a brainstorming session, I realized that hot air balloons are naturally awe-inspiring, effortlessly beautiful, and criminally underrepresented in the realm of board gaming.  Show me the person who doesn’t feel an ounce of joy or wonder when they suddenly notice a hot air balloon soaring overhead.  We’ve all been outside with others when one of us noticed the balloon first and immediately pointed it out for everyone else to appreciate.

Every design decision I’ve made since Balloon Jockey’s inception has been anchored in the most compelling aspects of the subject.  I started this design journey knowing practically nothing about the topic of hot air ballooning, but I’ve since found plenty of golden nuggets to treasure.  If I can manage to transfer these golden nuggets into how the game plays, looks, and feels, then I have zero doubts that it will find plenty of fans, regardless of whether the theme initially excites them or not.

As time goes on, I hope to see more and more unconventional themes that are magnified into exciting experiences.  I hope to see publishers, designers, judges, and gamers step outside their comfort zones, think outside the box, and uncover the extraordinary within the ordinary.

This concludes our exploration of What Makes a Board Game Theme Great. Despite my difference in opinions with one particular judge, I want to be clear that, as a designer, the Pitch Project has been an excellent resource and worthwhile event… even for Balloon Jockeys! Our current plan now is to self-publish Balloon Jockeys through Kickstarter (campaign expected late 2021 at the earliest). To follow our designs as they come to fruition, subscribe to our newsletter and follow Bitewing Games on social media!

Article written by Nick Murray. To learn more about his tabletop gaming tastes and preferences, check out his blog series: Tabletop Tastes: My Favorite Flavors in Board Games.

The post What Makes a Board Game Theme Great? appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Speaking of biting into sandwiches, you know that feeling when you bite into a too-dry sandwich and instantly wish it had some kind of condiment or sauce?  There are some sandwiches in this world that will soak up all the saliva from your mouth and try their hardest to keep you from having a pleasurable dining experience.  Instead of enjoying the flavors that it does contain, all you can think about is what’s missing from it.

This is comparable to the experience I’ve had with certain tabletop games… like Targi, for instance.  Targi is a clever 2-player worker placement game with mechanisms that are phenomenally unique and interesting; yet somehow I just couldn’t get into it.  My main issue with Targi is that the game is SO DRY. For a game that could be literally any theme, the chosen theme and presentation aren’t doing it any favors.  There is absolutely nothing exciting to me about collecting and spending salt, pepper, and dates. It all feels so mechanical. Collect bland things, spend them on bland things, rinse and repeat.  While the mechanics start out interesting, the novelty wears out long before the game is over. It’s a game that becomes difficult to see through to the end, much like a dry sandwich.

Compare this to another worker placement game that contains all the thematic sauce I could possibly want: Viticulture Essential Edition.  In Viticulture, players start a new round by deciding how early they want their workers to wake up; choose an earlier time and reap the benefits of having a head start on available spaces, let your workers sleep in and gain better bonuses due to… higher morale?  Hey, I love a good morning of sleeping in; it makes perfect sense.  

Next, players assign their workers to various activities in the vineyard.  Offer tours for profit. Plant grape vines. Harvest grapes. Convert grapes into wine.  Fulfill wine orders. Hire new workers. Etc. And top off the round by aging all of your grapes and wine!

Viticulture is a medium-weight Euro that is incredibly easy for me to teach to non-gamers (Tuscany expansion and all), thanks to its intuitive theme-inspired mechanisms.  More importantly, the game makes players feel as though they are actually running a vineyard. We’ve had some long sessions of Viticulture (especially with new players), but none of them overstayed their welcome partly because of the satisfying and genuine wine-making experience.

It would be criminal to talk of theme-inspired mechanisms without mentioning the fearless and illustrious Treasure Island. Treasure Island pits Long John Silver against the pirates against each other in a swashbuckling treasure hunt across a massive island where the first to find and reach the treasure wins! The game begins with the mutinied Long John marking an X on his secret map to designate the location of the hidden treasure; he then shares unique bits and fragments of this information to his captors, the pirates, sending them on a greedy wild goose chase while he executes a plan of escape to secure the treasure for himself! Players feel like bona-fide treasure hunters and scumbag pirates as they bluff to each other and chart paths and search zones across a large map with dry erase markers. What this game lacks in a perfectly balanced or consistent experience, it absolutely makes up for in an authentic adventure.

This contrast between wet and dry is why I just can’t get into most games that center around pushing cubes up and down tracks or converting resources into more resources into victory points.  If the condiments of a good theme are not available, perhaps the only other way for me to enjoy a dry sandwich game is to pair it with a quenching glass of crisp gameplay with complex ramifications.

Tune in next time for Tabletop Tastes #6: Crisp Elegance

LOOKING FOR MORE JUICY GAMES WITH THEME-INSPIRED MECHANISMS? TAKE A BITE OUT OF ONE OF THESE:

• Thematic Cooperative: Horrified, Pandemic Legacy Season 1, Spirit Island
• Thematic Party: Camel Up, Mysterium, Tortuga 1667, Captain Sonar
• Thematic Economic: Brass Birmingham, Modern Art, Container
• Thematic Whimsical: Clank!, Tokaido, Takenoko
• Thematic Family Game: Downforce, Jaws, Mechs vs. Minions
• Thematic Adventures: Sleeping Gods, Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island, Chronicles of Crime
• Thematic 2-player: Watergate, Undaunted: Normandy
• Thematic Dexterity: Flick ‘Em Up, Men At Work, Catacombs

What makes a game feel juicy and thematic for you?

The post Tabletop Tastes #5: Juicy Theme-Inspired Mechanisms 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

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