Physical Games

Sports / Historical Board Games / Tabletop Games

  • Very broad topic
  • The idea of one person “Making” game is pretty modern
  • Historically, games have evolved… Crowd sourced iterative design
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| Sports      | Board/Table Top Games|
| Running, Swimming   | Mankala		 |
| Boxing, Archery, Gymnastics  | The Royal Game of UR |
| Tus Chu -> Football | GO |
| Mesoamerican Ballgame   | Chess |
|   | Card Games: Tarot -> Poker |
Modern Board and Card Games
  • Roll to Move
  • Territory Control
  • Worker Placement (Puerto Rico / settlers or katan)
  • Simulation (mini’s wargames: practicing wars in map)
  • Eurogames / Ameritrash (Scythe / Gloomhaven):
    • Eurogames tends to be mechanically heavy simulation focused, more abstract
    • Ameritrash heavily themed focused on heroes and main characters and more defined goals
  • Card Games (Poker, mid 1800s hoyle, Uno comes each year)
  • Collectible Card Games (Magic the Gathering, Pokemen)
  • Deck Building (Dominion, Ascension)

Resources: https://boardgamegeek.com/

Board Game Principles
  • Randomness vs. Uncertainty (make the game less feeling of fixed or pre-scripted)
  • Hidden information - also introduce uncertainty (Battleship, MtG, Poker)
  • Meaningful choices vs. Analysis paralysis
    • Not simply rolling and moving, it gets easily boring. Don’t want to have too many choices but always have a number of meaningful choices
    • Analysis paralysis: happen when too many meaningful choices, players do not know what suppose to do
  • Solvability (tic-tac-toe has optimal option, more complicate game can be solved these days)
  • Common Issues
    • Player Elimination: Have to wait Everyone else to finish before they can start the game again
    • Skill Gaps: Grandmaster vs. Child. Make people enjoy with skill gap.
    • Quarterbacking: often comes in cooperate games. Ameritrash board games. One is doing well during the play while others not, this person will spend a lot time explaining everything.
  • Game Theory mechanics
    • Not actually about games in the way we think of them
    • The Prisoner’s Dilemma
    • The Tragedy of the Commons: also can be considered a example of Prisoner Dilemma. Goal is to find the optimal solution.
Role Playing Games: A very Brief History
  • Dungeons & Dragons
  • World of Darkness. More focused on storytelling system. A company called white wolf in1990s.
  • Indie Games:
    • Fate: simulating noir setting
    • PbtA
    • Dread (10 Candles):
    • Literally thousands more.
Field Games:
  • Historical: Football, Rugby, etc. Tag, Hide and Seek.
  • Modern: Paintball, Laser Tag, Capture the Flag
  • Digitally Enhanced: J.S. Joust
  • VR/AR Games
LARPS - Live Action Role Play Games
  • Boffer Larps
    • N.E.R.O
  • Theater Larps
    • One World By Night
  • Nordic Larps
    • White Death