Lately, I have been fascinated by "ED:Microcosm" which has a very small foot print and a good amount of depth. It generated many other variation and idea, to a point where I wonder if most of my game ideas could be implemented with similar mechanics.
In board game design, mechanic searching and high production cost are the 2 worst enemies for me. But now I am wondering if I could restrain mechanic searching by overspecialising the mechanics and components I use to make development easier.
Some "rules" ideas that I was thinking are:
- Design only cards games with max 100 cards.
- 2 player game only.
- Make sure each card have a multiple uses (3-4 usages), to increase depth, reduce the number of cards, etc
- There could optionally be other side components (cube, tokens, etc), but it must fit in a very small box. Still, I would prefer only cards.
I rechecked my list of game ideas and I could easily convert a dozen of games to a this restriction set.
Over specialization has the possible benefits of making games easier to design on the long run, but has the drawback of making games looks similar to each other. My best example is game made by "Philippe Keyaerts". Small world, Vinci, Evo and Olympos are all variations of the same core mechanics.
What do you think, is over specialization worth it?
Personally, I think it's perfect:
- Easier to find playtester
- Avoid issues like kingmaking and down time
- allow having more depth without making the game too long (under an hour)
- Keeps the number of components small
- Allow using double sided components where each side match a player.
I am not aiming for fluff, but rather for deep and small game.
Well Microcosm is 33 cards and it's pretty deep. I don't think 500+ cards is really necessary. 2 players and multi usages requires less cards.
For multi usage, again refering to Microcosm, Duel Masters, Valley of kings, pixel tactics. Of course, Glory to Rome and Impulse could fit in that category too. For example, microcosm action cards has the following usages:
1- Gives an action text ability
2- Gives an icon to boost other actions
3- Gives a scoring method to make points
4- Gives a color to the card which can affect scoring.
It's basically to avoid searching for mechanics and components. Like they say "Restrictions brings creativity". I have many ideas that wanders in limbo without any possibility of becoming a reality, because I have not found THE mechanics that is going to make the game work. So I need to play and learn new games for years before I can eventually stumble on that mechanism if it exists.
So the idea of restraining components and mechanism could be comparable to the exploration of inner space instead of outer space. You define your self a frame of constraints and explore all possible variations under those constraints.
I might not be able to implement all game ideas, but by simply browsing at my list I could easily find a dozen of fit. And as they say, 12 is bigger than 0. Still, it does not garanty me that those 12 idea will be successful, I could still have issues designing those game. But at least I'll be searching for a solution within the box instead of outside the box.
The problem with 3+ games is that it leads to political games. So it's the relationship between the players that will decide the fate of the game. With 2 players, the losing player must have a way to overcome his opponent, he cannot rely on others. Therefore the game require more depth and path to succeed to make that kind of catch up possible.
Nope, my father actually kingmaked in catan. It's present in all political games
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Political Game
I have just read in a book that political game is like giving each player a bag of 10 chips where each turn, each player chose a player to discard a chip. The game ends when a player runs out of chip, the player with the most chip wins.
Essentially, all political games have that same behavior except they are more complex mechanics that hides that behavior.
With 2 player games, I can actually avoid political games all at once.