Should Game Designers Play Other Designer's Games?

Yes. You should absolutely play other peoples' games.

Reiner already has a huge amount of game history to draw on, and as you point out, while not copying from others he ends up copying from himself. He also has a whole fan base to warn him if he's going off the rails.

That being said, you could replace game experience with a large amount of experience in another field (like high finance or being a math PhD for example). As long as you have a wide variety of experience you have a good well to draw on for analog game design (analog = analogy = initial experience required).

Of course, expanding on that, if you run with the crowd you're likely to end up with the same experiences and thus similar games. If you run on your own you're more likely to come up with something "original". I imagine that like most things, balance is the key: if you spend periods gaming a lot with others, interspersed with periods designing on your own, interspersed with watching how people (including yourself) react to and experience game designs (your own and those of others), interspersed with time reading pure theory, interspersed with other life experience, you are the most likely to create better game designs. Blindly following a single path will probably end poorly.

As an author, I rarely read the work of others. Indeed reading the work of other authors is tantamount to unpaid editing. I simply sit reformatting pages and making very little progress.

Attempts to play the games of other designers are equally frustrating. My mind becomes consumed with over-thought and often poorly implemented mechanics and material. Bits of fluff that were intended to enrich a game instead broaden into a new and complex rule challenge that only distracts from original intent. The array of time consuming and ultimately distracting tactics used by many designers often prevents a real enjoyment of the product.

Am I unable to appreciate what they have done as a designer? No, I have far too many ideas of my own to spend too much time pondering the concepts of others. Each work is a work of passion, complex and engrossing. Why on earth would I distract myself from this indulgence, pleasure, and calling?

You sound as though you learn through example, which, when trying to understand complex math, is perfectly acceptable. We are not, however, learning a repeatable and quantifiable skill as designers. We are in the business of creation. Where on earth did you get the idea that a creative writer should open Asimov to get ideas for his own work?

I read your blog post. I disagree. I believe that your statements following his commentary leave an easy and predictable conclusion.

“First of all, seeing and experiencing games from other designers gives us the opportunity to see what is possible. Would engineers have built rockets if they had not first seen airplanes take flight? For innovators, seeing what has been done before is inspiring, not limiting.”

Your generalization is extremely limited in presenting his process as though he has never seen a bird fly or a game of chess. While he clearly does not use modern games as a backdrop for his own designs, he is not a cave-dweller designing products without even the fundamental concepts of gaming.

“seeing and experiencing games from other designers gives us the opportunity to see what is possible.”

Seeing what is possible only through the eyes of others? That is not creation you speak of, that is emulation.

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YES, it is essential to play with other designers. I think the most important feed back I got was from other designers. Sure you need to take everything with a grain of salt because we each have different design taste and goals, but still, I think it is really important.

I would way, when the game is in progress, play with designers, because they are the only group of people willing to play your game again after an update. When the game is finished, now you can try with real people.

Wow... people afeel very strongly about this.

Personally, I do play other designers games. All the time. I enjoy the flesh idea's and seeing how other people dealt with problems. This is the way I design... but not the way all designers should.

There is nothing wrong with him not playing other games... especially if he is succeeding with his own designs. If he doesn't want to risk his own idea's being changed by other designers... that's just fine. Hell, I'd wager he is far more talented at coming up with unique solutions than I am BECAUSE he's trained himself to come up with the ideas. This is HIS way and if it works for him then good.

I've met writings who read alot and those that never do. I've met filmmakers that love to watch movies and those that can't stand it. I've met designers that learn from other games and I've met designers that would rather spend their time cooking meals or walking in the park.

There is no right and wrong. There is only right way for me.

In Reiner Knizia's defense, he does have a cadre of experienced designers in his inner circle and in his many playtest groups. He's said himself (to me anyway, if not in public) that he relies on them to let him know when he's reinventing the wheel so to speak.

However, that doesn't always work. At Kublacon a few years ago he had a prototype with him that was functionally identical to Qwirkle (slightly different scoring). He hadn't played Qwirkle, and had no idea about the similarities (I grabbed it from the library to show him).

I am definitely the type of designer who benefits from playing other people's games. James Ernest has a thing he talks about which I will attempt to paraphrase here: There are Inventors and there are Refiners. Inventers come up with new, unique ideas; Refiners develop ideas or put parts together to come up with a whole. Every designer will have to be both of those people, but some people are naturally much more one than the other.

I personally am more of a Refiner. I believe that makes me a better developer than a designer. Luckily, if Eminent Domain is any indication, I can do at least a little design as well :)

While it's not true for me, I wouldn't go as far as to say that NO designer is better off not playing other people's games, but I suspect in most cases the experience and insight gained from doing so outweighs any possible detriment. So my advice to would-be designers is to play as many games as possible!

Nods in agreement at much of the above, it’s a case of whatever floats your own boat. I definitely concur with the distinction between invention and refinement. The wheel was invented eons ago, but it has been constantly refined over time.

The initial bedrock wheel of stone (if that’s how it started out) became wood slats, spokes where added to the design, the hub underwent revisions, the axle became sprung, iron was added to the rim to increase durability, the inner core was then made of metal, a tire was added and so on; each development leading to an improved ride for the passengers.

Would we now choose to go back to the old bedrock wheel and dismiss the refinements as irrelevant?

Well, I might, possibly, because I’ve always been a fan of the Flintstones and those Yabba Dabba Dooby cars – although I would probably still only go back as far as the pedal cars in Bugsy Malone :)

So refinement can be just as valuable as original conception, perhaps even more so.

I also agree with Lariennas’ point about finding other ways to evaluate games. Buying games to play isn’t cheap and that’s before finding people who want to play and play.

I’ve always made use of video reviews and recorded play sessions on the Board Game Geek and the Dice Tower to conduct research. The new Tabletop shows from Wil Wheaton are fun to watch as are the couple of reviews done by the Totally Rad guys.

Hmm, how could we refine and develop the Wil, possibly by improving his dice rolling, chuckles.

Originality is a hard act to pull off these days. I think in order to do it you have to have a personality that’s a little off the wall and out of the box to begin with.

It’s also much rarer than people assume. Sometimes an original idea, one that nobody has seen before, can be a product of something outside of board games. For this reason I think it’s important to take in everything and anything. Board games can lead to app conversions and video games and apps can stimulate ideas for board games.

A case in point is Inka and Brands Village, which was highlighted by some reviewers as new and original. I don’t have the game and so I haven’t played it, but I’ve watched and read a lot of reviews so I have a fair idea of what it consists of. It certainly looks gorgeous, the mechanics appear to work really well and it’s definitely on my ‘will buy one day list’.

It was a game that immediately jumped out at me when I first heard about it, but not because it struck me as thoroughly original. It attracted my attention because it reminded me of elements in a computer game I used to really enjoy playing for a time, called Europa the Guild 1400.

Manufacturing to a time determinant, people dying through the game, but offering carry on value, progress through a church and politics system and travelling outside the village.

I thought it would make for an excellent transition to a simplified board game format, something a touch different from the norm. So I kind of had one of those, oh no someone has beat me to the idea moments, in relation to seeing the Village for the first time.

If anyone feels like checking out Europa the Guild 1400, the old pc version its well worth a look see and download (an inferior sequel followed called The Guild 2 - with improved town graphics and much poorer game play). And if you would like to watch someone else play -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfWfQwVDSHo

There was even a free online mmorpg for a time, circa 2010, but I think that folded. It has some really nice ideas in it, the politics module is fun and there are a lot of other elements that could stimulate ideas within it.

All told, I think casting the gaming idea net as far as possible is always a good idea when searching for inspiration or knowledge. Or simply to satisfy yourself that someone hasn’t already had the same idea, independently of you, already. After all, a good idea can arise from anything and anywhere – not just the board game world.

I got all excited because I saw you posted again, and thought it was going to be the "longer response" teased above.

This thread is great reading.

Just to throw my 2 cents in about game design. I find that with game design, as with song-writing, originality is pretty much done. But the uniqueness that comes from new songs and styles is about perception.

our personal view of things is what makes us all so tremendously unique. I will perceive something much differently then Jeff or Pelle. Therefore it is up to us to put as much information in our brain, and pick the pieces that stick out to us to make something that can be even though not original, our own.

My point is that log under a rock or whatever was the first rolling thing that could be considered a wheel (by some definition) is a tiny step of the same magnitude (or smaller) than those refinements listed. I am no expert in wheels and I bet if diving deeper into the origins of a wheel we will see smaller and smaller increments, baby-refinements leading from "no wheel" to "wheel". There is never suddenly something unseen that is seen, more than in a small incremental evolutionary way. Someone always takes parts that exists and make some new connection that wasn't there.

I don't know what a dictionary has to say about your definitions. Maybe that is what the words mean. But that does not mean that something some people would consider innovation or invention is anything but just signs of ignorance (not seeing all the small steps of refinements that lead to what they believe is sudden innovation). Someone that makes slightly bigger (or more) tiny steps of refinements than the rest of us could rightly be considered innovative, but the process is still based on minor changes to what already exists.

Since the subject here is game design, I can at least say with confidence that any time I have seen something that seemed innovative, further research has shown that it already existed (I just did not know about it) or that something very similar existed (that I did not know of). Ideas don't come from nowhere.