How Board Games Matter

What defines a board game? If a video game is described as being "like a board game," what does that mean exactly? In this talk given at GDC 2014, Soren Johnson (Civilization IV, Offworld Trading Company) goes into extensive detail on how transparency works for successful tabletop games and what lessons apply to the design of digital games.

[@namename2215]

As someone who has played Civ 4 since release (it's 19 years old now!) I felt touched that Soren announced it as his career highlight, even though the vid is 8 years old now.

[@BudLeiser]

One of the best talks i've seen. Thanks!

[@davidpike766]

Very, very, very good talk- thank you.

[@kobiromano6115]

I'd like to start by saying this is one of the most interesting game design talks I've ever came across. I've played about half of the board games you presented during the talk, and I agree with most of your views. I'd only like to point out, that one of the first examples you gave for transparency was the arrows in Thief - a static/linear game - and yet you conclude that transparency is important for when mechanics are key, after stating that Dynamic games are where mechanics matter. That line you've drawn is a bit too arbitrary, and I think the hidden point is that some Static games also rely on mechanics to a great extant, and thus, require transparency. I could even argue that Call Of Duty, the opposite example to thief you've given, relies heavily on Transparency by Help; Not unlike your CIV games. Going into a weapon stat or a perk will give you info on it, and after a bit of playing it becomes a second nature. I think your analytic ability and your eye for both hidden and visible mechanisms is absolutely amazing; However, your conclusions can be somewhat bias towards the idea that you're trying to pass.

[@neros84]

Jacob Romano Thanks - I was trying to say that transparency tends to be more important the more a game relies on dynamic systems, but transparency can certainly be important for static games as well. I wish I had spent the time to do a bit of a counter section about when transparency is not a good thing, which would perhaps help triangulate my my argument.

[@kobiromano6115]

Soren Johnson That sounds like something I'd like to see/read! Thanks for the answer!

[@algirdassalomskas9050]

+Soren Johnson hello Mr. Soren. Is it restricting that you can't change your hairstyle becouse of the name of your studio?

[@marcosfernandez98]

What's that WW2 that you show at 1:28 (Battle of the Bulge thingy)?

[@pillarnexustheancientgladiator]

Over the past decade or so, I've found myself getting more into board games as video games require more technical resources; updating my computer every year or two just to play games with increasing requirements is not within my budget or best interests. I like when video games get board game adaptations and I make it a point to get some of them. Regarding transparency, it's one of the things that has long bugged me about games like Final Fantasy and the like; it would help to know how much damage I could do to the opponents ahead of time.

[@shanehoustein]

Brilliant. Demonstrates that great game design can be independent of medium.

[@kavikkang9411]

No computer game "designer" has ever come anywhere in the remote vicinity of "brilliant"... they are the kindergarten of game design. Little children who are literally 300 years behind the actual simulation designers in this world. Computer "game designers" are the equivalent of 5 years olds fingerpainting stick figures.

[@bigmistqke]

@@kavikkang9411 hahahaha so angry so sad

[@kavikkang9411]

@@bigmistqke It's not anger, it's frustration. I am the second best simulation designer of all time. The inventor of "The Matrix". The most sophisticated military simulations, and how the internet really works, is based on our work. Welcome back to reality...

[@revimfadli4666]

​@@kavikkang9411guess some of them are child prodigies then, especially devs of Noita, Dwarf Fortress, Creatures etc

[@FennTheFool]

To the question at 41m: Micro is not, in and of itself, the "inner game" of an RTS. Micro helps to create the inner game because it takes time to perform; the player's attention becomes a resource that he must spend wisely. This is the inner game. This wouldn't translate well to a turn based environment because the things that make this interesting and fun; like multitasking, quickly parsing a situation, and staying calm under pressure; come directly from those real time elements. However, the underlying strategy of choosing where to spend this "resource", and many of the other underlying aspects of RTS's, would translate perfectly well. Similarly, Yomi doesn't translate everything that makes a fighting game a fighting game, but it doesn't try to either. Yomi is primarily interested in creating the same kinds of mind games that you see in fighters, attempting to read when your opponent will take a risk and when he will play conservatively, and this translates quite well to a turn-based environment.

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

It is perfectly poasible to remove the timing element from rts. TBS is a very vibrant and successful genre to this day. And time itsef can be abstracted as a resource, by only allowing to issue a certain number of commands a turn.

[@lolaldanee2743]

Amazing talk Sören. I am watching this for the 3rd time, and I am still learning things

[@kene6954]

Dune 2000 had no fog-of-war, but a shroud which regrew VERY slowly. Also, there are ways to design an RTS to make the value of scouting and monitoring more transparent (and higher), and to undermine the strategy of somehow building up an economic powerhouse in such a tiny footprint that people are unlikely to know of your progress it until it's too late.

[@kamilziemian995]

33:29 I like this idea that physics is naturally transparent system of game mechanics.

[@kosterix123]

The pre-luck/post-luck thing was new to me. Apparently I got rid of all post-luck games in the last year, and only got pre-luck games, for example Heroes of the Mists, Santa Maria, One Deck Dungeon, Diceborn Heroes. For me, pre-luck generalizes working with a random sequence of cards from a deck and dice allocation and the random factor kicks in every round. I think there is also a third kind of luck, perhaps setup-luck, for things that are randomized initially and stay during a game, for example, on Adventure of D, the board is laid out randomly and you need to work around that. Or Concordia. Or Dungeon Brawler. Agruably that can also be called procedurally generated. Also, some are debatable. Is Palm Island pre-luck? Theoretically you could remember the whole deck, so "no luck", but you're saving and harvesting resources as they come along... 19:40 Azul is also part of a game, belongs there. 35:00 terraria on 3ds is another example.

[@blackbot7113]

Mark Brown has a great video about pre-luck/post-luck as well: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqisZpVjrLd_n8U

[@Chris.Murray]

I really liked the idea of color coding damage based on damage intensity. Some games do it with crits, but the color changes based on how strong your character at that point in the game.

[@TheOneLichemperor]

Have you got an example of this?

[@Chumpatrol1]

Epic Battle Fantasy uses different colors for crits, effective and non-effective hits. I've never seen a game that does dynamic color scaling based on damage

[@anders6326]

I see the guys that developed Anachrony in the future forgot to send their game back through time so this guy could cover it. Lol, but seriously, at the part where he started talking about lots of rules text and then Race for the Galaxy’s language, I immediately wondered what he’d say about Anachrony (99 percent of everything is spelled out in icons.)

[@revimfadli4666]

I guess at that time, Underwater Cities already showed that blending text and icons(with QoL contrast enhancements) is the way to go

[@blackbot7113]

When he started talking about Magic I thought his point was going to be how the different formats artificially reduce complexity (by drastically limiting the available cards), thus making it easier for new players to play a game without jumping into the deep end.

[@Grufflenips]

in powergrid, brown cube is coal and black cylinder is oil.

[@SnakPak]

This gives me an idea for a board game

[@rickschwab3963]

Boardgames can improve memory and strategy thinking

[@revimfadli4666]

Quite disagree on how Innovation doesn't really have a system to be understood; there are some effect patterns such as card draw, splay direction, era skipping, melding etc, that become stronger as the eras progress. Still agree with how much more transparent symbol languages can be though. But Race clearly deserves criticism for its unintuitive icons, since some other games still make them intuitive and readable across the table. Underwater Cities and Ark Nova show the best of both worlds: consistent and intuitive icons, with text to help beginners understand without having to go back to the rulebook very often

[@tensevo]

When every word is phrased as a question, it is hard to understand if you are asking a question or making a statement.

[@fsmoura]

welcome to the current? year?... i guess?? *_*sips soy beverage*_* ( o.o)

[@Gryphon018]

I love the distinction between Pre-luck and Post-luck. I've always enjoyed games that allow me to make the most of a bad situation (Pre-luck) as I am given awareness of what I have to work with, even if it's suboptimal. It feels like I still have a good degree of control and enough information to make strategic decisions off of. Meanwhile, Post-luck games often frustrate me, as I feel that the variance doesn't add much to my strategic considerations and takes the control away from me. Wonderful talk! Even though I'm very curious how you are able to institute an enjoyable RTS without hiding one player's movements from the other to even a small degree.

[@blackbot7113]

I highly suggest the video by Mark Brown on randomness: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqisZpVjrLd_n8U

[@SkaldRPG]

Great talk!

[@stumbling]

I notice a hell of a lot of ThinkPads at GDC.

[@MrBodies07]

I hate to ask such a frivolous question in response to such an interesting discussion, but can anyone tell me what game the board showcased in the thumbnail is from?

[@basteagui]

#ALLGAMESMATTER

[@charliecharliewhiskey9403]

I'd argue that board games are defined by being played on a board ("board", from "bord", Old English for "table").

[@chandlerj333]

33:00 Team Fort 2

[@Mixppmix]

I liked this presentation a lot. If I may, it is heavily linked to this Extra Credits episode about Boardgames kzbin.info/www/bejne/b4eyf5iEi7WUhNU&index=48

[@danacoleman4007]

I couldn't disagree more on innovation versus race for the Galaxy. I find it much easier to learn innovation because, guess what, I already learned a system of iconography. it's called the alphabet. learning a whole other system adds another layer on top of learning the game itself.

[@dominicparker6124]

As with everything in design its a trade off. The iconography in race means you can cram a lot of effects onto a card because each icon let's you condense the rules down. However you are then limited by what those icons can express and if your iconography becomes too broad and diverse then it becomes self defeating. You don't have cards in race that are as wild as the most iconic weird cards in innovation (looking at you fission) Innovation is a success because of the breadth of card effects not in spite of.

[@Keindzjim]

Your hair is funny :p

[@finnkrogstad2541]

If transparency is so crucial, then chess is the best game. If roll-decide is better than decide-roll, then just move your dice rolls to the start of the next player's turn.

[@whade62000]

Some of the after questions feel like trolling The person who used the word "grokability" should be slapped for doing so

[@scrooge-mcduck]

Shame all these lessons have been lost with AI in Civ6

[@Dayvit78]

So it's time to move to Old World :) His new game.

[@corporalcrimson3295]

Honestly I usually like GDC but I didn't learn anything with this video

[@peterniles8984]

I'm somewhat bothered that he talks about draft games of magic like that's the core game, not a side-format that's not as popular as modern or commander

[@peoplearemessedup]

9 years ago (2014) things were different. Commander had relatively recently been adopted as official. It wasn't obscure by any means but it wasn't the all-encompassing Commander monster of today in quite the same way, at least in terms of product support. Anecdotally Draft was, a bit before that, "everyone's second favorite format". In 2014/2015 specifically Khans would come out and is considered by many to be the peak of MtG draft formats. I don't think I knew a single person who played magic with any consistency in that time period and didn't at least semi-regularly draft. That said, modern and commander are fundamentally the same game in this analysis as well. They are "show up with a deck" games. Sure they actually play differently, but that's not what he is getting at, he is just talking about limited vs constructed really and draft specifically since sealed hasn't really taken off in other games and isn't played a whole ton even within magic.

[@greenatom]

Brilliant guy, but the mohawk looks stupid. Sorry.