A Boardgamer's Concise Manifesto

What Makes A Boardgame Great

Each year hundreds of boardgames appear on the market (here's a list of the most popular).  Most people don't know about these games because boardgame aisles only have Monopoly, Battleship and Clue for sale.  Meanwhile, dozens of new boardgame publishers appear each year, many to hawk self-published titles which are money-losing and time-wasting for all involved.  So, here's a handy guide to finding the occasional diamond in the rough.

#1: Is it Fun?  This criterion eliminates most kiddie games like Candyland, and most self-published games that weren't first tested, then revised, then retested by professionals working for game publishers.  Beyond this, everyone has their own tastes (see mine below).

#2: Does it speak to you?  If there's only one other person in your life who likes to play boardgames, don't buy a game that can't be played by two.  If you don't like to be reminded about war, or disease, or nasty creatures, or frightening space aliens, don't buy games with those thematic settings.

#3: Just looking at it, is it captivating?  Sure, some popular games like checkers and chess have boards that are plain checkerboards.  But wonderfully designed boards are the first step on the way to an exciting world drawing you in.

#4: Have you enjoyed playing it?  That's right, you can attend a convention, try out games that look good, and buy after you play.  Here's a list of convention resources.

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And what game categories interest me?  Here I whittle away at the tens of thousands of boardgames published in the past 50 years:

* No disturbing images, objectives or settings.  This eliminates war, horror and colonialism as game categories.

* 2-player games are preferred.  I don't care for the relationship struggle that means favoring one opponent over another.  I'd rather focus all my energies on crafting a 'win', rather than being fair and civil to everyone.

* Beautiful boards!  If I'm staring at it for an hour or so, I like to open my eyes wide and soak in the image.

* Crafting.  It takes skill to start with a subject like a high school dance and not only make a game that's fun, but artfully include the characters in attendance, the music played, the food/drinks consumed, the clothes characters are wearing and what those characters are allowed to do at the dance.  Then, it takes imagination to raise the game to a higher level, by, for example, creating shifting personalities (a wallflower becomes the center of attention), song requests, illegal booze/penalty, even different venues at the school (bathroom, dance floor, behind stage, parking lot, janitorial closet, etc.)

This last criterion, of raising a design to a higher level, is where much of my winnowing occurs.  There are many games where a designer has invented a new way to play cards, roll dice, arrange tiles, rank turn order, etc.; has sketched out something of a mechanical drawing to show how the idea works; and then casts about for a subject to tack on.  Sometimes the fit is surprisingly good; usually it isn't, though; and sometime it's woefully inadequate.  A favorite for game designers who like to tack on thematic settings after the fact are fantasy, space and other imaginary realms where there are none of reality's constraints.

I prefer games that begin with a subject and develop a game idea around the setting.  This is much harder to do well, because it's very tempting to take shortcuts, rather than hone the same design for years, until fun is maximized and depth absolute.