Meaningful Decisions: Corey Young on Board Game Design Choices

In our Meaningful Decisions series, we ask designers about the design choices they made while creating their games, and what lessons other designers can take away from those decisions.

In this edition, we talk with Corey Young, the designer of Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension, about catchup mechanisms, balancing games, and hidden vs. public information.

You’ve said that the way Gravwell mimics gravity–movement is based on proximity and position relative to other players–emerged as you experimented with catchup mechanisms. What did your experiments teach you? Did you try anything that didn’t work as you’d expected?

Initially, I considered using the number of ships in each direction, thinking that it would be easier to compute that than counting the spaces. I found that in actual play, it just wasn’t very compelling. The clustering of the ships was always too tight and, ultimately, less interesting. Also, the physics geek in me kept arguing that the forces involved were more driven by the proximity than the mass.

As it turns out, most players have no trouble seeing the differences in distance. I kept the rules about moving toward the side with the most ships, but it only applies as a tie-breaker when your ship is equidistant to ships in each direction. I could’ve over-complicated the tie-breaker rules to take into account the distance to the next ships, but I chose to keep it as simple as possible.

I also knew that having only cards that draw you closer to other ships would make the clustering too tight. At the highest level, the game would look like a swarm of ships inching gradually forward. The gravitational entanglement of the ships delivers the easy catch-up experience I was after, and it mitigated the run-away-leader problem, but it did the latter to a fault. I felt that if you are able to get yourself out in front of the pack, you should still have some way to extend your lead. I introduced the 4 repulsing cards to balance this.

Did your process developing the catchup mechanic teach you any broadly applicable “truths” or lessons that you or other designers can keep in mind for other designs?

Considering the many catchup mechanisms used in the games I researched, about the only universal truth I could find is that most players simply don’t like catchup mechanisms. The worst are the “long ladders” that can be exploited not only by players in last place, but by any player lucky enough to draw the right card or land on the correct space. Equally frustrating are automatic or random “long chutes” that target leaders.

It occurred to me that the frustration is highest when you are trailing because of individual bad luck on your part or good luck on the part of the leading players, completely or largely independent of the decisions being made during the game. If the luck components of the game are shared among players, like the dice rolls in Macao, then the sting is not so severe. If I end up in last place because I chose a risky strategy, then I don’t mind so much, especially if there are ways to recover.

A lesser catchup mechanism that I built into Gravwell is the last-place-drafts-first rule. At the start of each round, the player in last place gets to draft her cards first, followed by the next-to-last player and so on. This may seem like a pretty heavy-handed catchup mechanism, but it is offset by the fact that player position can sway so quickly. As the swarm of ships move closer to the warp gate, experienced players will actually vie to get into last place at the end of a round in order to gain the first draft advantage. It’s a choice they make, trading temporary position disadvantage for well-timed draft advantage.

The fuel cards in Gravwell are balanced to offer players certain benefits in exchange for certain risks. For example, cards that resolve early–and thus offer greater certainty–tend to only provide limited movement. What was the process of balancing the game’s cards like, and what should other designers keep in mind as they work to balance their games?

The distribution of the amplitudes, the distance the card moves your ship, among the cards did take some tuning, but most of it was clear to me when I started out. I knew that the cards early in the alphabet would be more valuable because you can be more certain of your relative position when they trigger, so I kept their relative amplitudes low.

I originally thought that I should put the highest values near the end of the alphabet, but then I realized that the biggest uncertainty is right near the middle. This is why the biggest card, the 10, is the M. The biggest repelling card, the -6, is on the N.

I also knew that the repelling cards were very valuable in the end game. I wanted to avoid the situation in which a player had an automatic win if they were in the right spot and had the right card down the home stretch. I put the repelling cards later in the alphabet. One thing that did change from my original prototype was the N card. It was originally a 9 instead of a 6. Cryptozoic’s playtesters discovered that it quite often led to the winning move, so we dropped it to 6.

The J and the Q cards are another story. These cards don’t move your ship at all. Instead, they attract all the other ships toward your ship. The distribution of these were a fluke. As it turns out, there are no chemical elements that begin with J or Q. I thought that if I’m making up the elements, I might as well make them special. The Q was raised from 1 to 3 during playtesting. These cards were intended to jumble the field a bit, and they do, but one of their key benefits is actually the ability to sit still for a hand.

Probably the biggest breakthrough was the Emergency Stop card. I wanted to balance the decision-driven action, and I just felt that the players still didn’t quite have enough control over their actions. I now love watching players debate internally on the second hand of a round, considering whether it makes more sense to burn their stop card now later in the round.

Do you think the balancing period for Gravwell is similar to other designs? Does every design present its own unique balancing issues, or are there some things that are universal?

It’s hard for me to gauge this. I tend to iterate my designs very quickly, updating them weekly, and sometimes with a Sharpie marker during a single playtest session.

I’m sure it’s easier for me, simply because I don’t design larger games. I’m amazed at the breadth and depth of the options and combinatorial variety featured in my friends’ designs. I have no insight or wisdom when it comes to balancing such complex games. I’m confident that my “fail fast and fix it” approach doesn’t scale.

In Gravwell, players draft cards in piles that are half face-up and half face-down. This results in a mix of public information and hidden information. How did you settle on this mix? How do different mixes affect player behavior?

In the original prototype, the rules said to deal each player 3 cards, then perform the draft with single (number of players X 3) cards. The standard draft listed in the final rules provides the exact same outcome, but in a much more elegant way. I credit Matt Hyra from Cryptozoic for this and most of the other refinements I’ve mentioned.

I enjoy playing the “no secrets” variation with experienced gamers. The draft works the same way, but all cards are dealt face up. The piles still have two cards each, but the top cards are placed askew so that both are visible. I don’t actually try to memorize all the cards each player takes, but there are a few that I watch for and I make a mental note of who takes them. With so much information available, this type of draft really inflates the importance of draft order. Not surprisingly, experienced players actually jockey for last place in middle to late rounds in order to ensure that they get better draft priority.

I came up with my favorite draft method after the rules went to the printer. I call it the “house blend” and I often show it when I’m demonstrating the game. The number of piles remains the same, three piles of 2 cards each for each player in the game–e.g. 9 piles for a 3-player game. So assuming you’re like most players, you’ll deal 3 rows with each row having as many piles as there are players. In the first row, deal all piles with 2 cards face down. In the second row, deal all piles with one card down and one card up. In the last row, deal all piles with both cards face up (again, the top card is askew so that both cards in each pile are visible). Each round of the draft, you can choose any pile you like.

In your experience with Gravwell (and your other designs) how do players approach situations differently based on the amount of information the designer gives them? More broadly, how does information affect player behavior?

I tried to strike a balance between known and unknown information in Gravwell. My early versions all featured completely open drafts–all cards face up. Testing revealed that hiding half the draft cards decreased AP and increased accessibility.

I wanted the deck to be “knowable,” meaning that a skilled player could memorize all the values and do a bit of card counting. I added the distribution infographic on the corners of the board to help with this. The unused cards in 2- and 3-player games mitigate much of the card counter’s advantage.

The “no secrets” Gravwell variation is a much different game, especially with experienced gamers. Theoretically, all players know exactly which cards everyone else is holding. Part of the challenge is raw memorization–an area in which I suffer. The more interesting play experience for me is attempting to predict when each player will play the few “interesting” cards I that remember them drafting.

Meaningful Decisions: Dirk Knemeyer on Board Game Design Choices

In our Meaningful Decisions series, we ask designers about the design choices they made while creating their games, and what lessons other designers can take away from those decisions.

This time, we talk with Dirk Knemeyer, designer of The New Science, about translating theme into mechanics, how theme can set playtester expectations, and the strategic use of luck and randomness.

Many thematic elements in The New Science are translated quite cleverly into gameplay elements. For example, in the fantasy scientists from the Kickstarter campaign, Tesla has strength in research and experimentation, while Edison has strength in publishing. What considerations must designers make to ensure they translate thematic elements into gameplay elements well?

It all begins with the design strategy. There are generally speaking two types of designers: thematic designers and mechanical designers, with various degrees in between the two extremes. I am, to a fault at times, a thematic designer. I want to create an authentic and interesting experience that is evocative of the theme I am trying to capture. That is why I am designing the game in the first place, and it leads most of the design decisions that I make. So, that is my framing here.

French field marshal Ferdinand Foch’s timeless axiom is “What is the essence of the problem?” In terms of capturing the essence of the scientists depicted in the game, the key was to have the characters each play in a unique way that at the least implied how they were different from one another in real life. That this would create asymmetrical game positions–which as a gamer I personally prefer–was a happy byproduct.

Beyond the design strategy, the key to evoking thematic aspects well in the content and mechanics boils down to a few things:

1. Know and care about your theme. It is craft work to do this well. You need to really know the subjects at a deep level. In another of my games, Road to Enlightenment, it has unique character cards for 130, 140 historical luminaries. I researched each of them individually for between one and, well, many hours. For each person. Do the math; that really takes care, interest and even love for the theme. That enabled me to craft models of them that feel authentic and are correct. Knowing them well and really caring about their being properly portrayed was essential, and where this starts.

2. Have the mechanics flow out of the theme, not the other way. This one is somewhat controversial, because most designers start with mechanics and follow with theme. I would argue that is why so many games seem themeless!

When I started designing “The New Science”, I started from the perspective of what can I create that would take players as close as possible to the experience of being a scientist during that period. My starting point there was a kit that had replicas of scientific equipment and a limited degree of–albeit representational–actual manipulation of rudimentry scientific tools. This would both be impossible from a creation perspective–too expensive to produce–and really not fun, for a variety of reasons. But I deprecated from there. What was the closest to that? No good, so the closest to that. And onward. But it was all theme-driven. Once I figured out the right point for the game to sit at, where the theme would be most completely and authentically honored in a 90-minute game, then the mechanics came to complement it.

3. Take the time necessary to make it work. Strong theme means asymmetry; that means more testing and balance. Because you don’t start with mathematical models and rhythmic mechnanics those things take quite a bit of work instead of just pasting in one thing or the other.

The most important part is the first one though: know and care about the theme, and make the commitment to manifest it in the game. Everything flows out of that.

To most people, the theme of The New Science–Age of Reason scientists–is an unfamiliar one. Despite a theme that could have led the game to be very dry, The New Science can actually be quite cutthroat. Did you find that playtesters were expecting a different gameplay experience than what they received? What can designers do to shape playtesters’ expectations–and should they?

We get playtesters who are interested in the theme, so this isn’t too much of a problem with any of our games. However, we sometimes get people who comment that they are turned off because the game looks dry or boring. The problem there is both myself and my artist, Heiko, have a European, minimalist sensibility about our art. Coupled with the theme, it is a little more austere looking than what American gamers in particular expect. This has with some minority of players created a perception issue that, instead of those people being excited about the game, being a little leery because “dry” typically means “boring”. First impressions are really important, so this is unfortunate.

Taking playtester expectations from a different perspective, it is important that you communicate the gap between the kit you are sending and what is envisioned for the final production version. When I was doing kits for my first game, playtesters were getting caught up in the art, the components, everything but what I really needed. So now, as soon as the kits go in the mail, that same day I put together a document that is essentially a gap analysis between what they have and what is envisioned and email it to everyone. So, if the kit has paper pieces but the production game will have 2.5mm punchboard, I tell them that. If the map art is not final, I tell them that. Then there are also the things specific to what you are testing for; I point those things out too. So, for example, saying there are 10 smoke markers in the kit–for a World War 2 game we are working on now–but we need to know if there should be more or less, pointing out that need is part of the kit direction.

By very, very tightly setting both our expectations for what we need from the testers and, to your question, communicating to them the gap between their kit and our intentions, we get the best possible feedback in the most efficient and effective way.

There is very little luck or randomness in The New Science, yet one exception in the game is quite prominent: the dice roll for experimentation. What guidelines can designers use to decide when and when not to use luck or randomness?

For us it was strictly theme. That experimentation component is the part of the scientific process that is non-deterministic and wildly unpredictable. We couldn’t correctly make a game about competing over scientific advances without having that randomness in the mix.

The reality of life is that some important proportion of what happens to us is dumb luck. A lot of gamers enjoy deterministic games precisely because it puts them in control of the process and outcomes contrary to the great degree to which real life happens to them. I understand this as an escape and sometimes even have those compulsions myself as a player. As a designer, though, I want to tell a story authentically represent something. That is almost always going to include some degree of luck, not because luck “feels right” but because luck is real and correct. That would be my advice for thematic designers.

For mechanical designers? Articulate the nature of the play experiences you want your players to have and tune the luck to match it. Short and casual are better fits for high luck, while long and serios are better fits for low luck. What you use and how you use it should be driven by that.

Meaningful Decisions: Jamey Stegmaier on Board Game Design Choices

Jamey Stegmaier is the co-designer with Alan Stone of Viticulture and Euphoria, both of which have had successful crowdfunding campaigns.

Jamey the Kickstarter project creator has gotten a lot of attention for his innovative advice for fellow project creators, but we wanted to hear from Jamey the game designer.

In a new series we’re calling Meaningful Decisions, we’ll ask designers about the design choices they made while creating their games, and what lessons other designers can take away from those decisions.

In the first installment, Jamey discusses putting a twist on familiar game mechanisms, the effects of placing limitations on players, and managing a game’s economy of resources.

Both Viticulture and Euphoria are worker-placement games. What did you do–and what can other designers do–to make a common game mechanism fresh and interesting?

The number one thing I think designers can do to keep common game mechanisms (I always say “mechanics,” but I like your use of “mechanisms” better) is to play and familiarize yourself with other games. If you don’t know anything about other games, every idea you think of will be fresh to you, but not to anyone else.

Obviously you can’t play every game, and you certainly can’t own every game (even if you want to). But there are a wealth of videos, podcasts, and written reviews out there to let you know how other game mechanisms work. I try to learn about at least one game a day that I wasn’t aware of before.

Then, when you sit down to design, take all that knowledge and don’t make the same thing someone else has made. I’m inspired by many mechanics, but I try to put my own twist on them–I’d never want to flat-out copy a mechanic. For example, Fresco’s wake-up mechanic was an eye-opener to me. It’s brilliant. But I put my own twist on it–instead of penalizing players by making things cost more if you wake up early, I simply made the rewards better the later you wake up in Viticulture.

When you play a game you love, it’s tough not to let mechanisms from that game bleed over into your game. That happened to me many times during the creation of both Viticulture and Euphoria. I think that’s where having a strong theme really helps pull you back to what makes your game unique and special. If you don’t have any theme–or if the theme is flexible enough to be anything–then it’s much easier to be overly influenced by other games.

In playing Viticulture, there are so many things players want to do as soon as possible, but they’re only given a limited number of opportunities to do them. What effect does placing limitations on players have? How can designers use limitations to create interesting decisions? Are there pitfalls to be aware of?

I’ve played soccer all my life, and in my old age, I play pickup soccer about once a week. Sometimes when we play, we don’t have any sidelines. The field is as wide as the grass will allow it. In other games, we have very defined sidelines using cones or lines in the grass. In a free-flowing, casual game like pickup soccer, you might think that the version of the game without sidelines is better. But it’s actually the opposite–it’s much more fun to play with the restrictions that sidelines add to the game. Suddenly you have to craft your strategy within a defined boundary. The flow of play is smoother. And when you just barely save an errant pass from going out, it feels really good–it’s an invisible line in a meaningless game, but it feels good to know that you used your abilities to keep the ball in bounds.

This analogy applies to board games. Limitations force you to think on your toes. The mere fact that you don’t have infinite choices lets your brain comprehend the choices you can make, which helps you create a strategy. Choices can be overwhelming and can lead to analysis paralysis, so if you limit them, you free players to relax and have fun. In Viticulture, players are limited by money, number of workers, and number of available action spaces. At the beginning of the game, this leads to a limited number of actions you can take. In fact, we divided Viticulture into seasons so your actions are even more restricted. That way you’re not faced with 12 choices each summer and winter; rather, you’re faced with 6, which is much more manageable.

The main pitfall to be aware of is that you never want players to feel helpless. Their choices should be their own, not at the whim of the game or the other players. Euphoria has a mechanism with the markets that restricts players who didn’t help to construct the market. In early versions of the game, those restrictions were permanent–there was no way out of them. But it made players feel helpless–they had no choice in the matter. So we added a way for players to get out of those penalties at a high cost. Let players be surprised, and keep them guessing, but make sure they feel like they have control.

Certain resources, goods and actions in Viticulture seem to be more important at certain stages of the game–earlier or later, for example. Does this contribute to the “story” of the game? How can designers create economies that value various things differently at different points in the game, but still retain a balance over the whole?

In Viticulture, money is very scarce early in the game, and by the end of the game when it’s easy to get, it’s not worth anything. Vine cards have a similar impact–they’re very helpful early on, but you rarely have a good reason to draw them in year 7 or 8 of the game. You’re telling the story of growing a fledgling vineyard into a full-grown operation, so it makes sense that you start off with less.

I think the key is to give players access to all the resources they need so they can make choices about when things are valuable. For example, Dominion could have a rule that says, “You can’t purchase victory point cards in the first 4 rounds.” Instead, the game gives you access to them at all times–it’s up to you to choose when to start acquiring them.

I don’t know if there’s a broad answer for how designers can create economies that value various things differently at different points in the game. I think this is one of those areas where you really have to playtest the game hundreds of times, trying out different strategies each time. That way you can realize if you need to make a resource more or less available.

Also, I think it helps to have a really good metric about how much everything is worth. I have a metric for the wine order cards in Viticulture and a metric for the recruit cards in Euphoria to make them as balanced as possible. It amounts to a spreadsheet that shows that value of actions, resources, money, workers, etc. That way you can be completely objective when you’re creating cards–you know that 1 worker always equals 3 coins and 3 coins always equals 2 cabbage and thus it should take 1 worker to get 2 cabbage. The metric isn’t always linear, as certainly things are worth different amounts at different times in the game, but you can mitigate that by creating cards that give players multiple choices (i.e., “Choose two: Gain 1 worker, 3 coins, or 2 cabbage”).