There are so many dilemmas and factors for a designer to weigh up...but that's the fun part.
My trusty design journal (and my terrible handwriting!)
Board game designing is such a blast and so satisfying. But boy, it ain't easy! I kept a design journal from day one with Undergrowth, documenting every idea, every dilemma, every decision and every rethink. I have notes from every play test, sketchy skeches of ideas and mechanics and a whole load of questions, some of which still don't have answers, even now!
This principle is true of all fantasy or sci-fi creative genres (film, novels, comic books etc). The world and its inhabitants need enhanced abilities, but if characters can literally do anything, all the tension and possibility for development disappears, and with it any interest.
Board game designing is essentially problem creating and problem solving. It's establishing game objectives then working out what obstacles to put in players' way and figuring which work-arounds to offer them. It's calibrating short and long term incentives, balancing freedom and constraint and manipulating many moving parts. I love it! Mechanical design dilemmas are probably the aspect of board game design which I most enjoy. Working out how mechanics can be tesselated to create smooth, intuitive game play, resolving theme-mechanic issues and finding that sweet spot between opportunities and boundaries (see enabling constraints in my Theme and Mechanics blog entry) are what makes board game design such a fun pursuit. But how do you achieve those things? Well, with determination, creative thinking, trial and improvement and having your notebook or phone ready at a moment's notice to capture ideas which emerge. This last point has proved invaluable to me whilst creating Undergrowth: A Tunnel Crawling Quest. It has driven me round the twist at times too, but I have found that solutions to mechanical game play problems often emerge when I'm not working on them (too often when I'm trying to fall asleep as it happens).
A good example of a mechanical game play issue which needed addressing with Undergrowth was which type of benefits (or opprtunities) to offer players. The game has a series of intuitive thematic constraints, e.g. it is set in an underground tunnel network, treasures are located in burrows and caves and these are separated by tunnel sections. The theme demands that players move between burrows by travelling through the adjoining tunnels, this makes sense in the real world and is therefore an aspect of game play which players can immediately connect with and understand. Tampering with this too much would remove this real-world grounding and thus make the game less intuitive. This principle is true of all fantasy or sci-fi creative genres (film, novels, comic books etc). The world and its inhabitants may have enhanced abilities, but if characters can do literally anything, all the tension and possibility for development disappears, and with it any interest. Having said that, once I had established the baseline constraints of the game play environment (the necessity to move using tunnels), I needed to offer 'work-arounds' or hacks to players; opportunities to circumvent aspects of this constraint. This is what encourages strategy and tactics. The question was, how could I introduce such freedoms whilst still maintaining tension, interest and the need for players to develop their game capabilities? How could I build opportunities for players to hack the constraints of the game whilst still keeping it thematically grounded in relatable experiences?
All games which aren 't entirely abstract wrestle with this question to some degree or other, since all games are essentially a negotiation between what players are and are not allowed to do. The fun in playing the game is working out how to get around the stuff you're not permitted to do. Because theme is important in Undergrowth, not just handing any and all powers to players was crucial. This meant that allowing players to just leap to any burrow or ignore the tunnel system altogether was out of the question. If players could do that, the whole underground tunnel theme (and the game itself) would become pointless.
The tunnel, burrow and cave network on the Undergrowth board.
So, the question which I thought about for months, and which kept me awake at night on more than one occasion, was how can I use character cards and the player boards to offer players freedoms and capabilites which enable them to break free a bit from this constraint, without rendering the whole theme redundant? The answers came to me gradually, often when I wasn't event even consciously thinking about it. When you get the chance to play Undergrowth you'll have the opportunity to unlock one or more of the folllwing enhancements:
The ability to visit burrows more than once on the same turn
Taking more than just the top treasure disc from a burrow
Increased treasure carrying load
Digging between burrows which are not connected by a tunnel (by activating the Shovel Tool)
Making additional moves on your turn
Moving either direction through oneway tunnels (by activating the Scythe Tool)
In each of these examples, the 'work-around' doesn't mess with the 'reality' of tunnelling at all. However, the examples below do, but hopefully not so much that the whole tunnelling theme is undermined. These are Rune powers which are different for each player and are activated when players reach the Rune position (position 7) on the Renown Track:
1. Move through cracks between burrows without a shovel
2. Discard a Tool at the start of your turn to move a tunneller 2 additional moves
3. Ignore one way systems without a Scythe Tool
4. Start (or restart) in any level 1 burrow
5. Move between Rare Find burrows
6. Move between burrows without landing in tunnel sections
These enhancements are earned, not just given out. You want players to have to make some tough choices, make sacrifices or work towards unlocking new freedoms. This has two benefits. Firstly, it is way more satisfying for players to achieve things on merit than by 'magic'. Secondly, you can use mechanisms like the Rune powers to nudge players towards different strategies. For example, in Undergrowth Renown is gained when players achieve certain in-game goals such as winning duels,
Position 7 on the Renown Track activates a player's unique Rune Power.
moving to deeper tunnels, assembling a gang (card tableau) of 6, then 12 or releasing additional tunnellers from their player board. Requiring players to climb the Renown track to unlock new freedoms encourages them to aim for these mini-goals. Since no two games of Undergrowth are ever the same, this enhances tactics and game play for everyone. The dilemmas for the designer are 1) what should those new freedoms be? and 2) how hard should players have to work to earn them? Play testing is the only way to really answer these questions.
Let's pause here and summarise the implications of this for a designer.
Lesson 1 - board game design involves setting up and solving mechanical problems
Lesson 2 - if theme is prominent in your game, remember you can stretch it to a certain extent, but avoid rendering it useless by introducing too many 'work-arounds' or hacks for players.
Lesson 3 - players should have to earn enhanced capabilities.
Lesson 4 - road test your freedoms and constraints to get them right. Play test, play test, play test.
Getting this stuff right makes for a fun and truely satisfying experience for players. Getting it wrong removes tension, the chance for players to 'grow themselves' through the game and ultimately satisfaction dwindles. If it's too easy (or too difficult) to hack the rules imposed by your game's theme, your game is likely to spend a lot of time gathering dust and appearing in 'shelfie' photos, but not being played.
Well, that's all for this post. I hope it contained some useful insights and food for thought on your design journey. Please feel free to comment or ask questions below and I'll do my best to respond. You can find out more about Undergrowth by hitting the links below.
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