There’s a useful term in project management called the Critical Path, which is defined as the least amount of time needed to complete some multi-step operation. A project manager tries to figure out how to sequence tasks in a way that is most efficient and wastes the least amount of time. Eurogames offer a similar »more
Category Archives: Patterns in Game Design
-
Design Patterns: Random Reactions
The recent boom in Yahtzee-style games, known as roll-and-writes (or RnW for short) got me thinking about the genre and its underlying mechanisms. One major design innovation, that distinguishes many games from Yahtzee, is having more than one player make use of a common set of random results. Sometimes this happens in the form of »more
-
Design Patterns: This Is Bigger Than All Of Us
In their terrific new book, Meeples Together, Christopher Allen and Shannon Appelcline discuss”challenge systems” in cooperative games. Though they don’t explicitly offer a concise definition of a challenge system, we might distill one out of their extensive coverage of the topic and say that a Challenge System is a mechanism or set of mechanisms that »more
-
Design Pattern: Winning and Goals
As the Women’s World Cup rolls forward, I though we’d talk a bit about goaaaaaaals! Or just goals, as English-speaking commentators call them. Reiner Knizia once said “When playing a game the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning.” At first impression, Knizia appears to be saying »more
-
Design Patterns: Random Loops
Game designers often talk about two types of randomness, input randomness and output randomness. In this post, I’d like to critique this polar model of randomness and introduce some new thinking about it that designers should consider. First, a quick summary for those new to the concepts: The distinction between input and output randomness in »more
-
Design Pattern: Leveraging Luck
In a recent appearance on Gabe Barret’s Boardgame Design Lab podcast, Richard Garfield, designer of Magic: The Gathering, spoke about the interplay between luck and skill in a game. Garfield made the point that luck appears in many games we normally see as purely contests of skill. The argument goes like this. Chess is a »more
-
Design Patterns: A Rich Victory
From Monopoly to Food Chain Magnate, and many games in between, players earn the victory by becoming the wealthiest by game end. Given that so many games are economic simulations, perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising. What might surprise us is how many games, even economic games, are not won by becoming the richest player. I »more
-
Design Patterns: Triangular Scoring
A quick note before we get into today’s post. I recently appeared on the fantastic Ludology podcast, hosted by Geoff Engelstein and Gil Hova, where I talked about this series of design patterns. Some of you may be reading this now because you heard that episode. Welcome! If you’re a regular and want to listen, »more
-
Design Patterns: Asymmetry and Player Interaction
We’ve spent the last few weeks talking about various ways in which games start with asymmetry, or introduce it along the way, in order to reach the ultimate asymmetric outcome of winning and losing. Today, we’ll close our series on asymmetry by talking about player interaction. Broadly speaking, nearly every competitive game can be reduced »more
-
Design Patterns: Asymmetry And Opacity
Welcome back! This is the third part of the asymmetry series. You can catch up here, or just keep reading. No prior knowledge required! Well… except this bit. Last week I said: I am not addressing the asymmetry that arises based on the natural outcome of non-mirrored gameplay. Players take turns and make decisions and »more
