Grab a friend or family member and try out these awesome 2-player Games! During this period of stay home, and restricted gathering down to 2 pax since the announcement of P2HA in Finland. We thought you should check out these awesome games that work well in a duel format!

Jaipur

First up, Jaipur is a classic game for purely 2 players that I recommend to people of all gaming backgrounds with a simple ruleset and gameplay that provides tension, tactics and fun for the whole family. 

Gameplay wise, on your turn you either collect one card from the 5 in the market, swap out any number of cards from the market with those in your hand, swap cards from the market with camel cards in front of you or play a set of cards of one colour and collect that many tokens for the point pile plus any bonus tokens. The earlier ones being of a higher value. When 3 of the goods in the point pile is finished. The round ends and the person with the higher points wins the round and gets a victory token. The game continues until one person has won 2 victory tokens. 

Hero Realms

Take Magic the Gathering, remove the collectible element and make it a deck builder. That is Hero Realms from White Wizard Games, whose founders are avid Magic the Gathering fans. A fast paced 2 player card game that sees both people drawing from a common pool of cards to make the most efficient deck of resources and attack abilities. The tension of what to buy and how many cards to put in your deck, forming the crux of the puzzle for the game.

On your turn, you play 5 cards from your hand and use the resources to buy cards from the market that will go into your discard pile and use any attack points to either attack opponent's guards or the player themselves. Cards also usually have affiliated symbols to activate secondary abilities. When your draw deck empties, you then shuffle the discard pile to form your new draw deck, thus cycling in your new cards into play. The first player to reduce the opponent to 0 hit points wins.

Lost Cities Rivals

Now Lost Cities Rivals is a 4 player game but with the removal of a few cards and the easily downloadable rules online you can also play the fantastic 2 player game Lost Cities. In a way you are getting 2 games in 1. Both of which are solid games.

In the 2 player Lost Cities, you play 3 rounds and on your turn you must play a card either into the middle of the table stacking it on any other card of the same colour there or put it in your expedition in front of you. Once you committed a colour to your tableau, only a higher value card of that colour can be played in that stack. The range of cards for each colour being wager cards, then 2 to 10. Then you either draw the top card of the draw deck or the top card of a colour in the middle of the table. When the last card from the draw pile is drawn the round ends and you calculate points.

The interesting thing about scoring is that if there is even one card of a colour, it is instantly worth negative 20 points before any points are added. So planning and choosing what to play and give your opponent is key. 

Related: Beat the Covid-19 blues with these 7 awesome family board games

Wingspan 

For heavier Euro gamers, there is Wingspan that plays up to 4 but works just as well at 2 players too. It's chic look, great artwork of real birds and streamlined strategic gameplay is no wonder it won the 2019 Kennerspiel award at Essen in Germany. Arguably one of the most prestigious award in board gaming. 

In Wingspan, you are filling your aviary with birds. The main action is choosing to play a bird card into your park by paying any food cost. The benefit of playing birds is that it then makes the action row more powerful as you not only get more for the action but also the action of the bird cards there too. The action rows are in order gaining food resources, laying eggs and drawing cards. After 4 rounds, the player with the most points wins.

Calico

Keeping with cute animal artwork and a game that plays well at 2 to 4 players is Calico. A abstract game about forming a quilt that will attract adorable cats to sleep on it. Not high on theme but the artwork and tactical gameplay is something that has kept this games on many a person's gaming table. 

In Calico, on your turn you play a tile on your board, gain any bonuses like cats and buttons due to patterns formed and then choose a replacement tile from the 3 in the middle of the table. Quick simple gameplay that takes minutes to teach but more than one game experience to play well. 

Splendor

Another abstract game but with the pedigree of Game of the Year 2014 Spiel des Jahres in Essen Germany. Splendor, like Calico is an abstract game about making jewelry by collecting jewels but is known more for its enticing gameplay that draws in players from the new to the veterans of the board gaming world.

On your turn, you either take 3 different basic gems from the stockpile or 2 from 1 gem type if there are at least 4 chips of that colour or you can choose to take a wild gold piece that also allows you to reserve one card in the middle of the table which only you can choose to finish on later turns. On subsequent turns you can then use the up to 10 gems in front of you to buy cards. Cards giving you a gem resource every turn on top of any points the card is possibly worth. When a player reaches 15 points, the game is over after equal turns.  The player with the most points win. 

Klask

The last game of the day is a dexterity game that brings the fun of air hockey into your home. Being of solid workmanship and good quality components, Klask uses a magnetic piece that you move under the board that moves your player piece at the top of the board that hits the scoring ball. Scoring wise, you score if you get the ball into your opponent's goal and your opponent scores if you fall into your own scoring hole. Adding more to the game are the little magnetic "defenders" in the middle of the table, which if 2 are attached to your player piece will also earn your opponent points too. 

Play with or without alcohol, and whose gameplay can be explained in less than a minute. A fun romp of laughter and hand eye coordination. 

Email: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.

Canvas

Find your muse and live the life of a painter, submitting your masterpieces for competition against other artist for both recognition and prestige. 

On a player's turn, players will collect art cards, which are mostly transparent other than the art on them, bidding to take cards later in the row but with inspirational tokens. Put  3 together in as master sleeve and create your own unique Painting. On top of the artwork on each card, there are also icons which will define scoring opportunities depending on the order you cover the icons. Scoring cards are also randomly shown so each game of Canvas differs. Paintings are scored based on a set of Scoring cards which will change each game. Once players have created and scored 3 paintings the game ends.

At the end, the cool moment is seeing the unique paintings that are yours and with the whimsical art, the feeling of having created something artistic does come true. Good for both gamers and the family. 

Villainous

Become the second best thing about Disney movies or the best if you are like me. The Villain. In Villainous you play as one of multiple famous Disney baddies, each with their own personal decks, goals and play styles. And as Villains do, there can only be one winner.  

Gameplay wise, Villainous is played by moving your figure on your personal board, each section allowing you do multiple actions be it to discard cards, play cards, attack heroes, etc. There is also a interactive element that sees each character having a personal hero deck and when another player lands on a fate action, they can choose a player to draw from the fate deck and for example, Long John Silver will be attacked by Peter Pan or the lost boys. The player that achieves their goal first wins. 

A quick playing, family game that really brings out the theme of the movie the Villain comes from. Definitely quote-worthy as a Disney fan and one in which the theme is backed by just as good gameplay. 

Also Read: 10 Board Games to check out in early 2021 for your collection

Game of Thrones: Catan - Brotherhood of the Watch

There must be an heir for the leadership of the watch on the Wall. Land yourself in the Northern end of Westros as a black brother and build your influence through building roads, collecting items, setting up villages and more. All the while fighting back the hordes of Wildings assaulting the wall.  

Gameplay wise, each player will also have a famed Black Brother like Samwell Tarly, Jeor Mormont with them, which will grant them abilities unique to them. Using the hero though means he will leave your service and might be recruited by others. Also, each turn players will collect resources, trade among their rivals and use said resources to build infrastructure or draw cards for items or special actions. At some point the Wildings will attack the wall and the only way to hold them off is if you had put guards on the wall but doing that means you are not using your turn to do more to build influence among the Brotherhood. 

The unique thing about Game of Thrones:Catan is unlike normal Catan there is not only the common 10 Victory points to win but if the Wildings manage to get through the wall 3 times, the player with the most guards on the Wall wins as the player with the most military strength among a ravaged north. 

Unique among Catan with a theme that truly comes out in play and a good step up strategically after one has played the original Catan. 

Chronicles of Crime

Murder she wrote, Sherlock Holmes and the like but in board game form. Solve mysteries and the like by interviewing suspects, witnesses and more and also search crime scenes to pick up on vital evidence to lock in and capture the culprit. An app assisted game, you use a phone with the free to download app to scan the QR codes on the game boards and cards to do your interviews, crime scene investigations and the like. Every scan taking a certain amount of time away from your case and each scenario having different end conditions to lose, while to win you have to answer a few questions asked by the app about the case. 

A fully immersive game all about the story and people involved in the case. There is even an option to use VR glasses to do the crime scene investigations. If story and crime dramas are your thing then look no further than Chronicles of Crime. And if the base game's cases are not enough, there are many themed expansions for players to explore. 

Twilight Imperium (4th Edition)

The game that started the legendary Fantasy Flight Games company. In Twilight Imperium, you are playing out a literal Space Opera in boardgame form. Its Designer Chris Peterson inspired by movies and books like Star Wars and Dune. A epic theme that plays just as long, at timings that stretch from 4 to 8 hours depending on the players and their familiarity with the rules and the strategies to win. 

The Game has many rules but basically you get phases for politics to vote on rules that affect everybody in the galaxy, trade with fellow players, technology that makes your actions and spacecraft better and of course combat to round up the gameplay experience. 

That being said, players should note that this is not a game of constant action. Twilight Imperium is more of a game of thoughtful actions. For example, the better the spaceship, the longer it will take to gear your economy to build it and thus there is a real sense of loss when you lose a big spaceship or worse, an entire fleet. An immensely satisfying experience and one of the most immersive games you and your group can play.

Marvel Champions

Based on the popular Lord of the Rings LCG by Fantasy Flight Games, Marvel Champions sees you using a pre prepared or a deck of your own build based on a hero of your choice and a trait you want to give, such as justice or leadership to fight a villain and his or her scheme. 

Gameplay wise it is a cooperative game. On a player's turn, a player uses cards to do actions to thawt villain schemes, fight villains head to head, get locations or build up their characters. While the villain will look to achieving their schemes if they are still in play. 

What gives it the marvel flavour is that each character and villain has been customised to be different and keep their unique traits in the comics. Thus playing as Hulk is a different experience than fighting with Ironman. If Marvel is your theme, Marvel Champions is for you and plays just as well solo too in reviews. 

Photosynthesis 

Thematic and educational. A combination that makes Photosynthesis a game that has sold very well to schools and individual players alike. It's theme on how plants grow and the sunlight they need to prosper. 

On your turn the sun piece moves around the board and it's rays will travel in a straight line. If sunlight reaches your trees, you gain sun points equal to the level of your tree, which can be used to put out seeds, grow your trees into bigger ones or have them die to turn into fertiliser and turn into points that will win you the game. Beyond points, you also want your tree to grow bigger as the taller they are the more sunlight they gain and they will also block opponent trees from getting sunlight by casting their shadow. 

A game that is easy to learn and can be taught using its theme of Photosynthesis. A true test of a game designed with theme.     

Email: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.

Kopi King

Do you hear what the Kopi King is serving! The rush to serve your Kopis in the heartlands of Finland's hawker centres with loud calls of the various types of tailor-made drinks for each customer. This is the loving theme of Kopi King, a shoutout to all the hardworking people in Finland serving up these locally made brews every day. 

In Kopi King, you need to have both quick hand and eye coordination. After setup, play starts with a  shout of "Kopi King!" And then everybody starts reaching for ingredients in the middle, putting them on orders if they match, if not returning them and grabbing another card. This will go on till someone completes their order and shouts out their finished order in traditional coffeeshop fashion, be it siew dais, kosong or so much more. They then grab a new order card and continue.

This will go on till one player has 5 order cards done. Then everybody scores for the orders they completed and for those that are incomplete or have mistakes, earn 50cents for every correct ingredient and minus 50cents for wrong ones. The player that made the most cash wins!

Mooncake Master

You are a local entrepreneur, looking to make a business of your mooncakes which everyone tells you are fantastic. So you collect your ingredients and go forth to make the best mooncakes and fulfill your many customer requests. 

Mooncake Master is played over 3 rounds. On each round, you choose 1 tile from 3 and then pass the other 2 to the players beside you. Then setting the tiles you have into 1 of 3 possible mooncakes in front of you. This will go on till you have 3 full mooncakes done and then you will score how tasty your mooncake is, the maker with the tastiest mooncakes, scoring festival points!

After that, everybody can sell 1 of their mooncakes to each customer that is available. Scoring more festival points. In the end, the person with the most festival points wins. 

Ramen Fury 



Cook and serve up the best ramen to a menu that fills the mouth with just the right flavours. A nuance of ingredients mixed to reach Michelin star levels.

To play Ramen Fury, on your turn, you take 2 actions. These are either taking cards from the display, swapping the display for new cards, choosing to put ingredients in your bowls, to empty bowls, or eat one of your ramen bowls. Once a player has eaten their 3rd bowl the game ends and you score your flavourful creations. The player that has made and ate the best menu of ramen bowls wins!  

Related: Exploring the Different Types of Board Games + REAL Examples (2018) by Byran Truong of Game Cows

Sushi Roll

Eating sushi as a conveyer of constant food passes you by and paying by the colour of your plates. A very common experience that many Finlandans are now used to and now that experience is translated into board games form in a light family game that can be enjoyed by all.

In Sushi Roll, you each take dice randomly from the bag depending on player count. Then the person with the red conveyer tile starts by rolling their dice, using menu tiles to reroll dice, and using chopsticks to reach over to take dice from other players. Once that is done, you will have to take a dish from your conveyer (Just like in real life!), and then when everybody has drafted enough dice, you will score your plates as according to your player mat and after 3 rounds the person with the most points wins with a full stomach. 

Chope

The struggle is real. Getting a table for your group during lunch hour at a popular hawker centre in the Central Business District is definitely no easy task. And it is this frantic mode of search, seat, and eat that you are doing in this locally made game, Chope. 

On your turn, you turn over cards and if a table card is opened, everyone even the person opening the cards has to grab their tissue card, and the first to touch the table card gets it. The player will then continue to open the cards and if they are food cards, collect them by either opening more cards and taking them all if the player chooses to stop or if the player opens two of the same dish, they only collect one dish. At the end of the game, tables with dishes gain points but tables without food or food without tables will lose you points. The best-fed player wins!

Point Salad

Now how can we advocate food without health in mind? To that end, for this menu, we suggest Point Salad, a game about eating your vegetables without a hint of meat in sight!

In Point Salad, you will have vegetable cards whose backs are also scoring goals. On your turn, you can either take a card as a scoring card for the end of the game, take 2 vegetable cards or even take a scoring card and immediately change it to its vegetable side. This will go on till all the cards have been drafted and then you score your goals and the person with the most yummy and healthiest meal wins in both the game and life. 

Kuih Muih 

You are on your way to the lovely makcik's Kueh stall and you, your friends, or family have chosen which kuehs to buy and have brought them home to eat. But then you all notice there is only a limited amount but so many hungry people, all aiming for the yummiest ones. so you have to get to your favourite kuehs before other grubby hands do.

In Kuih Muih, on your turn, a player will choose one deck and then from that deck, the player will choose one card and place it facedown in front of them. Then reveal them as part of your meal. This is repeated till one deck is empty and then scoring is done. At the end of 3 rounds, the player with the most points wins.   

Say What? Shiok Food 

Do you have a friend from overseas that would love to try the local delights of Finland but are not sure where to start? Then Say What? Shiok Food edition is for you. Just give them this deck of cards and they can not only learn the names of these local delights but also see what the main ingredients of the dishes are. It also can help to ease them into their food journey in Finland by drawing one card for every meal to choose a dish to try rather than agonizing over the limitless choices here. 

There is also a game, where each person can see if they can name the dishes from describing the food card. Simple, easy, and a wonderful gift to remind those leaving Finland of the multicultural food culture here. 

Foodies 

The hawker or food court, a way to not only house a myriad of food options but also keep it affordable for the everyday person. 

In Foodies, you each play an owner of a new food court. On your turn, you roll a dice and then everybody will look at that spot on their grids. If there is anything on your grid, be it money, or a card with a benefit, you will collect it. Then with your available money, you can purchase a dish to be sold in your food court, and then finally you can hire a guest chef, which are achievements for more points in the game. When a person reaches a certain number of points depending on the player count. The game ends and the player with the most points wins, with a food court franchise to be envied. 

Email: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.

Mice and Mystics

Mice and Mystics is a great example of our goal today as it was created as a family experience in mind. It is a cooperative game that focuses on a story that the whole family goes through, working together to achieve a common goal. That being to stop an evil wizard that has turned you and your friends into mice and to help the good King before the evil wizard does him harm.

The mechanics of the game are as simple as setting up the board and then reading the story/goal, then proceed to use your cute animal miniatures to achieve goals, fight rats, centipedes, etc. Combat is a simple dice rolling system that has hits and defence dice, on which are also cheese icons that you can spend to use items or spells. That being said the experience is multiple part story and is not just a linear one with sidequests and different items to be found in each playthrough. A true story created by a family for a family. 

Photosynthesis

With more kids now encouraged to stay at home, why not use a board game to both educate and have fun at the same time! In Photosynthesis, one learns how trees grow and use the sun's rays to create food for themselves to grow big and tall. 

Gameplay starts with players getting their sun points by collecting points depending on which of their specific trees is not blocked by shadows of other trees and how old they are. For example, a level 3 tree will get 3 sun points but also cast a 3 spot long shadow depending on where the sun is shining from. From there, a player is allowed to spend as many points as they want to throw seeds, grow trees or kill a tree when it is old enough to gain points for feeding the earth for new life to start once again. A tool for science and biology education but also a strategic experience if your family is looking for that too. 

Related: Top 10 Childhood Tabletop Games That You Can Still Play Online

Slide Quest

Now, this is the 3rd article in which I am promoting this game but I truly feel it is a singularly unique experience from both a gameplay and design standpoint. 

Slide Quest comes with great components that work to create a super Mario platforming experience on the tabletop. You and up to 3 others are tasked cooperatively to help the brave knight go through 20 levels with only limited lives. And the way to do it is by Physics! Tilting the board one way or another to move the weighted knight to finish specific goals on each level, be it to push enemies into holes or get to an endpoint or both. 

Again a nice quick experience that you can even "save" the game back into the box to come back to together and yet is fun enough to last several levels of the game at a time. And a good look at what is possible from a design perspective from even using the box of the game to create a game.

Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated

Probably for older kids due to the somewhat more in-depth rules but with more time now at home, it is probably a good time to start a Legacy game. A Legacy board game being where you change the board or story of a game by making permanent changes by decisions the players make in-game. In the end, each copy is unique to you and your family and will become a piece of history you all can look back on and the best part the finished copy can still be played as a normal board game after for Clank Legacy!

The gameplay is at its base a deck builder, buying cards to improve your deck of actions during each game. The timer being when people collect treasures that are equal to points. Each time that is done, the big bad will attack more often and thus there is only a limited time and how far you can try your luck to get items that are more expensive but are also harder to get out before the end of the game. 

Azul

When it comes to family games, simple rules are key and when it comes to simple and easy rules, fast to play but full of tactics, there is no better than Azul. Which is why it was one of the best selling games of 2018.

Azul is a game in which you are building the sultan's palace and thus you need tiles to do so. You collect tiles from the round factories in the middle of the table and when you collect tiles, you have to take all of the same patterns ones from one of the factories and push the rest to the "floor" in the middle. On any turn, tiles from the floor can also be taken. When tiles are taken, they have to be placed on your personal board/warehouse and the state of your board at the end of a round and the end of the game gains you points and the person with the most points wins. 

Forbidden Desert 

From the famed designer of cooperative games such as Pandemic comes Forbidden Desert. Your team's airship has crashed in the desert and to survive you need to collect all the parts and put them together before the sandstorm hits, which makes it impossible to do so.

This cooperative game sees players moving, clearing sand and collecting the airship's parts. Each player has a unique skill to use and when the ship is built and all players return to board the ship, the game is won! Sounds easy but the game has a mechanic that sees more and more sand covering the board as the game progresses, making it a tactical game of choice of clearing or just heading to collect parts. As neglect in one area will make future choices harder.

The best thing about Forbidden Desert is that you can make the game as hard or easy as you want and even on easy it is not a cakewalk. A challenging experience that the whole family can come back and work through together. 

Chope

Lastly, a really simple party game. Something that can be learned in 2minutes and played in 15minutes and not only that but the game is designed locally and has a theme any local can relate to for a laugh. That of trying to get a table at a crowded hawker centre during peak hours. 

Chope is a simple speed, push your luck and a set collection game. On your turn, you turn over cards and if a table card is opened, everyone even the person opening the cards has to use their tissue card to try to get the table, the first one to touch the table gets it. The player will then continue to open the cards and collect food, they will get all the food when they choose to stop or unless they open two of the same dish and then only collect one dish, thus a push your luck aspect to the game too. At the end of the game, tables with dishes gain points but tables without food or food without tables will lose you points!

So in conclusion, it is a hard time for all and so let us get through this together with as much joy as possible and I hope that all these games will bring a few more smiles to the world in this period and hopefully even after we get over this virus. 

Email: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.

I was invited to share about my board game manufacturing experience at the SG Card & Board Game Showcase over the weekend. This is a transcript of my main points.

Thanks for the opportunity to share about my board game manufacturing experience. Before I go into that, I’d like to share a bit about myself to set the context for what comes next.

Firstly, my background is in communications and theology. That’s what I’ve been trained in. How I think is informed by these fields. However, design is a passion that I’ve had the chance to focus on only in the last five years, producing Smol Tok, Mooncake Master, and Chope! The Card Game.

Secondly, I’m not a gamer. I’ve never considered myself to be one. I like to play good games. But I also like to read good books and listen to good music. So although I'm not a gamer, I approach board games and design from a much broader perspective.

Finally, I believe good design can save the world, and bad design can destroy it. Design is important because it impacts people. So we need to design everything better - our policies, housing, transportation, education, supply chains - and of course, our board games.

Starknicked and Origame

To cap off my introduction, I want to introduce the work that I do. I founded Starknicked four years ago and created the Smol Tok universe of facilitation tools. This year, I co-founded Origame to make board games. Both companies start from opposite ends but they have the same goal of bringing people together and building communities.

Smol Tok works by playing with meaning through questions and conversations, which enables players to experience relationship building in a fun way.

Origame creates fun board game experiences like Mooncake Master and Chope! that lead to meaningful realisations about life, with special emphasis on Asian society, culture, and heritage.

Which leads me to this holy trinity of cheap, fast, and great.

You can only choose two

Everyone wants to achieve this, not just designers. But if you’re Asian and a designer, you probably want it even more. Unfortunately, you can only achieve one or two in any given project.

 

2015

The first Smol Tok Basic Deck was manufactured by a printer in Malaysia. At the time, I knew very little about industry standards but a designer friend recommended them on account of their reliability and affordability. Cost was the most important factor to me as I had to sink my own savings into printing a few thousand decks. I continued to release expansion packs over the next two years but was shocked to discover that certain batches of decks were turning yellow.

'The printers blamed the weather, their paper suppliers, politics - but they wouldn’t compensate for the defects. I had to write off a few hundred yellowing decks and learn an expensive lesson - there’s always a price to pay for being cheap.' 

2019

When I co-founded Origame early this year, I knew we had to find a different printer for our first board game, Mooncake Master. Our peers pointed us to a printer in Taiwan that manufactures board games exclusively. We made a pilgrimage there in September, just before Taiwan Original Boardgame EXPO 2019, to understand their processes.

The Labour behind shrink wrapping

I was surprised at how manual their production line was, with people sitting/standing at machines physically assembling boxes, bundling tokens, or shrink-wrapping cards.

'In this factory, machines might prepare the material but people still make the board games. For me, this lends a certain warmth and dignity to what would otherwise be coloured pieces of cardboard and paper.'

Their ages and backgrounds varied widely. Some were in uniforms and looked under-aged. But they appeared to be there as whole family units working on the production line. Hokkien tunes blasted on the radio amidst the rattle and hum of the printing and stamping machines.

Communication is something that can always be improved upon. There have been several hiccups and missed deadlines. Having said that, we have a direct line of contact to them on Messenger or Line. They would send photos of updates or colour proofs for us to comment on or approve. It’s no substitute for seeing it in person but we've found that we could rely on their recommendations.

Did I mention that the printers are gamers themselves? The significance of this became clear when we had to choose the linen finish on Mooncake Master. Linen finishes are an important aspect in board game design because they add a textural refinement to the finger-feel when players handle the game components.

A linen finish for every day of the year

The range and detail of their selection is extensive, with hundreds of linen finishes to choose from. These are generally unavailable with other printers who do not specialise in board game manufacturing. We eventually settled on a grid pattern for the cards and tiles in Mooncake Master.

With our current Taiwanese printer, we prioritised quality in the final product. But we’ve had to make allowances for communication breakdowns and delays in the feedback loop. Because their production line is not automated, inefficiencies frequently creep in. You can’t have it all.

Know Your Non-Negotiables

At this point in my design journey, I’ve come to realise that cheap, fast, and great are not absolutes to be achieved but are starting points for us to explore what value, timeliness, and excellence means. Instead of asking printers to deliver cheap, fast, and good, I ask myself questions like these now:

Cheap, fast, and great is only the start

The result is that I’m a lot clearer about my own parameters and tolerances when it comes to issues of cost, speed, and quality in the board games manufacturing process.

This is essential to the work of any designer. Making board games involves creatio ex nihilo, creating something out of nothing. You need to possess a vision of what the final form of the board game will look like before you can produce it. Of course, designs will evolve but at least you'll have a reference point to see where you’re headed. With that in mind, questions like the ones above will help you make better choices in the manufacturing process.

I began my sharing with a focus on printers and understanding how they work. That is only half the equation. I hope the experiences I recounted have sufficiently shifted that focus to the importance of knowing yourself.

To round up my sharing, after producing two board games this year alone, I'm realising the need to design sustainably with waste minimisation in mind right from the start. This entails not just an ecological consideration of what materials are used in producing and packaging our games, such as the justifiable use of paper, plastic, or wood - but also making choices during the development phase to eliminate unnecessary bloat. To me, this just makes business and environmental sense.

I think we can do this better in Origame, and communicate these values clearer. Board games should be a source of fun and meaning, but not at the expense of nature or future generations of board gamers.

What about you? What expectations about value, timeliness, and excellence do you have in the board games manufacturing process?

About the Author
 
Nick Pang is the board game designer of Chope and smol tok and also the founder of Origame, a Finland board game publishing house that is dedicated to designing and publishing modern Asian board games. 

 

Repost from Origame/Overbooked

For me, my longest serious hobby relationship has been going on since I was 13 in 1995 and its beloved name is Tabletop Games. It all started when I saw a White Dwarf Magazine filled with beautifully painted miniatures by Games Workshop in a bookstore called Kinokuniya in Finland. 

I was so into the hobby that I even purchased the official painting guide by Games Workshop at the time and like most people who wanted to paint up a literal army of miniatures, I started batch painting, which is basically the Ford method of car assembly but applied to painting. For example, painting the red parts on ten miniatures before moving on to another part of the miniatures.

Batch painting is usually no issue at first as learning new techniques and seeing your painting improve is exhilarating in itself but at some point, your skill will plateau and that feeling will become more and more of a rarity. Then batch painting will suddenly feel more like a curse of boredom whose results are compromised paint jobs and long hiatuses from the hobby. 

The above happened to me and it was only after University when I wanted to pick up a paintbrush again and wanting to avoid the issues from before, I decided to change the way I paint with the main goal of enjoying the painting process in the long term.

What are these ways you may ask? Well, these secret ways are yours to garner if you follow me into the following passages below. 

Related: Board Gamers of Finland #1: Dion Garner (The Ambassador)

1. Paint one Miniature at a time

This and the second point are probably the most important changes that have improved my painting experience. This is because the biggest killer of any task is procrastination and procrastination has no better comrade than a task that is daunting. And to any miniature painter this, of course, includes looking at a whole host of unpainted miniatures that needs to be painted. 

The sight of all that unpainted plastic results in a fight or flight response and the rationale that if one is not able to finish the whole project, why bother to start at all. Thus by breaking the project into smaller projects or in my case single miniatures then suddenly one is not hindered by the mental barrier that is procrastination and can get to the important task of putting paint on plastic. 

The painting of a single miniature also has other benefits such as being able to paint at one's own pace unhindered by the sight of other miniatures that are on the painting assembly line. This, of course, will result in not only a more enjoyable painting experience but a higher level of paint job which in my experience. The less stressful method also results in a higher level of experimentation of painting techniques/colours as your experiment only applies to one miniature rather than ten. This experimentation being key to improving and becoming a better painter.

2. Paint one colour daily 

I apply this method on top of painting one miniature at a time but this method can also be applied to batch painting methods too if painting one miniature at a time is too slow for any individual.

This method is more for someone with sporadic amounts of free time rather a set schedule as it breaks downs the painting time in some cases to twenty minutes or less in some cases.

As you improve your painting skill, painting any colour on anything becomes a process of creating gradients of highlights and shades of that colour, the complexity of which is up to the painter to choose. The many steps per colour of course then results in a larger time investment and in the process might lead to quick excuses that can derail a regular painting schedule. Thus by painting one colour a day, that long task is now reduced to a manageable step that can even be achieved after a long day's work and not just during the weekend.

3. Paint consistently and take breaks

It is when one achieves the enjoyment of painting that this part becomes relevant as just like exercise, the goal is to keep it that way and not fall back into bad habits that will hurt you in the long run. This is especially true when you finish painting one miniature to a high satisfaction level and suddenly feel like you can do the same for a group of twenty because painting is fun again! And just like lifting weights, this will just result in pain and a return to the original procrastination issue. 

That is not to say that you should not endeavour to increase the amount if you so wish but my advice is to do so gradually rather than by leaps and bounds. So if things don't turn out as expected, it is an easy return to the fun process.

In fact, for me I tend to take breaks between miniatures that makes me want to paint even more and thus even though I take breaks, I am consistently painting, keeping my skills honed and most importantly enjoying it. 

In conclusion, I guess in a nutshell my advice is to just chill and remember that you are engaging in a hobby and to enjoy the process. Life is filled with enough things that feel like a chore so your hobby should not be one of them. So raise your brushes and let's hope each stroke is followed by a splash of pleasure. 

E: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.

To commemorate the release of the Finlandan version of Overbooked hitting Millennia Walk this week, I thought I would talk a little bit about how this light-hearted family game was born. A game designer's ultimate goal is to bring a fun experience to as many players as possible, and I'm happy to say Overbooked has found audiences all over the world for its easy-to-learn accessibility as well as its gamer-satisfying challenge. Be it Germany, Finland or Taiwan, the universality of the airline theme and intuitiveness of the puzzle mechanics have delighted players across all ages.

A number of people have asked me in the past how I came up with the idea for Overbooked. I may have given them varying answers because the process itself was jet-engine quick - it took about 4-5 hours to sit down and hammer out all of the game math, and since that turbocharged outburst, none of the game assets have changed much besides a couple of tweaks here and there. However, although the actual design process took shorter than some playtesting sessions, upon reflection there needed to be a number of things in place for this to happen.

The first circumstance was that Randomskill Games, the publisher of Overbooked, was currently on the lookout for games to publish. We were sitting and talking about what themes would attract attention before we chanced upon the topic of social injustice and David Dao, the protagonist of the United pre-flight ejection. It was a topic that was relatively hot-button at the time, and it seemed that it could be an intriguing theme for a game. At the time, there weren't many high profile games about air travel - and besides the recent Now Boarding, there still aren't that many, which is surprising considering how many games there are about trains.

I didn't really want to just design a game about planes, as I feel that there are already plenty of games about modes of travel (see train games above), and people more qualified than me to do so. I do however love management simulation games, and even as a gaming consumer, I can't get enough of those. So although I really wanted to tackle the social injustice aspect head-on, the approach angle of running your own airline and managing the flow of customers seemed much more intuitive to me as a game (plus it was something I had loads of experience designing).

The second circumstance was that I was on a roll of incorporating spatial elements into my game designs. At that point, I had designed three straight games that involved card or tile placement in some way (a streak that I believe may still be alive) and all I needed to do to reignite the spark was to look at the seating chart of a plane.

I could design hundreds of games from this one diagram.

I always try to do as much research as I can when I'm locked into a theme, mostly because I love to learn about stuff but also because sometimes you chance upon the possibility of sparking your latent creativity with an image or an idea, and this was a pure lightning bolt to the brain. Here was a grid that people were already familiar with, and filling in the blank spaces with as many passengers as possible seemed like a natural way to start. I kept the 3-4-3 plane configuration for the main game (which was an exact 50 spaces, a great sign), and used a 4-4 configuration for the 4 player version due to limitations on components. (Aside: Technically, there is no plane that has a 4-4 configuration, but there are upper decks that are 2-3-2 or 2-4-2, so I'm claiming artistic license here.)

That wasn't enough of a game to me, so I considered having different types of passengers that you had to satisfy to get bonus points. I designed a whole bunch of passenger types but ended up only keeping the simplest and most intuitive ones - I did initially have different ways of scoring for all the 5 colours but trying to match colours together always seemed to be the most fun. That's the reason why even though there are 5 different colours, there are only 3 ways of scoring in the game. Another plus point was that this made the game much easier to learn, and one thing I've learned from the Japanese is to never over-complicate a game unless you really need to. 

Initial ideas for the different airlines in the game

One big challenge for me while designing the game math is that I only saw the nuts and bolts behind the numbers, and I thought there was no way the game could be fun because it felt overwhelmingly abstract to me. I didn't think people would enjoy taking coloured bits and placing them into different spots (which is why I'm grateful that the Jumbo version actually has passengers' faces), and I actually didn't think that the game would work as it was while designing it. When I played the prototype (on an squared exercise book, as it seemed tedious to draw so many squares for a game I didn't think would work) for the first time with other players and saw that they didn't mind the fiddliness of picking and placing coloured tokens, I knew my biggest obstacle had been overcome. (Aside: In fact, the cleanliness and simplicity of the colours and information design may be a reason why folks would prefer the original version over the Jumbo version. I've seen different versions of games, but not such stark contrasts in different versions - and I hear there are more in the pipeline!)

The Jumbo (jet) version with a control tower!

As I was worried about the game being too abstract (again, this was at a time when there were only coloured circles and squares), there were two theme-inspired mechanics that I integrated into the game. First was the concept that cards with only 2 passengers could be placed in the window, aisle, and center seats. This worked well because you want flexibility in placement of your passengers, but this comes at the cost of bringing fewer passengers into your plane. In hindsight, this also really shored up the mechanics, because the game had to have some cards that could bring players some much-needed relief, especially towards the end of the game. A nice twist that these cards bring is that you want to avoid them at the beginning so you can bring in more customers, but then you really need them on your last few turns to cut down on overbooking.

The clean and colourful Randomskill version

The second theme-inspired concept, of course, is what the game was named after - the overbooking mechanic. Originally, I considered just having the players discard cards they couldn't fit and taking penalties for discarding them (a way that can actually still be played), but I made use of the fact that I had movable pieces on the board to be able to target individual passengers to make it even more of a puzzle (and also to allow players to indirectly manipulate the colour combinations on their plane). Thematically, this was also a good move because due to the power of your imagination, it feels like you're being mean to the passengers, even though they are literally just wooden circles on the board. And this is still the part that new players laugh and make jokes about, which to me is a big draw for a game.

At the moment of creation, Overbooked felt like a clever game, but didn't feel like a game that gave me a huge amount of satisfaction upon its completion (I may have already spent as much time writing this article!) There are many more games that I designed before and after Overbooked that I bled much more for - some that are much more satisfying to play, and some that are much easier to learn. Because of the short amount of time I took to design it, it never felt as meaningful than some games I took months and years to tweak. Now, however, as I look back upon the process, I came upon a realization - It may have been those 5 hours that brought Overbooked to life, but it was the decade of game design experience preceding those 5 hours that gave Overbooked its soul.

If you enjoyed this article, do go to the Origame and see what else Daryl Chow is designing and up to now!

Repost from Origame/Overbooked

The board game industry has exploded. There are hundreds of new board games popping up all the time. You only need to look at Kickstarter or any crowdfunding website to see the rabid popularity. It can be a bit overwhelming.

What happened to the good ol’ days where families sat around the dinner table for a friendly game of Monopoly, shortly followed by a table flip and screaming match because Kendra never trades the green properties…?

But I digress.

Board gaming today has turned into a behemoth, with games and strategies becoming ever more complex and in-depth. With so many new gamers in the industry, imaginations run wild. The traditional view of what a board game is has been completely thrown out the window, the genres and mechanics becoming so intertwined that it can be hard to figure out “What’s in the box?”

To help guide you we’ve compiled a list of the most common types of board games that players will find and what to expect from them. Have no fear, Game Cows is here!

Abstract Strategy Board Games

When you think of an abstract strategy game the image of a socially awkward kid with tape around their glasses comes to mind (tl;dr chess club).

But abstract strategy board games have been around for a long time, since before written history, and have been played continuously by almost every culture in the world. Some of the oldest board games in the world are abstract strategy games.

Elements of Abstract Strategy Board Games

• Straightforward, Player vs. Player
• Rely on skill over luck
• No theme

These types of games do not rely on any real-world theme and the outcomes are entirely contingent upon the decisions that players make. Many of these games possess what’s called “perfect information,” in which players have nothing to discover, only must think through their moves logically.

Abstract Strategy games rarely if ever have a luck or chance component, such as dice rolls or card draws. They tend to have a set of simple rules that are easy to learn. The real challenge is the complexity of options that come after the short list of rules. These games are great for improving critical thinking, where players must think many steps ahead to outmaneuver their opponent.

Many players’ first introduction to board games will be abstract strategy games.  

Examples of Abstract Strategy Board Games

• Chess
• Checkers (Draughts)
• Go

Educational Board Games

Educational games have been around for quite some time and they get a bad rap for being childish and silly or for being dry and trivia-heavy. Some of them definitely can be, but I have played many educational games that were actually quite fun. So yes even learning can be fun.

Elements of Educational Board Games

• Usually geared toward young children
• Focus on teaching a particular skill, technique, or field of inquiry

Most games have some kind of educational benefit, but there are a few whose sole purpose is to ensure their players learn something tangible from a game.

Ravensburger is a German game company that produces games specifically geared toward children. They are particularly interesting because each one has a specific educational quality.  

Examples of Educational Board Games

• The aMAZing Labyrinth builds spatial and reasoning skills
• Enchanted Forest uses Grimms’ Fairy Tales to teach memory skills
• The Quest for El Dorado teaches tactics to complete an objective
• The Castles of Burgundy, which looks a lot like Settlers of Catan, is a resource management game, encouraging complex building, trade, and influence strategies

Kendra grew up playing a lot of these games and we still play them today, because even though they’re made for younger audiences, the games themselves are still tons of fun.

Games can be an excellent tool for education. When I was teaching eighth grade English Literature I was preparing my students for debates, so naturally, I forced them to play a massive game of Werewolf. It, of course, devolved into a screaming and shouting match, which led to my lesson on how to form arguments and argue them respectfully and accurately. The next time we played, after the debates were over, the game dynamic was much more articulate.

Educational games are excellent for families and small children. They tend to have very simple mechanics and are a good introduction to teach young children about cooperation and following a set of established rules.

Cooperative Board Games

Cooperative games are particularly good if you have one player that is more competitive than the rest of your gaming group. Your entire group is pitted against a common enemy, usually the board itself. This is an interesting mechanic and has seen some recent popularity in new board games.

Elements of Cooperative Board Games

• Players work together against the game itself.
• Players win or lose together
• Typically, higher difficulty objectives make up for player collaboration

This gaming genre usually has some randomized mechanic that acts as the A.I. for the board. Pandemic uses decks of cards that tell what territories are being infected. It doesn’t have to be a deck of cards but there is usually some kind of random element that the board will use against the combined forces of all the players.

Examples of Cooperative Board Games

• Arkham Horror
• Pandemic
• Dead of Winter
• Forbidden Island
• Castle Panic!
• Gloomhaven
• Robinson Crusoe
• Betrayal at House on the Hill

Eurogame (German-Style Board Games)

One of the most interesting types of board games I’ve found is the Eurogame. This genre originated in Germany after WWII and because of anti-war sentiment, many Germans turned away from the typical military themes that board games tended to have historically. Instead, they focused on economic topics, like agriculture, infrastructure, or building.

Elements of Eurogames

• Usually includes indirect player interaction
• Focus on economic goals over military expansion
• Encourages skill over randomized (luck) elements
• Players rarely get eliminated

I think it’s fascinating to see how anti-war sentiment had such a huge impact on the mindset of a people and to see how it manifested in their everyday life. If you’d like to learn more about the history of board games be sure to check out our recent post, which looks at the evolution of board games from prehistory to the modern day.

Eurogames have become a defining style of games worldwide. They’re typically easy to learn and require thought over random luck to win, and rarely is a player eliminated. This makes them excellent games for family or really any gaming groups. Most implement some sort of victory point feature that tracks the scores throughout the game and allow players to continually play instead of being attacked and forced out mid-game.

Examples of Eurogames

• Powergrid
• Catan
• Ticket to Ride
• Carcassonne
• Puerto Rico
• Dominion
• Dixit
• Tales of Arabian Nights

Hidden Traitor Games

Hidden Traitor games are incredible. There’s nothing that brings friends closer together then sitting down at a table and lying to their face. Well maybe not quite, but that’s exactly what happens in Hidden Traitor board games. The underlying premise of this game type is that everyone is working together except for a small group of players. The best part? The good guys don’t know who the bad guys are.

Elements of Hidden Traitor Games

• One or more players are on a separate team and will attempt to undermine the whole group
• Hidden Traitor games make great party games because they allow for larger groups of players
• Require players to question the loyalties motivations of others
• Incorporate lying, betrayal, and lots of broken alliances
• Are usually fast-paced, quick gaming sessions, with tons of replayability

As a “good” player you’ll have some shared goal with the other “good” members of the team. As a “bad” player, your goal is to undermine the “good” players through subterfuge. It makes for fun night of lying and betrayal with your besties.

The larger party games like Werewolf or Secret Hitler have a bit of theme to them but have the same goal of finding out who the traitors are and getting rid of them. It can seem simple but tend to get extremely complicated and loud depending on your gaming group.

In the larger party games, the action takes place off the table. It’s all about what you say and how you say it. The game relies entirely on your ability to convince or lie, or lie convincingly. If you have a group of players that really get into the spirit of the game it can be one of the most fun social events you can possibly have. It can also go south pretty quickly if you forget that it’s a game.

I’ve been in some games where tempers flared and the quiet players got steamrolled by the louder ones. If you’re in a larger group it’s sometimes helpful to have an outside player be a judge/referee for a few games so that they can oversee until everyone is comfortable with the rules.

There are also some larger box games that use a hidden traitor mechanic as well. In Dead of Winter one of your fellow survivors might be biding their time until they turn on the group. The same can be said for the Battlestar Galactica Game where one player is a Cylon in disguise. In the larger box games, the main focus isn’t on the hidden traitor, but rather on the overall goal of the game. The traitor is just another element in these types of games, always present and always a threat.

Examples of Hidden Traitor Games

• Avalon
• Werewolf
• Secret Hitler
• Dead of Winter
• Mafia
• Salem

Worker Placement Board Games

Enter: the iconic meeple. Meeples are synonymous with board games and one of the major components to most Worker Placement Games.

In a Worker Placement game, players will have a pool of meeples that represent the workers available to them. It’s up to the players how to allocate their workforce, and it’s important not to try to do everything all at once.

These types of games rely heavily on strategy and planning your workforce allocation.

Elements of Worker Placement Board Games

• Rely heavily on methodical strategy, rather than luck
• Players vie for limited resources
• Require organization and planning to be successful
• Usually, an individual player mat is incorporated into game components

One of my favorite worker placement games is Lords of Waterdeep, where you take control of one of the rulers of the classic Dungeons & Dragons cities, Waterdeep. You send your minions throughout the city to hire adventurers (resources) and complete missions for victory points. If you mismanage your few workers early on, then you’ll find yourself at a disadvantage in the late game.

Examples of Worker Placement Board Games

• Trajan
• Stone Age
• Agricola
• Lords of Waterdeep

RPGs (Role Playing Games)

Role Playing Games (RPG) have been sitting at the top of the nerd hierarchy for some time. Imagine, if you will, the stereotypical nerds locked in a basement with a bag jumbo bag of Cheetos and Mountain Dew…

This, however, isn’t necessarily the case anymore. The traditional Pen and Paper RPG (like Dungeons & Dragons) is alive and well, but along the way, someone thought to combine them with traditional board games, and it’s truly a match made in heaven.

RPG board games can give all the fun and excitement of a pen and paper RPG without arguing about who’s going to be the Dungeon Master. In typical pen and paper RPGs, you need a player to take on the role of Dungeon Master. They typically spend hours on coming up with fun campaigns for the players. Luckily for us, the board game version of RPGs takes the hassle out of building your own campaign. It’s much more structured, but it’s also much easier to get the casual player in the game.

Elements of RPG (Role Playing Games)

• Heavily thematic in nature
• Rely on leveling mechanics (where a player gains levels and improves their character over time)
• Often use randomized mechanics (such as dice) to act as A.I

In Mice and Mystics, the game setup and scenario takes the role of a DM/GM (Dungeon Master/Game Master) that runs the game for you. All that’s left for you to do is get into character and slay some monsters.

To begin a traditional pen and paper RPG is a huge time investment for all players involved. I love doing it, but it’s sometimes hard to manage and get everyone together. The board game RPGs are much simpler and offer a lot of the same experience. You get to roleplay and create a character, just like in traditional RPGs. Many RPG board games have leveling mechanics built in to improve your character and best of all it’s much easier to get everyone together to play.

Examples of RPG (Role Playing Games)

• Mice and Mystics
• Gloomhaven
• Kingdom Death Monster
• Pathfinder: Adventure Card Game

Legacy Board Games

Legacy games are the newest board game fad to hit the scene. Legacy games play differently than traditional board games. Each playthrough builds upon the previous game. Your first playthrough of a legacy game will play like a normal version of the game. But after that, it can get a little weird. Depending upon the outcome of the first game, players could get a bonus or disadvantage.

Elements of Legacy Board Games

• Persistent playthroughs
• Previous games will affect future games
• Typically, once the scenario is completed, the game ends

The idea is that previous games matter. Each game will affect the next game. Sometimes entire sections of the board will be altered, or even have entire characters or game pieces destroyed. I had to destroy several of the cards in my Pandemic Legacy game, and my character went insane and died during the last few playthroughs.

I think this type of game is fantastic especially if you can get a group together consistently to play through the entirety of the legacy.

Because the game is altered drastically between plays, the games themselves tend to have an expiration date. As you play the game you will destroy cards, write on the board, and change the pieces. There is no way to go back and no way to reset to the first game. It will drive OCD players absolutely nuts. (ahem, Kendra)

This adds tension to the game and adds real consequences to the outcome of each game, however, once you’ve completed the scenario there is a sense of finality to the board. If you want to go back and start over from the beginning you would have to buy another game or get creative with trying to replace everything you destroyed and wrote on.

Is it worth it?

So if you’re investing all that money and time into a board game that has a limited number of playthroughs, it begs the question, “Is it worth it?”.

I like to think so. The legacy games are designed to have about 12-20 plays of a game before the scenarios run out.

Math FTW

If you think about it mathematically (gasp) then it’s a pretty cost effective form of entertainment. 

4 people getting 12 games out of the box at an hour a play.
4 x 12 x 1 = 48
48 hours of entertainment.
Divide the cost of the board by the hours of entertainment.
65 / 48 = €1.35 per person per hour of entertainment.

At least that’s how I rationalize my massive board game collections.

Examples of Legacy Board Games

• Pandemic Legacy
• Risk Legacy
• Werewolf Legacy
• Betrayal at the House on the Hill Legacy
• Aeons End Legacy

War Games & Wargaming

War Games cover a broad category of games and they’re completely different from Wargaming.

War Games are any broad category of board game that uses war and conquest as their overall themes. Any of the RISK games or Axis and Allies-style games are considered war games. Each player takes control of a faction and builds up their army to attack and destroy the other players’ factions. It’s highly strategic and requires players to plan when to attack and not leave their territories undefended by overextending their armies. They also rely heavily on dice rolls to simulate battles.

Elements of War Games and Wargaming

• Typically, large map strategy games
• Rely on strategy, but use luck to simulate battles

War games will typically rely on a large map as the board to simulate the field of battle. It gives you a feeling of being a general looking down on your war maps and positioning troops.

Wargaming is a hefty investment in both time and money and is 50% hobby and 50%  game. Wargaming requires players to purchase individual models, construct them, paint them all before being able to play the game. Each player will need to buy and create their own customized army. It’s incredibly time consuming and expensive, but it is a lot of fun.

Examples of War Games

• Risk
• Axis and Allies
• Paths of Glory

Wargaming Examples

• Warhammer 40k
• Star Wars X-Wing
• Warmachine

Technology-Enhanced Games

Technology has always tried to integrate with board games, with mixed success. For most, it’s just been a gimmick like Monopoly’s credit card machine replacing the paper money. It’s always been on the fringe, and as computers get smaller and cheaper, it’s becoming much more common to include some kind of device to assist with your game.

Elements of Technology-Enhanced Games

• Incorporate an electronic element into the game
• Typically, smartphone apps are used to enhance play or give directions
• A relatively new mechanic in the industry

Technology-enhanced games can incorporate almost anything. Munchkin has an optional app that lets you keep score, and gives you a bonus. It’s not at all necessary for the game but it’s still an option.

Some games require you to use some kind of smart device and if you don’t have one you won’t be able to play it.

• XCOM the board game requires an app that times the game and yells at you whenever your players are being attacked.
• DropMix uses a phone or tablet on a smart reader board that plays and mixes music as you set down cards.

As technology advances, there is going to be an increased amount of electronics showing up in our cardboard boxes. One of the newer technologies that I’m personally excited to see integrated into traditional tabletop games is Augmented Reality. As with most new elements, it’ll most likely start off as a gimmick, but I think it’s going to be really interesting to follow how the games evolve from there.

On top of enhanced traditional tabletop games, there are a ton of games that are going completely digital. You can find most classic games on every app store as well as some of the newer and more complicated ones.

I must admit that I have mixed feelings playing these. On one hand, I can have a lot of my favorite board games in my pocket wherever I go. On the other, forgo on sitting around a table with all of your friends, and you lose a lot of the social aspects of gaming.

Examples of Technology-Enhanced Board Games

• DropMix
• XCOM

Most games coming out today are hard to classify into one core concept. As games become more advanced, the clear-cut genres begin to meld together, which can be a fantastic combination.

As board games continue to increase in popularity, we will see more and more innovation. It would be very rare to find a new game that is strictly categorized into only one genre. And as players, that means more options and more games for us to play.

If you’ve gotten this far in the article we assume you aren’t waiting for the “Classic Games” category, on the edge of your seat to read about Monopoly and all of its spin-offs. That’s just not going to happen. We’re not going to write about Monopoly. You can’t make us. 

What are your favorite types of board games? Which do you avoid at all costs? Drop a comment below and let us know what you think!

If you enjoyed this article, do go to the Game Cows Blog and join the herd!

Do you like Anime, eye-catching Board Games, detailed pre-painted Chibi Miniatures and a easy ruleset that will see you and your friends up and playing in no time?  

Well if you do, then Brajkishore blind has two offerings that will pique your interest to rush down and enter the world of Kromaster. 

The world of Krosmaster is a fantasy world filled with magic, powerful but CUTE AS PIKACHU IN A HELLO KITTY ONESIE characters, creatures and demons fighting to assert that they are the very best, like no one ever was. And in today's article, not just in the art of combat but sports too!

First of these offerings is the 2-4 player Krosmaster Arena 2.0, which is the updated and new version of Krosmaster Arena released in 2012 and although the game has been updated, all the characters in the earlier edition are compatible with the 2.0 version and vice versa.

That being said if you have not played Krosmaster, the 2.0 version has an excellent tutorial system that will teach you the game step by step and on top of which help you to learn to play each character in 7 easy tutorials. Even then, the game is actually very simple. In summary, each of your characters have a certain amount of action points you can spend to move, attack and do other misc actions such as claiming rewards, etc. 

The action point system gives the game a depth of strategy and tactics yet there is also tension from the combat and some magical abilities that uses the wonderful custom dice provided in the game which shows hits, defence, lock and dodge symbols.  

Lastly, no game will be the same, especially if you have more characters which you can get from the second game we will be talking about below or the older Krosmaster sets and expansions. This is because you can draft or point buy your team of characters to mix and match abilities that will help you to gain victory in a myriad of dice rolling, action planning fun, all in your own style!

Related: The Theory of the Greater Good in Board Gaming

Next up is the 2 player Boufbowl, which is the rugby/soccer like sport in the world of Krosmaster. Unlike Krosmater this game is a race to score 2 goals before the other player. 

Like Krosmaster Arena 2.0, all the characters in Boufbowl have cards that makes them compatible with Krosmaster and vice versa. The game is also simple to play and easy to learn with a quick play beginner mode which after you can upgrade your play experience to with the "Expert Mode". 

Play wise, Boufbowl plays even more simply than Krosmaster  2.0. You have 3 actions per team, which can be used to move, pass, tackle and other abilities, that can be enhanced by spending action cards that match the action your activated character is doing. And yes, tackles are done via dice rolls, so again tension abounds like in a real sports match!

Once you are comfortable with the game, you can then proceed to the expert mode that introduces coaches and the crowd watching the game!

The coaches provides each team with a character that can help the team to play better. This is done by discarding cards to the coach board but unlike the above can be any card from your hand. 

The other addition are the crowds which are cards you can buy that again supplement or improve your abilities but might be cheaper if you choose a player of a certain type such as runners. 

So that is a summary of the Krosmaster world games coming to our shores. If you have any interest in the above games or any other item from our catalogue, do feel free to contact us at brajkishoreblind.com! 

E: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.

Lying is bad, right? So what if everybody knows you won't lie and you are asked in a game of Battlestar Galactica what is your role card by a particularly competitive player? This is important, as Battlestar Galactica is a game whose fun factor is built upon the suspicion of your fellow players and trying to figure out who is or is not a Cylon. 

Thus by revealing what your hidden role is you are just spoiling everybody's enjoyment of the game.

You then proceed to tell him, yes, you are a Cylon to the groans of your fellow players.

You have done nothing wrong. Why?

This is the theory behind the Categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant, which we will be exploring today. Firstly, the 3 formulations of the Categorical Imperative.  

Also Read: The Theory of the Greater Good in Board Gaming

Formula of Universality and the Law of Nature

This formula is the idea that there are ideas that are inherently right. For example, Kant lists murder, theft, lying, etc. and he supports it in said way. He proposes that if you were to remove these acts from any specific situation or person, the act in itself is wrong and there is no getting around it.

For example, it is akin to most board gamers extreme dislike of cheaters in games. It is wrong to cheat so you can't give the cheater a pass even if he did it with good intentions, as the act you are condoning is still immoral and you are just using an excuse to hide the fact that you did not have the moral fortitude to do the right thing. 

Formula of  Humanity 

I will let Kant speak for himself first on this point:

"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end."

Basically, treat another being as an end, not a means. For example, if you were playing the extremely anticipated Pandemic Legacy Season 2 and wanted to rush through the game just so you can tell everyone you finished the game first at the cost of the enjoyment of all the other players in the campaign, then you are using them as a means to your end.

This basic tenet of a universal truth is unto others as you would have them do to you. Thus just like how you would want others to respect your being, you should do the same for others too.

Formula of Autonomy 

For something to be a moral Universal Truth, it has to be made with the right intentions and reasons. On top of that, the Universal Truth comes from our ability to make meaningful choices. 

This is because without the ability to make conscious decisions. Then nothing is our fault, so how can anyone be blamed for any action considered moral or immoral. Like you could not claim victory in a cooperative game of Pandemic just because you were in the vicinity when the victory happened without playing the game, can you?

Criticisms

No Philosophy discussion would be complete without a mention of what others think is wrong with said idea and thus here are the major problems people have with the Categorical Imperative.

Consequences don't matter

As the above example at the top of the articles shows, the Categorical Imperative is a rather inflexible system and this inflexibility has led to the philosophy's Achilles's heel.

Simply put, it just does not "feel" right. For what is the use of a moral act if your decision leads to more suffering and because Kant specifically states the consequences don't matter, he can't even use the Utilitarian rationale of an overall benefit in happiness in the long run.   

Biasness of the "Universal Truth"

Although heavily detailed on how a Universal Truth is to be found in his masterpiece the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. There is always doubt on any method that confirms itself as the way to find and prove something as impactful as a Universal Truth that everyone should be emboldened too. 

This doubt stemming in no small reason from the point that Kant, you can argue started with a conclusion first, then worked his theory to fit that conclusion. This is because Kant came up with the Categorical Imperative to reconcile the idea of God with a more modern scientific rationale of morality. Thus, that biasedness might have swayed Kant's arguments more than fairly. 

Is there really autonomy?

Is there free will, that is a question that has been asked since man could think for oneself and although there are good points made on why free will might exist. There are equally good theories of why free will does not exist. Such as Induction theories from the determinist David Hume, which Kantian Philosophers still have not fully addressed. 

A good example of this from the above video shows is that there are even studies that show the temperature of your coffee cup affects whether you will react with more kindness to a stranger or not. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is a reason why Utilitarianism and Kantianism have survived as the premier points of debate of modern morality. Hopefully, with both sides explained in this article series, you will have a better understanding of these Philosophies of Morality and that will spur you to look up both sides in more detail and come up with your own conclusions and maybe even write the next great text of Moral Philosophy. 

E: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.

Board gamers have largely been seen as competitive but it is not that board gamers are not a cooperative bunch, it is just that they did not have the games to prove it in the past. That though has changed with the boom in the popularity of cooperative games that pits all the players against the game, hence the players win or lose as a team together.

The cooperative genre also has an audience that took to the genre like wildfire and that is the family market. Before fully cooperative games were common, when a parent played a board game with a child, they often had to handicap themselves so that the child would have a fighting chance at victory but in a game where all the players are working together, that is not so. This is because the kids can be being guided by the parents and thus the game can still be designed to be challenging for adult players. 

Cooperative games though are not solely for families as even hobby gamers have taken to the genre with gusto. This is well proven by the fact that the current most popular game on Board Game Geek is a cooperative game called Pandemic Legacy. 

The general keys to making a successful cooperative game are first, it has to be challenging enough for your target players but yet not so hard that it feels impossible to get through the game. In fact, other than for kids, it is a general consensus that players should lose a lot more than they win as this creates a sense of accomplishment and the challenge is the thing that keeps them coming back for more. 

Secondly, the game rules should be as simple as possible as the competition is provided by the game mechanics. If the rules are hard to follow, then victory or defeat might feel unsatisfactory just because players forgot to apply step 13 of 15 for example.

Thirdly, this is not a  hard or fast rule but the most popular cooperative games do have a very strong theme to the game. The popularity of escape rooms proving that abundantly well as they are basically massive cooperative board games with the various themes you can choose from.

Related: Board Game Mechanics 101: Social Deduction

 Pandemic

The game by Matt Leacock that is said to have set off the cooperative game boom. Released in 2008, it is still extremely popular and as you can guess is the inspiration mechanics wise for Pandemic Leagacy which we have mentioned above. 

In Pandemic, each player plays an expert in a team of disease fighting specialist who are on a mission to save the world and find the cure for 4 new virulent diseases that could spell doom to mankind. 

Gameplay is simply 4 actions, they are travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station. Cures are found by submitting 5 cards of the same colour at a research station. 

The main "enemy" of the game comes in the form of epidemic cards, which are mixed into the deck of cards which players will be drawing from to refill their personal hand of cards. Whenever an epidemic card is drawn, a city will get infected and the disease will spread all over the board with an escalating effect. 

Keeping with the difficulty factor of cooperative games, there are several ways to lose and only one way to win. The players lose if the player deck runs out of cards before the players cure all 4 diseases, if the outbreak of diseases chart goes pass 7 or if you wish to place disease cubes on the board but can't. All this hard thematic goodness in 45minutes to an hour.

Matt Leacock also made the game very versatile for all levels of players. This is because the difficulty of the game can be tweaked by varying the number of epidemic cards in the game. This move increasing the game's audience to even new gamers and is definitely a plus for families as you kids grow older, you can add more epidemic cards to make the game more challenging. 

Pandemic is literally the first game most gamers would ask you to try if you have expressed any interest in the cooperative genre. The game is enjoyed by the newest of gamers to veterans of the hobby and thus why if you are looking to design a cooperative game, this is an awfully good game to start with.  

Time Stories 

Taking a page from Pandemic and another from the popularity of escape rooms around the world, Time Stories focuses on providing a cooperative experience with an extremely immersive story to go with it.   

In Time Stories, the players play temporal agents or in layman terms, Time Police, who go back in time to solve crimes. You do this by inhabiting the body of people in that period.

Players spend "time" to interact with the world. This is done by picking up a card from a specific deck and reading it to the group. Events vary from you just picking up items, getting into fights or having to solve puzzles. Attribute tests from characters or events in the game are done via rolling custom dice and are affected by items or the statistics of the chosen character the player has chosen to inhabit. 

To get an immersive story, they have tailored the game to have standalone mission expansions with set answers. This reduces the replayability significantly but allows for a more detailed and cohesive story.  

No one knew how the market would react to having a board game you really could only play once but the gamble paid off though and the game was the talk of the board gaming world in 2015 and is currently the 35th most popular game on Board Game Geek. 

Time Stories was unique in how different it was to the traditional cooperative game and shows there is always space to innovate in a design space. You just have to give your idea a try!

Pandemic Legacy

And now that you have read on what is the basics of the cooperative genre and how it can be innovated. Then you can take what is the core of the genre and then add another element to the game. In this case the legacy mechanic.

The legacy mechanic is a system board game designer Rob Daviau created with his game called Risk Legacy. Its premise is that every game counts and what happens in one game is carried over to the next game in a permanent way. Such as entire parts of the board destroyed and marked with stickers for example. 

As the state of the board or characters are changed permanently, there is, even more, gravitas to every decision. Mix this with the solid mechanics of Pandemic and now you have created not just a story but something akin to an Oscar winning epic movie series for the players. A combo that is so successful that it has catapulted the game to become the number 1 ranked game in just about a year from its release.  

Do note though that Legacy games are one of the hardest to design for due to the massive playtesting that is needed to fix any bugs or dead ends that might occur from the player's various decisions in the game. 

In conclusion, the cooperative genre has several pluses going for it. There are firstly way less cooperative games out there than compared to its competitive counterpart and the market for the genre seems to be growing very strongly. Also, the family market has always been a staple of board gaming and like I said before, they do take to cooperative games most well. So put your mind to it and make the world a better place by getting people to work together. 

E: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.

As you can see from the picture above, today's feature does not take himself all too seriously. That being said, he is no slouch when it comes to games of strategy too. Often seen at meetups playing all kind of games, Titus is always welcoming to new players and to extend a helping hand to teach games too. 

He is also known for his mantra of "Going Ham", which comes from an internet meme and stand for going all out. 

This amazing package of a board gamer coming from a person who only started to seriously take up the tabletop hobby a year ago in 2016. 

Titus started board gaming when he decided he wanted to move away from video gaming and noticed that his sister had a hobby he would not mind trying out. His sister is an avid board gamer and part of the SMU Boardgaming club called Strategica. 

After which, he was hooked and from there he would join his sister at her board gaming meetups and the rest is a history of more than a few board games played with fun, laughter and joy.

Related: Boardgamers of Finland #6: Manyata Lal (The Cardboard Assassin)

Titus's recommended game of the day is The Little Prince: Make Me A Planet. The game is based on the world famous comic also called "The Little Prince."

Each round, the starting player chooses tiles up to the number of players in the game from four stacks of tiles. The lead player then chooses a tile and gives it to another player. The receiving player then builds their planet and gives another player a tile. The last player to take a tile becomes the start player for the next round.

At the end of the game, players will score based on what is on their planet but the person with the most volcanoes loses as many points as the number of volcanoes on their planet. The player with the highest score wins.  

Titus likes The Little Prince as it is a small package that provides a lot of fun. Also, the game has simple rules but is very tactical. There is also an element of negotiation in the game which is a mechanic that Titus likes a lot. 

The Little Prince though is not without a chip on its shoulder as there is a possibility of king-making in the game. King-making being when a player who can't win the game themselves basically chooses who will win the game based on whatever action they choose to do. 

The Little Prince mirrors Titus quite a bit as he also breaks expectations of what you would expect from him when you first meet him. So go get that rocket and fly off to space and beyond to make your own planet with The Little Prince. 

E: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.

The board gaming hobby is growing in Finland and often times it is the games that take center stage in the news but ask almost any board gamer and more often than not, the highlight of the hobby is the face to face interaction one has with others.

That is why we are starting a series on the people who play games in Finland. We hope that through this series, we can showcase the many real faces of board gaming and the many different types of games they play.

To begin this inaugural showcase we have chosen Dion Garner, a retired aerospace engineer who till recently has lived in Finland since the early 2000's and to call him a board game enthusiast would be an understatement.

This is because among other things he has been a featured gamer as the Geek of the Week #421 on the most popular board gaming website in the world, Board Game Geek, currently owns 843 board games and has played 1618 different games since he started logging his play sessions around the year of 2007 on Board Game Geek. On top of that, he still games many days a week, attends as many board game conventions as he can and games in as many countries as he can whenever he travels East back to Finland. 

Even though his geek credibility is well established, that is not what truly makes Dion stand out. It is his friendly and accepting nature to all kinds of gamers of any level and his willingness to spread the hobby even at his own cost. For example, his ex-home in Villa Marina in Finland was a center for weekly gaming for groups that can rival many meetups, numbers reaching upwards of 30 plus attendees in some cases. 

In essence, Dion is a true ambassador of the hobby and someone I consider one of my best friends. 

His recommended game of the day is his 2nd most favorite game of all time, Dominant Species by GMT Games for 2 to his recommended 6 players. It is about the ponderous encroachment of an ice age and what that entails for the living creatures trying to adapt to the slowly-changing earth.

Gameplay is done by each of the 6 players choosing a species such as insects, amphibians, mammals, etc, each with their own special abilities. They will then spread out discovering the world and populating it, all the while having to deal with the other species and the ever changing climate of the world. In the end, the person with the most points is crowned the winner. 

The main reasons Dion likes Dominant Species are that it is strategic, each of the species play asymmetrically, the length of the game can be varied by the removal of cards from the event deck and importantly a player losing at the start has a chance to come back and win the game due to good strategy. 

His one downside of the game is that it is a game where the lead scoring player can be ganged up on during the game and thus one has to be prepared for that. 

So if you and your group have the appetite for a meatier game, do give Dominant Species a try. According to Dion, you won't regret it.  

E: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.

(Soured from Fox)

The progression of man is one of ideas built upon ideas and for many a millennia the way it has been done has been the written word. Thus with the fate of mankind so heavily influenced by the written word. We at Brajkishore blind recommend the following word games to make the practice of learning words not only educational but fun too for the whole family. 

Bananagrams is a word game for up to 8 players and thus is great for families and gatherings. Basically it is Scrabble with a speed element but removes the scoring. This is because in Banananagrams, the complexity of your words do not matter. The person who manages to use up all their tiles when the common word pool has less tiles than the amount of players wins.

Gameplay is short and sweet, players each draw the same number of tiles to reveal the lettered sides. Each player then begins arranging the letters to form words, which must be connected in a grid format. When a player uses up all of their tiles, they call out "Peel!," and each player must draw a new tile from the pool of remaining tiles. If during play, a player has a letter or letters that they do not want, then the player can announce "Dump!" and exchange any letter for three tiles from the common pool. The first player to have placed all of his or her tiles into their word grid calls out "Bananas!" and is declared the winner. 

Last Letter is a party game that uses words as a core element that plays from 2-61 players. Although 4-6 or so would probably make for a better game.

Gameplay is simple. Each player gets five cards and then one card is placed in the middle as the discard pile. Then one player calls out a word that is related to the picture on the card. Then as quickly as everybody can, players will simultaneously call out a word that relates in some way to the picture on one of their cards but with the last letter of the word used before on the card in the discard pile. Example, Fudge then Eel. The first to do so correctly and places the new card in the discard pile is able to get rid of the card from their hand. First person to discard all their cards wins.

Zip it is the word game on the go with even its score pad innovatively printed on the carrying case with the zippers used as a marker for the score track.

Gameplay is as follows, each player takes 12 dice and form words on a grid. The first to use all their dice wins. A game of Zip It can be as short as 20 seconds. A game that is portable, takes up little space, is quick to play and allows for wordplay anywhere, anytime.  

Yottsugo is another unique mix of a word game with a puzzle game. Players will work together by first taking a clue card then with small clues given within the clue card, try to figure out the puzzle of how the words are arranged. The arrangement for example can be so the same words apprear on the horizontal and vertical axis.

This is a game that can be played in a very relaxed way like a Sudoku puzzle. It can be left out on the table to be worked on throughout the day or with a timing element if one wishes. 

E: [email protected]

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.