1. Slide Quest
From a design perspective, this is probably one of the most unique games out there. How do you translate a Mario Player Character experience with levels in a board game form? Blue Orange managed to create Slide Quest, a dexterity game with levels that increases the thrill of the game while making it not just a solitary but also a co-op game. It uses a simple but ingenious paddle-like contraption that gives this dexterity game its essence. Just put the paddles and level sheet on and go!
I actually played this with friends when it was near its final production phase and was amazed at how well the paddles worked. You truly feel you are in control of the knight and if you lose, you feel it is your skill and cooperation that failed and not the design. Also, the cooperative 4 player experience of each person controlling one side is the hardest but most rewarding too.
2. First Contact
First Contact is to me most likely inspired by the movie, Arrival, where a linguist is trying to decipher the language and communicate with aliens who have come to earth. And again taking this idea to a party game would seem a folly but again, it was another unique and fun experience.
In First Contact, 1-3 Aliens try to tell the human players what they want as offerings but the two species have to figure out what the other is trying to say via words in their language. This is done by the humans pointing to items on a shared group of cards and the aliens writing in their language (Randomly chosen before the game box) what it means to them. Then when this is done, the aliens will write a sentence in their alien language and the humans have to give one item they hope the aliens want.
I played this with both a linguist and other party gamers and all agree that this is probably for party goers who are more cerebral as unlike some other party games, there is little chance of a person winning this without putting thought in the game.
3. Obscurio
An obvious Harry Potter inspired themed game that transports you as students of a Wizarding school who are trapped in the library and the only person that can help you get out has been turned into a book called the grimoire. Every turn players have to use the 2 clues given by the grimoire from pictures it shares to find the right picture ("book in the theme") to advance and escape. But within the student's midst is a traitor wanting to thwart the good student's efforts.
Mysterium is a similar and popular game but it has never resonated with me as it is so abstract that no one I know has ever won the game. But in Obscrurio, published by Libellud takes that same idea, but does it better and more importantly faster.
Also Read: 5 Games about Asia by Asians by Daryl Chow of Origame
4. Pax Pamir
Pax Pamir takes the Pax series and finally makes it accessible to most players even outside the wargaming circle. The game is less than 2hrs and sees players choosing to back the British, Afghans or Russians in their bid to control Afganistan during the colonial period. This is done by spending money to influence nobles, build roads, forts, and armies. Choosing to back the right side gains you victory points on a scoring round and thus negotiations and switching sides are all part of the game.
Historical wargames have a consistent base but a niche crowd from game to game. That coupled with their usual many rules and long playtime usually detracts them from a wider audience but Pax Pamir fixes that and still has a strong theme to the period.
5. Wingspan
The best selling board game of 2019 on many websites is Wingspan. A card-based board game that has the theme of you owning an aviary and populating it with birds of all species. Each bird card having its own powers and the spots it occupies giving you actions during the game.
Having played the game more than a few times, I totally understand why the game has sold so well. It has strategy, beautiful art and facts about the birds you can learn if you so choose to read the cards. It does not introduce anything new mechanically but works very well as a whole indeed.
6. UBOOT: The Board Game
The world of app-driven board games is becoming more and more common and their interactions more involved. This is where UBOOT sits with its app-driven board game. Each player takes control of a role such as captain or engineer and in real-time they are solving events and missions from the app to win the game. Work well together and survive or, perish into the depths of the Ocean.
With well-regarded reviews and great production, the app adversed are the only ones who might have a hurdle to try this game. Well that and the high price to get it in Finland but still I hope to give it a go sometime soon.
7. The King's Dilemma
The so-far universally praised King's Dilemma is a story based legacy game with negotiation based core gameplay. You go through up to 20 plus games of about 40 minutes to an hour and see your noble house trying to gain power within the realm by advising the king as to problems that affect the realm. Such as fixing windmills to invading another country, all the while pushing your agenda which will see you working with and betraying your fellow nobles in due time.
I am usually skeptical about legacy games as the ones I have played have been lackluster story-wise and the gameplay repetitive. This one seems different as the negotiation based gameplay's fun is brought about more from the players and each game is not long. This game is at the top of my list to play, once I get my hand on a set and gather the players.
8. It's a Wonderful World
Card Drafting mixed with resource management that contains a ton of cards, resulting in a different game each time. Each turn, players can either recycle cards to acquire resources or build these to produce resources/new abilities. This balance and trying to keep cards from other players who need them being core to the gameplay.
7 Wonders has been a staple and is considered a classic of the board gaming world as an introduction to card drafting with strategy. Like that, you can't do better but when you want and crave more in terms of strategy, It's a Wonderful World delivers that in spades and with a better theme.
9. Detective: City of Angels
In recent years, thanks to the popularity of escape rooms. Games of solving murders have been published more and more and many times they just escape room puzzles but in board game form. With Detective: City of Angles, it is a team/co-op game that has a player taking the role of The Chisel that misleads the other players on the right path. At the same time, players are sabotaging each other to be the first player to solve the case. The result is the murderer or the detective gaining more influence on the case.
Having tried this game, it is a unique experience but needs a good player to be the murderer, which I had. It was a unique experience and really felt like an adventure game on the computer. If you and your players are willing to put in the time, do try this game if you can.
10. War of Whispers
Game of Thrones literally has created a theme and genre of board games and War of Whispers is a result of that. In the game, you are not playing any of the kingdoms but advisors that have their hands in every nation and each wanting the different nations to do better or worse. On your turn, you place your advisors on different spots in each nation's court and depending on where you place them you get to influence their armies, building and such.
Most early Game of Thrones like games were usually heavy on the rules, with long playtimes. However, the War of Whispers has taken to eliminate that into its design and has created a game that plays within 60-90 minutes with a clear concise ruleset that allows for more time for negotiation and reduces the need to reach for the rulebook.
11. The Quacks of Quedlinburg
There are many simple family games in the market and they are generally luck based mechanic that leaves little fulfillment for both parents and kids. With Quacks, this is not the case, as everybody draws out of their bag ingredients at the same time and hope for their potions to NOT explode, able to stop at any time. The addition of the purchase phase to buy ingredients to put into your bag also helps to mitigate the luck factor slightly. Resulting, the game is quick, fast and satisfying.
Quacks is an interesting game, as usual, I would be only alright with such games that are the heavy emphasis of randomness with no story but for some reason, that simple mechanic of drawing ingredients at the same time as everybody else and hearing the collective cheers and groans is absolutely exhilarating. Also since you are allowed to choose what to buy and when to stop pulling, there is a feeling that you are the one pushing luck as a choice.
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.
]]>So, how did I actually come to get my hands on the pi-top [3] in the first place?
Well, here’s an interesting story, and true by the way. In December last year (2018 at the time of publishing this article), my only laptop, a MacBook Pro had died on me during a time that I can only describe as “incredibly inconvenient”. I mean, because I was on a journey of following my passions & calling in life, in the local Finlandan/Asian context, following your passions usually isn’t the standard path to take. Most folks would get a 9-5 job, with a stable income. But for me, I so happen to share a different path in life from others. I won’t try to get into that right now because I would need a whole series of articles to talk about it! LOL. Point is, I didn’t have the means to get a replacement laptop. Which also means I was stuck!!!
I gotta be honest about how it felt at that point in my life. It was the first time as a nerd, coder, tinkerer, hacker, content creator that I really didn’t have a laptop of my own. I didn’t know what to do. For a moment, I was genuinely lost.
Raspberry Pi, The Tiny and Yet Awesomely Capable Hardware
Then one morning, I remembered that I had a stock of Raspberry Pi 3 Model B hardware stashed up inside a box which I had bought for myself almost a year earlier. In my mind, I was struggling still, trying to decide why I would spend my time using the Raspberry Pi when I should be focusing on trying to source for a replacement laptop.
Then it hit me, I can’t always depend on people, or hope that people would actually be kind enough to sponsor me a new laptop, or that strangers would actually contribute money towards a pool of funds (crowdfunding) so that I can get what I believe I needed. I must depend on myself. And since all I really had was a Raspberry Pi, I decided then that I was going to find a way to make the most of the Raspberry Pi. As a nerd/tinkerer/hacker, I had another perspective – how much can the Raspberry Pi really do? Think of that from a value-based perspective. What would be the potential value of the Raspberry Pi?
In that very moment, I began spending months tinkering and setting up my Raspberry Pi mini-computer (as I like to call it). The proper technical term for a Raspberry Pi, or any kind hardware that shares a similar set of functionalities, is called a single-board computer. Well, let’s just set something straight, I won’t be able to play any serious RPG FPS (First Person Shooter) games on the Raspberry Pi, but that is also not what the hardware is built for. So, this leads me to the first most important question that so many folks within the community has asked me, “What can I do with the Raspberry Pi?”, “What is the Raspberry Pi for?”.
What is the Raspberry Pi for?
When the Raspberry Pi was first launched, the most basic marketing statement was that the Raspberry Pi is a way for anyone to step into the world of computer science in a quick-and-easy fashion. Think of it like a spring-board where you can jump onto and it would propel you onto a much higher platform than if you tried to jump onto it yourself.
For many years, the stereotyped thinking within the general community is that computer science is only something that is available within universities and without the proper lessons, teachers, learning environment and a lab, it would be impossible to pick up what computer science is as a skill. Well, there are so many ways to explain this, so I’m just sharing my own version of it.
Related: Connecting More Than Just Straws
Learning How to Code (Simplified)
But now, thanks to the Raspberry Pi, even children/youths have the ability to start learning about some of the subjects that makes up what computer science is all about. For anyone that is interested in learning programming for example, would find that the Raspberry Pi comes out of the box, capable of handling programming languages like C, C++, Python and Java. But you should also know that beyond those programming languages, you can also do so much more than that (as I have proven over the months & years while hacking and tinkering with the Raspberry Pi).
I think that the most basic programming language to start with on the Raspberry Pi is Python. Yes, you can learn Python programming on many other platforms too. But sometimes, it can cost way more to invest in a full-scale laptop/computer, whereas the Raspberry Pi is only a US$50 piece of hardware. What is even more amazing is that, even with such a cheap tiny device, I was also able to generate more than US$25,000 worth of opportunities out of it alone. So, trust me, this piece of device can do way more than you think.
The last thing I want to say about the Python programming language is the fact that it is the most in-demand coding skill of 2019, and I believe it will stay that way for the next few years. Why? The answer is simple – Python is the single most widely adopted programming framework for trending technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Data Science and more. It is the most basic foundation in those fields of work.
But I Can’t Bring the Raspberry Pi With Me!!!
(Caption: I have to be honest…looking at this photo above really brought back all those memories of the time when I spent my nights and weekends just trying to setup the ideal personalized development environment on the Raspberry Pi. It was also later named as the “Ultimate Hacker’s Edtion”, and earning me the title as a “#RaspberryPiGuru”)
Oh yes, that is probably one of the most frustrating experiences that I had during the months when I had nothing else but the Raspberry Pi to count on. When I was moving around, or when I was at the library, I couldn’t use the Raspberry Pi. Why? Because if you have bought the Raspberry Pi just like the millions of us have done so far, you know that you need to connect it up to a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and you need a power supply adapter. Without those items, you won’t be able to tinker or work on the Raspberry Pi. So, for a few months, I was struggling. I would work in the evenings till 4am in the mornings just so that I can customize and setup the Raspberry Pi to the standard that I required. After a while, I began researching for solutions. I really needed a way to make my Raspberry Pi mobile, and by doing so, I can be more productive.
pi-top: A Company with the Right Philosophy & Values When It Comes to STEAM Education
As a brand influencer for many years working with so many different brands before, one thing I always believe in is that I will never represent or advocate for a brand that I don’t believe in. Why? Because I believe in integrity, and I believe in being a reliable source of information. I believe in being passionate about something that I love. You can’t effectively convince people that something is great (or right for them) unless you know the products well and you are a positive representation of who they are and what they stand for.
After many rejections from another brand, I finally came across pi-top. The brand behind the awesome creation of the pi-top [3], pi-topCEED, and even their upcoming pi-top [4] product which I am very much hoping I be the first to get my hands on. What attracted me to pi-top more than anything else was their philosophy, and how they approach and look at STEAM Education. When I first got in touch with pi-top’s Chief Education & Product Officer, Graham, he sent me a link to download a research report that they have recently published on Constructionism. As a STEAM Education Coach, I have also been emphasising on the key importance of this report to many of the local educators and professional trainers that I have been speaking to. I believe strongly that the contents of this research report constitute a “MUST-READ” for those looking to step into the education industry in any capacity.
Taking Learning Beyond the Classrooms
If there is anything that I value the most about their product design philosophy, it is the fact that it screams, “Use me Anywhere!!” With the pi-top [3], learners/students/makers no longer have to just tinker with their Raspberry Pi only when they are in classrooms, or at homes or at any of the local makerspaces within their cities/communities. With the pi-top [3], they can now take it on the go and start tinkering and working on their projects from anywhere. All they need is a Wi-Fi (that is if they intend to go online).
As a brand advocate (I don’t officially represent pi-top, I think I need to just put this disclaimer here), I see it as a personal mission and desire to talk about the brand and what they provide whenever the opportunity presents itself. Every single time a stranger comes to me to ask me about the pi-top [3], they all seem to share a similar response about the product, “It’s so awesome! Yeah, it really makes so much more sense for me to get this whole set of products rather than just get the Raspberry Pi on its own.” The more people I speak to about the product, the more it starts to form a pattern.
When you look at the Raspberry Pi by itself, you might not be able to see a strong enough reason to get it for your own learning, tinkering or build a mad scientist project with it. But with the pi-top [3], suddenly, a million possibilities will implode on the inside of your mind. From where I stand, it does give people a whole lot more reason to invest not just money into the hardware, but also their time and effort into learning about it and finally, finding ways to make the most of its potential.
What’s Coming Next
I think it is probably just as good a time as any, to share with you that I will be conducting a Raspberry Pi + pi-top [3] workshop later this month on the 18th May at the Digital Wonderland 2019 event, organized by none other than the IMDA. Brajkishore blind will also be having a booth on that day, so be sure to approach any one of the staff available and get a copy of the pi-top magazine (if you’re an educator, or works as a school administrator). And it is free of charge. The recommended pairing would be a parent and a child (if the child happens to be below 12 years of age). Kids above 12 can pair up with other kids during the event, so that is fine. And yes, during the upcoming June holidays, I will also be conducting a full-fledged course on the Raspberry Pi + pi-top [3]. You can find out more details about the courseware (and others) when you come down to our booth later this month!
Make sure to say hi when you see me, and we can grab some selfies together, which I will use for the post-event blog article as well as on my very own social media feeds! And if you have any burning questions related to STEAM Education, we could always grab coffee together outside the event and talk more. Alright, hope you guys have an amazing week ahead! Have lots of fun tinkering!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The last time we talked about worker placement, the bread and butter of many a modern day board game. Today we will talk about the method of play that has even taken the non-gaming crowd by storm, social deduction.
Social deduction is a game mechanism that makes the interaction between the players the clues to try to deduce the goals of the other players.
In the current market, social deduction games are usually played in 30 minutes, with larger groups of 6 or more people and are lighter on rules. The emphasis is focused more on the emotion the game is suppose to bring out, this usually being suspicion.
The Resistance
Resistance is probably the game that set off the social deduction craze in modern times. It is often played by groups of all types and is a good example of a rules light game that emphasises the bluffing aspect.
The game is one of resistance members and government spies. Resistance members need to win 3 out of 5 missions to succeed. Every turn the current “leader” picks a number of people to be in a team to go on a mission. Then a majority vote is conducted on whether to approve the team or not. After which, if the team is allowed to go on the mission, they will each have to give a card that is mixed up. If there are no crosses in the revealed cards, the team succeeds if not the mission is failed.
As you can see, most of the information you get is from the discussion of who to choose to go on a mission and how the person voted. Also when the spies choose to fail missions to prolong the bluff and give fewer clues to the resistance members is also interesting as the spies are always outnumbered.
It is a pure social deduction game and thus why it is a good starting point of reference for budding designers of the genre.
Related: Board Game Mechanics 101: Worker Placement
Coup
The next game is Coup. Coup took the social deduction aspect and made it part of the rules of the game rather than as a facilitator of the game. This is because in Coup there are 6 roles in the game, each with their different powers.
Now instead of the norm, Coup allows you to say you are any role in the game during your turn and if no one challenges you, you are allowed to do the role's action. If you are called out and you were bluffing then you lose 1 of your 2 influence cards but if you were not bluffing, then you would show your matching influence card and still do the action but then they would lose 1 influence card. If you lose both cards then you are out of the game.
Coup plays a lot different than The Resistance as in The Resistance you need to convince a majority which is usually the swing votes in the group. Whilst in Coup, all it takes is one player.
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork
Now if you got a grasp on social deduction, you can now mix it with other mechanics. A great example of this is the use of hidden roles. Hidden roles takes social deduction and adds it into a game with more structure rules.
Ankh-Morpork does this by issuing you a role card that only you would see at the start of the game. The card will tell you what is your role in the game and the only special way you can win before the standard end game and then points are tallied.
Thus as a more tactical game, information is gained more from observing a player's actions during their turn. Such as where he places his worker pieces, who the player is attacking or defending, etc.
Social deduction is probably the cheapest games to design as their tendency to have fewer rules means there is a higher likelihood that the game needs fewer pieces that need to be manufactured in the final package.
So if you want to make a game that is truly for one and all due to its wide appeal, social deduction is probably your best bet but beware as the genre is crowded for the fact it is easier and cheaper to design for.
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.
]]>Welcome class, take your seats and get ready to delve into what could be the base mechanic for your future million dollar award winning board game.
Today we will be focusing on what is arguably the most popular mechanic in the board gaming world today, worker placement.
It is the board game mechanic of taking a marker and placing it on a spot on the board and doing what the space allows a player to do. For example, movement, collecting resources, buying new items, etc. And with some small tweaks to worker placement can come a plethora of game types.
We will be using 3 modern designer board games to show you some of the more popular ways worker placement is being used in today's modern game designs.
STONE AGE
To give a sense of urgency, give each action on the board a limit. Such as the number of players who can use the spot. A good example of this is Stone Age, where there are only 7 spots to be used per round in each of the resource collection actions. This gives the players the decision on whether to go for the short-term gain or risk losing the chance to use the action completely.
Related: Local Designer Series: Christina Ng and Yeo Keng Leong, Designers of Three Kingdom Redux
Manhatten Project: Energy Empire
If not, how about encouraging a calmer but more brain-burning game, that focuses more on resource collection. You can do this by allowing others to use the same spot as a previous player but it will cost them more resources in the game to use the spot again.
Manhatten Project: Energy Empire is a good example of this as you have to pay one more worker than the previous player to use the same action on the board.
Kingsburg
Another way to do worker placement is to incorporate it with another mechanic. In Kingsburg, you first roll your dice, which are your "workers" and then place them on spots that match the numerical value of the characters you wish to influence. This mix of luck and strategy keeps the game unpredictable yet tactical.
Kingsburg also shows that the worker can be anything in the game, not just a meeple or token.
Worker placement is so popular as it allows players to keep track of actions used during the game, while easily relaying information at a glance. If you are designing your first game, this is definitely a good first mechanic to look at. Give it a go towards designing your dream game. I am happy to be of service and if you have any questions feel free to send them to me in the comments or at [email protected].