Unlike our look at Roam, I am not going to focus on design principles for Quacks of Quedlinburg. Instead, I am going to 'beat out' the game to examine the emotional impact of each action.
When actors beat out a script, they are looking for goals and obstacles. The interaction between goals and obstacles creates emotion. So, instead of trying to describe the emotion of the players, we first must be aware of the goals and obstacles. Let's look at an overview of the set up and first round of the game.
Set up: Recipes are mini goals that if reached might achieve the main goal of winning the game. Variable recipes mean that the game is harder to develop a universal strategy for.
Fortune teller deck: Almost fifty percent of the deck contains effects that are not immediate, but become goals for the next round. The obstacle is that players must meet a certain condition to receive the reward.
Potion phase: The goal is to pull chits out of a bag in a way that scores the most points. One obstacle is that the only way to effect this is by buying chits in the evaluation phase to manage the probability of pulls. Another obstacle is the busting mechanic, making when a player stops pulling from their bag part of the central tension of the game.
Evaluation phase: Players see how well their goals were met and plan for future rounds. The goal is to manage probability and the obstacle is that players are limited to purchasing two chits, of different colors, per round.
Here we see where player actions and decisions come up against the restrictions of the rules. This builds tension and creates a pay off for effort at the end of the round. However, Quacks relies heavily on mechanics that are luck based to the point that player goals don't even come into play. These mechanics also influence the player experience, even though the players have little control over them.
Uncertainty and surprise are built into the fabric of the game from set up. My husband and I have been playing thru the recipe sets, but even though we know we will be playing set 4 next, we don't know what that means strategically and won't until we play it. That variability gives a sense of excitement from before the game starts, as the players learn the version of the game they get to play that play-through. Quacks chooses to spread out when certain recipes are available. The purple and yellow recipes show up just in time to be pleasant surprises of new possible mechanics. A large portion of the mechanics are luck based with the central mechanism being push-your-luck. There are three randomizers in the game: a deck, a die, and bag-building. This high number of randomizers fuels the feeling of uncertainty and lack of control.
The central emotion of Quacks is one of constant expectation of reward. Just reading the recipes allows players to imagine getting the rewards in the near future, which kicks off the game's relentless reward mechanic. The first action that happens after set up is a random bonus to one or more players from the fortune teller deck. This sets the tone of randomized rewards for the rest of the game. The next thing that happens is the potion phase: a series of possible rewards in the form of chits pulled from your bag. Not every chit is a reward, and the reward value varies depending on the order the chits are pulled out. As players come to the end of the potion phase, they begin to calculate the risk to reward chance of pushing further in order to come out ahead of the other players or reach a certain milestone. Importantly, busting does not remove all rewards from the potion phase; it merely limits which rewards you can have. After the potion phase, the lead player gets an additional reward in the form of a die roll. In a more strategic game, it would be ludicrous to give the player doing the best such a strong bonus. Here, the die roll is just one more reward players are competing for. The rest of the round is spent tallying the rewards received and upgrading in the hope of future rewards. Rounds 2 and 3 add diversity to possible rewards with the addition of the yellow and purple recipes.
A simple overview of the gameplay might look like this:
Set up: First, players are uncertain what recipes they will play. Then, players get an overview of future rewards as they learn the recipes they will be using.
Fortune teller deck: Before drawing a card, players anticipate what rewards will be available that round. After drawing, players are either rewarded or have a new goal for the round.
Potion phase: Anticipation builds with each chit pull. Some chit combos create exciting moments of reward. As players come closer to busting, they also push for end of round rewards.
Evaluation phase: Lead player receives a random reward. Players tally rewards and upgrade for the next round.
The rewards come in many different flavors. Victory points are the most straight forward reward and determine the winner of the game. Rubies and coins are rewards that can be turned into upgrades in the form of refilling the flask (an item that allows a do-over in the potion phase), moving the droplet (a direct upgrade to the player board), buying chits (an upgrade to the player's bag), and conversion to victory points. The fortune teller deck and the bonus die both contain a variety of rewards. The powers of the chits determined by the recipe books reward players with additional progress on their player board and occasionally in other ways. Each chit pulled also impacts the chance of busting, so every pull that does not increase that chance feels like a reward.
Rewards are exciting and surprising in Quacks. The uncertainty of the rewards builds excitement for the expectation that players will eventually be rewarded. The frequency of rewards fuels emotional investment in the game mechanics. The unevenness of reward distribution builds tension. The lack of player control and high luck ratio keeps players in the desired emotional state where more strategic choices would actually undermine the emotional content of the game.
The rhythm of the game adds to the overall excitement level and reinforces the the feeling of randomness. For instance, the simultaneous play during the potion phase introduces a level of chaos on top of the push-your-luck mechanism that moves the mechanism away from a feeling of high stakes tension. Instead, players feel swept along in the chaos, only returning to a feeling of tension at the end of the phase as players begin to stop pulling. The complexity and rewards ramp up nicely from round to round as players have more and more possible chits to pull from their bags. My first impression of the game was probably most strongly influenced by the rhythm. To me, Quacks feels like a pebble kicked down a hill that grows into an avalanche, and the players are merely trying to stay out in front of it or get buried. That feeling comes from the uncertainty, lack of total control, and the chaotic, building rhythm of the gameplay.
I should mention that none of this emotional content comes from the theme. The theming is somewhat creative, the art is nice, the layout of the boards is nicer, but nothing about the actions of the game feels like the story paragraph found in the rules. In fact, if the bags were the cauldron and players were randomly ladling potions out that would feel more thematic. In my ideal world, the chits would be 3D bubble-shaped and total potion composition would have an end of round effect. There are implied customers, but we never see them. My point is not that the lack of theme makes the game weaker (that's up to your personal taste), but that this game's emotional content exists in spite of the lack of strong theming. I wouldn't call Quacks an abstract game, although it sort of is. The luck and variable powers in Quacks seem to put it in a different category, even allowing for a broad definition of abstract games. (I don't recognize "pasted-on theme" as a game category, either.) I would describe Quacks as an experience-based game, specifically an emotion-driven game, meaning that the central experience of the game is the emotion(s) players feel while playing. Specifically, the feeling of uncertain reward that steadily but chaotically ramps up throughout the game.
When actors beat out a script, they are looking for goals and obstacles. The interaction between goals and obstacles creates emotion. So, instead of trying to describe the emotion of the players, we first must be aware of the goals and obstacles. Let's look at an overview of the set up and first round of the game.
Set up: Recipes are mini goals that if reached might achieve the main goal of winning the game. Variable recipes mean that the game is harder to develop a universal strategy for.
Fortune teller deck: Almost fifty percent of the deck contains effects that are not immediate, but become goals for the next round. The obstacle is that players must meet a certain condition to receive the reward.
Potion phase: The goal is to pull chits out of a bag in a way that scores the most points. One obstacle is that the only way to effect this is by buying chits in the evaluation phase to manage the probability of pulls. Another obstacle is the busting mechanic, making when a player stops pulling from their bag part of the central tension of the game.
Evaluation phase: Players see how well their goals were met and plan for future rounds. The goal is to manage probability and the obstacle is that players are limited to purchasing two chits, of different colors, per round.
Here we see where player actions and decisions come up against the restrictions of the rules. This builds tension and creates a pay off for effort at the end of the round. However, Quacks relies heavily on mechanics that are luck based to the point that player goals don't even come into play. These mechanics also influence the player experience, even though the players have little control over them.
Uncertainty and surprise are built into the fabric of the game from set up. My husband and I have been playing thru the recipe sets, but even though we know we will be playing set 4 next, we don't know what that means strategically and won't until we play it. That variability gives a sense of excitement from before the game starts, as the players learn the version of the game they get to play that play-through. Quacks chooses to spread out when certain recipes are available. The purple and yellow recipes show up just in time to be pleasant surprises of new possible mechanics. A large portion of the mechanics are luck based with the central mechanism being push-your-luck. There are three randomizers in the game: a deck, a die, and bag-building. This high number of randomizers fuels the feeling of uncertainty and lack of control.
The central emotion of Quacks is one of constant expectation of reward. Just reading the recipes allows players to imagine getting the rewards in the near future, which kicks off the game's relentless reward mechanic. The first action that happens after set up is a random bonus to one or more players from the fortune teller deck. This sets the tone of randomized rewards for the rest of the game. The next thing that happens is the potion phase: a series of possible rewards in the form of chits pulled from your bag. Not every chit is a reward, and the reward value varies depending on the order the chits are pulled out. As players come to the end of the potion phase, they begin to calculate the risk to reward chance of pushing further in order to come out ahead of the other players or reach a certain milestone. Importantly, busting does not remove all rewards from the potion phase; it merely limits which rewards you can have. After the potion phase, the lead player gets an additional reward in the form of a die roll. In a more strategic game, it would be ludicrous to give the player doing the best such a strong bonus. Here, the die roll is just one more reward players are competing for. The rest of the round is spent tallying the rewards received and upgrading in the hope of future rewards. Rounds 2 and 3 add diversity to possible rewards with the addition of the yellow and purple recipes.
A simple overview of the gameplay might look like this:
Set up: First, players are uncertain what recipes they will play. Then, players get an overview of future rewards as they learn the recipes they will be using.
Fortune teller deck: Before drawing a card, players anticipate what rewards will be available that round. After drawing, players are either rewarded or have a new goal for the round.
Potion phase: Anticipation builds with each chit pull. Some chit combos create exciting moments of reward. As players come closer to busting, they also push for end of round rewards.
Evaluation phase: Lead player receives a random reward. Players tally rewards and upgrade for the next round.
The rewards come in many different flavors. Victory points are the most straight forward reward and determine the winner of the game. Rubies and coins are rewards that can be turned into upgrades in the form of refilling the flask (an item that allows a do-over in the potion phase), moving the droplet (a direct upgrade to the player board), buying chits (an upgrade to the player's bag), and conversion to victory points. The fortune teller deck and the bonus die both contain a variety of rewards. The powers of the chits determined by the recipe books reward players with additional progress on their player board and occasionally in other ways. Each chit pulled also impacts the chance of busting, so every pull that does not increase that chance feels like a reward.
Rewards are exciting and surprising in Quacks. The uncertainty of the rewards builds excitement for the expectation that players will eventually be rewarded. The frequency of rewards fuels emotional investment in the game mechanics. The unevenness of reward distribution builds tension. The lack of player control and high luck ratio keeps players in the desired emotional state where more strategic choices would actually undermine the emotional content of the game.
The rhythm of the game adds to the overall excitement level and reinforces the the feeling of randomness. For instance, the simultaneous play during the potion phase introduces a level of chaos on top of the push-your-luck mechanism that moves the mechanism away from a feeling of high stakes tension. Instead, players feel swept along in the chaos, only returning to a feeling of tension at the end of the phase as players begin to stop pulling. The complexity and rewards ramp up nicely from round to round as players have more and more possible chits to pull from their bags. My first impression of the game was probably most strongly influenced by the rhythm. To me, Quacks feels like a pebble kicked down a hill that grows into an avalanche, and the players are merely trying to stay out in front of it or get buried. That feeling comes from the uncertainty, lack of total control, and the chaotic, building rhythm of the gameplay.
I should mention that none of this emotional content comes from the theme. The theming is somewhat creative, the art is nice, the layout of the boards is nicer, but nothing about the actions of the game feels like the story paragraph found in the rules. In fact, if the bags were the cauldron and players were randomly ladling potions out that would feel more thematic. In my ideal world, the chits would be 3D bubble-shaped and total potion composition would have an end of round effect. There are implied customers, but we never see them. My point is not that the lack of theme makes the game weaker (that's up to your personal taste), but that this game's emotional content exists in spite of the lack of strong theming. I wouldn't call Quacks an abstract game, although it sort of is. The luck and variable powers in Quacks seem to put it in a different category, even allowing for a broad definition of abstract games. (I don't recognize "pasted-on theme" as a game category, either.) I would describe Quacks as an experience-based game, specifically an emotion-driven game, meaning that the central experience of the game is the emotion(s) players feel while playing. Specifically, the feeling of uncertain reward that steadily but chaotically ramps up throughout the game.
No comments:
Post a Comment