TBM: Ep 11 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Perception

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at some of the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about developing perception.

I remember taking my husband to an olive oil and vinegar store when we were dating, If you’ve never been inside one, these types of stores have metal dispensers where you can try different types of oil, some infused with different flavors, some just different types of olive. Plain olive oil can have pretty nuanced flavor differences across olive varieties. My husband could differentiate between infused flavors but could only tell the difference between the most opposite styles of plain olive oil: the more peppery flavored oil and the grassy vegetal flavored oil. If you’re wondering, I thought they all tasted different. 

One thing I’ve learned when reading about food and wine specifically is that a while your senses cannot improve from their base line, your perception of them can. Basically, your brain can get better at interpreting the signals. The fact is that we cannot improve our taste buds, but we can improve our perception of taste by improving our attention to what we are tasting.

On the YouTube channel, How to Drink, the host Greg has mentioned the method he used to get better at describing tasting notes of cocktails. Greg’s method was to listen to classical music. He would listen to a piece and focus on a single instrument throughout the piece. In doing so, he trained his brain to notice individual elements among a whole. And yes, his ability to identify flavors improved. My husband has been developing his perception of taste through learning to cook over the past decade, so I should probably take him back to an olive oil store to see how he’s improved.

Perception is an important skill for game designers, but instead of flavor what we need to perceive is the emotions in our players. Most people have a difficult time articulating why they like or dislike a game, especially if the game in question is made up of a lot of elements. As designers, we often have to interpret if what a player dislikes is a mechanic, the difficulty level, the rules overhead, or any number of other things. We need to be able to interpret the player’s reaction with more nuance than the player can. 

There are a number of ways to develop this skill. There’s an entire industry of advice online around building emotional intelligence or interpreting body language. I think a more targeted approach for game designers is to regularly host a game night. Select and teach games you already know how to play. If you already know the game and ARE NOT TESTING IT, you will have more attention for the other players. 

Play or observe with a goal of perceiving the reaction of the other players. Discover if your games fall outside someone’s comfort zone. Some people simply will not play a game involving lying, which I have discovered while trying to introduce friends to Sheriff of Nottingham. Other people will be bad at math-y games or spatial puzzle games. But some people will love games for those exact traits. 

Discovering all the ways players can like or dislike a published game will expand your internal encyclopedia of player reactions. You will be better able to ask questions of those who don’t know why a game left them unsatisfied. You can also watch live plays online to observe player reactions. For awhile, I took up the hobby of watching people play Untitled Goose Game, a relatively short puzzle-y video game. It was remarkable how differently various streamers approached and solved each level. I didn’t even know it was possible to go over the garden wall until I saw someone do it. 

And yet, it was equally remarkable how many of the player reactions were the same from game to game. Put a bow on your goose and every player suddenly exclaims “I’m a fancy goose!”  I find that while play testing my games, players do tend to all have different issues with what they don’t like but sometimes you will stumble across something that just resonates with nearly all of your players. Try to lean into those elements. 

When I started drinking wine in my mid twenties, I didn’t know the full scope of what wine could taste like. Is this wine sweet or fruity? Compared to what? The more different wines I tried, the better I could contextualize the flavor of an individual wine. My perception of wine’s taste expanded as my experience with wine grew. But that experience only grew because of my focus on flavor while drinking. By focusing on player experience while playing games, you will develop a better sense for how players react to games and can more easily identify those nuances when play testing your own games. 

So, play games with lots of people. And if you want, listen to classical music and go olive oil tasting. For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 10 EXTRAS

The fine arts educational tradition I hale from essentially states "There is no time to explain the origin of why something is true. You must simply learn the rules quickly so you can get to work implementing and/or breaking them." All of which to say, if somebody else wrote a book about something that I want to riff on, I'm not gonna spend a lot of time restating their points when you can just go read their book. That said, goal gradient effect is very important and under-discussed. 

One way you can view my posts and segments is "What is one thing Sarah thinks designers don't consider enough in their designs/design philosophy?" A big one I've been exploring throughout my deep dive into design theory is player investment. Not as consumers of products, but as participatory audience members to experiences. And when I first started writing, the aspect of player investment most ignored, at least as far as in depth discussion, was theme. 

I think it bears repeating: goals and obstacles, in addition to being where the game is found are also where the emotion is found. I should probably unpack this idea more at some point. 

TBM: Ep 10 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Win Conditions

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at some of the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about thematic win conditions. 

I have long advocated for the win condition of a game to align with the theme. This is one of the strongest ways to integrate the theme and mechanics. When the win condition makes sense thematically, the players have a sense of why they want to win. This helps the players remember the rules around winning but also invests the players in the theme. I believe that thematic win conditions are the best way to create player investment into theme. 

When we sit down to play a game, we become invested in the outcome. C. Thi Nguyen describes this phenomenon in his book Games: Agency as Art as players adopting disposable ends or temporary agencies that we then abandon after the game is over. For the span of gameplay we care, sometimes deeply, about who is generating the most resources or occupying the most territory in a curated cardboard experience. Once the game is over, we return to our normal priorities and values. 

This striving to win lasts the entire game. Players may be invested in other goals than winning, but those are typically less enduring or reliable. For example, the endowment effect, which creates loss aversion, typically gets weaker as players approach the end of a game. At a certain point, a player’s desire to win overtakes other motivations. This shift in motivation is referred to as the goal gradient effect, which you can explore in more detail in the book Achievement ReLocked. 

Win conditions shape how the game is played, but they do that by shaping what the player becomes invested in. Goals speak to us as humans. As I have stated, players become invested in the goals that surround winning the game. Audiences of all types become invested in character goals, whether in movies, books, games, or other media. Aligning both the mechanical goals and the thematic goals of a game allows for greater thematic investment. 

If the theme has no impact on how players win, they are less likely to care about the theme. The mechanical goals will as a rule take precedent because those goals are active and involve the player. Thematic justification that is disconnected from the win condition is passive and cannot create the same level of investment. 

However, when the goals of gameplay align with the goals of the theme, players can translate the emotions of gameplay into the imagined world of the theme. A critical hit becomes an exciting moment for both the player and the character. 

It is impossible to over stress the importance of goals when it comes to crafting an experience. People tend not to respond well to being told how to feel. Goals create desires and how near or far a character is from a goal can inspire corresponding emotions. The cliche phrase in acting is “what’s my motivation?” Actors are not trained to merely express one emotion after another. Rather, they are trained to look at the goal of a scene then attempt to overcome their character’s obstacles in pursuit of that goal. The emotions come from the obstacles and desires related to the goal. 

Likewise, players are presented with goals and obstacles that create the emotional experience of the game. If the theme has corresponding goals and obstacles, then players will transfer some of their investment in the game to the world of the theme. At times, this investment can arise to something similar to an acting exercise. Sheriff of Nottingham instructs players to essentially improvise dialogue between two characters with opposing goals: the sheriff and the  merchant. 

Not every game needs elements of roleplaying in order to create thematic investment. As long as the player goals align with the character goals, players will be invested in the theme—provided the other thematic trappings attempt make a similar amount of sense. Thematic investment is additive to the overall game experience. It adds to the reasons someone will become a fan of the game. Greater player investment in a game is the ultimate goal. 

Thematic win conditions are only one part of creating player investment in the theme. In recent episodes, I’ve mentioned gates and loss aversion. Intrinsic motivation and agency can also be leveraged thematically. And, yes, content such as missions in campaign games also leads to thematic investment. However, the foundation of theme should be goals, with the overall goal aligning with the win condition. So, if you are looking at the theme of your game, your first question should be “who are the characters and what do they want?”

For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 9 EXTRAS

I'm a little obsessed with taking "feels bad" moments in board games and giving them thematic justification in order to expand the emotion palette designers have access to. I really latched on to the idea when I read Achievement Relocked, but I think we should be looking beyond just loss aversion. However, since that book is the only show in town for this type of topic, I reference it a lot. 

I own Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, but it's still in shrink. I'm beginning to worry about sticker integrity, tbh. 

If you don't like a paragraph of bullet points with no elaboration, I'm not sure how you can stand to listen to TBM. Although, I think I get better after the first dozen episodes. 

I haven't played Portal or Death Stranding, but I have watched my husband play. 

Not sure my point about Death Stranding comes thru without completely describing the whole plot. If you speed run this moment, you can barely tell the difference between the cut scenes and the player controlled parts, because the entire location is a gate with only one action you can take in order to advance. And it is the most extreme example of thematic loss you could possibly have in a game. My husband did not want to advance from this scene. I just wish the game had made the brave action the gate (instead of the immediately following cut scene) rather than the "following orders" action. 

There's another major gate in Portal and Death Stranding, both near the end of gameplay. Each one demands players take the correct action before the game progresses, resetting after every incorrect action. The pay off of these gates is frankly better than the earlier loss gates. But they aren't loss gates, so I left them out of the discussion, especially since that sort of reveal gate is easier to pull of in video games. 

I know Death Stranding is apocalyptic magi-science fiction, but with a very few thematic tweaks it could have been a really great cyberpunk setting. I'm not a fan of what I've seen of the gameplay in Cyberpunk 2077. I would prefer cyberpunk that is a little less GTA. 

TBM: Ep 9 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Loss Gates

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at some of the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about a specific time when restricting player agency leads to interesting game experiences. This is a continuation of the last episode, where I introduced the idea of gates, which are times in games where players are forced to act without choice. 

There is another type of gate that interests me. When gates are used to make players face loss aversion in a thematic way. This type of gate forces players to confront loss. Perhaps the most well known example of this is in the video game Portal. Players are given a weighted companion cube and told to take care of it, only to be told to incinerate it at the end of the level. The emotional attachment comes from loss aversion via the endowment effect but the moment is a gate in the game because you cannot advance until you surrender the cube. In this way, the game forces the emotional moment on the players. You can read more about loss aversion in general and this example specifically in Geoff Engelstein’s book, Achievement ReLocked.

The most famous example of this sort of gate in board games occurs in Pandemic Legacy Season 1, where the forced loss has a mechanical impact on the game. Asking players to give up something that is both emotional and has mechanical utility is a risky design choice, especially in a board game. If a player plays the game more than once or knows about the moment ahead of time, the player will not experience the same emotional impact and may take steps to mitigate the mechanical impact. Players may also feel that the moment of emotion is unearned due to the lack of choice. This type of gate requires careful playtesting to ensure that it fits with the overall game experience. 

I have a few additional observations about this type of gate. Repeating the loss will dilute the emotional impact and could increase player frustration due to lack of player control of game progression. Adding some agency around when the loss occurs can also dilute the emotional impact but will likely decrease player frustration. Recall that forced-actions are a type of gate defined by actions that lack choice but nevertheless have some agency around when they occur. Players that feel they have agency to mitigate or control loss will be less frustrated but as a result will feel the loss less acutely. Additionally, as players near the end game, they may also feel the loss less as the desire to win overtakes loss aversion. 

Lastly, loss aversion gates must result in real loss to be at all impactful. There is a moment in the video game Death Stranding where players are asked to perform an action similar to the incineration of the companion cube in Portal except the stakes are much higher. Like in Portal, players cannot progress until the action is performed. However, performing the action does not result in real loss. While this is for the best in the overall story of the game, the moment of the gate itself feels cheap, similar to a jump scare early in a horror movie. Players are left to wonder why the moment exists at all if the decision to proceed through the gate does not have the consequence that was promised. 

The game could have made the gate hinge around the decision the character ultimately makes, but which is instead relegated to a cut scene. Instead the action the player takes is not the action the character takes, which results in the player feeling as though the game developers are toying with the player’s emotions for no reason. If the gate required the player to make the same action as the character, the emotion would not be as strong in the moment, but players would feel less cheated afterward. 

Moments of non-choice are useful design tools to propel a game forward. They can provide surprises, strategy frameworks, temporary goals, and memorable moments. Gates can also be  emotional tools when used well. Carefully curated moments of forced loss can elevate a game thematically and emotionally. All gates are tricky design choices, but especially gates that evoke loss aversion, so proceed with caution. 

For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 8 EXTRAS

I definitely think that "uninteresting" choices are worthy of a deep dive of their own. 

This is the first episode that would have been a blog post except I had stopped blogging at this point. Lucky for you, because podcast episodes have a higher word count than my typical posts. 

Can we all just agree when I say things like "3 common types of gate" that I am using shorthand to say, "hey here's something interesting that I have noticed and am trying to describe" rather than assuming I think I have discovered a law of design. (Still working through my feelings about that one book review, clearly.) 

Obviously, the term "gated" is used in video game design. It's possible other board game design writers have used the term before. My memory is crap and I'm doing my best, but if I ever fail when it comes to proper attribution please let me know. 

I do think this is an important part of the anatomy of a game. I probably would have included gates in my book if it hadn't been already out when I wrote this episode. 

TBM: Ep 8 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Gates

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at some of the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about times when restricting player agency leads to interesting game experiences. 

If you’re listening to this, you have likely heard that games should present interesting choices to players. Interesting choices must be impactful to gameplay. Too many choices at once can lead to player confusion and too few choices can lead to player frustration. Interesting choices allow players to have a grasp on the impact of their choices, giving direction to gameplay. 

Every game usually has some uninteresting choices. Choosing a player color is one of the most common. It is a necessary choice, but has no impact on the outcome of the game. Every game usually has instances of non-choice as well. If the decision space shrinks over the course of the game, players may have only one option left by their last turn, such as in a trick taking game when players play the last card in their hand. This type of non-choice is still interesting because every choice in the game led to this last moment of reveal. 

I refer to mechanical instances of non-choice as gates. Gates are moments in a game that players must pass through in order to progress, but the gate itself is fairly scripted. Importantly, gates must involve player action, even though the action is a non-choice. Pauses to read lore in a campaign game do not count, although certain actions during recovery phases (such as resting in a town) might. Three common types of gates are forced actions, objectives, and events. 

Forced actions are actions players must take in order to progress. Hand management games usually include forced actions such as discarding or using a turn to pick up used cards. Time tracks and roundels often make use of forced actions. For instance, Tokaido gives players choices of which locations to visit, with the exception of the inns which are required locations. The inns in Tokaido are gates that players must pass through to progress in the game. 

Objectives can behave similarly to forced actions. Not all objectives are gates, but when players have to achieve objectives in a certain order to be able to progress the objective becomes a gate. Reaching objectives may unlock rewards that players need to succeed. When objectives become required goals they typically also become gates. 

Tech trees are a combination of objectives and forced actions in which players must progress in a certain way to reach a given ability. Each step in a tech tree could be an objective that provides a reward, but is also a required action in order to reach a further step. Tech trees combine player choices and gates because players may follow more than one gated path through the game. 

Events are the most scripted type of gate. Forced actions and objectives leave room for the player to perform them at variable times. Events involve the least amount of player agency because the timing is not up to the players. Events usually occur at set times throughout play. Events usually provoke forced actions for the players. If the events are set and public, players can plan around them, but if they are random or secret players will not be able to strategize as well. 

Because random events involve the least amount of player agency, many designers recommend avoiding including them in games. However, if the random events provide benefits for players more often than not and if negative events are not overly punishing, random events can inject variability between rounds of play. Since Quacks of Quedlinburg is already a high randomness game, the fortuneteller cards help each round of the game feel slightly different. Crucially, the random events often provide players with temporary agency, such as being able to go further without busting or to restart after an initial bad pull from the bag.  

Gates serve a number of purposes. They can help guide players through the content of the game. They can curate the intended play experience. They can point to various strategies that player might employ. Gates often signpost progression of play; because gates are required actions players can gauge progress by passing through them. Gates can also reinforce theme. Anchoring moments of non-choice in the theme justifies the action mechanically while also ensuring certain thematic moments occur during play, such as dining at inns in Tokaido.  

There are other ways gates can be used thematically, which I will explore in a future episode. For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.