What Makes a Really Great Game?

Some games are fun. Some games are interesting. Some games are more than that. I tried the other day to explain to an email correspondent why I like games, and I think I had an insight - games are a world in which players can interact in ways that are not permissible in the real world, and a great game is a game that supports richness of that interaction. The game is an abstract lens through which players can see each other as they could be.

What does that mean? Take Carcassonne as an example. It's often the case that I have a tile that could be played to help you or to hinder you. I can choose to be nice or nasty. In the real world, I would choose to be nice. In the game, I can choose to be nasty and you won't resent it in the real world. I can also choose to be distant from you, or in your face. Our relationship in the game may be quite different from our relationship in the real world. The game lets us interact in ways we never would in real life.

I play many abstract games (Gipf series, Gobblet, Quoridor) against by brother-in-law BIL. In those games I often find a particularly cunning move which lets him know that I've seen what he was up to and I've found a foil to it AND I've backstabbed him at the same time. His inevitable comment is "Oh, you bastard!" And he sometimes does the same thing to me. As abstracts are particularly easy to make stupid mistakes in (Gobblet has a rule that if you touch a piece you must play it), we also act much stupider on average in the game than in real life.

In a game you can be aggressive, nasty, annoying, nice, tricky, cunning, aloof, bizarre, and in general behave in ways you can't do in real life. Citadels, which I played again last night, allows for a large range of nasty and tricky behaviour which you wouldn't otherwise get away with. It's a great game, though emotions do tend to seep into real life a little.

I find two player games to be particularly good, probably because each player has more control and can express more of their personality through the flow of the game. Even Scrabble (which must be played two player to be at its best) supports all the things I've mentioned. I've been known to play a fairly poor word down the side of the board mostly with the intention of keeping my opponent away from the Triple Word Score. Nasty, but accepted behaviour. And if my opponent didn't do it to me I'd wonder what she was up to.

The GIPF Project games are great, but I find them a little too abstract to express a great depth of player emotion, which is why I haven't rated any of them a 10 despite having very high regard for them. I think you just need a little more complication, such as you find in Trias or Domaine or Citadels, to be a really great game.

I think I'll eventually explore this idea further. Opinions?

Two New Games that Feel Old

OzGamer came along to BookRealm last night with a box of games, and probably felt a bit like the new dog at the dog park - we all ran up to him and sniffed his... oh hang on, that's a bad analogy. I mean I wanted to play all his games. There were 6 of us, and the best I could offer was Citadels but OzGamer had Fist of Dragonstones which I hadn't played, so we played that first. As it turns out, it plays a lot like Citadels anyway with those annoying auction thingies. Plugh. It took a couple of rounds to know what to expect from the standard characters, and by that time we understood the value of the black coin as well. Then we got serious.

Trevor had managed to score 2 points in the first round (before we figured out why the black coin was vital), so I was way behind. Then coming second in a bid for the thief cost me a stone, and I wasn't looking good at all. I started by setting small goals - get a red stone this round, convert 3 different coloured stones to a point. RealmKeeper liked taking the black coin, and could be trusted to prevent Trevor from winning the game. I went in hard on the character which allows you to buy stones, and got myself a decent stock at the expense of my bank. I was able to get to 2 points, but then had no stones left. With multiple players on 2 points, and several with stones, those of us who couldn't win needed to be on top of our game to prevent anyone else from winning. However we blinked and OzGamer managed to defeat us all.

Next game we played was Lowenherz. I'm a big fan of Domaine, so I was interested in trying it out. Trevor had played Domaine, and OzGamer had played Lowenherz, so only Walter was really new to the game. We used the quick set-up, which felt like cheating, but since so many things were different in this game we at least were granted decent start positions. It's sort of different - the mines work significantly differently, the cities are more valuable - but it's also very much the same. I made a big move towards the end which put me a mile in front, and made me a huge target. So I got shot down. Trevor couldn't catch up so just made life miserable for people (mostly me). I was pinning my hopes on 12 victory points in political cards in my hand, but after being raped pillaged and plundered by Trevor and Walter I could only manage to come equal second with Walter, both of us behind OzGamer.

I didn't really like the auction phase - I don't know how much things are worth, and I can't tell whether I'm making a decent move. In Domaine you just need to assess the risk of someone taking a card you sell and using it against you. I find Domaine less lucky and more analytical, so it's more my style.