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Let's talk DIGITAL STUFF IN BOARD GAMES

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09 Jun 2017 15:52 #249688 by mads b.
In the What board games have you been playing thread people are discussing games that mix board games with digital content, or maybe even board games that are entirely digital. I thought maybe it should have a seperate thread. And I'll start with what I hate.

I hate when a digital board game hides the nuts and bolts of what makes the games tick. I like board games precisely because I can understand why this unit does that or why doing this might be a better idea than doing that. But it doesn't matter to me if an app can make a shitload of calculations and factor in different stats: if I don't know what's going on, it's just a random roll of the dice that won't get me excited.

I do think, however, that apps can do some good things for board games if used wisely. X-com is a good example and Road to Legend another (I haven't tried MoM 2nd ed). Here the app is essentially an AI in a coop game, and that works for me. And that kind of apps open new possibilities for the game remembering your choices and shaping the story you experience around them. But I'm not sure it's as impressive as when a card board game such as Pandemic Legacy does it. Maybe because there it feels like the (card board) game does something new, whereas an app driven game would doing the same would - maybe - feel more like half a console or PC game.
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09 Jun 2017 18:03 - 09 Jun 2017 18:09 #249692 by Shellhead
Way back in the late '70s, my family had a boardgame called Stop Thief. It was an interesting deduction game that included a dedicated handheld gizmo. Players each controlled a generic police detective character who has trying to capture a burglar. The game when you activated the handheld device and you would hear breaking glass, the sound of an alarm, and a series of footsteps. It played out sort of like Fury of Dracula (2nd), except that the handheld device had limited AI and ran the thief itself. Each player would start their turn by pressing a button on the device, causing a series of noises to occur, which represented more footsteps, maybe more breaking glass and another alarm, and a taxi or subway car or something like that. Anyway, you tried to use those sound effects to figure out where the burglar was moving, usually by process of elimination.

It was a clever design, and the game used the electronic device effectively for AI, rules enforcement, and turn structure all at once. The only way to do Stop Thief without the device would have been to require a player to control the Burglar and do some kind of secret tracking mechanism like FoD. Unfortunately, our device eventually wore out and the game instantly became an irredeemable shelf toad.

That's a cautionary tale for the possible benefits and disadvantages for a modern or near-future attempt at a boardgame incorporating digital stuff. Except that instead of a dedicated device, a smartphone app could do the heavy lifting, making it less likely that the game will be vulnerable to loss of a device included with the game.

Right now, only a couple of modern games that I know of are incorporating digital stuff to the same degree as that old Stop Thief game. There are other games that may benefit from an optional app (like Silver Tower with the character app), but that's more of a gimmick than an innovation, imo. I expect that somebody will eventually do something amazing with a boardgame that deeply integrates an app, and it will be as big a deal as Dominion for this industry, in terms of both immediate success and longer term influence. I'm not a visionary, so I can't quite picture what that kind of game will be, but my best guess would be some combination of fog of war and good tactical/strategic AI.

And yet, as I mentioned in the other thread, there remains a certain tactile appeal to games in their current form. Many of us enjoy holding a hand of cards, rolling dice, or even spinning a spinner. In economic games like Acquire, there is a certain satisfaction in stacking up game currency. And then there is the whole phenomenon of painted miniatures. People spend tremendous time and effort assembling and painting their miniatures, and the results can really take a game over the top in terms of presentation, nailing the theme on a more visceral level. Maybe some future tech will allow us to do something similar with customized hologram figures (picture the chess scene in the original Star Wars), but I doubt it would evoke the same level of pride in the owner.
Last edit: 09 Jun 2017 18:09 by Shellhead.
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09 Jun 2017 18:13 #249697 by Shellhead
Wow, it turns out that Stop Thief was a great example. Rob Daviau helped design a new edition of Stop Thief that was published this year, and it incorporates an app instead of the old electronic device.
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09 Jun 2017 19:38 #249699 by Frohike
Lazy self-quote. Source: boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/52932/pull-chair

I greatly enjoy how board games make us actively model and inhabit their systems, and I think this still distinguishes them from other forms of gaming, especially video games, which can be (and have to be) much more selective about how much of their models and inner workings are exposed to the players.

But why do some of us prefer this transparency?

It seems restrictive from a design standpoint when compared to video games, doesn't it? Why not unchain the players from enacting everything in the game and allow some black boxes to crunch away at AI or unpredictability engines that dice can't manage? I already can see that formal tether being stretched with apps and I think we're lucky that, so far, these seem to have been used with skill and restraint.

I prefer transparency because I think it has provided a very effective formal framework around analog games in that the designs that have come out of it, or a least the ones that become the most popular or successful, are the ones that provide the best experiential "payoff" in proportion to the amount of work/play it may take to enact the analogy.

When players have to do all of the work/play of realizing the game, more of that "work" has to become interesting and engaging, either through interaction with the other players or by providing satisfying narratives or connections to what the game is portraying on the thematic side.

Designers implicitly try to optimize this balance and make our enactment of the game satisfying. They want all of the knobs, switches, and levers in their contraption to be as fascinating and toy-like as possible and preferably for them to effect important parts of the game state.

When that balance is off, when the enacting work becomes un-fun or perceived as unnecessary, the "fiddly" word comes out and designers try to avoid this. "Fiddliness" indicates a part of our gamer jargon that is aware of that blind spot that can form in a game design when it becomes a little to fascinated with itself and loses sight of what the player is willing to manage.

So, locking up all that fiddly stuff in a computer program should take care of it, right?

I'm not so sure. As these apps become cheaper to produce and more common, I'm concerned that they may lead toward a certain lack of design editing and simply more blind spots, for which we'll just find more pejoratives to use in our board gamer jargon.

How about "grindy?" That word is nearly specific to video games for a reason. Offloading the simulation and realization of the game to rendering systems and AI while honing and limiting player agency can lead to an occasional loss of awareness of what the player is actually getting out of the experience beyond a Pavlovian reward loop. Would this become a risk if more and more aspects of a board game design are rendered through non-player systems?

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10 Jun 2017 08:30 #249706 by wadenels
I like:
* Not needing batteries/power.
* Not worrying about compatibility, updates, or content changes.
* Not worrying about obsolescence.
* Not having to wonder if an app is "playing fair"
Etc.

I have one game right now that requires an app: One Night Alien. It uses the app well, in fact all the One Night games do. But this is the first one that requires it. When I don't have my phone on me or if I have it powered down to save battery (camping!) I cannot play One Night Alien. That bothers me.

I've seen arguments that apps and digital content will always be available even if platforms change because of emulation or some other thing. I've been following the emulation scene for a long time. Sometimes emulation for a platform is available even while the platform is still alive. Other times there's years between. And I'd rather not have to worry about it for a board game, when there are so many good games that are predicament-proof in that department.

Board games on digital devices such as Catan an Android are really cool. Because they're a self-contained thing. If for some reason Catan on Android becomes unplayable years from now I don't also have a big box of paper and cardboard I can't use anymore. I can treat Catan on Android as the digital purchase that it is, and not as critical component to a non-digital product.

However I'm totally on board for apps and digital content for board games if there is also an analog alternative. What really concerns me is when an alternative could have be provided but isn't because "there's an app!" One Night Alien absolutely could have come with couple small card decks to replace what the app provides, and I'd be surprised if it wasn't playtested that way. But it didn't. And that bothers me too.

I saw a YouTube video for VR Werewolf. That's a much more interesting direction for meshing digital and analog games than this weird hybrid app thing some publishers are doing.
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12 Jun 2017 04:40 #249730 by Matt Thrower
On the whole, I think it's a positive step. So long as it doesn't come to dominate design, which it won't.

As far as transparency goes: sure, I get why transparency is key to the pleasures of gaming. But I've played a lot of app driven games and I'm struggling to think of even one that hides stuff in any more egregious fashion than drawing unknown cards from a deck or hidden tokens from a bag. Designers get what makes board games fun. They're not going to ruin it with too much digital fluff. And sometimes a little less transparency can be fun, surprising the players with new things they have to learn to deal with in the game, so long as it's not overdone.

I'd make a similar argument about the physicality of games. Using an app does not preclude their being a board, or miniatures. I don't buy the idea that not having a device or a charged battery is a barrier: who, nowadays, in the Western world doesn't have a smartphone and an assortment of charging cables? You can even borrow the latter easily in most bars and cafes. In the long term - like, a decade or more - I can see reliance on devices becoming a problem as hardware and operating systems change. But how many games, really, last longer than that in terms of regular play?

Using an app might preclude your game from the all-time hall of fame. But it opens up so many new avenues of creativity that I'd hate to see it stifled by naysaying.
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