board game vs. video game design

There are some things that board games do really well, and some things that computer games do really well, just as there are things that books do well and things movies do well. These are all just media; the real test of a particular game is how well it performs within its environment.

Off the top of my head, here are some "core competencies" for the two different media. They are by no means exhaustive, and probably the distinction between "dexterity" is half-baked to say the least:

Board games: simultaneous action, meta-gaming elements like alliances and deals, pretty art, applied dexterity (as in Jenga or tiddly-winks, as opposed to "twitch" dexterity, which is just hand-eye coordination and can be modeled with a mouse/keyboard or gamepad)

Video games: resource management/math, AI (duh), secret or partially-secret information, immersion, highly complex information and/or multiple interlocking parts

Lost Cities, for instance, does very well on Xbox Live because the computer can take care of the sucky part (the complicated math) while leaving the good parts (risk management) untouched. Risk on the PC wasn't a good adaptation because it was basically a straight port of the board game (which was never that good to begin with) with some explosion sounds thrown in and without the best part of Risk (the shifting, backstabbing alliances with fellow human beings). I haven't played Starcraft in either incarnation, but I think I'm familiar enough with both versions (and the fact of their success) to conclude that they take into account their respective media's core competencies.

I was going to say pretty much that, but you said it better. Thanks! The only thing I'd add is that video games have no trouble at all with simultaneous play and real-time elements, whileas it is a rare boardgame that can support these.

As for getting story into boardgames, that's not something I see done well often. Last Night on Earth tries to be a movie, and it does a decent enough job. Starcraft the video game and Starcraft the board game are both good, (I've played WarCraft and other games very much like StarCraft, but not StarCraft itself) but they are nothing like each other. One is real-time, about optimizing a strategy and managing many things at once. The other is turn-based, and it is about thinking well ahead of the current situation and budgeting resources on several different levels. They are quite different in feel, if identical in theme.

Did you play the game Magician?

Appearances can be deceiving, maybe this particular zombie game has something others do not. It is only the good games that get 7+ on BGG.

So you personally don't like a theme that millions of other people love, so therefore it's "empty" or, as you also put it, "boring common hilariously stupid"? Wow! There are plenty of games (not to mention books and films) based upon that theme, and it's certainly not one most people think is empty.

You also slam fantasy, which is also hugely popular theme. In another thread insult all of American culture because some widely sold children's board game wasn't intellectually satisfying enough for you.

You know, if you plan on producing games that real people would actually play, you might run into problems if you just assume everyone who likes things you don't must be an idiot.

Last Night on Earth is a very fun game, not because of the zombies, but because it's a monster-player game with good balance.

@The Magician
Ok. I kind of agree with some of that, but it's pretty damn self-righteous. Most people are stupid, yes. I'm a geek, and I'm pretty elitist about it. I only associate with smart people, and I look down on the rest of them. However, you have a lot of things wrong. You've missed a rather important point. People play games for fun. Therefore, slamming a game you haven't played for it's theme is a de facto bad idea. For instance, I like Axis and Allies. Not because I like the theme. I don't watch war movies, I don't particularly like history, and I don't generally play Military games. I don't play it because I like things about World War 2. I like it because it's fun, dammit. The worst themes sometimes produce the best games.

I'd also like to state that you've got Lord of the Rings all wrong. The Balrog (It's with an a) is not one of Gandalf's personal demons, which he fights and emerges the better for it. It's a twenty-foot tall flaming demon. It's not a symbol of anything. It's what lives in the abysses of Moria. By attempting to analyze it, you're missing the entire point. Or rather, you're creating one that doesn't exist. It's not a story written to educate. It's written to entertain. Tolkein didn't have a point to make. He had a story to tell, and he bloody well told it.

I'll also take a different stance on your opinion of what the general public wants. People, as far as I can tell, seem to want stories about people. They want stories about the world they live in. What wins Oscars? Not the movies with all of the sex and explosions. I, and, I think, most geeks who play designer games, want nothing to do with that. I can only speak for myself, but I like to think I pretty much understand the world (just in general, obviously not everything about it,) and it's rather horrid, really. Why would I watch a story about somebody's life falling apart when I can tell any of a dozen people I know that they can tell me about their problems? I don't need stories from my world, I live in my world. I already know how the story ends, why bother? I read a lot of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. I watch a lot of sci-fi, a little bit of horror, and good (by which I mean, really, really bad) action movies. I occasionally watch comedy, but that's a rare taste.

I read and watch movies so I can get out of the world I live in, because it's a really, really bad story. There aren't any heroes any more, and the villains are perfectly content to just wear people down. The supporting characters are dull and incompetent, and everybody complains for 3/4 of the story. There's really no struggle in life, at least not in the 'developed' world. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I have nothing against safety. I'm just saying that it means that there aren't a lot of life stories worth hearing. People are born, spend a few years as a little kid, go to school, spend a long time memorizing place names and forgetting what interesting things feel like, then get a job as a businessman and do business (whatever that happens to mean) every day for 40 years. Then they retire and moan about how great life used to be until they die. I don't want to read about those people I want to read about wizards, than you very much.

Not to rain on your proverbial parade, but your game cannot possibly be as impressive as you think it is. I'm not slamming it, mind. It doesn't look bad. However, it's not curing cancer, and by how impressed with it you are, you seem to think it has. Everybody loves their first project, and there's nothing wrong with that, but really... You are also operating under the impression that 'geniuses' are a close-knit group. They aren't. Hate to burst your bubble, but that's not how it works. They network, yes. Geniuses are friends with other geniuses. That's not a tight-knit group, though. That's a loose-knit group. There are organizations like Mensa, who try to bring smart people together, but I get a feeling that's not the sort of genius you are talking about. You're going to find yourself having a much harder time selling this than you expect, which is unsurprising, but still...

I also cannot believe your game is as intellectually demanding as you seem to think. There are several sorts of intellectually demanding games. There are games that require people to manage huge numbers of things at once. If you've written one of these that takes place in a maze, I'm curious to see it. These games tend to be economy or empire-building games, and very big ones. I have a hard time seeing that in a maze. An interesting example of this sort of game is people who count cards and play straight odds in Poker. It's intellectually demanding, certainly, but there's a reason most people don't play Poker that way. There are abstract strategy games, like Chess and Go. These are exactly as intellectually demanding as your opponent is intelligent, because they are pretty much fair. Any game that has open information, no chance elements, and identical initial movesets for players qualifies for this category. Chess and Go are very complicated examples (have a huge possibility space,) which is part of what makes them work. They define complete human analysis, unlike, say, tic tac toe or checkers. The thing that sets these games apart from other attempts to make a game like this is that, in addition to the complexity and fairness, they are, for some reason fun. I don't feel up to analyzing fun right now. The actual geniuses are already playing these games. The third type of intellectually demanding is just complicated. Most ameritrash is like this. (I play a lot of Ameritrash, for the record. I love it.) You get a bunch of mechanics, rather than a lot of interaction between them. People who write these games think they are intellectually demanding, but they aren't particularly. Most people have a hard time learning them, but once you learn them, they are fairly easy to play. I've gotten to the point where I can just pick up a game like that and play it fairly well, but that's rare. There is a fourth group of games that some would consider intellectually demanding. These are betting games and bluffing games, about human interaction. I'm really bad at these, but I don't see them as about intellect. I see them as about interpersonal skills, which I don't have particularly. There are those who would disagree, but then they'll probably disparage Go for being "Just Math." It's a taste. I'm a mathematical intellect, not an interpersonal one. You'll probably respond to this by saying that you've invented a whole new archetype. If you have, I have a feeling it's not an intellectual game. If you have invented a new intellectual archetype... Well, call me interested. I won't judge your game until I play it. I'm better than that. After all of that, you get the benefit of the doubt. So come on, blow my mind.

But I've never played it the way it was meant to be played. Not that I've played it wrong, but it's a six-player game. I've played it with two and three. It's an interesting game. I haven't found the varied paths to victory meaningful, though. Perhaps in a bigger game they would matter, but the endgame has never been close to date. You don't steal a victory. The first couple of turns are a power-grab for military dominance. If you get it, you win. I've never had the multiple paths come into play, but I've only played two games. As far as having a hundred ways to win goes, check out Android. I haven't played it, but it's the sort of thing you're looking for, albeit not, according to bgg, a spectacular game.

Many of us do. I play in several gamenights every week. Attendance at each of them runs in the 30-50 range every week. Getting 6 people around a table just isn't hard if they like the game.

I never have trouble getting people for big games. I have six regular TI players, with four or five people who can swap in. I'm pretty lucky, though.

Describing Starcraft as a six player game is overdoing it, actually. It's a 2-6 player game that works better with more people.

Oh yeah, 2210 is a lot of fun...

I think the Zombie Game is quite deeper than you imagine. Zombies are a great device for peircing the veil of safety in the modern world and revealing normal people to be heroes or villians by applying just a little stress. Zombies aren't actually explosive or impressive enimies, there slow for the very purpose of allowing charaters to appreciate their situtaion and show their true self.

For Last Night on Earth in particular, I have played it. It's not perfectly designed. It has a bit of 'endless re-roll syndrome' but it is very evocitive. What I remember vividly from the game is Sally's last stand. Sally faced down nine zombies with her bare hands, in order to give her friend Jenny and the creepy drifter time to fill up a truck with gas and drive out. Eventually, she succumed but the others got away. It's intersting to think that a sterotypical high-school hearthrob might become self-less hero given the right Zombie apocolypse.