What makes a game a "Girl Game"?

-Bryk
(father of an 8-year-old girl who still loves ponies)

If so ... yeah, she's already there. :-p

-Bryk

I think today's girls will be attracted to good games -- regardless of theme -- if they like to play games.

While I had a chuckle about ponies earlier, my daughter seriously loves horses and has from little on. She's taking riding lessons, subscribes to "Young Rider", and has at least 3 or 4 PC games around horses (yes, one of them is a Barby game).

But, what games do she and my wife and I play when she wants to play a game? Mancala, Cribbage, CatchPhrase, Clue, Halabaloo, Balloon Lagoon -- it's all over the board ... she's extremely competitive and likes to figure out how the system works in order to win.

She turned 8 this past spring and started in drama productions last year ... she likes a good story and the chance to make it fit into a game -- so, we tend to take small breaks when playing Clue so that she and her little brother can work out some drama involving the pawns and weapons.

I think you can make a good "girl" game by making a good game. My daughter likes relationships, stories, and systems that work together where you can directly see how your choices and actions turn into results. And she likes things of the equine sort.

If you've noticed the explosion of organized girls sports over the past 15-20 years, I think the generation of girls/women growing up through that simply want something interesting to play and good competition to play against.

-Bryk

Where I suggested that a good game for men and women to play was a caveman game where men had to win the game through battle and women collected berries. I know, that's a general and somewhat sexist statement, but it seems to reflect mechanics that the genders prefer a bit. That being said, I can't wrap my head around the success of Killer Bunnies... it has to be the theme, right?

For the majority of women, the preference seems to involve more social and party games to that of big thinkers or strategy. I think that charades will beat out most Euros when you ask women what they want to play. I hope this trend strays a bit, but for the larger numbers, it seems to be the truth.

I am currently reading Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress because I spied it in the games section of my library and thought it would gain me more insight into that particular frame of mind, even though it is about D&D mostly so far.

When I go to conventions I see Apples to Apples and other Out-of-the-Box titles getting more seat time from females than Rio Grande... Playroom entertainment gets more than Mayfair - right at this moment, I'd say that these companies are making games that cater better towards females.

I can't stand Killer Bunnies.... but they have tons of females playing it. It isn't a good design to me at all, but the theme of the bunnies gets them every time! As a poorer design, it continues to perpetuate bad design to a larger female audience that I would like to get to play better designs (regardless of theme).

Mechanics preferred by females:

Artistic
Social
Simpler the better
collecting sets
drafting
less confrontation
more cooperative

(PROBABLY WRONG ON EVERY COUNT)

So I'll put a challenge to you - make a better bunny game... PLEASE!

Oh yes, there is anothing. About "the sims", this game is considered to actually have more toyplay than game play. In fact this game could be considered as a virtual play house.

As for bella serra, it looks like "neopets" with horses. Neopet is a website that my girl friend loves a lot. Personally, I don't see the interest to it.

Most homeschooling American familes like educational games. I stopped by a homeschool curriculum conference and the gaming booth included: Blockus, Settlers, Hey That's my Fish, Pente, and a few other strategic games. Even if they don't have a lot of educational value, games that require thinking and strategy are also smiled upon by homeschoolers. Homeschooling girls seem to like games that are fun(unlike some of us men who like a good hard challenge). A few I know like Mille Bornes, Pente, and Hearts(54 standard card deck game).

If the game is educational and is fun, the parents will buy it for the homeschooled children. I was about to self-publish a American War for Independence game and had lots of interest from parents that were eager to get their children playing educational games. Some homeschooling parents, think that some board games can teach more history then books! And as a bonus, can be played in a 1-3 hour timespan(although I am not discouraging reading books).

Hope this helps.

Lucas

This is a great geeklist to check out if you're interested in co-op games:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/32994

There's a publisher mentioned specifically called Family Pastimes that the list says puts out a bunch of co-op games and they look kid friendly. The game they mention specifically is Max:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/4637

This has been brought up several times: Women seem to prefer cooperative games. I find that I'm almost never able to hold my girlfriend's attention for very long in a video game or board game because she gets frustrated when she is doing worse than me. However, when we play games that are more cooperative she seems to stay interested for a lot longer. This is something I think that the original poster should strive for: Make your game cooperative.

Maybe it's just because I was eying the sale over at GMT, but the first thing I thought of when I saw "American War for Independence" was card driven games (CDG).

One of the things I really enjoy about some recent CDGs (1960 and Twilight Struggle, for example), are the historical tidbits, either flavor text on the cards, or the card names themselves. It piques my interest and makes me want to go look up more info about that particular event or person.

So how about historical CDGs aimed at kids? Say, the founding of the United States. The players are collectively trying to write and ratify the Constitution, but also meet their own goals. You could have the card deck include tons of pieces of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and other amendments, historical figures that support or oppose different clauses, etc. Not too complicated gameplay, but each card could prompt historical lessons, or taken as a whole, the game could illustrate the many conflicts that ultimately led to consensus in the found of our country.

Fer example.

As a female gamer, I'd have to say that fluffy ponies and rainbows are... nice... but not really relevant.

The main problem isn't so much adding frills to games, it's making an ingaging game, then breaking down the social barrier that seems to keep females from playing 'games'. A lot of the females I know want to play things such as DnD, Warhammer, Magic:TG, Settlers of Catan, Go, and other board/card games, but seem to have very negetive connotations to it, simply because they're male dominated.

I took the card game Gargon:AoP, and presented it to my group (6 females, 4 males) Because of the art, said 3 of the girls, they thought it was less masculine. Clean lines, bold colours.

Also, it's based on a simple, already known concept of War.

The mechanisims behind the game don't decide the gender, the presentation does. Feminine games aren't really what's necessary, in my honest opinion, it's gender neutral with slight feminine hints that are needed.
Females are ready for the games, we just need to pull down the game-master's screen and invite them in.

But that's just my two cent CAN.

Here are a few things I noticed about women and games.

Note that this is a generalisation and that it only counts for female players I played with...

1] Women do not like complicated rulesets. A game should be explained in no more than 5 to 10 minutes. While this is true for many men too, I noticed an even stronger "Pffft... is this going to take much more time??"-feeling when explaining rules to women.

2] Women do not like direct conflict. Taking an action in agricola, or taking money in alhambra that the female player wanted to take, is fine. Destroying/taking something that a female has build or acquired is not enjoyable and ruins a game.

3] Shorter games are often better games. (This seems also true for computer games. They love computer games better when you play a little (1-3 minutes per game or per level) than an RPG-game where you save and continue playing next time.)

4] They like the games they know better than new games. This leans towards the first point about not liking ruleset-digesting.

5] Women like to build/connect/acquire stuff, in a way that they can see what they have built/connected/acquired. While this is also true for many men, it seems that women have a greater sense of accomplishment when seeing (or being able to touch) the stuff they've done in a game. The most simple implementation of this is open scoring, but building and expanding an alhambra or putting down trains in ticket to ride are even better than seeing a pawn on the score-track or having a stack of cards (like the bean/thaler cards in bohnanza).

6] Women like the game-hits by Alan R. Moon. (Men do too, but I noticed that "Elfenland", "Ticket to ride", "Andromeda" and "Incan Gold" are VERY WELL received by women)

Again these are generalised observations...

There was an interview with Alan R Moon ( http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?topics_offset=1&forum... ) in which he has six design rules or design guidelines to make a good game.

In the archive, there's a bit of discussion about these design rules: http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?topics_offset=1&forum... .

Cheese!

we have a good female to male ratio in our gaming group. most of the girls in our group really dig games like Settlers, Arkham horror, munchkin, runebound, and even the occasional last night on earth. The only complaints i hear from them relate primarily to games where they take on the "role" of the character, such as runbound or last night on earth. They reall dont like the selection usually. Its really strange because they all conflict on what they like. Its the same with the guys i guess, but i have taken some notes for my own game design.

For example, one girl doesn't like any of the characters in Android because they all look realy plain. All of them are wearing too many clothes, and non of them reflect a character that they would be in the future. Then another girl likes them because she can relate to them, modest, down to earth, no peircings, ETC.

Last night on earth really fails on both ends of the specram for all the girls. They cant relate to any of them because non of them are A) hot (half naked) and convey a strong female personality or B) modest but cute, and convey a strong female personality. The biggest turn off to girls playing a generally male stereo typical genre i have found is that the characters that are "cute" dont have the personality types that they would want to have in those given scenario's.

Something that is very important to all the females in our group. (aswell as a lot of the males) is the characters have to look like someone they would want to be. Ya, its realistic to have a fat grimy 30 something in my zombie survival game but i dont want to be them........

The games our company is going to make will really prioritize strong character design. we want to make characters that everyone would want to be.

A lot of good stuff in this thread. This one stuck out to me and I thought about how boys and girls are raised differently to deal with conflict.

Most of the time boys are left to tuff it out or deal with it on their own and usually develop skills to do so. Girls for the most part are pampered a little more with its okay to cry or I'll make it all right type of stuff. I think these are both deep set in everyone (although being politically correct aren't applicable in every case and are changing and not binding and....). So enough PC, boys/men are taught/expected to be the protectors and deal more with conflict while girls/women as explained above are more social/nurturing. It's the protector/provider role that makes war games, direct competition, and other such male themes more appealing to men and the social/nurturing which makes non-confrontational, cooperative, social, creative, games more appealing to women. Taking those in reverse when a woman creates and nurtures something it makes her feel failure when/if that something is destroyed. If a man plays a game but there isn't a winner (coop/social) or he doesn't in some way establish dominance or show his superiority during the process of the game it makes him feel failure at a core level. The failure isn't of course the determining factor but I think we all have it at a core level, and also as stated above those things which come more naturally appeal to us although aren't the end all.

I think that is the only applicable structure we should use when designing for men or women. All the other girly stuff isn't really applicable and good solid designs will appeal to both men and women.

My wife hates conflict and confrontations but likes playing Munchkin, really wants the Carcassonne expansion that allows you to destroy someone's town making it worth half as many points and its mostly just with me but anything she can do in a game to screw me over passively or directly she will!! LOL, this is because I usually always win so she has to escalate it to that level in order to compete which is fine by me.

So those are MY thoughts (and PC blah, blah feel free to restate what I said however you like so it doesn't offend you)