Are the old school classics like chess and go the ultimate?

I think this is something all of us designers hope to achieve...that perfect balance. Unfortunately, this is more of an impossibility as people have different interests and preferences. Some prefer the cerebral skill-only games like Go or Chess while others prefer more random elements like the dice in Backgammon. Many people have rated each of the above games as "perfect", so in reality there is no "perfect game", only what's perfect in your eyes.

These days games that achieve popularity are themed in some way. This now adds yet another layer of preference, which makes making the perfect game even more impossible to achieve. Abstract games now that are not Go, Backgammon, Chess, etc. are drowned out by Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Arkham Horror.

In conclusion, I disagree with you. There is no perfect game out there because we all have different preferences. In addition, we all have different needs at certain times...sometimes we want a cerebral game like chess, sometimes we want something wholly mindless and luck based like Sorry or Liar's Dice, and sometimes we want a mix of both. Our minds were made to explore.

Personally, I don't think you're unreasonable, I just don't think you're considering the human element.

One such game I can always enjoy is Hive, which is easy to understand and play, but for those players who enjoy thinking 3-5 moves ahead as most avid chess players do, it delivers the strategy. I prefer playing the base game without extensions like the Mosquito as I prefer the simplicity...in my mind it's elegant and fun enough without them.

Good thematic games have mechanisms that make sense given the theme. I'm not sure why you'd want to extract the mechanism from the theme to make a game out of it by itself. I suppose you COULD do so, but I'm not sure why you would.

I think for many people, playing games is not just about competition, but about shared experience, and the story that themes provide to gameplay are a big part of what makes that fun. I suspect this is why abstract games are less popular than thematic ones (not counting the classics).

But I think many designers work from a mechanism they like and expand out from there, hence categories like "deck builder."

As for me, the "balance" is practically all skill with no overt chance (ie rolling dice, picking a card out of a stack, etc.). If we're talking gaming philosophy, you could say that no game presents a player with "perfect information" because you do not know of your opponent's moves and, therefore, that is a form of "hidden information" (aka 'chance').

As I have gotten older, I increasingly do not play board games where there is a significant amount of overt chance. I will make exceptions when playing with family and relatives if only to be sociable. I have found that, over the years, my game creations have gone to being completely skill with little to no overt chance.

Being an abstract board game designer, I tend to avoid theming (aka "You're a tumbleweed avoiding the cactii and the vultures!") although anytime that I can fit my games aesthetically into a retro-futuristic visual style is a plus (Classic EPCOT Center was very influential to me).

In the end, if I can make it work, my games are all skill with no overt chance but, when making a game, anything goes in the pursuit of the player's enjoyment. One of my board games, for instance, has a social variant that has a lot of overt chance.

Interesting topic.

Personally I lean more towards the strategic side of things, would rather believe I am playing a game where talent of skill can be developed and is visible in the outcome. Playing Snakes & Ladders or anything too dice-based is like watching people play scratch lottery tickets with no prize. I wouldn't feel like I was playing the game but rather that I was performing the required actions as a proxy for another player who doesn't exist.

But yes, take a purely strategic game like Chess and you have some issues. For starters, skilled players always play the same games. There are limited sensible openings and everything is quite predictable at that expert level, with only a couple of subtle variances towards the end of a game ever being different. The better you get at that game the more limited and narrow it gets.

And either end of the spectrum - the improbability of chance or the reductive rationality of maximally optimal strategy - can be performed effectively by a computer or calculating machine. And do we call that "playing"?

Here's an alternative way of looking at it - the human factor. I studied a little game theory and one thing that became obvious really quickly is that people are *not* rational calculators and they don't all progress Vulcan-like to their optimal outcome in the most efficient and expedient manner. Games like Chess demand we be like that but most of us don't enjoy being calculator robots even if we were good at it.

Most people have other factors (such as preference, superstition, instinct, spite, the desire to communicate something or express themselves, or complete separate agendas) that complicate and usually over-rule the maximally optimal decision.

Example 1 - there's an experiment in game theory called "the ultimatum game" where player one is given ten dollars and offers a split to the second player. The second player accepts the split and both players get the proposed shares, or rejects it and both players get nothing.

The smart thing for player one is to offer a really unfair split like keeping 9 and offering 1, right? And the smart thing for player two is to take the dollar and quit while she's ahead, right?

Nope. If player 1 makes an unfair offer, player two usually decides they both get nothing out of spite and because it violates their sense of justice. There is an unpredictable - not random - factor based around how vindictive or spiteful player 2 is, or how strongly they hold their sense of fairness. And Player 1's intuition or boldness or own sense of fairness will be something that their interlocutor can't take for granted either.

In this case you have a rich and deep game that rewards skill and strategy without being predictable or something a computer could beat you at. And is done with complex rules, as with Chess? Nope - simplest game rules possible (creating the illusion of depth with complexity, as with Chess, only waits for computer processing power to evolve sufficiently to 'break' that type of game)

Example 2 - I play a superhero arcade fighting style game on my ipad. Do I play Superman or whoever has the biggest numbers? No. I use my personal preference to choose a character who's ideals and aesthetic reflect my own, one who's moves/combos I prefer using, etc. If I were a rational calculator I'd be choosing the big cheesy strong guy, but that's not the story I want to write with my playing.

I've spent a bit of time thinking about this myself - trying to get the balance right between skill and chance - because what I want to create and play myself is something that rewards skill etc, but doesn't create an unfair and boring situation when one of the players knows the game contents better or has worked out the single optimal strategy... Like life - the race doesn't always go to the fastest nor the fight to the strongest, but it would still be the smart way to bet. Outcomes shouldn't be totally predictable but hopefully they won't be random either. Human caprice is probably a better element to add that unpredictable factor than dice is

As a daily chess player, I can say that I have always held chess up as the ideal to aspire to; and all of my early game designs were abstract, perfect information games. But I had a bit of an epiphany when one of my friends, who was never very enthusiastic about play-testing my designs, explained the problem with them from his perspective: they were too much work. He called them “IQ tests”. And I realized that he had a valid point. Not everybody wants to play a game that requires intense concentration. And fewer still will want to play a game that makes them look stupid.

I have also played a lot of backgammon in my time – and a lot of poker. And one day I reflected on what made those games fun and engaging, and I realized that the element of chance -- which I had always avoided as a point pride and principle – was, in fact, an enormous draw -- and – more importantly -- that such games were tests of skill despite the role of chance. Indeed, they were games of skill *because* of the role of chance, which is to say, they were skill games because they made chance into something that players needed to understand and master. At the same time, the uncertainty of fortune added drama and excitement to such games (even the frustration from a run of bad luck has a certain perverse attraction). It also gave weaker players a chance to win, and even made them feel more competent than they might really have been, which encouraged them to play.

And that was a real turning point for me. And you can see it in the game I recently posted in the design forum ("Championship Kickboxing"), which uses both cards and dice: I make a special effort in the instructions to point out that it is in fact a game of skill.

As an old-school gamer, I fear I will never fully embrace the notion that games should require a theme and a narrative arc. I know I’m in the minority on this, but I don’t think a game needs be an interactive “story”; and I don’t think it needs to be a vector for “art”.

I can understand monodreme perfectly well when he talks about stripping away the theme and getting to the nuts and bolts of a game. I think of a game as a sort of virtual machine. In my view, the best game is a like a performance engine: a product engineered to achieve results with maximal efficiency. And If unhandyandy is right, and that today “even serious gamers don’t (or shouldn’t) care about winning” then I will avoid those games and those gamers as much as possible. For me, a game is closer to a sport; it is inherently competitive (even a cooperative game should be competitive, if that makes any sense). In my world, the joy of a game is derived from the opportunity it gives players to compete without real risk.

Why should I be careful of statements like that? I explained my preference and was careful to frame it as a preference. Your claim about the best designs has a certain plausibility, but I doubt it has any basis in empirical fact. In any case, my "world" is more than big enough to provide the ideas I need to produce the kinds of games that interest me. And life is too short to waste on people and activities I don't like!

I feel very intimidated replying to this thread because I read all the responses and want to reply to each one but don't quite have the time. I also feel a little intimidated because I like playing Chess but I'm not very good at it, so I don't know if what I have to say will contribute much. I also tried playing GO in high school but was also terrible. I feel like I'm pretty decent with checkers.

I am more of a tactician, not a strategist; meaning, I prefer games that allow me to focus on what I have in my hand right now, what's the best I can do with what I have been given this turn specifically.

On the other hand, I like playing games like Chess because I'm not good at it and I want to get better. I play Chess with Friends, DraconicParagon. I'm looking for some new players, add me.