Brandon the Game Dev

Brandon:

The following is the second guest post by Burt Yaroch of the Healthy Gaming Network. Not only does he help gamers make healthier choices, but he’s a fledgling designer himself! Today he shares with us a game he really enjoys: Colony.

Burt:

I’ve fallen in love with Colony by Bezier Games, designed by Ted Alspach, Toryo Hojo, and N2 (the pen name for Yoshihisa Nakatsu). The engine building, the upgrading, the variable game construction, and even the insert are all fantastic!  My wife asked me the other day if we could play it again and that NEVER happens in our household. My love of this game is what makes me forgive Colony for what I see as a major design flaw.

I believe this game suffers from one terrible flaw, which is ironically designed to reign in its “runaway leader” tendencies. What I have found in my plays of Colony and my research for this article is that this style of gameplay is unfairly criticized, and Bezier Games – understandably – attempts to compensate for this. I mostly like the way Colony handles this – with just one major exception! In this breakdown, we’ll delve deep into the enigmatic balance of leaders running away and losers catching up.

What’s a runaway leader? Are runaway leaders always bad?

Let’s define some terms first. I’m going to use the term “runaway leader” to refer to a specific, purposefully included design mechanic. It is a mechanic by which the player in the lead position gains advantages that serve to move them further into the lead. To borrow from the vernacular of control theory, you create a positive feedback loop. The more you have, the more you get. The positive feedback loop snowballs until the winner is crowned. Colony has a “runaway leader” mechanic, but it reigns this in with different mechanics that act as counterbalances.

Carefully implementing a “runaway leader” mechanism provides players with a reason to get the points and resources early on for the promise of future advantages. Brandon has previously pointed out in his discussion of Monopoly, that too much of a “runaway leader” can be terrible. Too little, however, takes the steam out of the game. It gives you no incentive to do well early on. “Runaway leader” mechanics aren’t inherently good or bad – they are a design choice based on how designers want their game to play out.

Colony uses runaway leaders wisely…

Was Colony designed with a runaway leader mechanism? Absolutely. Players simultaneously build resource generators and victory points, the latter directly leading to a win. Having more resources leads to the ability to purchase additional resources more quickly which in turn leads to the faster acquisition of victory points. The person in the lead usually has the advantage (even though VPs may also be obtained without direct resource gain).

The designers of Colony likely asked themselves, “Is this runaway leader mechanism a bad thing?” I say “no” for two reasons.

One, the game is advertised at playing out in 45-60 minutes. If I fall behind and into a pit of despair, I only have to languish for a short time before my misery comes to an end. It’s hard for short games such as Colony to have a runaway leader “problem”, even if mechanics promote runaway leadership.

Board games must let leaders lead. To do otherwise is to patronize lesser players with participation trophies.

…and Colony handles runaway leaders with elegant “Catch the Leader” tools, for the most part…

The first “Catch the Leader” tool is Trade. It allows players to gang up on the leader.  Trading in Colony offers a greater advantage than in a game like Catan, as here both participants can be rewarded with resources simply for the act of trading.  Keeping the leader out of any trade deals will allow other players to close the VP gap and slow the runaway.

The second way players can selectively target the leader is through stealing resources.  This not only limits the leader’s VP advantage, but also forces them to commit resources to mitigating theft, further chipping away at the leader’s lead.

The synergy of these mechanics make for smooth, fast, and fun gameplay where the runaway leader mechanic is not even detrimental in 3-4 player games, and only slightly so in 2 player games. In the dozen or so games I have played, most of the games were very close and none had players complaining about runaway leader or even considering it.

…But then Colony spoils their wise use of “runaway leaders” with a single, inelegant “Catch the Leader” mechanism that overcompensates

This begs the question of why Colony, with two Catch the Leader mechanics already implemented, includes the following rule: “Player(s) may discard one of his cards in return for a number of resources equal to the difference between his score and the leaders score.” Think about it. However far behind the leader I am, I can discard a card (which usually at this point in the game is irrelevant to me) and trade it for all-important resources IN EQUAL NUMBER to the distance I am behind the leader on the scoreboard!  We intentionally play-tested this a few times just to see what would happen. It almost always turned a blowout game into a nail biter…and some into come-from-behind wins.

If the designers were concerned about runaway leaders, an obvious solution would have been to decouple resources from the VPs. Alternatively, they could have added further catch-up mechanics which fit into the theme and pacing of the game. For example, the Headwind mechanic from Dominion, a game which Colony resembles. This variable would slow down the leader’s progression as gaining VPs make future plays less efficient for the player.

Instead, the designers of Colony created an inelegant, unnecessary, and game-breaking rule that could be slapped onto any game’s ruleset to provide a Hail Mary pass. That is, if a Hail Mary counted as eight touchdowns instead of just one. If you play by this rule, all the gameplay comes down to a coin toss on the last turn – anathema to casual and hardcore gamers alike. I colored over both references to this rule in my rulebook with a black Sharpie. Out of sight, out of mind. Fortunately for all of us, games of Colony are usually so close that I can rarely see this being employed even by gamers who didn’t smite it from existence.

Parting Words: How to Let Leaders Lead without Losing Losers

If you want to make wise use of a runaway leader mechanic, here are my recommendations:

1. If your game is under 60 minutes, don’t worry unless it’s really obvious. Gamers can handle a fleeting blow to their self-esteem.
2. If you want leaders to be able to run ahead, you have to keep your game short – preferably under 60 minutes. When players feel like they can’t catch up, that is a great time to declare the victor.
3. Remember the runaway leader mechanic is in the game because you put it there. Don’t like it? Nix it.

If the runaway leader mechanic is an accident, you have a choice to make. If you keep it in the game, you’ve got to mitigate with negative feedback (making each subsequent point on the board more difficult to reach). You still have to respect the effort of all players in the game.

Minecraft and its unexpected rise were like something out of a movie. In 2009, this rough, glitchy, blocky game was released to the public. In it, you romp around an 8-bit world, fighting monsters and building anything your heart desires. You know, when it wasn’t horribly glitching and doing outright weird stuff.

The game was gradually refined over a series of pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and release updates. It went from being a hipstery college trend in 2011 to a cultural phenomenon. You probably have a sibling or cousin or child who plays the game on Xbox. We pretty much all do. That’s how massive this game has become.

For the uninitiated, the basic underpinnings of Minecraft are simple. You, the player, are dropped into a world that is infinitely large. You can walk forever and ever and – barring computer failure – the game will continue to generate new environments around you. Every Minecraft world is unique.

If you play the game alone, you have a few minutes to get basic shelter for the terrifying night time. Giant spiders, skeletons, and the dreaded and iconic creepers – who explode on proximity to the player – come out to play. Minecraft is a dangerous world. Yet once you conquer that danger, the game lets you take virtually any material you find in the environment and build with it. You can make elaborate castles, cities with roads and lights, train systems, farms, and more.

There is no objective to Minecraft. You just play. That’s why I think children love it so much. Beneath its unassuming exterior, there is an extraordinarily creative game.

I was really into this game in 2011 and 2012. I was obsessively interested in this game, at one point playing it for 12 hours straight during the finals week of one of my sophomore semesters of college. In fact, I actually made friends with a guy through Minecraft who introduced me to James Masino, the incredible artist who did the work for my first game, War Co. 

It is for this reason that I am breaking down a video game instead of a board game for the second time in this blog’s history. I think we, as board game developers, can learn a lot from this game. Not only is it a good game, but it connects with players on a psychological level that most other games simply can’t.

Minecraft gives players little guidance, teaching players as they interact with the world.

When I started in 2011, Minecraft gave me no advice on how to interact with the world whatsoever. It just dropped me into it and I had to learn everything the hard way. Things have changed a bit and they have short tutorials now, but they still only teach you the basics. All the incredible things Minecraft has to offer – the complex architecture, the terraforming on a godlike scale…well, you learn that on your own. Minecraft shows players how to play through their own actions. There’s no info dump.

This gives players an incredible sense of achievement as they play. I’ve even got a scholarly article to prove it. Check out this mad knowledge from The Motivational Pull of Video Games: A Self-Determination Theory Approach.

[P]erceived in-game autonomy and competence are associated with game enjoyment, preferences, and changes in well-being pre- to post-play. Competence and autonomy perceptions are also related to the intuitive nature of game controls, and the sense of presence or immersion in participants’ game play experiences.

That is actual, straight-up science saying that autonomy (freedom) and competence (skill-building) are critical parts of gaming that feels good. Heck, you can even find a host of studies that say the same principles apply to the workplace! Furthermore, intuitive controls allow players to build skills and play around freely.

How does this relate to board gaming? I think there’s a few takeaways:

1. To give people a sense of autonomy, balance your game to where multiple strategies are viable ways of winning.
2. To give people a sense of competence, make sure your game is understandable on the first or second play. Also make sure your game continues to reward people for playing 5 or 10 or 50 times.
3. To make your game intuitive, use symbols, hints, and clues instead of preachy verbiage in your rule book.

Players see the effects of their actions on the game world and emotionally connect with the results.

Minecraft is notoriously, brutally hard when you first play. Yet it’s so addictive and rewarding because it gives you ample opportunities to learn and grow. Achievement is both defined by the player and hard-earned because of the forces of environment. All the blocks are so big that when a player sees the result of what they’ve done, they can’t help but emotionally connect with their efforts. Then they keep playing. And playing. And playing. (They call it Minecrack for a reason…)

The success of Minecraft teaches us about ourselves and our behavior. Despite its myriad flaws – the glitchiness, the love-em-or-hate-em graphics – this game remains one of the most perfect ones ever made. It’s the perfect sandbox, the perfect little “microcosm of life”, which is what I think games ultimately are.

Throw SimCity out the window and grab a fistful of dice. It’s time to play Machi Koro, the dice-building game for 2-4 players that’s captured the attention of thousands of board gamers.  In fact, it was nominated for Spiel des Jahres in 2015 – a huge honor. In the game, you gradually build up the beautiful city of Machi Koro, starting with nothing more than a single die and the desire to create some urban sprawl. The first person to build the four landmarks – Train Station, Shopping Mall, Amusement Park, and Radio Tower – is the winner.

As any good city mayor does, you understand the importance of political expediency that comes from building flashy landmarks. Yet you’re held back by a banal reality: money. It’s all about that dosh. To help you accumulate that sweet, sweet dough, there’s four types of cards that you can buy.

• Blue cards (Primary Industry) – they earn you money from the bank during anyone’s turn
• Green cards (Secondary Industry) – they earn you money from the bank during your turn only
• Red cards (Restaurants) – they earn you money from the player who rolled the dice
• Purple cards (Major Establishments) – they earn you money from all other players during your turn only

All of these cards are only activated when the dice roll the number at the top of the card. This is what I want to talk about, because it is this mix of probability and strategy that drives Machi Koro.

Players must think about the benefits of duplicates of one card vs. singles of many cards.

Without even going into a detailed analysis of which cards a player may find more attractive, one of the most immediately striking rules in the game is as follows. Getting more duplicates of a card cause the effects of the card to accumulate. The humble Wheat Field nets you one coin every time anybody rolls a 1. However, if you have five of them, suddenly you’ve got five coins at once. How’s that for a bonus check?

This raises a question: is it better to get a whole bunch of different cards OR just duplicates of the same card? The former could leave you with a steady sum of small payments whereas the latter could leave you with a very inconsistent series of massive payments.

This game may be fairly lightweight, and yes – I’ll admit – maybe a bit too luck-based for some folks’ tastes, but the question I raised above kicks off a chain of calculations in the players’ heads. Using the probability of a dice roll of X during your turn/your opponent’s turn assigns a dollar value to each card based on what you expect to happen. In fact, the Machi Koro Wikia gives each card an expected value. You can manipulate the expected value of the money you’ll receive in a turn in the way you choose your cards. This is by no means a heavy game, but it’s pinned to some surprisingly deep questions of value and probability. It’s the sort of stuff you see in economics and finance. But the player doesn’t have to think about this. They just feel it. It’s intuitive.

Players have to think about the benefits of growth vs. theft.

Choosing cards and choosing the quantity of cards is a matter of tactics. Deciding whether you prefer to gain money through organic growth or theft is a matter of strategy. Blue and Green cards earn you money from the bank. Red and Purple cards earn you money from other players.

In a general sense, Blues and Greens will end the game faster since more money gives everybody a better shot at buying landmarks. Reds and Purples redistribute money within the Machi Koro economy, which postpones the end of the game, giving you a slight edge you didn’t have before.

Suffice it to say, if you’re winning, you probably want Blues and Greens padding your wallet with that Machi Dinero. If you’re losing, you probably want Reds and Purples to cut the fatcat capitalists above you down to your size.

Machi Koro is lightweight, simple, pretty, and more strategic than people often give it credit for! Right now it’s $19.29 on Amazon with free shipping. I suggest you check it out if you haven’t already!