Analogue Game Creation, Part 2

"Low-Hanging Branch" Art Credit: TK

Hi there, Jeff here again with Part 2 of:

Funleague Games - Analogue Game Creation series!

This week I will cover the second topic in the series, Game Mechanics. If you aren't sure what an Analogue game is, read the second paragraph of part one of this series linked here:
analogue-game-creation-part-1

Analogue Game Creation, Part 2. Game Mechanics!

“Game Mechanic” refers to the function or functions that make the game what it is. Whether it’s poker that uses a series of colours, symbols, numbers and combinations of those variables to create Hands. Or a game like clue where you move a piece around a board and one by one check off weapons, rooms and suspects in order to eliminate the innocent and deduce the guilty. Or even chess in which each piece moves in a limited and specific pattern and the purpose is to catch the king. These are all references to game mechanic.

The challenge of playing any analogue game revolves around its game mechanics and the limitations imposed by those mechanics. Without limits, a game would not hold any challenge at all. Let’s face it, without limitations, you always “win” as you can do whatever you wish and well, you might as well just not play if you already know the outcome!

The process I go through in order to create a specific game mechanic is very iterative. I get many ideas for game mechanics while playing other games and one way to create new mechanics is to take an existing mechanic and brainstorm on it in order to come up with new twists or alternate ways of doing the same thing. In fact, a very effective brainstorming method which I use all the time, is to utilize what I like to call a “Seed Idea” to generate new ideas. With Poker, I might say, replace the 2 colours with 4, remove the face cards or better yet, increase the number of face cards and change the play order according to the amount you bet. (in 10 seconds I just came up with a new game concept all based on a seed idea…Poker, don’t say I never gave you anything! :) That of course is a very broad use of the term Seed Idea.

That brings up another issue with game mechanic creation. It all sounds and works perfectly in your head when you’re thinking up different ways to play your game, it’s an entirely different story when you sit down with a prototype game to ACTUALLY play test the mechanic you’ve so brilliantly created with real people! With Perfect Stride – Cross Country! We have gone through at least 10 prototypes and countless different variations of game mechanics. In a constant test, change and iterate cycle that slowly over time has refined the game play to a point where the game is now balanced enough between skill and luck to be challenging and still unpredictable enough to hold a great level of excitement for the players! It’s one of the most exciting parts of creating a new game. At times it can be challenging. When you’ve gone through version 36 of your game and it’s still not quite there, sometimes you just need to acquiesce and take a break. It’s amazing how a day or two away from an idea will sometimes give your brain the time to come up with the answer to the specific gaming challenge you’re struggling with. Of course, I always work on more than one game idea at a time. This way I’m never caught just twiddling my thumbs looking for something to do.

Many games like to boast about how unique their game play or mechanic is, yet, it’s rare to play a new game that does not have at least a remote similarity to another game which came before. For example, rolling dice as a randomizer is a very common game mechanic that is used all over. Many European style games (“Euros”) shy away from the die rolling mechanic in favor of resource management as a game mechanic. (how many X do I need to buy Y, what do I do once I have Y, where can I sell Y in order to gain Z?) The thought is to minimize random luck in favour of decision-making to give a player the win. Although honestly, most Euro’s just replace a die roll randomizer with a card draw or randomly drawn tile to introduce the random factor so I can’t say that ALL Euro’s are purely skill-based!

Many Card games and more importantly, My favourite… Perfect Stride – Cross Country! ;), doesn’t use a board to keep track of player position as you might use in a classic racing style game. It uses what we call “Pace Cards”. These cards have a hierarchy and that hierarchy helps determine who is where in race order. (really exciting stuff!)

In creating our horse-themed game, we’ve spent literally hundreds of hours tuning game mechanics, trying different twists on specific ideas, sometimes pulling out our hair in frustration and sometimes jumping for joy at a new concept that works perfectly. The take-away being that intriguing game mechanics are NOT easy things to create. They require much testing and an enormous amount of iteration in order to refine into a smooth playing game.

If you’re working on your own ideas, remember test, change, test, change, test, change… It’s a wonderfully engrossing process and half of the fun! The game that we originally envisioned which WAS Perfect Stride – Cross Country! is not at all the same game what we’ve developed to this point.

Don’t be afraid to let go of a mechanic if it’s not working. They’ve all been done before and they’ll all be done again, you just need to pick the right combination that creates the perfect game. Like we have with Perfect Stride. :)

Thanks for reading!

~Jeff.

Jeff is a professional artist by day and analogue game designer and avid board game player by night and on the occasional weekend. ;)

Perfect Stride:Cross Country! Is the first game to be published by Funleague Games. It is currently in production and will be on gaming store shelves and available for purchase directly from Funleague Games at a vaguely ambiguous time in the not so distant future!

Follow our creation process here on www.funleaguegames.blogspot.com and stay tuned to find out when the game is released!

Next Time, Part 3! Abstract games VS Theme based games!

P.S. Bloggers are encouraged to quote from Funleague Games articles as long as they give us a proper credit for the quote, do not change the content and provide a link back to the article they're quoting. ~Thanks!