UX vs Game Design

Speaking of cloud computing (see my previous, sponsored post), I will be celebrating my birthday on Sunday by attending an all-day UX conference at UX Salon in Tel Aviv, including evening cocktails on the rooftop of Wix at Tel Aviv harbor. Ok, that's not exactly cloud computing, but my company Ex Libris is sending me, and their platforms are heavily based on cloud computing.

Learning UX is parallel to, and integrated with, being a better technical writer, as I wrote in my presentation at MegaComm.

I feel that game design and gamification are opposites but parallels to UX design: game designers want you to spend more time with the product because they want you to find it entertaining or recreational, while UX designers and technical writers want you to spend less time with the product because they know that you're using the product in order to accomplish something else. A game should be involving and engaging; figuring out how to run the game or use the controller should not be, unless that's part of the entertainment.

Both of them carefully consider presentation and how to create a better user experience. I feel, after having been a game designer and having learned gamification, and now working for many years as a technical writer and starting to learn UX, that I am filling in my knowledge on both sides of the same coin.

The Religion Against Game Variants

It's not the bible. I'm not going to go to hell for changing the rules.

As a game designer, I know how arbitrary a game's final design is. It's a collection of components and mechanisms; they don't come from god (well, maybe Go does, but your game doesn't). If it's a good Eurogame, I'm sure they were play-tested, and I'm equally sure the final result included several arbitrary decisions to end "here" instead of  "there", with 40% of the testers thinking "there" was better.

I like many of the mechanics and ideas of some games, but personally I don't like that little luck mechanic that trashes all of your plans. We can play the whole game taking different paths, playing about equally well or not in each of the different areas of the game, but then the whole game comes down to the die roll or card flip that lets you get 20 points and not me.

There is no reason that I shouldn't take a game, that I would enjoy but for one mechanic that ruins it for me, and tweak it so that I now enjoy it. I test the change for several games until I'm satisfied that the play experience is basically the same but nicer. Then I sometimes post it. Immediately I am hit with "That change destroys the ENTIRE game", "You obviously don't understand how to play", "You can solve your so-called problem by playing in this very specific way", "Why do you want to change the game? Just go play something else". Every time.

Why play this game? Why not? Because I enjoy it. How does it offend you for me to change the design slightly to make it more enjoyable, not only for me but for any other like-minded people?

Yes, it changes the game, but all of this hooplah about HOW MUCH it changes the game is rubbish. My tweak doesn't greatly change the game, and I know because I've actually tested it, and the majority of the game mechanics are left intact. Furthermore, I wouldn't care if it greatly changed the game; it makes the game better. For me. Better for me. I understand that if you like change. Don't play with my variant.

I don't understand this obsession AGAINST tweaking games to make them more enjoyable. Like it's a religion of some kind and I'm sinning.

Bernie, you're obviously not speaking loudly enough.

Nimbicus: An original game to play on a children's bead abacus stacker

You can play a surprisingly good variant of a nim game on this bead abacus stacker that I found at a friend's house on Friday night. I call this game Nimbicus.

Here are the rules I devised on the spot [1]: The frame contains 5 pegs of different height, each of which takes, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 balls. There are 15 balls in five colors, with 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 balls in each color. The game starts with all of the balls off of the frame.

On your turn you must do ONE of the following: 1) Take as many balls as you like that are all the same color and put them all onto a single peg, or 2) Take exactly two balls of different colors and place them onto two different pegs.

The peg(s) must have room to accommodate the balls you selected. The peg(s) on which you place the balls can have other balls on it from any colors; you don't have to match the ball colors already on those pegs. When choosing the first option, you can take any number of balls you want of the same color; for instance, if there are four yellow balls, you can take 1, 2, 3, or all 4, as long as there is space on a a single peg to place them.

As in other nim games, the last player to play loses.

Analysis

There are only 15 balls, which makes this a very limited game. What complicates this is the varying color choices and limitations imposed by the spaces on the pegs.

Let's refer to the available balls at the start as (5,4,3,2,1) and the available frame spaces as [5,4,3,2,1]. As options disappear, we can ignore ball colors and spaces that have no available choices. So, for example, if there are three balls remaining in 2 colors, you can select (1), (2), or (1,1), but only if the frame spaces allow for these selections. If the remaining frame space is [3], you can't select (1,1). If the remaining frame space is [1,1,1], you can't select (2).

First Moves

For your first move, you have 25 choices for selection: 1 ball from (1), 1 ball from (2), 2 balls from (2), 1 ball from (3), etc up to 5 balls from (5): that's 15. You have 10 more choices for (1,1) from the 5 available colors. That's the selection.

Now you have to place the balls. If you chose (1)  (5 different possibilities), you have 5 choices for placing. That's 25 possibilities.
(2) (4 choices) x 4 placement possibilities = 16
(3) (3 choices) x 3 placements = 9
(4) (2 choices) x 2 placements = 4
(5) (1 choice) x 1 placement = 1
(1,1) (10 choices) x 10 placements = 100

Add it all together and you get a total of 155 options for your first move.

End Games

Let's work backwards, instead.

1 ball

You lose if it is your turn and there is one ball.

2 balls

You win if it is your turn and there are two balls. Place one on the frame, and now your opponent has 1 ball.

3 balls

There are nine options for 3 balls. In some configurations you can force a win, and in others you have lost.

State	Balls	Frame	Win/Loss	Comments
3.1	(3)	[3]	Win	Place (2), leaving your opponent with one ball.
3.2	(3)	[2,1]	Win	Place (2), leaving your opponent with one ball.
3.3	(3)	[1,1,1]	Loss	You must place (1), leaving your opponent with two balls.
3.4	(2,1)	[3]	Win	Place (2), leaving your opponent with one ball.
3.5	(2,1)	[2,1]	Win	Place (2) or (1,1), leaving your opponent with one ball.
3.6	(2,1)	[1,1,1]	Win	Place (1,1), leaving your opponent with one ball.
3.7	(1,1,1)	[3]	Loss	You must place (1), leaving your opponent with two balls.
3.8	(1,1,1)	[2,1]	Win	Place (1,1), leaving your opponent with one ball.
3.9	(1,1,1)	[1,1,1]	Win	Place (1,1), leaving your opponent with one ball.

4 balls

There are twenty five options for 4 balls. In some configurations you can force a win, and in others you have lost.

State	Balls	Frame	Win/Loss	Comments
4.1	(4)	[4]	Win	Place (3), leaving your opponent with one ball.
4.2	(4)	[3,1]	Win	Place (3), leaving your opponent with one ball.
4.3	(4)	[2,2]	Loss	If you place (2), you leave your opponent with two balls. If you place (1), your opponent is left in state 3.5.
4.4	(4)	[2,1,1]	Win	Place (1) in the [2], leaving your opponent in state 3.3.
4.5	(4)	[1,1,1,1]	Win	Place (1), leaving your opponent in state 3.3.
4.6	(3,1)	[4]	Win	Place (3), leaving your opponent with one ball.
4.7	(3,1)	[3,1]	Win	Place (3), leaving your opponent with one ball.
4.8	(3,1)	[2,2]	Loss	If you place (2) or (1,1), you leave your opponent with two balls. If you place (1), your opponent is left either in state 3.2 or 3.5.
4.9	(3,1)	[2,1,1]	Win	Place the single ball in [2], leaving your opponent in state 3.7.
4.10	(3,1)	[1,1,1,1]	Win	Place the single ball, leaving your opponent in state 3.7.
4.11	(2,2)	[4]	Loss	If you place (1) or (2), your opponent places (2) or (1) respectively.
4.12	(2,2)	[3,1]	Loss	If you place (1), your opponent places (2). If you place (2) or (1,1), your opponent is left with two balls.
4.13	(2,2)	[2,2]	Loss	If you place (1), your opponent places (2). If you place (2) or (1,1), your opponent is left with two balls.
4.14	(2,2)	[2,1,1]	Loss	If you place (1), your opponent places (1,1) or (2). If you place (2) or (1,1), your opponent is left with 2 balls.
4.15	(2,2)	[1,1,1,1]	Loss	If you place (1), your opponent places (1,1). If you place (1,1), your opponent is left with 2 balls.
4.16	(2,1,1)	[4]	Win	Place (1) from the (2), leaving your opponent in state 3.7.
4.17	(2,1,1)	[3,1]	Win	Place (1) from the (2) in the [1], leaving your opponent in state 3.7.
4.18	(2,1,1)	[2,2]	Loss	If you place (2) or (1,1), you leave your opponent with two balls. If you place (1), your opponent is left in state 3.5 or 3.8.
4.19	(2,1,1)	[2,1,1]	Loss	If you place (1), your opponent places (1,1). If you place (2) or (1,1), you leave your opponent with two balls.
4.20	(2,1,1)	[1,1,1,1]	Loss	If you place (1), your opponent places (1,1). If you place (1,1), you leave your opponent with two balls.
4.21	(1,1,1,1)	[4]	Win	Place (1), leaving your opponent in state 3.7.
4.22	(1,1,1,1)	[3,1]	Win	Place (1) in the single spot, leaving your opponent in state 3.7.
4.23	(1,1,1,1)	[2,2]	Loss	If you place (1), your opponent places (1,1). If you place (2) or (1,1), you leave your opponent with two balls.
4.24	(1,1,1,1)	[2,1,1]	Loss	If you place (1), your opponent places (1,1). If you place (2) or (1,1), you leave your opponent with two balls.
4.25	(1,1,1,1)	[1,1,1,1]	Loss	If you place (1) or (1,1), your opponent places (1,1) or (1) respectively.

Note that you always lose if the frame configuration is [2,2] on your turn, and you always lose if you're left with (2,2) on your turn.

5 balls and more

There are 49 options for 5 balls. Things continue to grow, but slower, for more balls, since limitations on spaces and ball colors begin to apply. The whole thing is not terribly hard to work out with a computer, but it doesn't appear to be easy to figure out for humans, unless someone hands you the winning strategy.

Variants

I created the game after showing my daughter the Towers of Hanoi puzzle on this. It's not hard to add a number of twists to the game to change the challenge. For example, you could say that certain colors are not allowed to be placed next to or on top of (like Towers of Hanoi) other colors.

Yehuda


[1] I vaguely recall rules similar to these in other games I have played, so the idea isn't original, although I think the game is.

Save or Enslave the World: Takeaways from #gsummit 2014, the Gamification Conference

GSummit SF 2014 was a gamification conference organized and run by Gabe Zicherman and his cohorts at Dopamine, gamification.co, and Livecube.

Why I Went

I went to the conference to a) understand the disconnect between what the theorists write, what gamification companies present, and what real companies implement, and b) find out what I could contribute to the gamification world, either as a writer, an employee, or a consultant.

Gamification companies present basic, or even bad, game mechanics as implementation examples and in their turnkey products. Often there is no relation between their implementations and the motivational psychology that they espouse. The papers, articles, websites, case studies, and books on gamification present some good information about psychology and motivation, but they present gamification systems with only basic game mechanics. Simply adding points, badges, missions, and leaderboards to a process doesn't make a good game, let alone a more motivational process. Some case studies mention more complex mechanics but leave out the complex implementation details.

A small number of gamification critics who present more comprehensive motivation models are entering the gamification business. Their gamification implementations are allegedly constructed to match their motivational principles, but these implementations still lack the rich potential of complex game mechanics developed in the last forty years. Their systems are still built around an endless parade of points, badges, missions, and leaderboards abstracted from games like World of Warcraft, Farmville, and Second Life. This is akin to watching publisher after publisher espouse the rich potential of board games and then release an endless stream of games based on Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit.

What I Found (Overview)

The con was held in downtown San Francisco in a sketchy, treeless neighborhood that hosts Zynga and other trendy companies in posh buildings half a block from drug dealers and the ramshackle homeless. I estimate that around 300 people attended. Except for some audio problems, it went smoothly.

Every company with a remote connection to any definition of gamification thinks that theirs is the only correct one: they define what gamification is, they present an implementation that conforms to the definition, and then they mention case studies that have little to do with their definition. Companies that promote straight gamification were present together with those who promote play gamification, each one presenting evidence that the other ones didn't know what they were talking about.

When you carefully look at the numbers presented by these companies, few point to a challenge that was properly defined and solved using gamification. They throw out percentage increases in a metric that has little to do with the actual problem. For instance, they might say that a particular system was used by 98% of a group of people. Were these people forced to use the system? What was the net effect in those participants compared to those who didn't use the system? What was the net ROI for the company or the participants? Also, they don't present the implementations that didn't work.

Researchers on standard motivational theory, as well as companies that had nothing to do with gamification, such as purveyors of rewards, gift cards, and loyalty programs, were there. The new gamification companies presented evidence that old-school methodologies don’t work or never worked, while the old loyalty companies trotted out case studies and evidence proving that they work perfectly.

Loyalty programs, customer management, data collection, location tracking, rewards, and manipulation techniques are black hat motivation techniques (getting consumers to do what you want, or playing on consumers’ fears) and these sessions were depressing. Many sessions were sales pitches for services or books; their claims and evidence presented were directly contradictory: loyalty programs worked; loyalty programs didn't work. Don’t design for games or fun, design for engagement; you can’t design for engagement without games and fun. Rewards work amazingly well; rewards actually demotivate.

Sessions from companies or organizations that had implemented systems (straight gamification, play gamification, gameful design, or playification) described how they achieved buy-in from their organization, what were the results, and what they plan to do next. These sessions were the most helpful; they tended to be more honest than the vendors who sell gamification platforms, and in some cases they described the implementations that didn't work.

What I Heard (Details)

Rather than present the contents of each session, I will present what I learned by topic [with my comments].

Motivation

While gamification tokens (points, etc) are extrinsic “rewards” awarded after completing a task, an argument was presented that gamification increases intrinsic motivation by orienting you to do tasks that you will find rewarding. Some said that there is no fine line between the two, and most motivation is a complex combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.

Intrinsic motivation can trump rewards or threats of punishment. For example, if you are threatened about submitting a report late, you might still submit it late because you want it to be just right. Threats (an external demotivator) actually increase intrinsic motivation that can remain after the threat is removed.

One robust theory on motivation (Octalysis) includes eight parameters: 1) meaning (purpose), 2) accomplishment (mastery, competence), 3) empowerment (autonomy), 4) ownership (acquisition), 5) social influence (relatedness), 6) scarcity (limited awards, rankings), 7) unpredictability (random awards, exploration), and 8) avoidance (loss, opportunity cost). Some of these parameters are extrinsic and some are intrinsic; some are white hat (positive) and some are black hat (negative).

As the ease of performing a task increases, the required motivation to do it decreases. If a trigger to do a task falls under this curve, the act is not performed; above the curve, the act is performed. In any case, a trigger is needed (you may be motivated and able to exercise but forget to set your alarm). Every action is measured independently: the same action may require more or less motivation as it becomes easier or harder (or the motivation changes in some way). So you have to decide between managing the motivation, making the task easier, or providing a trigger.

The methods you use should depend on whether you want the task done once, over a period of time, or long term, and whether you are asking the person to perform a new action, repeat an action done before, change an action, do an action less, or stop doing an action.

Different gamification techniques are more effective at different points; this makes sense due to flow theory. Points are easy to acquire, so they are short term; reputation is more challenging to acquire, so it is long term, and it is also harder to game. Ramp up the processes and switch people to long term focused systems as they gain familiarity.

Happiness is short term and transient. Purpose, which may include short term unhappiness (struggle, challenge), is long term and sustained. The chemicals dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphin make us happy, but they each have a different trigger. Dopamine: anticipating rewards. Oxytocin: bonding socially. Serotonin: feeling pride.

There are different types of fun, including hard fun (challenges), easy fun (exploration), people fun (social), and serious fun (purpose). [This correlates – kind of – to Bartle's four gamer types.]

A special note about Rajat Paharia on BunchBalls' philosophy: there is no place for game deign or fun in gamification; it is all about engagement. His philosophy makes zero sense [it's engaging because it is fun and designed well!], but it's (I hope) mostly a matter of terminology and the fact that he presents his product as black hat gamification. Several companies are using BunchBall's turnkey system.

Black Hat Motivation

Rewards: A big prize (like the XPrize) focuses effort and legitimizes the time spent working towards that goal. It motivates disparate teams to accomplish things outside of companies. The cash value, above a certain amount, is not relevant, since the research results, interesting nature of the challenge, and community built during the process is rewarding to the participants. This allows you to get people to do more while spending less.

People also love lotteries and unearned coupons, which are prizes offered for no challenge.

However, rewards signify the end of a process, while business motivation must remain indefinitely.

Tracking: The Internet of Things will enable locators in billions of objects that can track people by their smartphones (or other devices). You can use exact data about people’s movements throughout a store – you can even use hidden cameras that capture their facial expressions while they interact with certain products – to gain insight on how to sell to them.

Subversion: People are entrenched against persuasion from people they oppose. You can influence their behavior more readily by using people in their own camp or people whose opinion they respect. Exploit social behavior: tell people stories while pitching to them, and use human interest and their friends.
Channeling: People are less likely to opt out than to opt in. Provide wizards. Show empty areas that need filling or populate things by default. Consider page scanning on websites and thumb reach on devices for elements you want clicked. Reduce choices, chunk, block options, block sites with popups, guilt people to not choose undesired options or make them unattractive, hide escape links, and disclose only what is necessary. People think that presented choices are valid choices: this makes them feel smart and valued, which is more effective than rewards. Make your site look credible.

White Hat Motivation

Companies that focus on making virtual things more real (like the big game companies) are ignoring the market for making real things more virtual. [The speaker ignored companies that do ARGs and other pervasive gaming. However, gamification needs more and better game designers creating better gamification techniques.]

Gamification provides a means for people to reach their goals; your company’s goals should align with people’s goals. Collaboration is better than competition. Have people compete with a system, not each other, win or lose together, interact with shared but different responsibilities and resources, and allow for user-generated and emergent features.

Gamification fights boredom. Companies in the entertainment and food industries have been attacking consumer boredom for ages, and there is no reason why we shouldn't do so in the business world for employee boredom. Motivated workers are more productive and their work is better quality. Games can provide holistic experiences that model complex systems. Emergent behavior can produce viable solutions [like in Ender's Game]. Gamification systems must include ROI, understand the learning and pain points, and consider the genre and platform.

Most disruptive technologies provide people with better means of communication. MyFitnessPal has trounced Weight Watchers in a short time because it uses effortless peer-to-peer communication. Education can be similarly disrupted. [I’m not sure that this is absolute, since apps require self-motivation without a trigger, as opposed to coaches and teachers. Not everyone is motivated by their peers!]

Case Studies

IBM created a rich and complex series of gamification processes that includes training and brainstorming. They consider it to be very successful. See Serious Games for Business.

T-Mobile is gamifying 38,000 call center workers, but balancing the rewards is very tricky, since people do what gives them a reward regardless of whether it is the best thing for the customer. If you reward quickness, customers get hung up on. If you reward no return calls within X time (a short time), workers give “solutions” that delay the return call. Etc. Groups in different locations and cultures respond to different rewards, mechanics, and structures.

Applebee's (RMH Franchise Corp) introduced a straight gamification system with no rewards. It reduced a 130% employee turnover rate by about 20% in a year. They plan to add status rewards, such as a special colored jacket for best performing employees.

Wikipedia and Delta Airlines presented gamified training programs, but it was difficult to see if these made any real substantive difference to their bottom line. The people who took the gamified training programs liked them and were trained.

The Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy gamified its scrum (agile software development) program. All of its participants were student game designers. The gamification included a full D&D-like experience played on a whiteboard with moving Post-It Note characters, earned equipment, etc. One goal was to increase the accuracy of time estimations; this also had the side effect of making people more familiar with teammates' work items. Another goal was to reward showing up for scrum meetings. The system worked for one group that had a supportive leader, but not for another whose participants saw it as additional busy work.

Gabe Zicherman led us in a workshop. We had to come up with ideas to solve a problem, including voting on the best solutions. It was "gamified" because a) we voted on the best solution, so there were points awarded (kind of), and b) he gave a prize, a t-shirt, to the winning team's solution. [In my book, it was an example of a non-gamified task nearly destroyed by an incredibly sucky game. We were already motivated to come up with a solution; the "award" of a t-shirt was actually demotivating.]

Keynotes

Jane McGonigal said that a controlled study now proves the efficacy of Superbetter. Superbetter's effects can change your life even if you stop playing it after six weeks. Games of any kind help with real world problems; for example, playing Tetris for 10 minutes within 6 hours of a trauma can help reduce PTSD. People find this weird, though they wouldn't find it weird if the activity was meditation or prayer; games still make people uneasy. 10 minutes of games also help push out other drives, like overeating or the desire for alcohol.

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s talk was interrupted frequently by microphone problems. He is a dynamic and funny speaker. He talked about how science is becoming mainstream, with examples from pop culture. He also briefly mentioned gamifying science using crowdsourcing.

Adopting Gamification in Your Company

Here are some steps that you can use to bring gamification to your company:

• Create a business case. Find other companies in your sector who use gamification, especially competitors.
• Shamelessly promote the idea of gamification until people are used to the idea and agree to a pilot project to see if it works.
• Identify the specific problems you want to solve. Take the time to do a proper survey.
• Ensure that gamification is the right solution. For example, gamification is great at providing immediate and progressive feedback, and at clarifying complicated procedures, making them less threatening and more likely to be completed.
• Estimate the ROI. Define the metrics that define success or progress.
• Find a champion for the pilot. Find coworkers willing to give time to the project, especially gamers who believe in the idea. For future projects, ensure that you’re not the only champion, or you will become a bottleneck and it will fall apart when you’re not around.
• Ensure that there is someone leading the process, so that people don’t become lost.
• Use outside solutions if they make sense and it simplifies things.
• Define desired actions and how they report the metrics.
• Design for different types of players.
• Create seamless, non-intrusive flow for discovery (finding out about the system) and onboarding (first steps to use the system), habit building (becoming comfortable with the system in the short term) and mastery (continued relevance in the long term).
• Reward people for using the system, since it is saving time and money elsewhere.
• Integrate gamification into many parts of the company (the whole flow, if possible). It should become a natural part of business.
• Keep the system fresh; games become stale so a gamification system requires constant input of fresh ideas. It may not be suitable for all people.
• [I will add: Provide autonomy so that people don’t feel like they are forced to do things they don’t want to do. Provide purpose: the reason they’re doing this, and the benefits for the company or for the world, whichever is relevant.]

Conclusion

Before, during, and after the conference, I also met or talked to professionals who didn't attend the conference but who work in motivation, games, or both. They say that gamification is a meaningless buzzword, a con, or nonsense (they used less polite phrases). I think that their complaints were aimed at straight gamification and the companies that sell it.

When you consider play gamification, the gamification is a tiny part of it. In the same way that Dan Pink didn't really add much to self-determination theory, but his simplifying and popularizing it added a great deal of value, gamification simplifies and popularizes playification, which may not be too bad.

Gamification proponents call points "rewards", and critics rightly point out that points are not rewards. A game where you click a button and get a million points isn't rewarding. Minesweeper gives you a point every second, but your object is to get the least amount of points; are these points rewards? People don’t run a 100 meter dash for the points, but for the intrinsic value of the race. But not so fast. The critics are not entirely correct. When a person runs all out and sees the numbers, the numbers matter; they focus the runner and provide a goal to achieve. I admit that, despite the inanity of the conference's gamified chat system (Livecube; see below), whenever my points closed in on a round hundred (500, 600, etc), I was motivated to post a few more times just to see the number roll over that hundred mark. After it did, I no longer cared one whit about my number if it was not attached to a real reward, and the additional posts I wrote to increase my score were valueless. Still, point-driven motivation does exist, at least in the very short term.

I went to the conference to a) understand the disconnect between what the theorists write, what gamification companies present, and what companies implement, and b) find out what I could contribute to the gamification world, either as a writer, an employee, or a consultant.

A) The disconnect exists because there is no clear definition of gamification, companies are still carving out a space, and as a result they disagree on what works. The long term results are inconclusive, but they are also promising for certain types of goals, especially for training and cooperation.

B) A game designer has experience with the application of hundreds of mechanics that could be used in gamification systems but currently are not. To give you an idea, consider what a game designer could do with “points” (this is off the top of my head):

• Points that are positive, negative (used sparingly!), themed, tradeable, or assigned only collectively
• Multiple point tracks, for example green points, blue points, and red points. The biggest problem with black hat gamification is that it reduces autonomy (by incentivizing some tasks and deincentivizing others); by allowing participants to select among multiple point options, you add autonomy back into the process. In any case, different point structures are required for different positions in the company (you can’t use the same point structure for call center workers and IT personnel).
• Goals based on different point tracks and levels, with badges earned either by concentrating more on one track or diversifying between tracks.
• Participant created goals and levels, thus establishing point goals that work for each participant (see flow theory)
• Additional factors to earning points. For example, if tasks are completed in a certain time, in a certain order, or with a certain buy-in, they scale upwards or include residual effects.
• Limited replenishing points that can only be assigned to others.
• A rich set of point redemption packets that utilize different point combinations, as well as a series of redemption missions (redeem A to acquire B or C, redeem C or D to acquire F).
• Ensuring that play and mastery is part of the system, and not just more work for virtual rewards.
• Most importantly, ensuring that points encourage people to do things that they already want to do, not things they will regret, feel tricked into, or come to regard as busy work.

Livecube

A final word about Livecube, the conference chat system designed by the guys who ran the conference.

Livecube presents chat rooms for sessions and lists of speakers and sessions, and also integrates with Twitter. It includes a gamification system that awards points for posting (more for posting pictures), reposting, favoriting, getting reposted, and checking into and rating sessions. I appreciate the chat rooms, though a real chat system works just as well. As it stands, its gamification system is a disaster. Leaderboards kill the motivation of anyone but the leaders to post anything, and demotivate reposts (since it gives leaders more points than it gives you). The badges are worthless and repetitive. The points don’t reward any accomplishment, but inspire inane post after inane post; the result are chat sessions filled with noise instead of signal. Worst of all, encouraging people to tweet when they should be listening to a speaker is a Really Bad Idea. On the technical side, conversations are hard to follow. Limiting posts to twitter length makes many types of conversations and useful information impossible to communicate. In short, the system encapsulates everything that is criticized about gamification.

A few ideas to fix it: Remove the points and badges for things that are not actually accomplishments, such as hitting the send button. Reward a random participant each day for each session; this keeps people checked in, but not posting too frequently. Deincentivize multiple posts that are not favorited or reposted. Deincentivize posting during a lecture; incentivize for posting after the lecture (or maybe lecturers should give two minute tweet breaks during lectures). Create group incentives for teams. Remove the leaderboards; leaderboards are only appropriate for when you want only a few people to do something, not when you want everyone to do something. Create achievable missions. Create rewards for tagging people physically to foster real world social interaction. Etc.

Think Your Game is Educational? Here’s How You Can Prove It

GlassLab's Evidence Centered game Design (ECgD) assessment engine can prove scientifically if your game really helps players learn [1]. Alternatively, it can help you redesign your game so that it does. That makes GlassLab’s approach to playification different: rather than construct games to provide education, they discover and elicit education from within existing games.

GlassLab’s assessment engine can be hooked into video games using an API on a variety of platforms. Players’ choices while playing the game are sent to the assessment engine, which provides multiple views into the metrics generated during each game session. Each player’s performance can then be assessed to determine if they are actually learning.

On Monday I visited Zynga’s San Francisco HQ in the company of Tamas Makany, a learning designer at GlassLab Games. GlassLab is a non-profit put together by the Institute of Play, Electronic Arts, and other entities interested in the intersection of digital games and education.

Creating the right hooks requires not only the API, but also the assistance of GlassLab's learning experts and statisticians to:

• Identify what students are supposed to learn.
• Construct metrics to measure that this learning process is actually taking place.
• Identify (or create) the game mechanics that provide these metrics.

For GlassLab's own games, they also design the user interface and experience and provide assistance to teachers to help them implement the games in the classroom.

GlassLab currently has two games. The first is a modified version of SimCity called SimCityEDU that GlassLab built using the actual SimCity code under license. The game provides multiple missions that start SimCity at specific states and require students to handle specific problems, such as how to reduce carbon emissions in their city while still providing the city with sufficient power. The second game is Mars Generation One: Argubot Academy, an original game from GlassLab featuring squabbling Martians that requires players to assess whether and how much certain sentences support an argument. The Martians then simulate a debate using the players’ arguments as weapons.

Both games are built to teach lessons based on Common Core educational standards.

[1] ECgD is based on the principles of evidence centered design, a methodology that ensures that what you think is happening is really happening.

Olympics Badminton: A Study in Bad Game Design

Here's a game for you:

The game lasts eight rounds. In each of the last five rounds, if you lose against your opponents you are out of the game. In other words, you have to win each round in order to win the game.

In the first three rounds, if you lose against your opponents, the only result is that you will receive easier challenges in the last five rounds; there are no penalties for losing, because the rounds are not scored. If you win these rounds, you face harder challenges in the last five rounds, making it much harder to win the whole game.

And oh yeah: The only thing that counts is winning the whole game, for which you are massively rewarded.

Any idiot could tell you that a player's best move is to LOSE the first three rounds. These rounds don't count for anything other than to make your life more difficult in the last five rounds, which are the only ones that actually provide any payoff; and the payoff is the same whether the challenges in the last rounds are more or less difficult.

Sounds like a dumb game? That's Badminton in the London 2012 Olympics, where 4 pairs of players, including the most recent gold medal winner from the last Olympics, were tossed out of the Olympics for "match fixing". Did they toss the game because of shadowy gambling connections? No, they played the game as it was designed by losing the first games in order to face easier challenges in the last games, the last ones being the only ones that counted.

But to hear the Olympics officials, the media, the fans, and the news pundits talk about it, you would think that they cheated. A scandal! A shame on the Olympics, the game, and the world! Well, technically they violated two codes of sportsmanship that require players to play their best during all games and adhere to the spirit of the games. But some of what I've heard is just nonsense.

"The players are supposed to be providing an example to the young people of the world" (BBC). Uh, no they're not. They're supposed to win the gold medal.

People who paid money to watch the game don't expect to see lackluster performance. "Who wants to sit through something like that?" said the Olympic chief. So what? The players are there to win the gold medal, not to entertain the audience. How about we ask them to perform a tap dance while they play? That would be entertaining.

"It's not in the spirit of the games." Really? Trying to win a gold medal by conserving your resources during completely irrelevant rounds is not in the spirit of the games?

I don't know who made the decision to add these useless and silly preliminary rounds (apparently added to prolong the games so that the organizers make more money by selling more tickets), but whomever it was wasn't a game designer, or a good one at any rate. A good game designer knows that when you want players to perform a particular task, you have to offer a reward that motivates them. If the reward for throwing the game is higher than the reward for winning it, guess what is going to happen?

You can't just toss a meaningless game or fake competition or points (I'm looking at you, poorly designed gamification) into an activity and expect someone to play for them if you simultaneously punish them for doing so.

How about providing games that matter to the players, and not just the spectators and the sponsors?

Yehuda

Ignorance Sucks

Not knowing things irritates me. I may be in the minority on this.

Exhibit A: Snaps

Last sukkot I was introduced to the bar puzzle/game Snaps, one of those hilarious "in-the-know" games enjoyed by the people who know the rules and supposedly challenging and frustrating for those who don't. The game is allegedly about trying to guess a word given clues by one player, but it's actually about figuring out how the clue system works. Something to do with snapping fingers.

To some people, this is entertaining; if you're one of those people, don't clink on the above link. I was simply irritated. You would think that a game-player like me would be interested in trying to figure the game out, and I was for about four minutes. After that I got bored and wanted the answer.

The person leading the game was not tuned into this; he thought it was unsporting to give away the answer, so he just kept playing new words. After unsuccessfull trying to persuade him that I was no longer interested in guessing, I used my smart phone and looked up the answer. This might be construed as cheating, except that I never agreed to participate in the game in the first place.

Exhibit B: Books (and films, and other media)

I enjoy books, movies, etc a lot more when they've been "spoiled" for me. To me, the enjoyment from art isn't the anticipation and suspense of not knowing what is going to happen. It's from the artful way it is done. I've downloaded movies just to watch them at home before going to the cinema to see them. I read plot summaries online before reading a book, watching a movie, or even a television episode. If it's good art, I like to watch or read it more than once.

The term itself - "spoil" - implies that I'm out of touch with the common folk on this one. It's not spoiling to me; it's getting the plot out of the way so I can concentrate on the enjoyment of the media.

Exhibit C: Dice

For some, the anticipation of the unknown and uncontrollable is a thrill, for me it's a pain. I feel that the game is over right before the die is tossed: in the planning and the strategy that brought us to that point that matters. Once it's tossed, it doesn't even feel like playing to me anymore; it's like punishment. The win isn't exciting; the loss is irritating. It's a no win scenario for me.

Oddly, I don't mind at all when an opponent does something unexpected. In fact I love it; that's playing. I love talking to people who say unexpected things. In fact, I love the unexpected all over the place: random encounters in the real world, serendipitous discoveries in stores or on the radio.

In other words, I'm happy to continuously discover the interesting and good. Withholding knowledge just for the sake of withholding it is not my idea of fun.

An Irresistable Plea

A game company is asking - begging - me to change their game to make it better. To add some "zazz". They're offering me (a currently unspecified amount of) money to do so.

It's a children's educational game. The thing is that the game is actually already pretty good. Yeah, it's roll and move with parent/child discussions about the topic interrupting the game flow, but it has nice components, a decent flow, quick turns, catch-up mechanisms, some clever collection mechanics, and engaging ideas. The topic is interesting and universal. In fact, there are three games in the box, and at least one of them (what appears to be the throwaway third game played only with the game cards) looks like a lot of fun, even for grown up game geeks like me.

The game has already won several industry awards and recommendations (some of these are handed out just for showing up, I think) and garnered good reviews from players and educational professionals alike. Of course I can throw some modern game ideas at them, but I am constrained by being not allowed to change the board or cards, only the rules.

I'm not sure what I can do for them, but I'm thinking it over. Even with the constraints there is a lot to work with.

Spare Squares: Rules Tweaking

The design goals for Spare Squares include: easy enough that anyone who is the slightest bit interested (definitely not the majority of people at BGG.con) will feel that they have some prospect of winning even if they don't spend a great deal of time on the game; yet rich enough so that those people who enjoy fiddling with the cards will have fun spending a great deal of time on the game and earn some kind of reward for doing so. It's not easy to hit that balance.

An average random but legal arrangement of cards scores yields about 12 to 20 points along the outer edges. The maximum edge score is 36.

Here are some ideas for tweaking the rules:

1. Requirements: I am thinking of removing the requirement for any kind of interior edge matching. All you have to do is match the numbers. In practice, that will require trading with no more than two or three people. This should yield a set with about 16 to 20 points with a bit of rotation. Trading with a larger group, say 12 to 20 people, should yield a decent score of 24 to 30. Those last few points to get to 36 are the hardest.

2. Bonus points: Completing the first level bonus is about as hard as trading with two or three people (up to five, perhaps). That yields the average edge score of 12 to 20points plus the 10 points bonus, for 22 to 30 points. This automatically shuts out a casual number match and rotation submission. A better first level bonus is 6 points, putting you in the same category as the edge match and rotation submissions.

The second level bonus is as hard as the complete edge match. When combined with the average edge score (12 to 20), it should yield a little less than a perfect edge match (36) so as not to shut out edge matchers, so should be around 18. So 6/18 seems to be about right for bonus points.

Of course, if someone has access to hundreds of cards and lots of time (as they will), they're going to raise their scores above 36 and they will win, putting everyone else out of contention. This is a discouragement to the other players. On the one hand, isn't that the way games are? The person who practices more at Chess or Tennis than you is going to win. On the other hand, I don't have the luxury of only catering my game to fanatics; I have to be inclusive of lazy people.

3. To solve this, I could make each point an "entry" into a random draw. In this way, a casual submission counts as 16 entries if it is worth 16 points. A fanatic entry of 40 points is 40 entries, but still not a guaranteed win. This neatly solves the problem ... except that I hate lotteries. I may have to swallow my pride.

4. Another solution is to divide the field up according to play tiers: one prize for sets with no matching middles, one prize for sets with first tier matching, and one prize for sets with strong (perfect) matching. Fewer people will play in the strong match tier, and one of them will get their prize. Many people (one hopes) will play in the no matching middle tier, and the winner can be chosen randomly among top scorers of this tier.

This option still requires the number matching for all tiers, however prizes are not given out based on the number, but based on the tier (three prizes instead of four).

I'm still thinking about it. Any other suggestions (that don't involve changing the entire concept of the game, or the design of the cards) are welcome.

Yehuda

Spare Squares: A many-player social strategy trading game for BGG.con 2011

I created a new game for the next BGG.con. The game will be produced by Blue Panther LLC in a limited run of one. I struggled to figure out how pay for its production, since it was going to cost more to produce than BGG was willing to spend. I came up with the idea of asking BP to sponsor the run and put their logo on the game, to which they agreed. Win-win-win.

I'm having fun with this design genre: "many players" social-strategy-trading games. I'm pleased with this particular design, which has strong design integrity. Designing for this genre has a kind of  artistic integrity. Not many people are doing it. To make money, I would have to get hired by convention organizers or large companies or organizations who want a brainy activity for their employees during the yearly company kickoff meeting. However, the game could be adapted for a smaller group of players, say as few as three.

Here is the game:

Spare Squares

Created, designed, and illustrated by Yehuda Berlinger for BGG.con 2011. Published by Blue Panther LLC. © 2011, Yehuda Berlinger. To obtain a copy of this game with customized rules and components, contact Yehuda at shadjon@gmail.com.

The BGG.con print run is 5000 unique square cards.

Objective and Play

The object is to submit the best set of arranged cards in one of four different prize tracks (1-4).

You start with four cards and an envelope. Beg, trade, win, or steal cards from other players to obtain the cards necessary for a complete set. Submit your set to any BGG.con organizer before Saturday evening 8 pm. Results will be tabulated and winners announced at 10 pm.

Entry Rules

You must adhere to all of the following rules, or your entry will be disqualified:

1. You may submit only one set of cards. Entries must be received by 8pm on Saturday night.
2. The number in the center of all submitted cards must be the same, as pictured. This number determines the prize track.
3. You must submit exactly four cards. You must arrange the cards in a 2x2 grid, as pictured. Mark all cards with their location in the grid as follows: TL=top left, TR=top right, BL=bottom left, BR=bottom right.
4. You may rotate cards as required; mark all cards with an up arrow (↑) to indicate the top of the card.
5. Adjacent images on each of the four interior edges (a) must be the same shape. Filling and color do not have to match.
6. Submit the cards in an envelope with your name on it.

Scoring

1. On each exterior edge (b), you score as follows:
   • 2 points for matching shapes
   • 3 points for matching interior
   • 4 points for matching color
2. Points are cumulative. For example, the set pictured scores 19 points.
3. Bonus points:
   If all adjacent images on the four interior edges (a) match in shape AND filling, add 10 points to your score.
   • If all adjacent images on the four interior edges (a) match in shape, filling, AND color, add 20 points to your score. (Note: This is not cumulative with the previous bonus.)

Winner and Prizes

There will be one winner in each of the four prize tracks; the winner in each track is the person with the highest scoring set in that track. Ties will be determined randomly. The prizes are as follows: [TBD, but each is generally a donated game of around $100 in retail value]

Thoughts

Your thoughts? I will be playing around with the bonus scores to find the exact right values, but as long as it's in the ballpark it should be ok. I was considering a doubling bonus for matching the interior edges exactly, but doubling got me in trouble in the first game for being too strong.

Does it look fun?

The players write on the pieces to play; this is required for a large convention like setting, but would not be required for a game played by 3 to 10 people around a table. For only three or four people I would start them off with more cards.

Part of the integrity of the design is that the tiles and the rule-set are separate. The game can be made easier or harder on demand (by requiring no or all edge matches, or by requiring or ignoring matching fillings), or varying the point values (for instance, matching specific colors can yield different points).

My inspiration comes from my previous BGG.con games, which were in turn inspired by Sid Sackson's Haggle. When I first saw the larger games that were to be played at BGG.con, they were all lotteries or tournaments. I thought that a convention of strategy gamers should have a single game to play with upwards of 100 people at a time that was not a lottery, trivia, or quiz games or a tournament of smaller games.

I also drew inspiration from Eternity II, a game/puzzle I haven't actually played and whose name I actually forgot. Still, I remembered the idea of matching pieces and that there was some math behind it.

Do You Need Game Expansions?

Some game expansions are worth buying, and some are not. Before buying, consider:

- How frequently you play the base game

The less frequently, the less you require an expansion.

- How often you have already played the base game

If you don't play the game frequently now because you're tired of it, but you played it to death when it first came out, an expansion might rekindle interest in the game.

- How rich is the game play experience of the base game?

A game that's already wildly imaginative and plays differently each time doesn't necessarily need an expansion.

- How much game play the expansion adds

The price should be proportional to the change in the game play.

- How disruptive the expansion is to the base game

Does it offer more options, or does it entirely change the game mechanisms? More options is good if you like the base game but need more to keep it stimulating. New and changed mechanisms means a new game, which you must want to choose to play in place of playing the base game.

All of these questions lead to the ultimate question: how often will this actually hit the table? My track record for expansions varies wildly:

Age of Steam, Power Grid, etc. (maps): Train and other connection games that don't come with a randomized board setup can use expansion maps. These don't hit the table often in my group, so a few expansion maps is sufficient for us. Beyond that is a waste.

Agricola: Agricola comes pre-packaged with expansions, including the various decks. It needs no further expansions. I have successfully avoided them.

Alea Treasure Chest: This is a box with small expansions for seven Alea games, of which I own six of them. We use to play a lot of Puerto Rico, and I created my own expansion buildings for it, so I was open to playing the Nobles expansion. It's good, and will probably come out again.

I haven't tried the other expansions yet, but I suspect we will get to them. We don't play the other games all that often, so I don't know how often the expansion will come out even if the base game does ... unless the expansion significantly improves the game. In which case we will no longer play the base game without the expansion.

Apples to Apples: If you play often, additional cards can be fun. However, A2A is designed well, so that you don't really need expansion cards. No two hands are the same.

Blue Moon: I didn't find the base game all that interesting. I didn't try the expansions, but I doubt that you can play the base game too often without them.

Carcassonne: The standalone games such as Hunters and Gatherers and The City don't need - and don't have - expansions (there's a very small tile expansion for H&G). The base game required some expansions to spruce up some imbalances in the scoring. I don't know much about them, however.

Chess: Changing anything in Chess means playing a different game; Chess is Chess. Chess means memorizing openings and very specific evaluation strategies. Any and all expansions to Chess are simply abstract games played on a Chess-like board with similar rules to Chess. I prefer the variants.

Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic was built to have expansions, since the game is designed to be wild and full of surprises. The more the merrier. However, I don't like several of the expansions, notably the ones that disrupt the game play (moons, variable hexes, ...).

Cuba: The designer sent me a few tile expansions to the game. I don't play frequently enough to judge these. They don't disrupt the game, but I wouldn't have gone out of my way to buy them, either.

Dominion: Dominion is already a fantastic game, and several of the expansions are fantastic, if slightly-less balanced. There comes a point, however, when you have enough already to make every game different; at that point, the only reason to buy expansions is for the same reason you buy packs of Magic cards: you want a particular card. Don't do it. Pick two expansions and no more.

I'm going to violate what I just said by buying Prosperity; however, I could easily give up Seaside.

El Grande: I tried the King and Intriguant variant several times. The concept wasn't inherently bad, but some of the cards were annoying, and wouldn't you know it, every player played on of those cards at least once a round. In the base game, those cards can only come up once or twice. So I banned those cards in the variant.

Turns out that we simple didn't play El Grande enough to warrant the expansion at all.

Homesteaders: An amazing game space which I haven't come close to exhausting. But I think there's room for a set of expansion buildings. Just one.

Magic: the Gathering: This game, as all TCGs, is built around the concept of expansions. Luckily, making some cards rare meant making other cards common, and thus worthless. You can pick up thousands of "worthless" cards for a song, after which you don't need any more expansions.

The Pillars of the Earth: I bought the expansion, and the group played it once. We don't play the game enough to warrant it. Actually, I've grown sour on the master building drawing mechanism, so, unless this expansion fixes that, I probably won't be playing it.

Power Grid (deck): Unlike the maps mentioned above, the deck provides variant plants to acquire during the game. While it did, it had hardly any noticeable effect on the game.

Puerto Rico: I've already created half a dozen expansions to this game, and they keep the game from going stale.

Setters of Catan: The expansions to this game were a mix of additional options (Seafarers) to disruptive (Cities and Knights). I like C&K, but it's a different game, which doesn't come out all that much anymore (we played it to death). I didn't think Seafarers was worth the money, after playing it once. The 5-6 player expansions made the game long and cumbersome.


What's the moral of this post? While the Tribune expansion looks tempting, I don't need it.

Competition and Failure

"I don't play games, because I* am too competitive."

"I* get too involved in playing and it always leads to an argument."

"I* can't stand losing."

"I* cheat."

[* I could be I/he/she/we/they]

Overly-competitive might be a matter of personality. But it's no surprise to find that there is a lower incidence of arguments, sore-losers, and cheating with some types of games than with others.

If a game is a series of dice rolls over which you have no control, and ends with but a single absolute winner, and the rewards for winning are high, then it's understandable that those who play care for nothing besides the win. Competition is heightened, sometimes to a potentially dangerous level.

In contrast, if a game requires important decisions or trainable skills, provides a score against which you can measure your progress from game to game, or if the rewards for winning are not (much) higher than the rewards for good playing, then competition still exists, but the spirit of the game is also prominent. Winning is important, but it's not worth cheating and chronic argument. There's joy to be found in the game, other than winning alone.

Certain games reflect certain values. Some games push the game win over the game spirit. The values in these games are reflected in the culture of modern entrepreneurship, boards of directors, and financial traders. A drive to win is good, and so is competition. But competition can reach a dangerous level, if it leads to an unhealthy necessity to win, and a loss of fun, fairness, and other important values.

Failure to win is not equitable with failure. Rather than devastation, a failed attempt is a necessary step on the road to discovery and growth. It is not a sin to attempt and fail; it is a sin if there is nothing to gain from the attempt other than success, and some players must fail.

Calculation is Not Decision Making

Decision-making occurs when you have multiple options. When you are evaluating the worthiness of a decision, you use calculation and prediction. Calculation requires you to add up the facts: known numbers and odds. Prediction requires you to mentally juggle possible reactions to your decisions, reactions that are not calculable or predictable; well, perhaps predictable if your opponent always plays rationally and to his or her maximum benefit, or has a blind-spot, but not predictable as in mathematically "set in stone".

Some amount of calculation is ok. Too much calculation is boring. Poker against the house is pure calculation, and ultimately futile; you only have one "right" decision, which you can arrive at after much calculation, and it's never going to win in the long run. Poker against other players also requires calculation, but also a lot of incalculable prediction, and is therefore more interesting, at least as far as decision-making goes. Caylus, and several other meaty Eurogames I could name, favor too much calculation in the decision-making process.

Your game is fiddly if you mistake calculation for decision-making.

Slap Deck, a game for 2 to 6 Players

Shuffle a standard deck of playing cards. Flip over cards one at a time. Whenever any player wants, he or she may slap the face up pile and take it, placing it face down in front of him or her. A player may only do this three times. Players may not look at any face down pile during play. Whenever a 2 is flipped, remove it along with the face up pile. Continue until all players have slapped three times, or until the fourth 2 is flipped.

Scoring:

A matching pair of black and red number cards are discarded (for example, a red 8 and a black 8)
Then, two matching red number cards are discarded  (for example, both red 8s)
Black number cards are = +points equal to their value
Red number cards are = -points equal to their value
Two matching black number cards are +5 points
Picture cards (J, Q, K): 1 of a kind = -10, 2 = 10, 3 = 30, 4 = 50Aces: All player(s) with the most aces split 36 points

High score wins. Alternately, with more than two players, high score wins the high pot, low score wins the low pot. Alternately, play multiple hands, accumulating scores until a set value. Suggested:
2 players 500
3 players 350
4 players 200
5 players 150
6 players 100

Yehuda

Can You Judge a Game By Reading The Rules?

For a movie, or a book, or a dance, or a song, you never really know what's coming. You can infer based on what you know of the skill of the author, the genre and culture in which the work is set and made, and so on. But you never know for certain. It could change in a moment; the book may suddenly pick up, the dance change direction, the song change rhythm. The author may, at any moment, take the work in a new direction.

For a board game, with the rules laid out in front of you, the author can explicitly take you in a new direction only if the game requires you to bring heretofore unrevealed external media - a movie, a piece of music, a paragraph of text - into the game play during the game. For the typical abstract, roll-and-move, or trivia game, you've seen everything the author put into the work the moment you've read the rules, and sometimes the moment you've read the back of the box.

Barring the author having you consult external media during the game, if you have imagination and experience with similar games, you can do a fair job of envisioning what the experience with the board game will be like. The dice may be screwy and you may pick all the wrong cards, but a trivia game is a trivia game, an economic game is an economic game. The other players will be the main unexpected factors in the game.

However, there are exceptions to this. Games like Go or Chess looks and initially play like simple abstract games. However, there are depths in these games that reveal themselves after several plays, depths that you could not have expected or understood from simply reading the rules.

Discoveries like these can occur in other games. Many of these will be bad, when you come to realize that the game is not really balanced or enjoyable for certain reasons. Some of these will be good, when you come to realize that there are hidden, novel, pleasurable experiences in the way the game mechanics interact.

Sometimes this is the voice of the author, whose twists remain unrevealed until the game is experienced. Often, it was a happy accident to the author as well, who discovered these twists the same way that you did.

For games, as well as for any well crafted media, even after these twists are revealed, and even after you know when to expect them, you should be able to enjoy experiencing them repeatedly.

The Cheating That Is Not Cheating

Froggie Boogie

There's a fantastic children's game called Froggie Boogie. The game comes with a lily-pad track, a small frog for each player, eight larger frogs in two colors each, and two eyes for each frog. A fly is pictured on the bottom of one of the eyes on each frog; the other eye has a blank bottom face.

On your turn, you roll the dice. The two colors rolled on the dice indicate a specific large frog. You choose to look at the bottom of one of the frog's eyes. If it shows a fly, replace the eye in its place, move forward on the lily-pad track, and go again. If it shows a blank face, replace the eye in its place and pass the dice to the player on your left. The first player to reach the end of the track wins.

At the start of the game, picking the eye with the fly is a matter of luck. However, you should, in theory, always be able to pick the correct eye once you've "done" a particular frog. In practice, you tend to forget, again and again, which eye has the fly, much to the amusement of your children who win at least as often as the parents do. It's a fun game for kids, or for kids to play with adults.

Solving Froggie Boogie ...

About halfway through my first game of Froggie Boogie, I realized that the game is solvable. I could assign an order number to each frog, and a binary bit to each eye (for example, right eye is 0, left eye is 1), and thus, after every play, adjust the value of the bits in order, convert the binary number to a decimal number, and remember the decimal number. On my turn, reverse the process to determine the correct location of the fly.

... is Cheating

I could have ... but I didn't. Instead, I continued to play the game the way I believed it was "meant to be played": I tried to remember the locations visually. I got better as the game went on, but continued to make the occasional mistake. In turn, my memory got some exercise.

Why did I do it this way? Because using my solution would have been cheating. On the one hand, it wasn't against the rules. On the other hand, it was against the spirit of the game; solving the game wasn't what the game was "about" [1]. It wouldn't have exercised my memory. And it would have made the game phenomenally boring for me, and for all of the other players. In other words, it would have taken a fun game and turned it into a waste of time. That's wrong.

Winning Should Be a Challenge

In a competition for $1,000 or a trophy, one is expected to try to win at all costs, so long as one plays by the rules and exhibits sportsmanship; in this case, my solution would not be cheating. In a family situation, there is a limit to how many personal resources you are expected to bring to bear in playing a game. You don't go all out against your four year old while playing tennis. You give a weaker player a handicap while playing Go or Chess. That makes it fun for all players, and that's the point; winning is besides the point.

Trackable Information

In some games, information is hidden but trackable. For example, in Puerto Rico, you are aware of how many victory points a player gets when he or she gets them, but you are not "supposed to" keep track of exactly how many each player has [2]. In It's Alive, you can track how much money and which tiles each player has, if you really want to. But you shouldn't. You should guess; it's part of the game. If I had wanted players to keep exact track exactly how many coins and which tiles each player had, I wouldn't have given each player a personal screen to hide them. Exactly keeping track of this information slows down the game, and also makes the game a little boring.

Analysis Paralysis

Over-analysis of a game situation may lead to better results, but it leeches away the fun and the game time from others. When you over-analyze, you get more play time than the other players do, and you may even prevent an additional game from being played later in the evening.

Over-analysis is spending 1/6 more time taking your turn than the average time spent by each other player taking his or her turn. If everyone else spends, on average, a minute to think through a move, you should spend no more than, on average, a minute and ten seconds. You may do better for thinking longer, but that's not the point of this particular game. You are expected, in this particular game, to think only so far, and estimate the rest by instinct.

Thinking for up to a minute or two should be able to get you to take the path with 33% chance of success over the path with 1% chance of success. If several more minutes of thinking gets you to a path with 55% chance of success, then you're over-analyzing, or you're specifically using the game to think through a particular type of strategy [1, 3], or you're playing Chess, where each player's turn is long and deep thinking is encouraged.

Countermeasures

Froggie Boogie's game play is simple, light, and fairly quick. Its child-friendly theme acts to discourage playing the game in any way other than the canonical way.

Same games have open information; this makes tracking information simple, but additional concrete information can lead some players to additional over-analysis.

Some computer games and some board games prevent over-analysis by not providing you a lot of options, or by providing you many options, or by not providing complete information. Providing few options results in a narrower, but possible deeper, search tree. Providing many options results in a search tree that is so broad that anyone with sense should quickly realize that a complete analysis will take too long. Incomplete information is not much of a help on its own, if players can still work hard to analyze the odds.

Many computer game, and some board games, prevent over-analysis by requiring you to make your moves under a time constraint. You can institute your own time constraints (an hourglass or a kitchen clock works well) for any game, if you so desire.

Yehuda

[1] These sentiments do not apply for all occasions. For example, solving the game might serve as an instructive exercise for a class in math, logic, or algorithms.

[2] In a two-player Puerto Rico game, you can't help it, since you know how many you and the bank have, and you know how many there were to start with. To solve this, the bank's current total should be kept secret. Use twenty five 1 VP chips, and the remainder 5 VP chips. Place the 5 VP chips beside the board, and the 1 VP chips in an opaque bag. When you gain 1 VP chips, take them from the bag, tossing 5 of them back into the bag in exchange for a 5 VP chip when appropriate. Players may not count the chips in the bag.

[3] And for some people, that's the fun in a game, regardless of what the game play is "meant" to be.

Some Finer Points on Skill and Luck

Let's say that a game gives me two opportunities: I can try to pick a black card from 2 red cards and 1 black card, or I can try to pick a black card from 99 red cards and 1 black card.

I have a 100% chance of successfully choosing the opportunity that I want [1]. There is no waiting for the results, no possibility of error, and nothing my opponent can do to prevent or overturn my choice.

Nevertheless, the game doesn't end after that choice. Once I have chosen, I must still pick the card and await the result. Between the time that I chose my opportunity and the moment that the card is revealed to me, I contribute nothing to the game. There is no skill I can exercise, no feat I can accomplish. All I can do is await the outcome. [2]

In a game of Chess, when I choose to make a legal move on my turn, there is a 100% chance of my move occurring. Between that move and my next move, my opponent may respond in many different ways. There is no skill I can exercise, no feat I can accomplish [3]. All I can do is await the outcome.

The difference between these two games is that in the former case, I await pure chance to determine the results, while in the latter case, I await the skills of my opponent to determine the results. In either case, I can be lucky or unlucky. Luck in picking cards is obvious. In playing Chess, luck may have to do with my opponent's mental state, somehow having hit a blind spot in his evaluation or knowledge, his having a weakness to which I played [4], and so on.

Here's a third game: I'm shown the location of the black card in a set of three cards, and then I go read a book. Now I come back and have to remember where the black card is. I remember that it's not the right card, but I can't remember if it is the middle or the left card. I decide to pick one of those two cards.

My choice is partially skill and partially luck [5]. My skill has reduced the amount of luck. After my decision, I must again await the result of my choice.

If I play the game a dozen more times, I will win every time - no luck involved. The first time I played, I didn't realize how hard it would be to remember. Or, perhaps, I hadn't yet come up with a workable mnemonic system.

If the first game is luck, and the twelfth game is not luck, when does the game change from being one of luck to one of skill? After all, some people will win every game, even the first one; they have a natural skill. Some will always rely on luck.

I determine from these questions that a) my skill can reduce the amount of luck, or eliminate it entirely, and b) beyond the reach of my skill there is still luck. A wild guess. Or an educated guess. A wild swing. The hope that my opponent will under- or over-estimate my play.

If a game relies entirely on skill, it is a puzzle, or it is a foregone conclusion (e.g. tug-of-war with a baby).

Yehuda

[1] Assuming that I can evaluate the situation correctly, and assuming that my opponent can't cheat or otherwise manipulate the odds as I understood them.

[2] Roman's comment on my last post noted that, though my choice of a card is in fact irrelevant, human nature ascribes importance to the selection of the card; if the card is simply flipped at random, it doesn't feel the same as my "picking" a card. This is true, and a fact of human nature that good games exploit.

[3] Assuming that I cannot influence the decision through meta-game actions, such as trying to make him nervous. I could, however, use the opportunity to plan my next move.

[4] That can also be skill on my part, and not only luck; for instance, I may play moves quickly, thereby rattling him.

[5] Of course, it may actually be the right card, and I remembered incorrectly.

Watching vs Performing vs Mastering

Watching vs Performing

There are two distinct aspects to board gaming; so distinct, that they aren't the same activity at all, though they look the same from the outside, and most games package some combination of them into the same box.

These are: luck and strategy. Passive and active entertainment. Watching and performing.

It's no crime to enjoy both. Moods vary, depending on the lateness of the day, alcohol consumed, and other factors.

When you roll the dice and laugh, groan, or jump for joy at the outcome, you are enjoying passive entertainment. Your having to push a button to cause the random event doesn't change that. The entertainment value is from seeing what happens to something outside of your control. Like watching television.

When you're called upon to think or make a decision, you are enjoying active entertainment. There are different levels of active entertainment, from the simple (trivia: do I know it or not?) to the complex (how do I get my battalion to that base?). Regardless of complexity, you can rank better or worse players, and most of the time you can work to improve yourself.

You can't rank or improve performance of experiencing passive entertainment; the participant isn't performing.

Obviously the writers of this article had expectations that games are there to amuse the players while the players watch. That's fine, if that's what they like. Unfortunately, they didn't realize that watching games play out is a different sort of entertainment than performing them. I'm sure that they would diss Chess as too boring.

Performing vs Mastery

My friend David pointed out this article about a division within active gaming: performing vs mastery. There are two types of activities within active gaming: performing what you know well (relishing an easy win), and mastering what you don't (struggling, failing, and eventually succeeding at a difficult win). The article is a good read.

The author claims that, while in action games, the player must improve in order for his or her performance to improve (mastery), in RPGs, the player's character gains performance disproportionately to the player's actual mastery. It's like: see what skills you've gained, though the player hasn't really achieved any new skills. I think that's a little unfair to RPGs, especially the ones that require actual player thinking. But mostly because RPGs are simulating a different type of fantasy: real players shouldn't have to get more physically fit for their characters to become more physically fit.

But the general point is sound: people play games for different reasons, depending on what types of entertainment or recreation they want at a given time. Ranking different types of games against each other is pointless if they are meant to provide different types of entertainment.

Zauberenhändler aka Wizard Trader

I ran a game at BGG.con which I called Zauberenhändler, which I hope means Wizard Trader in German (that's what it was supposed to mean).

Cards

There were 1000 cards, 10 identical copies of 100 different cards. The 100 cards contained a) a name, such as "David", which is the person represented by the card, b) an age relationship between two other people on two other cards, such as "Claire is 26 years older than Gwen", and c) a bonus that may be absolutely applied ("add George's age to your final total") or conditionally applied ("add +20 points for each person whose name begins with the letter "G").

The rules to the game were printed on the back of each card. Each of the 100 people had a unique age between 1 and 100.

The complete list of cards, and age key

Rules

Each player received one card. Players were told to trade and collect cards. By Saturday evening, they may hand in to me up to five cards, with no duplicates. Their score is the total of the ages of the people they hand in, plus any applicable bonus scores.

Top three scores win prizes.

The Good

I received several thank yous from happy players and non-players alike. Some began playing and then passed their cards on to others, but still enjoyed the idea. Some enjoyed watching others play.

One couple took the game very seriously and traded candy and chocolates for cards, amassing some 350 cards by Saturday night. They spent several hours trying to create perfect sets. He and she came in second and third place. A friend of theirs came in first.

The game, as usual, enhanced social interactivity, which was really its entire point.

Jon Theys helped clarify the bonus values and text, added a graphic, did all the production, and even wrote an Excel program that let me simply select the card names to find the total. Awesome.

Analysis

I enjoyed creating the game. I was expecting that this game would be much simpler than the previous game, because there was only one type of puzzle, and only a hundred cards and ten copies of each card. I also figured that, by the time any one person had amassed 40 or 50 cards, the ages of all of them would be pretty much known, and that this list would propagate to any other interested players. All that would be left was physically obtaining the cards and calculating the maximum bonuses.

So I was slightly worried.

Turns out I should have run some computer generated runs. The couple who had amassed 350 cards only had 70 or so unique cards, but even from that could not figure out the exact ages of nearly anyone. This drove her entirely crazy. I realize that I made a mistake of not putting any base ages in; however, I did put in a few "X is times as old as Z", which should have acted as bases to help you find sane age values.

When I learned of her frustration, I realized that she was going to keep calculating until she had "solved" the game. I also immediately realized that this was simply not necessary. All that was required to do was take five cards and make your best educated guess. The more information you have, the better your chances of guessing well. If you can't figure out the entire table, at least you have a good idea as to whose ages are relatively higher and whose are relative lower.

And you know: this is even better. I thought it would be too easy, and it turned out that finding all the information was difficult. Difficult, but not necessary. The three people who won were the three people who had spent the most time making the best guesses that they could. And that's exactly how it should be.

The Bad

Unfortunately, fewer people that I hoped actually turned in any cards. This bothered me, of course. Then the complaints rolled in.

- Couldn't understand/find the rules

This from gamers who spent four days pouring over 40 page instruction manuals and went seeking any of the dozens of available game teachers to teach them how to play. For some reason, they couldn't understand a single sentence on the back of a card, or be bothered to ask an administrator what it meant.

I have no sympathy for you. What exactly do you expect in your game bag at a game convention from a game designer? A lottery ticket? You already got three of those. I can't stand lotteries, which is why I don't play games with dice. If I make a game, it's going to have something more than a random drawing. Don't like it, don't play it.

- Couldn't understand the strategy/Didn't know what to do

I'm nearly as unsympathetic to this one as to the previous one. Haven't you played Settlers of Catan? And you don't understand what trading is?

Maybe the rules were too short: "Trade and collect these cards." It seems I should have added more: "You may trade the cards, give the cards away, use them as ante for another game, give them or get them in exchange for candy, beg, borrow, or steal them. Just try to amass five good cards. To know if cards are good, you are going to have to trade information with other players or collect a crapload of cards. Good luck."

Honestly, I thought this was implicit in the rules. I guess others didn't think so. Next time, I will make this explicit.

- Only got one card

Continuing with the previous criticism, a number of people were in despair of playing because they only got one card; how were they supposed to get five? See my answer to the previous complaint.

I sympathize with this one a little more. Mischa explained it to me. It would have been better to give a bunch of cards and ask for a bunch of cards, like I did the first time. For several reasons. First, having multiple cards gives players a better idea of how the cards vary, and so what they can expect to find if they trade with others. Second, it is not so hard to get a few cards when everyone had several, while it is hard to get four more cards when everyone has only one. It didn't help (though it's slightly amusing) that Alex Dupres was discouraging other people from playing by scorning them if they only had one card and then happily taking it from them when they decided not to play. Heh. You did play; you just lost.

But lesson learned: next time, each player will get multiple cards.

- Couldn't solve the game

As I mentioned above, that's not a bug, it's a feature. You didn't have to solve the game to win. Getting clues and a general idea was enough to win. I sympathize with your OCD, but I'm laughing at you, too.

- Couldn't find Yehuda

Yeah, sorry about that, but all the admins knew that I would be away Friday afternoon until Saturday evening. Some of them didn't know that they could collect cards on my behalf; I'll ensure that that doesn't happen again next time.

For those of you who didn't know who I was, you just had to ask. The admins knew me, as did around 100 other people walking around. And I was the only one with a kippah on my head. Maybe I'll put my profile on the cards next time.

- Didn't know the prizes

I wish I had known them before, too. Putting them on the cards would have been a good incentive to play.

Future Plans

All the complaints are being taken into account, and my third version will hopefully build on the positive aspects of the first two. It will be back to a situation where you don't have to solve anything to make a best guess, and you will receive multiple cards. I'll add more explicit rules, a little about the prizes (if possible), and how to find me. I'll make sure the admins stand in for me when I'm not around on shabbat (or if I don't come to the con, I'll ensure that they know how to handle this). I may put up a box for submissions again, like Aldie did the first year.

And I will try to ensure that the game makes its way into the official con schedule listing, so as to give its presence, and the rules, wider exposure.