Accelerated Adolescence

Does your game mod?

On the side of box of most Euro games you can find a few pieces of useful information. They generally tell you how many players can be accomodated, the amount of time you can expect to waste spend playing your particular game, and something about how old children are when they become excessively emotionally labile, disgruntled, and disobedient. The comment on age and parenting is generally understood to be the opinion of the game designer and not relevant. Here are a few examples:

Recently, I've been frustrated by a few games that suggest that a certain number of people can play but, when testing them, turn out to be as unplayable as the 2-player format is unpalatable.
Louis XIV
Fifth Avenue
Strangely enough, I haven't really seen anything on BGG that allows users to rate a game based on different aspects of playability. Such as, whether or not the game is fun to play or playable with a certain number of players. Some games are very fun with four or five players but are bad with just two. Other games are generally only good when played with two people. For a community of geeks, the internet watchdog falls down pretty hard just using a 10 point scale to rate games.

What frustrates me more is that game designers knowingly advertise their games as being playable by only two people. For those of us who are isolated from a group of gamers that we enjoy spending time with, a good two player game is important. Furthermore, when we occasionally see our gamer friends, it's also important that the same games we love as two player games can become good multi-player games. It's a cheap marketing ploy to sell a game that cannot be played by two people except with an "imaginary" third player. Please, dispense with the bull. We all appreciate that Puerto Rico's box bills itself as a 3-5 player game. While gamers who love the game have invented 2 player variants, none is as robust as a game with more players.

Here is an example of a game that mods for differing numbers of players. Many games can mod well without changing the board size, but it is certainly something that I appreciate. For example, many card games (not usually CCGs) mod well for differing numbers of players, such as Set. This is easily accomplished by dealing more cards or making more room around the playing area. In more complex cases, modding must be more complex. If you are listening, board game designers, make a serious effort to mod your game. No more invisible friends bidding off the top of the deck, please, that just makes the game unbearable.

2 Players

3 Players

4 Players

Posted by Mendon at August 8, 2006 7:39 PM