One of the most wonderfully creative and rewarding aspects of playing games comes when the player experience is built around a perspective you wouldn’t usually get in the real world. This is achieved when the mechanics are designed in partnership with the story or perspective. This can be used for abstract experiences, such as the example of being a tree in Photosynthesis, or something harder hitting and meaningful, like Brenda Romero’s Train (something my own work has been inspired by click here to find out more). The gift of a new perspective, through the player experience, is what makes boa ..read more

The board for your game should help tell the story of the game and the history of the player's actions. The mechanics are a start to something far more engaging: Story! Don't be afraid to use everything to tell the narrative of your game Components are not just tools for gameplay, they are characters in a tale! Prologue Often game mechanics and the strategies employed by players, make up the bulk of the game’s story. It is here, in the throws of tension and excitement where most of the emotions are felt and remembered long after the box is returned to the shelf. However, there is an increasi ..read more

- The mechanics, independently of each other, are designed in close consultation of the narrative. - The strategies and behaviours the players employ should be a complex layering inspired by a range of clear mechanics. - Narrative and gameplay should exist simultaneously to create a meaningful experience. - The balancing of these will allow any game designer to provide alternative perspectives like playing as a tree! Our goal here at The Game Mechanics is to observe and understand game design, be it good or bad or somewhere in between, and write about it in the hope it will enlighten you, the ..read more

,This article will discuss: ,What mechanical transference is and how we can harness it. ,How we are all meme-machines and why memes are like genes. A formula for the creation of 'strong' memes for timeless games. ,At some stage in every-day life, each of us will undoubtedly have expressed ourselves in terms of a game mechanic. Whether you got the upperhand with a prideful ‘check-mate’ or ‘folded’ meekly in an unfavorable situation. Perhaps you noticed a match with an exuberant ‘snap!’ or upped the stakes with sly ‘I see your [blank] and raise you’. These phrases have become so widely ingrain ..read more

For people unaware, this is the second half of a 2-Part essay analysing the mechanics of both Dungeons and Dragons and Tales from the Loop, in order to make sense of most of what we will discuss in this essay, I would suggest reading Part 1 before continuing. For this article we will take some time looking at Tales from the Loop, comparing and contrasting its effectiveness to Dungeons and Dragons, and how the mechanics can be used to create effective narratives and stories. To start, let us look at how the mechanics of TFTL can affect the narrative of a game, and how players use these mechanic ..read more

For my next article, I thought it would be good to do a more in-depth case study of sorts. From a theoretical point of view, I am fascinated by how mechanics in tabletop roleplaying games create narratives through play. Due to this fascination, putting all of this in one article made for a very long read, so this will be the first 2-parter for The Game Mechanics! In these 2 articles I will look at two Tabletop RPGs: Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), and Tales from the Loop (TftL). Both of these games have a large amount of mechanics that players can use to create a narrative, or a story, to pl ..read more

When it comes to designing Tabletop games there are many things that should be considered. Of course, the focus should be on mechanics and how the game is played. But is there a way to focus your own view, to help analyse what makes these games work? The answer, in short, is Ludology. The word Ludology comes from the Latin word for game ‘Ludus’ and it predominantly focusses on the study of games in general and how they are played. But let us dig into the title of this article with a ludologists definition of what a game is. Keith Burgen, a prominent games designer and theorist. He defines a ga ..read more

The fewer the rules you need to find fun and tell the story of your game the better. The aesthetics design of your game is an important part of the narrative and helps to reinforce your story. Different perspectives = greater storytelling = better board games! Don't be racist. In one description by the renowned board game reviewers Shut Up & Sit Down, they take the time to mention the immigration story behind the game’s narrative. “A new wave of Chinese immigrants is moving into Chinatown,” “The immigrants, hard-working men and women, are arriving by the thousands to buy buildings, estab ..read more

,This article will focus on augmented elements of board games, in particular their effects on game-play and subsequent player behaviours. We will learn why they should be used sparingly, why they should support the theme and how they can be made more effective by promoting inclusivity and emotional involvement. ,Throughout the ’90s, tech had carved a firm foothold, permeating the toy industry for better, or worse. Countless board games were becoming augmented with technological features. These included everything from simple timers and scorekeepers, to buzzer mechanisms (as in Perfection and ..read more

,Fundamentally ,War of the Ring, (2012) by Ares Games is an excellent retelling of the Lord of the Rings story. The mechanics in the game are designed in a way that, for all the frustration and despair one might feel, captures the struggle of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth against the incredibly overwhelming forces of Sauron. It most certainly ,puts the story first,, drawing out the relationship between good and evil in the ,design of components and how they occupy space on the board,. However, ,the use of dice seem to remove degrees of one's agency, adding to the question we are left with w ..read more