Two types of Agency in Games

What does it mean for a person to have agency?

In social science, agency is defined as the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices.

Why is agency important?

It empowers players to influence their own path to mastery. By encouraging players to take initiative, you enhance their cognitive ability to take control, increase motivation, and help ensure they  are engaged with the game.

 

There are two ways that applies to games:

The first is imaginative agency, which means the player has the choice to be and imagine who they want to be. Some ways of allowing this are to make synonyms and analogs of items in your game. For example, have a sword and and axe. Thy both give you +1 Attack, yet you can pick which one you prefer. 

Another important thing for promoting imaginative agency in a game is to make sure equal things have equal powers, ie. no degenerative strategies, or unbalanced character classes. Which character class would a player like to play? Ranger, Warrrior or Rogue. They might have different mechanics and powers to differentiate those play styles, but have the same chance of winning. Otherwise, if the warrior is just better, there is a divide between strategy and imagination. You have to pick the warrior to win, but you feel like playing the Ranger. There is a lack of coherence there, and it will turn off both the imaginative player who likes to get immersed in their character, and also the strategic player who likes to experiment with different strategies.

 

That leads me to my next point, strategic agency. Which means you can choose and define your own strategies in a game. This should be obvious, since it relates to meaningful choices, and balanced elements. But if there are one or two strategies that are clearly superior (in the final analysis), the depth and interest of your game is going to be short lived. People might like it while discovering those strategies, and then its over. Having a wider pool of possible paths to victory not only increases the replayability and depth of your game, it helps give people strategic agency. 

 

It makes me think of the meta-game in a Magic the Gathering format. If one or two decks are dominant, then the format gets stale quickly, because you see those decks way more often, and feel forced to take one of those to win. The more types of decks have a winning chance, the more strategic variety and agency there is in a format, which is more interesting for players.

Engaging Game Design

The trick is to make your material so fascinating that you cannot stay away from it, so intriguing that you ignore negative feelings and second thoughts, so rich with interest that the concepts of "good" and "bad" hardly occur to you.

- From 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, by Jane Smiley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author

 

While Smiley's words are intended for writers, I found that they offer good insight for game designers as well. Crafting a game is not merely about following design principles; it's a creative pursuit that benefits greatly from engagement with the material.

The Essence of Engagement

At the heart of Smiley's quote lies the concept of engagement—the deep, immersive connection that creators forge with their material. For game designers, this means more than just understanding the mechanics, rules, or components of a game. It's about cultivating a deep interest in the world you're creating, the elements of your game, and the experiences you're crafting for players. When designers are genuinely engaged, their enthusiasm permeates every aspect of the game, from its thematic elements to its game-play dynamics.

Ignoring the Noise

When designing a game, you will often encounter obstacles, doubts, and critiques. Creating a game is involves challenges, both internal and external. However, as Smiley suggests, when you're deeply engaged with your material, these obstacles fade into the background. The engagement with your game propels you forward, allowing you to navigate challenges with creativity, resilience, and determination. By focusing on what truly excites you about the game, you can overcome doubts and second-guessing, and more easily continue the work of developing the game.

Measure your Engagement

Some questions I like to ask when evaluating how engaged I am by a game I am working on are:

• Are there boring or tedious parts? If yes, can I remove, shorten or enliven them? How?
• Do I gloss over any parts?
• Do I get tired of telling any particular rules while playing the game?
• Are there any parts or concepts or themes that I really like that I could expand upon?
• Do I want it be longer or shorter when I play through it?
• Do I want to play again soon?
• Are there exciting discussions after a play? Is there "telling the story of the game" after?
• Are there any "if I only I had done..." statements afterward?
  
• Are players interested in and paying attention to each other's turns, just to see what happens? 

 

Beyond Good and Bad

Smiley's assertion that the concepts of "good" and "bad" hardly occur when deeply engaged with material apply directly to designing a game. While clearly evaluating a game's mechanical merits is essential, being overly preoccupied with rigid definitions about games can stifle creativity and hamper your progress. Instead, focus on creating game experiences that are interesting, meaningful, and that grab your attention. By thus immersing yourself in the creative process, you can ignore limiting notions of what you "should" be doing and other ideas that may hold you back from crafting your game.

Conclusion

Jane Smiley's insight into the creative process serves as a good reminder for game designers: engagement contributes to forward movement and compelling design. By cultivating a deep connection with their material, designers can navigate challenges, keep themselves interested, and continue work on their game. Ultimately, the more time, effort and thought you put into a game, the better it turns out, so finding ways to keep going is essential.

 

Hits & Misses

I've been making games for most of my life, ever since I was a kid. In my twenties I got a job as a professional game designer. After that I created a lot, in a lot of mediums: Web games, Palm Pilot games, card and dice games, conceptual games, board games. 

One thing I've learned is that every game you make can't be your best game. Sometimes due to circumstances, your game is underdeveloped. Sometimes you try a new idea, and it doesn't work out. Sometimes you make a good game, but it falls flat anyway. Sometimes there are hits, and sometimes there are misses. 

This is not to say that your effort has no influence. It's to remind you that there are circumstances and influences in the world in addition to you that affect what happens. Development timelines, funding, marketing, shifting costs and norms, what medium you're working in, who's on your team, publishers and distributors going out of business or being acquired, trouble in your family and personal life: all these can impact your project.

I remember a period of time when I was having incredibly bad insomnia, and was still developing web games. I got through my current one, The Journey to New Earth, and it worked! But afterwards I kept finding very weird bugs and also realized the game needed much more development to play well. So I took the opportunity to revise it.

My games on the Palm Pilot gained dedicated and excited players. Many players of Adventure Solitaire counted it as their favorite game on the Palm OS. And I made a modest living for a while. But then the Palm OS itself got overshadowed by new and exciting cell phone technology -- smart phones. So there went that for me. And yes, I could have ported them to phones, and then other phones, and so on. But learning each phone and OS is a big project, and I decided against it.

I ported one of my web games to Java. It took four months. Did anyone play it? Maybe one guy. So much time, so little result. I ported some Palm Pilot games to Windows. Same thing. They'd been successful on those other platforms, but not on the new ones. So then I chose to make board games, in part to avoid the obsolescence issue for digital games.

Some luck's bad, some luck's good. Majesty wouldn't have been the game it was if it hadn't had several extra years of development due to switching publishers a couple of times, once at least because the then current publisher was going out of business. So that was some good luck that led to a great game.

I think it is helpful to think of your entire pantheon of created games as an iterative, interactive process of design. You can learn something from each one, and that experience contributes in some way to the next one. This view also helps you not get too attached to whether one particular game succeeds or fails. Work as well as you can on your current game, understanding that all the circumstances and events will have effects, and see what happens. And then make your next game!

Information Design in Board Games - Part Three: Layout

Information design is the practice of presenting information in a way that fosters an efficient and effective understanding of the information. The term has come to be used for a specific area of graphic design related to displaying information effectively, rather than just attractively or for artistic expression.

 

In my previous posts about information design in board games, I talked about the significance of component size and the use of shapes to convey information. This time, I'll talk about the often underestimated yet crucial element of layout, and how thoughtful layout choices can convey information effectively. The layout of text and graphics on a game component can make a huge difference in how players interpret and interact with the game.

The Hierarchy of Information

Much like in a book or a web page, the layout of information in a board game should establish a hierarchy. This hierarchy guides players' attention and understanding. Typically, more important or frequently referenced information is placed prominently, while secondary or context-specific details are presented in a less prominent manner.

Example 1: Ticket to Ride

In Ticket to Ride layout communicates essential information. Destination tickets showcase the points awarded for completion prominently at the bottom right, with the cities the player needs to connect as the title. The point value is made more prominent on the card by making it the largest element, and by offsetting it in its own circle - which brings it into the foreground, making it look like it is set on top of the rest the background, instead of integrated with it. The cities of the route are also important and the rest of the card information is dedicated to those. This layout encourages players to prioritize the point values of the routes, and then figure out where those are on the map.

Clarity and Readability

A fundamental principle of information design is readability. Readability hinges on clear fonts, sufficient contrast, and appropriate spacing. The goal is to make text and graphics easily legible to all players.

Example 2: Carcassonne

Carcassonne's tile layout is a great example of readability. The city, road, and field sections are crisply defined and intuitively designed, making it simple to recognize the type of feature and its potential connections. The ease of readability encourages quick and accurate tile placement.

 

Example 3: Codenames

In Codenames, the word cards' layout is designed for readability. The words are presented in a grid, ensuring they are easy to see from across the table. This lets players quickly scan the words and make word-association connections with their team. Also, the words are printed twice on each card, so that the words can be read right side up from either side of the table.

Information Grouping

In board games, effective layout often groups related information together. This approach reduces visual clutter and supports quick comprehension of complex concepts.

Example 4: Power Grid

Power Grid's power plant cards use information grouping simply, but well. Essential details like the power plant's resource type, capacity, and fuel cost are neatly clustered together along the bottom, in front of a background color bar. This layout allows players to evaluate the power plant's value efficiently and more easily make informed decisions. The big number in the top left of the card is separate from the other icons, since it is referenced at a different time and in a different way - in order to determine when the card comes into the for sale queue as well as a minimum bid.

Some things to avoid

Bad layouts in board games often cause confusion, hinder game play, or compromise the overall experience. Here are some common elements of bad layout:

1. Overcrowding: When there's too much information or components crammed into a small space, it can lead to visual clutter. This makes it challenging for players to interpret the game state. A cluttered board can confuse players and slow down the game.

2. Unclear Text or Icons: If the text is too small, fonts are difficult to read, or icons are unclear, players may struggle to understand the rules or components. This can lead to constant rule-book referencing and frustration.

3. Inconsistent Visuals: Inconsistent graphic design, color schemes, or iconography can confuse players. When similar elements have different meanings or when the same meanings are represented differently, it can hinder understanding.

Conclusion: Layout in Board Games

Effective layout design in a board game is essential for creating a smooth, enjoyable, and immersive gaming experience, and poor layout can detract from the overall enjoyment of the game. From establishing hierarchies and readability to grouping related information, effective layout helps players understand the game and make strategic decisions more easily. 

The next time you sit down to play a board game, take a moment to notice how the layout impacts your gaming experience.

 

Read Part 1: Size  or Part 2: Shape of this series. 

More posts about Information Design.

More posts about Game Design.

Information Design in Board Games - Part Two: Shape

Information design is the practice of presenting information in a way that fosters an efficient and effective understanding of the information. The term has come to be used for a specific area of graphic design related to displaying information effectively, rather than just attractively or for artistic expression.

I played a lot of DungeonQuest back in the day, and then got the third edition much later when Fantasy Flight reprinted it. It plays out in a classic fantasy dungeon-crawl setting. A fun overall game where you die a lot, no matter what edition you play! Yet there were some changes that didn't work well in the new edition. One of which was in the information design regarding the shape of cards.

In DungeonQuest there are a lot of different card piles to shuffle and draw from and put cards into the discard piles of. What they did well in the original edition was to make all the cards different interesting shapes. 

Cards from the original edition of DungeonQuest.

 

At first it seems like over elaborate theming. But when you compare the play experience to the Fantasy Flight third edition, where all the cards are differentiated by just an image on the back, you realize the shapes in the original edition serve an important function: they let you know by shape where each card goes back to. This is less relevant when drawing, since you see where it is coming from (but still a little relevant since the shape reinforces the game "function") but it is hugely relevant when you need to know where to discard the card to. 

DunegonQuest third edition. All cards in a row there are the same shape. Different shapes would have helped identify them.

 

In the third edition, when it comes time to discard a card, you look at it, try to see if you can guess which pile it came from, don't usually succeed since there is a lot of overlap in the game content in each deck, then flip the card over to check the back, scan the eight piles of cards to see if the image matches any of them (those murky images didn't help either but that's for another day), and then discard it to the right pile. At the end of the game, you have to check all the piles to see if any cards were mis-discarded, which is often the case, and them put them in the right piles. This never happened in the first edition, since the unique shape lets you know instantly where it gets discarded.

Both editions used shape and size to differentiate the character cards from the rest of the cards though, so it was easy to visually pick them out on the table amidst all the other things.

Character card from the third edition of DungeonQuest. Larger than other cards, also oriented sideways relative to them. Makes it stand out.

Character Card from the original edition of DungeonQuest. Long and thin and larger than the other cards, so it is easier to visually find.

 

 

 

So why does this matter? Because you want a player to be involved in the core aspects of your game, such as the strategic choices, or the imaginative immersion, or the flow of the experience, or the social experience, or whatever your goals for the game are, instead of focusing on the "interface", which in board games is highly connected to information design, as well as rules clarity, game mechanics, and ergonomics.

The less a player has to struggle with, or pay attention to, the "interface", the more they can play the game.

 

This is part 2 of a 3 part series. Read part 1, about size in information design, here. Or continue to part 3, here.

Information Design in Board Games - Part One: Size

This is part one of a 3 part series on Information design in board games. Part two is Shape, and part three is Layout.

Information design is the practice of presenting information in a way that fosters an efficient and effective understanding of the information. The term has come to be used for a specific area of graphic design related to displaying information effectively, rather than just attractively or for artistic expression.

The size of something tells us things about it, whether we have designed that or not. The larger it is, the more important and/or powerful it is. The smaller it is, the less important and/or powerful it is. So you can have size hierarchies in a game that tell which things to focus on, be afraid of, etc. Size can be overall size, vertical or horizontal size. Ie, something can be wider or slimmer, taller or shorter, more or less massive.

Good Examples of size hierarchies:

Star Wars Rebellion. Those death stars loom over everything!

 

Star Wars Rebellion - the death star and big battleships are much larger, and it lets you feel and know they are more powerful. Also, the standees with the heroes in them are very large, which lets you know they are an important focus of the game. The standees are cardboard, so they are not in the exact same hierarchy as all the plastic pieces. Also the death star and star destroyers are on pedestals, putting them literally above every other piece. Really great usage of size hierarchy.

Scythe: your main mini is larger. The mechs are larger than the workers. These size differences let you know the focus of the game and story.

Blood Rage Minis. Those monsters are huge!

 

Rising sun/Blood Rage: The monsters are bigger, meaning they are more powerful, more fun, more cool. You feel that when you get a larger monster on your team. That is part of the imaginative immersion of those games.

 

Examples of missed opportunities to use size hierarchies:

Xia minis. Some of these are NPCs, but you can't tell from the height.

Xia: The PC and NPC ships (and comets), all are meant to go on clear stands. If you do that, it is harder to differentiate between the PCs and NPCs, especially since the models are not very iconic, being more realistic. An easy fix is to not use the stands for NPCs and put them directly on the board. It creates a size hierarchy among the pieces, helping you focus on the PCS as well as differentiate them from the NPCs. Another thing that could be done is have the NPCs on half-height stands.

Runebound Second edition. A PC on the left, and an ally on the right. No way to tell them apart from size.

 

Runebound Second Edition: The character cards are the same size (bridge sized) as the items, allies and monsters. If they made the characters twice as large, it would have helped differentiate them when in your play area, find them amongst the clutter easier, let you put more counters on them, as well as help highlight the importance/focus of them in the story. I think in Descent and Runebound Third edition, they did this.

Continue to part two: Shape

More posts about Game Design.

More Posts about Information Design.

I'm Hoping for a Day... (state of mobile gaming)

I am hoping for a day when there will be no more gold, gems and also mega-gems in games. No coins, tickets and also blue super-mega tickets in the same game.

 

I am hoping for a day when there will be no more waiting 5 minutes to a day for your energy to regenerate so you can play the game again.