Cognitive load in games: What it is and how to think about it

Have you ever heard someone say, "This game is a real brain-burner," "There are a lot of rules to learn to play this game," or "This game seems too simple"? What they are talking about is cognitive load -- how much of your brain you need to use to pay attention to something. 

There is not a one-size fits all amount of cognitive load that is "right" for games. Different games fit into different zones for different people at different times: 

• Sometimes after playing a heavy strategy game (aka the brain-burner) I want to play something lighter, because my capacity to focus and pay attention has been used up. 
• Sometimes I like to play a very complex game with lots of rules, so I can pull my mind off of other preoccupations. 
• Sometimes I like a game I can play in a cafe and still have conversations with the other players.

How much of a person's brain you hope and need to engage depends on the type of game you want to make and where and how you picture it being played.

It is useful to separate cognitive load into three categories:

1) Learning and Memory: how much brain power you need to learn and remember how to play a game. This will vary by type of game. There is no right answer for this category. Each person has different preferences, and each time and place has different parameters. 

2) Navigating user interface (UI) and information design: how much overhead your brain needs to process information and manipulate game elements. You want this to be as minimal as possible, so that the player can put their attention on the other categories. 

A few things to avoid to reduce overhead:

• Centered text
• Low contrast (See more in Mistakes in Card layout)
• Too many symbols
• Mixing symbols into the middle of text
• Extra clicks, and small targets for UI buttons, etc. (In computer interfaces)
• "Incoherence" - things not being similar in design when they could be.  
  
  Information Design in Board Games, another blog post, goes into more detail.

3) Strategic thinking: the fun, interesting, engaging part. It is coming up with strategies for play, figuring out the puzzle of it, thinking about what you would do differently next time. Sometimes a game is so simple it doesn't have much of this at all, and then I feel the cognitive load is too low. You can't get engaged.

More ways to think about it

Sometimes people think a game requires a lot of strategic thinking but the cognitive load they are experiencing comes from learning the rules and struggling with the interface. Go is a classic example of the opposite. The basic rules are so easy, the interface is so easy, and the strategic layer is incredibly deep. 

Designers sometimes over-simplify the design process. They advise "make fewer rules" or "always reduce cognitive load". I prefer "make fewer extraneous rules" "make fewer clunky, inelegant rules", and to ask "does this rule help the game become its best self?" or "does this rule make the game more interesting?". 

You can make a game that is simple to learn and easy to play, yet has no depth and is dull. You can also make a game that is hard to learn and hard to play, and has no depth and is dull. How to create strategic depth and complexity in your game? Sounds like another post to me!

Sometimes your intention is to create a more complex game, and therefore you may need more rules. George Orwell said it well, "Use as simple words as possible. But NO SIMPLER." Sometimes you need a complex word for a complex idea, or complex rules for deep games.   

Three Main Types of Cognitive Load:

• Intrinsic Load: The inherent difficulty of the material or topic being learned.
• Extraneous Load: The unnecessary mental effort caused by how information is presented (e.g., poorly designed materials).
• Germane Load: The productive mental effort devoted to constructing schemas (permanent knowledge structures).

Impact and Management 

• When the total load exceeds capacity, learning is hindered, errors increase, and focus declines.
• To optimize cognitive load, aim to reduce extraneous load, manage intrinsic load, and promote germane load.

 

How to use these ideas when designing games 

1) have an idea of what types of players, and environments you imagine your game being played by and in. 

• Some games are much a harder to play in crowded, noisy environments. Some are not. 
• Are you making a "pub" game? 
• A social game? 
• A day-long strategy game? Adjust the complexity to fit. 
• Are you making a game that people might play between other deep games? 
• A game couples might play in a quiet evening? 
• Is the game meant to be played a lot of times? You better have involved, complex strategic possibilities, or people aren't likely to return. 
• How old are the players who you think might like to play it? Is it a large range, or small? 
• Can the players read? Do complex reasoning? Have good eyesight? 
• How much memory is required. 
• Lots of questions to ask.

2) What is the medium your game is being played in? 

• Is it a board game? All those rules have to be remembered to make the game play smooth. That means you have to streamline more than on the computer. 
• Are you making a computer game? The computer can automate and remember a huge amount, so your complexity targets can be different, but you really have to make sure your interface is smooth. 
• Are you making a game people play with friends, no board, word of mouth rules transmission, like charades?

 

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.

Mistakes in Card Layout - 4 More Points

This is a collection of other common mistakes made when laying out cards for board games, to end this series on the blog.

1. Low contrast. If you have gray text on light gray background it is going to be hard to read. Make sure you use high contrasting colors between your text and the text background. White on black or black on white is the best.

2. Not enough White Space. White space is the gap between the edge of your text and the box it is in or the sheet it is on. When there is too little, your eye will "catch" on the bounding box, and make reading slower.

The text is too close to the bounding box on this card from Smash Up. They also centered the text which additionally slows down the reading and comprehension.

3. Text Background box over graphics is too transparent. So the fun graphic you put behind the text box shows... but also interferes with the text. Make the box opaque or only very slightly transparent. The goal is the most readable text.

This card from the Resident Evil deck building game is a good example of a transparent text box behind text, done right. They have the right side, where there is no text, more see-through than the middle, where the text is.

One other problem with the layout is: title not at the top. It would increase the immersive feel to have "Jill Valentine" at the top of the card, especially instead of "[Character]" which is dull as well as useless to have there.

This card is never used in a hand of cards, otherwise I would say it has a full bleed problem. See my next point.

4. Full bleeds! This is when the graphic on the card goes all the way to the edge of the card, instead of being interrupted by a border of some kind. It sure looks nice, but it blurs where the edge of the card is, and can result in making it hard to differentiate between individual cards, especially from the back when they are overlapping. If your cards are always face up on the board, and never overlapping, maybe this is ok, but if they are overlapping, held in a hand multiples at a time, then it is not. If you HAVE to have the image go to the card edge, at least put a pseudo border around the edge by darkening or lightening the image there.

 

These cards from Thunderstone Quest illustrate my point. See the middle left of the top card? Very hard to find the edge between it and the card below it, so it becomes a usability issue in terms of differentiating and picking up. But the white text on blue background has good contrast.

See what a solid border does to differentiate the cards? From Magic the Gathering.

 

See the other entries in this series: 

Mistakes in card layout - Titles not at the top! 

Mistakes in card layout - Centered Text

Mistakes in card layout - Mixing symbols and text

"Focus" in Game Design

Focus: a state or condition permitting clear perception or understanding.

Focus is one of the tools you have for managing complexity successfully.

When a player has ten disparate things to do, they are less focused than when they have one thing to do.

When a player has one thing to do with with five relevant sub goals or parts, they are more focused than when they have six unrelated things to do. Hierarchies of information help focus because a player can focus on the level they need to and ignore more fine detail.

When a five player game says the way to play it with less players is to have some players play more than one character, that version of the game is less focused. It also makes it less immersive often because the focus is gone and you don't identify with the characters the same way. You switch your attention between being two characters, instead of always feeling like, "this is me."

When a game has nine phases to go through a turn, it would be easier to focus if they were grouped together in some turn sequence hierarchy, such as Income, Main and Clean up. And do you really need those nine phases?

Eliminating extra detail increases focus. Are those extra stats on your hero worth the loss in focus? Is that one action that is only taken rarely worth the loss of focus?

When something is less focused, it takes more concentration to pay attention to. This can be good or bad, depending on what type of game you are making, but there are still limits despite the type of game. For example, a board game with 200 independent pieces per side would probably turn off all but the most extreme players.

When something is less focused, it is harder to come back to later and remember what was happening, or how it works. Think of an overly complex rule set for a game, and what it is like picking up the game to play a year after your last play: check this, check that, how does that go again, and so forth. Think of a game that you haven't played in a year that you can remember how to play: oh right, that's how this goes, and you can do this, and you win by X.

There are other factors, of course, and there are trade-offs between complexity/depth and rememberability/focus. The important thing is to know and decide where your game fits along the spectrum of focus and why it is there.

Also, different players prefer different levels of focus, and the same players might prefer different levels at different moments.

I think a general rule of game design ought to be: err on the side of simpler and more focused. Especially if you can't explain why you are not doing that.

Mistakes in Card Layout - Mixing symbols and text

You've seen those cards. You've tried to read them before the rulebook. You've been mid-game and stuttered over them.

They look like this:

Take 1 @ to activate & as long as you have the %.

An you go, "Uh, take one, um, round thingie, a coin maybe? to activate a squiggle as long as you have something that looks like a slash. Maybe zap power or something?" And no one gets it!

Mixing symbols inline in text is a bad idea, because visual symbols are more ambiguous than text and they are harder to draw definitely. It actually slows down comprehension, and reading, and elegance. The more symbols you have in the game, the worse it is if you mix text and symbols.

Having symbols on a separate line, or a sidebar alongside the text is fine, because the words help define the symbols, and when they are clearly defined in people's mind from play then they can use the symbols as a shorthand, possibly.

Having symbols count as their own thing outside a sentence is fine.

Also naming something is part of creating a feeling and theme in your game and when people don't know the name, and go around calling it "thingie" or "zap power", it undermines the hard work you did to make the game how you want it.

I noticed while doing the research for this, that is a mistake that most professionals are not making, but many beginners are making.

Good examples of text and symbols together:

From Terraforming Mars. Separate lines for symbols and text. Well done. The text defines precisely what those symbols above it mean. After a while of playing the game, you will be able to read the symbols.

Examples of bad mixing text and symbols:

If you have a wound, +2, um, manhole covers? bottlecaps? I'm not sure. If it is a disease, also take 1 something totally undefinable. There are a lot of other mistakes on this card besides the mixing text and symbols. From Thunderstone Quest.

From Runebound third edition. There are too many weird symbols mixed in the text. I can guess some of the meaning, but would like it to be clearer. They could have put a box around the costs (2 zappies) to separate it visually, and that part would be fixed. Good things they did: title at the top, left aligned text in the reading area, and a border to the whole card.

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Previous posts in this series about mistakes in card layout:
Centered Text
Titles Not at the Top

Mistakes in Digital Games - Show the Numbers!

I've played a lot of Gravity Rider, an iPad game, lately, and it made me think of some user interface feedback for digital games.

Gravity Rider is a motorcycle racing game with a futuristic twist. Racing the bikes around the track is pretty fun. Everything that surrounds racing the bike is pretty tedious. Upgrade, get chests, lots of gamification and pay to play stuff, which never help a game play well.

The item to discuss today is the garage. You can flip through and see the different bikes you own and their stats... I mean you can sort of see their stats. Because the stats are just shown as bars! And you don't really have a sense of what those mean, and you definitely can't precisely compare the stat of one bike to another. I mean, sometimes you can say that THAT bike is definitely faster, and THIS one has a higher rotation stat (whatever that means, a different UI problem). And if the bars are even vaguely similar in length for a stat on different bikes, you just can't tell what is what.

The main way to fix this is SHOW THE NUMBERS!

Say, "this one has a speed of 5. This other one has a speed of 4." Put the actual number near the bar. Very helpful. In a real-time game, you might even say this one moves 3 feet per second, and this other one moves 4.5 feet per second. Even more helpful. Then people can evaluate the game better. Like, they might then say, "Oh, this one is 1 lower speed, but 2 higher acceleration. There are a lot of stops and starts on the upcoming race track, so maybe that is a good trade off." Otherwise it is more like, "Maybe I'll just try this one."

Let a player know what the numbers are, so they can make precise choices instead of approximate guesses.

Imagine your game was a board or card game. Without the numbers, it literally wouldn't be functional. So not showing the numbers in your digital game and letting the computer just use them makes the interface non-functional, even if the game runs fine with those hidden numbers.

Maybe you want to have a sense of mystery. Fine, don't show the numbers if that is what your game is all about. Otherwise, SHOW THE NUMBERS! They help a player understand and make meaningful choices in your game.

Images above are from Gravity Rider. Notice they do have a number, which is a conglomerate of all the stats. Possibly. But we don't know for sure. It is mostly a useless number to base a decision on. Except to say, overall this bike is better.

Here is the link to Gravity Rider. Give it a try. It is actually fun to ride the bikes around, yet could be a much better game overall.

Mistakes in Card Layout - Titles not at the top!

Continuing the series about card layout in board game cards, we come to Titles not being at the top of the card. They should be, if the card is ever in a player's hand and there is more than one card. Also, it is the most prominent position on a card, and usually putting a title at the top helps to solidify its identity. Occasionally a picture there will do that. But most often if the title is not at the top, the identity is more vague.

Here are some visual examples:

A stack of cards from Mage Knight. What the heck are those cards below the ice bolt? When I play the game I never refer to the cards by name, since the name is not available to be visually focused on most of the time. Thus the thematic identity of the cards is weaker. Too bad. I love Mage Knight!

A stack of Magic the Gathering cards. You can tell what the lower cards are. I always refer to these by name when playing. Much stronger thematic identity. And usability in a hand of cards.

If a card is never in a player's hand of cards, there is more leeway:

Units in Mage Knight are played to the table, so they look nice and are perfectly usable. And their identity works because you can see the name and picture at the same time.

Check out the previous entry in this series:
Mistakes in Card Layout - Centered Text

And the next one:
Mixing Symbols and Text

Mistakes in Card Layout - Centered Text

Centered text is harder to read, especially in a block. It slows down people's interpretation slightly, and that adds to the inelegance of the game and to the cognitive load and eye strain. Don't do it, except maybe in one line titles of cards or headings.

Indentations from the left justification line cause a pause in the flow of the reading. That is why new paragraphs are started that way. An empty line between text lines also causes a pause. You don't want a pause in the middle of your sentences or paragraphs.

Here are some good examples of left-justified text:

Lightning Bolt from m10 Edition of Magic the Gathering.

Thunderstone Advance card. They fixed the text alignment! (See old card in bad examples below.) I don't like other things about this card, but that's another blog entry.

Here's some examples of center-justified text:

Lightning Bolt from m11 Edition of Magic the Gathering. What happened?

Older Thunderstone card.

A card from Mage Knight. That game has enough going on! It would be a little easier to process if the card text was left justified. I think it is a great game, despite layout flaws.

From Love Letter. It seems it is a common mistake, even with prominent publishers and games.

From Smash Up. This card suffers from many other mistakes I will cover in other blog entries, including hard to read fonts, lack of whitespace, and full bleed graphics (usually a flaw, really, the way it is done).

Next in this series:
Mistakes in Card Layout - Titles not at the top!
Mixing Text and Symbols