Revolution! Castigated On BGN

Well, maybe that's not exactly the case. Apparently, BGN contributor Kris Hall had a really, really, bad experience with Revolution! recently. He managed to score only 30 points in his first game. Having played my game hundreds of times, I can attest to the fact that this can certainly happen once in a while--people can just get brutally trounced. Does this happen because the game is completely random?

A commenter had a similar experience, noting: "To me it seems that the best strategy to have in this game is no strategy at al, just place your tokens randomly." He is both right and wrong. There is no "best strategy" in Revolution! except to stay under the radar and avoid too much direct confrontation with the other players. If you develop too strong of a pattern (particularly from game to game), the other players will (or should) punish you for it. The corresponding maxim to this is that any strategy will win if left alone for long enough.

The key to Revolution! is that you are not really playing the board as much as you are playing the other players. It's not a question of the best move, but rather a question of what the other players will do. As Wil Wheaton has noted in his BGG rating comment, Revolution! should be played like Poker. Not everyone likes Poker and not everyone likes Revolution! I'm okay with that. Lots of other people do.

One thing that might help reluctant players was suggested by another BGN commenter. Use the Bid Refund Variant. Under this system, players get their tokens back if they lose or tie a space. This assures that you pay exactly what a space is worth and not more or less, though there is the penalty of lost time. And it helps reduce feeling "like one of those mice who are subjected to random electric shocks in cruel psychological experiments." I suspect the SJG people like the other way because they're sort of into cruel electric shocks, but that's a topic for another day.

So is the game completely random? That depends on who you play with. I think you'll find that, over time, Revolution! is much less random that you first thought.

Fascinating Doctoral Thesis on Eurogames

Picked up this link on Twitter today. Stewart Woods has put together an impressive and very readable thesis on the history of eurogames and looks into the effect of the play environment on the play experience. I'm only on page 92 (of over 300), and I've already learned far more about the industry than I've found in any other source. You may think you know about eurogames, but you could probably stand to learn a lot more!

Theme Players

I did quite a bit of frantic work on a design for Minion Games this week. The only problem? My game does not have quite enough theme. This isn't the first time I've encountered this comment. As I was showing off two prototypes for Jay of Rio Grande, he also thought my games were just not getting the theme right. What? My games have tons of theme! Don't they? I was confused.

Then I had an epiphany while discussing the MG game with my buddy, Michael, at Thirdfloorgamers. He also had mentioned that the theme needed work. So I asked, "How big a part of a game is the theme?" He told me that in his club (middle school group), he found some people who are Math Players--they don't really care about the theme at all. Space, Vikings, Ninjas, whatever. Just show me the numbers and let me figure out how to min/max this game and win.

On the other side of the spectrum, he notices the Theme Player. These guys (and girls) really care about the theme. If the theme isn't happening, the game isn't going to be played. I don't want to just move little bits around on the board, I want to be the Governor (or Captain, or Spider Monkey, etc.). And then you have lots of people at various points in between. Most people like good mechanics and a nice theme.

During this discussion, it became very obvious to me that I am very close to the Math Player side of the scale. It also became apparent that Michael is very close to the Theme Player side. This was a real chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter moment for me (apologies to those not alive in the 80s). Suddenly, I understood why I missed what Jay was telling me. He started our session by saying, "What are we doing?" That's a textbook Theme Player statement. Jay is a Theme Player. No wonder we had trouble communicating! I've also had trouble understanding Michael's helpful comments at times. Now I know why!

This also explains why space-themed games sometimes struggle--people just can't get into the theme as easily. Unless you're doing something in the Star Wars universe, you don't really know what you're doing.

This time, I decided to listen like a Theme Player. Michael had come up with several amazing ways to add theme to the game while making excellent use of the mechanics. James from Minion Games has been generating new ideas at Protospiel all weekend (even playing the game with Randy from SJG!), so I don't know if everything will make it into the final version, but I feel much better about the theme now.

In closing here are some good Theme Player questions to ask: What are we doing? If I am X, what would I expect to be doing even before I see the game? If I am X, what else should I be able to do or need to worry about in this game? What happens in this game that just doesn't make sense if I am X?

And here are some good Math Player questions: Is this game balanced? What is each resource worth? What is each move in the game worth? Is there an interesting dilemma? These all look absurdly obvious to me because I am hard-wired to think like this automatically. So which kind of player are you?

Amazing Article: Monopoly Killer

This Wired article is about Settlers of Catan, but it is jam-packed with information about Euro-games. I knew something big was happening when I saw Catan at Toys-R-Us last December. This article confirms it--Euro-games are on the way up in America. There is a very high tide heading our way--just the sort of thing to lift some of the smaller boats (e.g., Revolution!) as well.

BTW - this article also justifies my family's long-standing Monopoly rule about properties going up for auction if a player chooses not to buy it. Apparently, it cuts the play time in half.

(H/T - Purple Pawn)

Candyland Birthday

Yesterday we celebrated our youngest daughter's second birthday with the help of this amazing Candyland cake (compliments of a friend). I wouldn't have thought to mention this on my game blog, but a recent post on BGN convinced me. I've never heard of anyone applying quantum mechanics to a discussion of this simple child's game before, but there's a first for everything! Here's a snippet:

The astute reader will see where this is headed. Candyland is an entirely predetermined game from the onset. Assuming no extra shuffles are necessary, perhaps by using three decks in the initial shuffle, once you pull that first card there is nothing you can do to change things. Your fate is sealed – you just don’t know where it will lead. This set-up differs from a game in which one rolls dice or shuffles cards several times during play, effects which subject players to completely random effects as the game progresses.

So now we see the confusion: How can the most random game possible also be the least random game possible?

A potential answer, perhaps, lies in quantum mechanics, specifically in the infamous Schroedinger’s cat analogy. For the uninitiated, here is the analogy: A cat exists with a cyanide capsule inside a sealed box. Every second the cat remains in there, there is a certain probability (p) the capsule will open, killing the cat instantly. When you open the box, will you find a dead cat or an alive cat? Was the cat dead or alive before you opened the box? The obvious answer upon opening the box is that there is a certain probability (P) that the cat has died in the given time, and a certain probability (1 – P) that the cat is still alive. Once you open the safe, you know for certain one way or another, an action called “collapsing the wavefunction” (for reasons I won’t get into here).

The interesting part comes from the state of the cat before opening the box. While no observers are around, the cat is said to be both dead and alive at the same time. This is, of course, a silly result, and it is often refuted with an easy claim that the quantum universe does not apply to a macroscopic one. (Half of all quantum effects cancel out once you are dealing with just two particles; a single mole is composed of 10^23 atoms, hence the cat is never both dead and alive.) But at the quantum level, this sort of thing does happen, this situation does exist.

The question here: Can we consider a theoretical random color spectrum with a given probability of turning up each turn as not macroscopic in nature and therefore applicable to quantum effects? Or is each card a macroscopic entity, with the information imprinted upon it being dependent upon the card itself, thereby leading to a nullification of any and all quantum effects? Is any possible quantum effect here largely canceled due to the number of cards necessary to play a complete game?

Wow, wasn't that fun? Now for some real fun. Here are my house rules for making Candyland a truly enjoyable family (not just little kid) experience:

Instead of using the deck of cards to move, deal out five card to each player and play from this hand of cards. If you play a red, move to the next red and so on. You may also choose to skip your turn and play a card on someone else, causing them to move backwards to the indicated color (or character). Now you have more decisions to make, instead of just the one (should I waste my time by playing this silly game or not?). Enjoy!

Homemade Revolution

Here's a Revolution first. Mark Crocker went to the website and discovered that Revolution is not currently available until Steve Jackson Games releases it. Not to be deterred, Mark made a homemade copy of the game, pieced together from various pictures and the rule booklet. He shared some of his graphics with me. He reformatted the board into a square to mount it onto an old Trivial Pursuit board:

Here is the bid card. Spartan but accurate:

Finally, here is a sample card. I like the cool picture on the back, though I'm not sure I had the American Revolution in mind (I was thinking maybe Latin America, but whatever). But it's still neat.

Way to go, Mark. I hope it tides you over until the final version comes out. Maybe you can send us a photo of your complete setup and some session reports.

Matt Leacock on Pandemic

I just watched this great video on Purple Pawn. If you are at all interested in board game design, this is a must see! Matt goes through all the steps and considerations that led to Pandemic (which I haven't actually played, but I have watched).