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| Image from www.analoggames.com. |
This is the fourth article in my series for new game
designers. In previous articles I’ve discussed the use of
rules,
time, and
math
in games, and how to avoid common pitfalls. In this installment, I will address
the actual, physical space your game fills. In the age of Gloomhaven, Ogre, and
other massive Kickstarter-fueled beasts, you might need to give some sober
thought to the size of your game.
Observation #4—Shelves are Small
The now commonplace “game shelfie” gives players an
opportunity to show off their vast collections. This might give one the
impression that storage space for games is vast and limitless. However, this is
far from the truth. For every hobbyist with a dedicated game room lined with
hundreds of games, there are many other gamers of more modest means. And even
these alpha-gamers face the cold reality of running out of space. The periodic
game purge has become as ubiquitous as the shelfie.
The situation for individual gamers represents only the
tip of the iceberg. Bright, colorful store shelves in game and big box stores
present a cheerful front but disguise a cut-throat struggle for the attention
of shoppers. Every inch of space must fight tooth and nail to earn its exalted
place before the eyes of consumers. Games that don’t sell are quickly shifted
to the bargain bin. And we have yet to mention the rows and rows of crates in
distributor warehouses across the world. With a thousand new games flooding the
market every year, finding a place on a shelf can be a real and ever-increasing
challenge.
So what has all this got to do with designers? The bottom
line is that, generally speaking, your game needs to be as small as possible,
while still delivering your core experience. This is not to say you can’t make
a solid table-hog miniatures game in a boat-sized box. However, each and every
last component must pull its weight. Publishers, and ultimately, gamers, want
to get the best bang for their buck. Do everything you can to reduce the
production cost of your game while providing good value and matching the
expectations of players.
The best way to get a sense of this is by looking
carefully at published games. While games can come in nearly any shape
and size, the industry has a few standards. A tuck box card game (Uno) will
retail for around $10. This is expected to be fairly simple and last around
15-30 minutes. A more expansive card game (Exploding Kittens) will come in a
small two-piece box and sell for $20. This size game may only have cards, but
can also include a few small components. Players are still expecting a light,
quick experience. Next we have a slightly larger box (For Sale) selling for
$25-30. Now players are expecting a game that can last up to 45 minutes. This
brings us to the most popular board game size, the 12”x12” square box (Ticket
to Ride) retailing for $50-60 ($70 if there are extra components and the game
is longer). Players now want to see a board (or large shared play space), a
fair amount of additional components besides cards, and a play time of 45-60
minutes (or a bit more). Finally, we come to bigger boxes (Scythe, Eclipse,
Thunderstone Quest, Gloomhaven). We expect these games to cost $70-100 (the
price will go down if the game becomes popular enough to print in high
quantities). Often the “all-in” pledge on Kickstarter for these games will be
as high as $200-300 or more. Players expect many hours of content and session
times of 90-120 minutes or more. They will also accept longer rule books and
more convoluted mechanisms in games of this size.
As you can see, there is a pretty close relationship
between the size of a game, its complexity, its play time, and its cost.
Designers would do well to stay within these bounds. Much like a wrestler might
need to shed a few pounds to qualify for a lower class, a game often needs to
be more condensed to hit the right note in the marketplace.
It has taken me a while to learn this lesson. I once
designed a game with loads of cardboard hex-shaped tiles where players were
building and exploring a map in real time. The game would have needed a large
square box and a retail price of $50. The problem was that the game only lasted
about 15 minutes. While the game was fun, it was simply too big for the
experience it offered. Regrettably (and stubbornly), I repeated this mistake
with another real time train game a few years later.
How can you decrease the size and component count of your
game? Here are a few ideas:
First, consider the parts of your game that are not used
as much. Maybe there are special tiles that only come into play during certain
times. These might need to be shrunk or eliminated. Often, the solution is to
combine the component with another part of the game. While you don’t want your
players to run out of a component such as cubes, many of those cubes will not
often come into play. Think about ways to alter the rules to allow a reduction
in the total number of cubes needed.
Second, think about the scoring system. One common
solution is to replace money or tokens with a scoring track (often found around
the edge of the board). Some games solve this problem by using a dials built
into the player boards or the board itself (although this can also be
expensive). This method can also be used to track other stats in the
game—health, damage, morale, resources, etc.
Finally, cards are cheap. Wooden, plastic, and metal
components look sharp, but they can add considerable expense (as can dice).
Figure out ways to use more cards and fewer of the other types. Cardboard is
also relatively inexpensive, but it can sometimes add too much weight or
command a larger box size to accommodate too many punch boards. Cards magically
provide loads of design space for a fraction of the cost.
One final caveat: while it is vital to keep your
components to a minimum, you might want to keep an eye on table presence. A
game needs to look impressive and interesting once it’s set up on the table. It
needs to grab the attention of people walking by. The “toy factor” of a game
can be an important selling-point. In this case, extra material used in an
innovative way can pay dividends in a memorable player experience. Sometimes
more is more, if you do it thoughtfully.
I hope this has been helpful. It takes real creativity to
condense a prototype into a smaller and smaller size. The more you can do to
reduce the production cost for your game, the more attractive it becomes to
publishers and the more value players will enjoy. Thanks for checking out this series of articles. I may think of others from time to time, but this will conclude the series for now.
