Board with Games? - Not Me!

Fungi - the mushroom card game over churros in Spain

Board Game Playing and Designing

As a keen player of board games (sometimes without boards - just cards), and someone who likes reasonably complicated ones, it is not surprising that I have fancied creating my own from time to time. This all began in my teens when I designed my own version of Cluedo. I did it because of a frustration about the original game, in that you could just get lucky and discover the murderer, weapon, and room by guesswork without any previous deduction. My version had a ‘secret room’ which you had to visit to get more clues, as some of the cards were deposited there. My family played it: the characters were not Prof. Green, Col. Mustard, or Mrs Plum (or whatever their names are in the standard game!), but rather more frightening personalities as befitting the weird mind of a teenage boy, like the ‘Deadly Reflection’, ‘Demon Dentist’, and ‘Bloody Vision’, all portrayed by pretty amateurish but nevertheless terrifying drawings.

I also created an original game of my own at that time called Tip Off, which featured a secret agent wandering around an Eastern European communist country while trying to find a missing comrade. The agent could travel from town to town and get employment when he needed money. Other players could ‘tip off’ the authorities when they guessed which town he was going to arrive in next, which caused obstruction through fines or temporary imprisonment. So the agent needed to try and change direction at crucial moments. The family played it a couple of times; it was complicated and took ages, so it had a limited shelf life. But in my defence, popular games like Monopoly and Risk also took a long time to play! There was another game I made in my twenties that featured dinosaurs and exploding volcanoes, the name of which I have forgotten.

During the years I have lived in Knaresborough (since 1996), I have discovered a whole range of published board games, initially thanks to my friends Bryan and Judith Jones who are good at rooting new ones out. Most popular board games for people who want to go beyond the usual British supermarket fare of Monopoly, Cranium and Articulate come from other countries, most notably Germany, but also France, Italy, and the United States, amongst others. Germany is big on interesting board games; every year in October, there is a huge exhibition of new games in Essen. The Germans also give awards for the game of the year, ‘Das Spiel des Jahres’, with some sub-categories a bit like the Oscars.

Making potions in Quacks of Quedlinburg

You can play board games over the internet on facetime if both parties have the game. It takes a little effort to communicate all the moves to each other, but it is worth it during lockdown. We have linked locally, to Berkshire, and also to Dallas! And there are games sites where you can play people from all over the world and try games you don't have in your collection.

Now onto the design. Games include theme and mechanics. The theme of a game is what it is about, so Monopoly’s theme is the competitive world of buying properties to rent and making money from them. Its mechanics are the moving of a single piece round a board through the chance rolling of dice. Risk has the theme of global armed conflict (millions die so that you can win!), and its mechanics are the moving of many pieces around the world map and determining battles through the rolling of dice. Imagination is an important factor in both: in Monopoly, you are a rich landowner and in Risk, a general commanding many armies. You can exercise enormous power for a few hours and discover an unpleasant dimension of your personality!

Ex Libris - a game with books and sprites

Games also have varying proportions of chance and skill. Regular board game players tend to prefer games where the luck element is present but not too dominant, and for that reason they would avoid both Monopoly and Risk in which skill is not too great a factor, apart from some basic strategies.

On the other hand, Chess is wholly skill with no element of chance. The theme of Chess is very loosely a combat between two nations, but obviously it is the mechanics of moving pieces in different ways that predominates. It is an abstract game for specialists who need to learn some theory to make any serious progress.

Alma Mater - a university game (with biscuits)

Games like Escape from Atlantis or Colditz have strong themes; you really do feel like you are trying to get off an sinking island or escaping from a prison camp. However, a strong theme can mean that the mechanics are not so good, because there is too much concentration on making the game realistic. Many popular games are more abstract and, even if there is a theme, it does not really relate to the mechanics very much. Nevertheless, some of the most popular board games do have a successful theme, like Settlers of Catan, when you are placing settlements on an island, and Ticket to Ride, where you build railways (there are versions using the maps of several countries).

My own favourites? Castles of Burgundy, Lorenzo il Magnifico (the theme is the life of Lorenzo di Medici, 15th century patron of artists da Vinci, Botticelli, and Michelangelo), Grand Austria Hotel, Alma Mater, Castles of Mad King Ludwig (another historical theme derived from the crazy castle building of the last king of Bavaria in the 19th century). My wife Natalie and I recently bought Paris: she is brilliant at seeking out new and excellent games. You can check out games in advance by watching reviews on Youtube; the best reviewers are 'The Dice Tower' in the United States.

Playing Pillars of the Earth card game at a pub by the Stour

I have had a go at designing a few of my own over the last twenty years or so, getting back in touch with the young game creator. Creative work of any kind is really cathartic and enjoyable. I tend to the more cerebral activities, like creative writing or games design, because I have fumble fingers! Natalie, on the other hand, adapts quickly to new craft pursuits like crocheting; she has nimble fingers.

When you take up a creative hobby, the first thing to tell yourself is that the effort in itself is worthwhile, even if you do not make a single penny from it, or you don’t get sensationally good feedback. There are too many people in the marketplace for it to be likely that you will make a living. Even if what you do is excellent, it takes a considerable marketing effort and probably some initial funding (hence the popularity of crowdfunding) to get it out there!

Broom Service (with optional wizard figurine)

My games tend to be created around a clear theme, and I have to admit that they are not always so strong on the mechanics, perhaps somewhat convoluted at times, although I try to make them interesting. Inventing a game theme is much easier than thinking up original mechanics. Making a game is very painstaking; you need to play it through with patient friends several times making changes as you go along, and you need to think ahead as to what might cause confusion in the rules, so you are a bit like a government law-maker!

It is easy to buy pieces reasonably cheaply from specialist on-line sellers and you can be creative, such as using bits from old games that you no longer play.

I have created five board games from scratch:

Friday 13th is about the Catholic religion of the Middle Ages, with pilgrimage, the virtue of self-denial, and indulgences. The most pious player survives to win! Each player is a Knight Templar who tries to demonstrate their virtue despite many obstacles. The board is a map of Italy and France.

Visionaries is based on my own research area: apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Each player is a French peasant girl (in the image of St Bernadette of Lourdes) who tries to make her reputation as a visionary. Players make prophecies, build shrines, and try to impress the bishop. The board is a chart of the main buildings in a French town.

Wreckers’ Cove uses as its theme smuggling on the 18th century English coast. Each player has a redcoat to keep order, but also a highwayman to try to gain wealth through robbery. Players attempt to get their boats through to the port to make money on goods but the coastline is treacherous and claims victims! The board displays a rocky inlet, port, and market.

Home made game - Auvergne

Auvergne is related to my favourite area of France. The board is a map of the region, with towns and industries based on the produce of the area: cheese, wine, verveine (the green spirit), lentils, spring water (Volvic is in the region), and grain to resource the wonderful French patisseries. Players try to sell goods and move their pilgrims to the basilicas. The Auvergne Tourist Board liked it when Natalie put it on Instagram!

Alien Voyager involves space travel on a single craft. The players are the crew, but some of them are aliens in disguise who try to surreptitiously feed the humans alien serum so that they transform into aliens. The craft also picks up minerals. The board includes the moons of Jupiter and interconnections between them.

So, as you can see, many happy hours can be spent making a game from scratch. You need some imagination, but also an eye for detail and, most importantly, friends to help you test the game out by playing it, aware that many glitches will be found the first couple of times! When making it, you have to try and imagine what it would be like to play it for real.

Auvergne detail - with recycled Scrabble letters!