In my reviews I like to assess, along with mechanics and gameplay, the design of a game. That is, the artwork and look - this might include the pictures used on the cards, the size and scale on cards, and the fonts and layouts. All this comes together to make the game fit a theme better, as well as make the game easier to understand in places.
In most cases, people take it upon themselves to judge the design of a game up there with the gameplay and with the themes. What I find interesting is that some games appear to be exempt from this rule. Whereas people are happy to scrutinise more "middle-of-the-range" board games, things like the German game Village, "megagames" like Settlers Of Catan and Ticket to Ride seem to have some wall of "famous immunity" protecting them from having their design elements questioned. Is this because that are just that good, or because they're not important at their level?
The interesting thing to point out in these cases is that, it may be said, Settlers and Ticket have both, in my opinion, fairly good design. At least, impressive design - wooden or plastic pieces (no card), well made cards, clearly expensive painted artwork. However this is not the interesting aspect: the main point is that these things are almost always overlooked when talking about these games - it is the mechanics that people look towards and the gameplay that people remember or praise them for specifically.
So, why is this? Does design take a back seat to gameplay? Should it? Well, on the one hand, I suppose it should in some cases. Design, at the end of the day, does not effect your playing experience as much as the gameplay does. Games like Agricola have excellent gameplay, however the design is average at best.
What I think is that good design is a RESULT of popularity, not the other way round. The reason that Settlers Of Catan can afford to have painted artwork, large numbers of painted wooden components, large game boards, many cards etc. is that it has the money and influence to do so. You don't often see things like that in lower-budget board games.
So, Munchkin. Well, I don't want to turn this into a rant of any sort, and I intend to do a review of the game ASAP, but it is interesting to me that a game like that can have such poor elements and yet be highly popular.
This is quite a new idea I believe, that having nice design can actually effect the gameplay. But, being able to distinguish between things at a glance, being able to help players locate things, even practical things like shuffling cards, storing them in boxes, all makes a difference as to how people play the game.
Good design can also be the icing on the cake: tipping your opinion just enough over the edge to make you favour one game in particular. I own, in my collection, two of the Ticket To Ride games, although I am just about to purchase the Nordic Countries expansion. My favourite, between the Classic and the Europe Set, is the Europe, its sequel, simply because it has larger cards that are easier to hold. That is seriously what I like more, well, that and that it has my continent on it...
Anyways, all I wanted to raise awareness to today was how important design really is in a board game, and how seriously it should really be taken. Thats all today!
Glory to Boardgameistan.
No comments:
Post a Comment