Posts
A Board Game that
only Uses Cards, OR,
What Matters is Function,
not Appearance ORHow to make a board
game that costs you a lot less
My game Hastings 1066,
about the famous battle where William of Normandy conquered England, is a board
game in disguise. It functions as a board game, yet uses cards, with the result
that it costs buyers a lot less than if a physical board were included. Yet I’m
told by a publisher that wargamers don’t generally care for card games. I think
I understand why, but the objections do not apply to Hastings 1066.
When most gamers think of “card games” they think of Magic: the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokemon. These are a combination of slick marketing scheme and
appeal to children, so it’s not surprising that wargamers (who tend to be older
people, often Baby Boomers, who don’t “get hooked” on things) are put off.
Moreover, these games make more revenue than all other kinds of tabletop games
put together. MtG alone makes more than all board games combined. (Figures from
IcV2, US and Canada only.)
Moreover, collectible card games (CCG), certainly the three
I’ve mentioned, are far from depicting warfare. There is no maneuver, next to
no geospatial relationships. Perhaps that makes a little sense in a wizard’s
duel (though I don’t think so), but you cannot depict battles that way. "Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre.
The greater the general, the more he contributes in manoeuvre, the less he
demands in slaughter." --Sir Winston Churchill
If you’re not depicting maneuver (and the geospatial
relationships that make maneuver meaningful/possible) then you can’t depict
battles – and it’s hard to depict wars. We can’t model wars in games, we model
generalship, but without maneuver there is no generalship.
Wargamers may also feel that card games are “taking over,”
and they don’t like it. I recall walking around the dozen tables in use at a
big meeting of the NC State Tabletop Gamers, noticing that every game being played
(none of them a CCG) was primarily a card game, and the only board game was the
one being playtested at my table.
Not surprising that wargamers would rather not have deal
with card games.
The Board Function
The fallacy of this perception is that you can use cards
without a physical board to depict maneuver and geospatial relationships, as in
my game. In practice, Hastings 1066
is a board game, not a card game, that happens to use cards for units rather
than using blocks or tiny counters.
The purpose of using a board in games, originally, was to
depict maneuver (or placement) and geospatial relationships. Think of Chess, Checkers, Go, even race games
such as Pacheesi and Backgammon. They’d be very difficult or
impossible to play without a board. What’s important is not the physical board
itself, but the depiction and control of maneuver/placement and spatial
relationships. It’s the function that counts in the game, not the appearance. (Computer
Civilization, for example, is a board
game.)
A board game isn’t a game that uses a board; many games that
use a board are only tracking various statuses that could be tracked as easily
in other ways. For example, some of the recent Munchkin (deluxe) versions have
a board, but all it does (in Zombie
Munchkins at least) is to track the experience level of each player. This
has been done in other (non-board) ways for many years. Is Zombie Munchkin a board game? Not only no, but “Hell No.” The
appearance is of a board, but the function
is not.
Hastings 1066 uses
cards for double duty, as units and as the board (in conjunction with two
strips of cardboard). The layout looks like a grid.
I could have used a board with that same grid, but that
would have raised the price of the game drastically. A board is the most expensive part of a board
game, and if it’s a mounted board, it requires use of a much larger box. Mounted
boards are printed in 11 by 11 inch segments; that requires an 11.5 by 11.5
inch box. The larger box costs significantly more than a smaller box.
Moreover, Hastings is not only a deck of cards. There are
the map strips, the cubes for marking arrow wounds, and the markers for William
and Harold. Those components would be the same if it were a “board” game.
CCGs vs Hastings
A comparison of Hastings
with CCGs shows great differences. CCGs are usually “special powers card
games”, as I call them for lack of a better name. Each card has a different
exception to the standard rules. They tend to be tactical games, and rely on
combos for much of the interest. My game uses no combos or exceptions, though
it is tactical as any game about a singe battle is likely to be. It is much
more like a board game than a CCG.
In appearance, CCG cards have tiny text and numbers.
Everything you need to see in Hastings
is in large print on an uncluttered card.
I’ve designed a number of card games, but none of them in
the CCG category, nor in the special-powers-combo style. Yet wargamers may tend
to assume that a card game is CCG/combo style.
As an example of the latter, recently a game called “Tears to Many Mothers” (really?) that is ostensibly about the Battle of Hastings was
Kickstarted. But if I can judge from its
Kickstarter, it’s a special-powers game with virtually no maneuver or
geospatial relationships. That is, it cannot be a wargame despite the supposed
topic. But with gorgeous artwork, and an audience on Kickstarter that tends to
like gorgeous art (and special powers combo games), it Kickstarted very well.
Wargamers, however, might point to it as “what’s wrong with card games”.
Pay attention to the components of a game that count. It’s
function, not appearance, that determines whether it’s a good game to play.
Microgames
Another topic that comes to mind is microgames. These were popular board games of the 1970s
and eighties. The most popular was Steve
Jackson’s Ogre in 1977, while my game
Dragon Rage (1982) was another. These games had thin, tiny unit counters and
cardboard boards, and originally came in a plastic bag (DRage was in a small
box). You could carry them with you and play (most of) them in less than an
hour. Yet they were fully functioning board games, usually for just two
players.
Microgames disappeared a long time ago - people no longer
accept thin, tiny cardboard units. They have largely been replaced in the
market by card games, CCGs and otherwise. DRage
cost $10 in 1982, which is equivalent after inflation to $25.42 in January
2018. A $5.95 game from 1970 would be $37.82 today (big inflation in the
mid-70s). The pre-order price for Hastings
is $24 (same as the Kickstarter price), MSRP is $35. Hastings 1066 is an example of a “new” microgame, something you can
carry with you and play quickly when you have a little time.
Dragon Rage was
reissued in 2011 with large, thick cardboard pieces, a mounted board, and an
additional map and scenarios on the other side of the board. It cost more than three
times the $24. Hastings 1066 could
have been made much more expensively, but it would no longer fit that niche of
a board game microgame.
The Kickstarter for Hastings 1066 ends tomorrow (Wednesday Feb
28). https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1456271622/hastings-1066-game/description
Preorder (version with black core French Linen cards only
available via KS) at: https://worthingtonpublishing.com/?product=hastings-1066-preorder
No comments:
Post a Comment