8th of January 2025
People play board games for many different reasons: The satisfaction that comes from skill expression, the opportunity to socialize with friends, or perhaps enjoying the story created by the game. If you're anything like me, one of the reasons you might enjoy playing games is the discovery.
I love learning new games and discovering the different ways that the systems interact, and opportunities begin to introduce themselves as your understanding of the game grows. However, this joy can begin to fall away when you've played the game a lot, as there is less and less to discover, and fewer new or unexpected strategies present themselves. Eventually, you find yourself returning to the game less and less and start looking at the hot new releases. This cycle begins again with a new game (or expansion) and suddenly you have an entire shelf in your house dedicated to board games both new and old, or perhaps you begin to sell off all the older board games that no longer have the spark.
This process is in essence the psychological concept of the Hedonic Treadmill. The idea is that we have a baseline level of happiness (or in this case, enjoyment of a board game/s) and activities or experiences can increase or decrease our happiness temporarily, but we will always return to our baseline level of happiness eventually. This concept can also play out as a "novelty treadmill", where we seek out novel objects and experiences for the entertainment that they provide, but eventually they lose their shine, and we find ourselves seeking the new thing. Board games have ways to try to "extend" the novelty, from providing different ways to play the game, new game modes, or randomisation that impacts the way the game plays out. Alternatively, some games release expansions which change the game and "refresh" the novelty.
Variation is key to addressing novelty, with more ways of playing the game holding novelty for longer. Cards are one easy way in which variation is added to hold novelty. Many board games make use of cards to vary their gameplay and make each session feel different each time you play it. As an example, my favourite board game of all time, Terraforming Mars, does an excellent job of providing players with situational cards. Some cards are extremely good in the first couple of turns of the game but are much worse or entirely unplayable later in the game, while other cards excel in mid-to-late game scenarios. Similarly, some cards are more important in a particular game state or with particular corporations in play. This means that the current game state and the order in which cards are seen can significantly change which cards are important, and therefore the way that the game plays out. Similarly, in a game like Dune, cards have a significant impact on what players can and can't do, and knowledge of who has what card is a major part of the bizarre economy of that game. Cards such as the Lasgun or Family Atomics can singlehandedly alter the politics of the table and how people perceive their chances of winning. Other cards can be used to change the objectives of a game or the actions that can be taken during the game. For example, the different possible objectives in Wingspan or the different objective and special actions in Everdell. While the game itself hasn't changed, the goals have moved significantly, and once again this impacts the way that people play the game and the things that they tend to prioritise, leading to new strategies and discoveries that can cause players to see the game with fresh eyes, and therefore "extend" their novelty for longer.
The second component to holding novelty is through releasing expansions. Card games in particular excel in this area, with TCG's like Magic: The Gathering, Arkham Horror or Flesh and Blood offering fans multiple new expansions each year with cards that offer new strategies, opportunities, and gameplay mechanics that can completely change the state of the game and how players interact with it. A simple example of this was the fourth set released in Flesh and Blood, known as Monarch. This set introduced “talents”, sets of cards with related mechanics that pair with an existing “class” mechanic sets to create new playstyles. Instead of simply “Warrior” heroes, you could now potentially have a “Light Warrior” hero, that uses cards from both the “Warrior” and “Light” card sets. This set introduced “Light” and “Shadow” talents, which were themed around “Charging your soul” to unleash more powerful effects, and power at a cost, respectively. Two characters from this set, Chane and Prism, shot to the top of the meta, while those who played other decks had to adjust their strategies to fight these new play archetypes. While some players could argue about whether these changes to the meta were good for the game, this set undeniably changed the game and therefore the way in which people approached playing it.
So, surely by creating a game with lots of variation (through cards or otherwise), different game modes, win conditions, and by releasing expansions we can make a game that people will play forever?
None of these techniques matter if the game still feels the same. There are plenty of games with variable ways to play that truly don't matter, because they don't feel like a new or different game. The game still feels like it plays the same way, and so the variation does not matter meangingfully (for the novelty treadmill). And even if you can overcome this and make the game feel different, eventually the novelty will wear off regardless. However, some people are also perfectly content playing the exact same game as it is for years without any changes. *cough cough* chess *cough cough*. For some people the variation that is already present in a game is plenty enough to present new strategies and tactics that allow them to express their skill, or do whatever it is they need to get that dopamine hit that means they love the game and return to it repeatedly. For those of us seeking a little bit more variation in our lives (and in our game design), how do we create meaningful novelty within our game, while avoiding bloated mechanics, excessive randomisation, or a reliance on releasing expansions every 3 months?
I think that's a post for another day.
