You always need to learn from other designers' work. Every game has something great in it.
I wanted to share with you some of the mechanisms I see as extremely elegant. More elegant than a cat in a tuxedo. Yes, I said it. Calm down and let's get right into it!!
- The upgrade in Scythe is a great point of decision. It makes you choose between many options of making a certain action more lucrative while making another cheaper. The strong point in this one is its simplicity. All of this is done by moving one tiny wooden cube from one slot to another.
- The rondle in Glen More gives you the option to take as many or as little tiles you wish to place in your village. Many tiles will make you have more things but you will also lose points for having more tiles than the player with the least. So do I jump ahead in the rondle or do I create this massive village? Great decisions and a very well designed scoring mechanisms to complement the rondle.
- The card management system in Mombasa is a real mind burner. There aren't a lot of games that make you think ahead so cleanly it just makes you happy when your plans fall into place in that very crucial round.
- The card driven mechanism of Twilight Struggle makes such a big and complex game as clear as possible. The complexity lies in your options and decisions, but the way you use the cards makes those decisions boil down to a graspable portion. The same system almost exactly is use in its "game son" named '13 days' and works just as well.
- The worker usage in Railroad Revolution is nothing short of great. All workers do the same actions but one type will allow for cheaper actions, two others will give you bonuses and another will manipulate things. Which of those you want? Just get the right workers!
Basically, as I see it, in order to design a good game that is not a light game - you need to have an elegant design for a system that stands in the middle of it.
Play more games, make more games,
Pini!
In the picture, an elegant cat. Not elegant enough!
