"Is that all there is to it?" - a question I'm sometimes asked about a game, most recently about Run Buster, implying that it should be more complex and "meaningful."
In designing games, I try to invent simple, original, interesting mechanisms that work as a game. They generally employ a standard square or hexagonal board (or in the case of Run Buster and 420, no board at all) and generic pieces, like checkers or stones (or dice). I never use what I refer to as "rings and balls and cones and xxxx."
It's all about the aesthetics of the rule set - independent of play quality. As a result, only a fraction of my 100 plus games are fun to play. This is the only way I've ever designed games. It's all I want to do. It's all I know how to do.
Almost all designers go through extensive testing and tweaking cycles. I don't do that. I test a new game for robustness, and that's all. If it doesn't pass muster, I'll discard it, take a break, and start fresh in a new direction. I'm not a player of games at heart. I typically play 4 or 5 or 6 of my own games on a regular basis just to pass the time. I'm never the top player. I wouldn't know how to tweak a design for desirable play qualities. I wouldn't mind having that skill, but I totally don't. And I wouldn't trade the skill I do have for it.
I have a long list of "design rules" - Dos and Don'ts. Just to name a few... Natural finitude. That's primary and essential. No superko or 50 move rule needed. No ties. No tiebreakers. Players can't have any kind of a draw, even if they cooperate and try to have a draw. No cliche elements like Checkers jumps and knight moves, or largest or smallest group goal. Anything that there's a million of already, I don't go there. Most of my games are scalable. You can change the board size effortlessly, without modification of the rules. No passing. Only place friendly stones, and only one stone per turn. Etc., etc., etc.
I almost never create variants, although I did invent Redstone, a variant of Go. And I do have a lot of connection games, most of which are unavoidably related to Hex or Y. In Conect, for example, there are only two colored edge segments. You win by connecting your segment to itself, with a path of your stones that wraps around the center. It's played on a hexagonally tessellated cone (hence the name), to mitigate first move advantage.
Some of my design rules are more like guidelines, which I'm willing to violate, if there's a good reason. Some are more serious, like "No tiebreakers." You won't be seeing an MSG game with tiebreakers anytime soon. Why? Because I find tiebreakers repugnant. There should be a continuous flow of play from beginning to end, with no possibilty of a tie-induced, discontinuous phase jump. I focus almost exclusively on two-player games, although many are easily adaptable to multiple players, like Run Buster and 420. Many are seamlessly adaptable to 3D.
Getting back to the question, "Is that all there is to it?" Yes. That's all there is to it. In some simple designs, complex play emerges, like in Oust, Churn, and Blast Radius. Sometimes complex play does not emerge, like in Run Buster and 420. These are pub games. They're mostly, but not entirely, luck. They're easy to learn and easy to play. They're not trying to be Shogi. Sure, I could have turned them into aesthetic abominations, and made them more "meaningful," by tacking on ad hoc rules and win conditions. But that's not my journey. I'm not Frankenstein.
The design goal for Run Buster was six faces per die, six dice per hand, and an object of all six numbers (full straight). Perfect symmetry. And the killing of enemy dice. It took me a few weeks to find a simple solution, and when I did... Boom. Done. No need for refinement. Other than robustness, which I tested it for, I couldn't care less about the gameplay. As it turns out, however, Run Buster is my most popular game to date. It's getting a lot of compliments.
One person found Run Buster to be devoid of "meaningful moves." That suggests that either they always knew exactly what to do, or they never had any idea what to do. I think it would be possible to play perfectly if a math or programming expert were to compile a catalog of correct moves for all possible combinations of your hand, your opponent's hand, and your roll - and then find a way to distill that information into minimal instructions. But I don't think that has happened yet - at least not to my knowledge. How I play, and I think most people play, is to try to get maybe one or two points ahead, but not so far ahead that I risk getting knocked out. Or... intentionally get far behind and try to knock out my opponent. Playing perfectly and playing cluelessly both seem implausible.
Occasionally, someone is aggrieved that they had to waste their time playing one of my unrefined games. There's nothing I can do about that. I do the best I can, and that's the best I can do. I only select games for programming that I think would be appealing. About half of those have turned out to be relatively popular, as far as indie abstracts go. Some of them have a small, but enthusiastic, following - like Hadron, Fractal, and Redstone. One game, Dodo, is played mostly by Japanese people.
I'm not saying my way is the right way. I'm not advocating for this design approach. I just wanted to explain what makes me tick as a designer. I've received high praise and low aspersions. I won't go into detail here, but one fellow designer, with support and encouragement from another designer, had a public meltdown - a complete temper tantrum - over the mere existence of Churn. If this seems unbelievable, I understand. It was hard for me to believe too. At issue was how lengthy Churn is. On a size 5 board, it takes about 7,500 turns to complete a game. I'm still playing the size 5 I started in January. On a size 7 board, it would take around 950,000 turns. On a size 3, it's fairly reasonable - about 70 turns. I consider Churn to be my magnum opus. It's a beautiful mechanism, achieving nearly the theoretical maximum churn rate for a simple stone placement (and removal) game. Hence the name.
If you're not onboard with my design approach, that's totally fine. There are a thousand other games you can play here, including the recently added, highly regarded Yinsh. I've never played it, but by all accounts, it's a fabulous game.
So, please enjoy my games. Or don't. Of course it pleases me when a game is well received. But the primary reward is just creating and having these mechanisms.
I only first heard of BGA four years ago. Strange, because I've known about a lot of other game sites for decades. One day I saw BGA mentioned in a forum comment and I looked into it. I'm glad I did. BGA is a magnificent game site. It's had a big impact on my life. I learned how to program for BGA. I had taken a C programming class some 40 years ago, but it didn't prepare me. Learning the BGA ropes was a Herculean task. After programming 20 games, I'm still not an expert, but fortunately, experts have made themselves available to help me out of the inevitable jam. I'm humbled by the the staggering intellect of professional developers. Programming requires courage and maturity. In my case, I fall to pieces at the first sign of trouble.
I make my moves on BGA several times a day. I noticed that activity seems to subside on weekends. For me, weekends are not a deterrent. I keep up the pace on all days that end in "day."
Run Buster Rule Sheet and Game Page
https://www.marksteeregames.com/Run_Buster_rules.pdf
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=runbuster
420 Rule Sheet and Game Page
https://www.marksteeregames.com/420_rules.pdf
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=fourtwenty
Churn Rule Sheet and Game Page
https://www.marksteeregames.com/Churn_rules.pdf
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=churn
Blast Radius Rule Sheet and Game Page
https://www.marksteeregames.com/Blast_Radius_rules.pdf
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=blastradius
Conect Rule Sheet
https://www.marksteeregames.com/Conect_rules.pdf
All MSG Rule Sheets
https://www.marksteeregames.com/MSG_game_index.html
In designing games, I try to invent simple, original, interesting mechanisms that work as a game. They generally employ a standard square or hexagonal board (or in the case of Run Buster and 420, no board at all) and generic pieces, like checkers or stones (or dice). I never use what I refer to as "rings and balls and cones and xxxx."
It's all about the aesthetics of the rule set - independent of play quality. As a result, only a fraction of my 100 plus games are fun to play. This is the only way I've ever designed games. It's all I want to do. It's all I know how to do.
Almost all designers go through extensive testing and tweaking cycles. I don't do that. I test a new game for robustness, and that's all. If it doesn't pass muster, I'll discard it, take a break, and start fresh in a new direction. I'm not a player of games at heart. I typically play 4 or 5 or 6 of my own games on a regular basis just to pass the time. I'm never the top player. I wouldn't know how to tweak a design for desirable play qualities. I wouldn't mind having that skill, but I totally don't. And I wouldn't trade the skill I do have for it.
I have a long list of "design rules" - Dos and Don'ts. Just to name a few... Natural finitude. That's primary and essential. No superko or 50 move rule needed. No ties. No tiebreakers. Players can't have any kind of a draw, even if they cooperate and try to have a draw. No cliche elements like Checkers jumps and knight moves, or largest or smallest group goal. Anything that there's a million of already, I don't go there. Most of my games are scalable. You can change the board size effortlessly, without modification of the rules. No passing. Only place friendly stones, and only one stone per turn. Etc., etc., etc.
I almost never create variants, although I did invent Redstone, a variant of Go. And I do have a lot of connection games, most of which are unavoidably related to Hex or Y. In Conect, for example, there are only two colored edge segments. You win by connecting your segment to itself, with a path of your stones that wraps around the center. It's played on a hexagonally tessellated cone (hence the name), to mitigate first move advantage.
Some of my design rules are more like guidelines, which I'm willing to violate, if there's a good reason. Some are more serious, like "No tiebreakers." You won't be seeing an MSG game with tiebreakers anytime soon. Why? Because I find tiebreakers repugnant. There should be a continuous flow of play from beginning to end, with no possibilty of a tie-induced, discontinuous phase jump. I focus almost exclusively on two-player games, although many are easily adaptable to multiple players, like Run Buster and 420. Many are seamlessly adaptable to 3D.
Getting back to the question, "Is that all there is to it?" Yes. That's all there is to it. In some simple designs, complex play emerges, like in Oust, Churn, and Blast Radius. Sometimes complex play does not emerge, like in Run Buster and 420. These are pub games. They're mostly, but not entirely, luck. They're easy to learn and easy to play. They're not trying to be Shogi. Sure, I could have turned them into aesthetic abominations, and made them more "meaningful," by tacking on ad hoc rules and win conditions. But that's not my journey. I'm not Frankenstein.
The design goal for Run Buster was six faces per die, six dice per hand, and an object of all six numbers (full straight). Perfect symmetry. And the killing of enemy dice. It took me a few weeks to find a simple solution, and when I did... Boom. Done. No need for refinement. Other than robustness, which I tested it for, I couldn't care less about the gameplay. As it turns out, however, Run Buster is my most popular game to date. It's getting a lot of compliments.
One person found Run Buster to be devoid of "meaningful moves." That suggests that either they always knew exactly what to do, or they never had any idea what to do. I think it would be possible to play perfectly if a math or programming expert were to compile a catalog of correct moves for all possible combinations of your hand, your opponent's hand, and your roll - and then find a way to distill that information into minimal instructions. But I don't think that has happened yet - at least not to my knowledge. How I play, and I think most people play, is to try to get maybe one or two points ahead, but not so far ahead that I risk getting knocked out. Or... intentionally get far behind and try to knock out my opponent. Playing perfectly and playing cluelessly both seem implausible.
Occasionally, someone is aggrieved that they had to waste their time playing one of my unrefined games. There's nothing I can do about that. I do the best I can, and that's the best I can do. I only select games for programming that I think would be appealing. About half of those have turned out to be relatively popular, as far as indie abstracts go. Some of them have a small, but enthusiastic, following - like Hadron, Fractal, and Redstone. One game, Dodo, is played mostly by Japanese people.
I'm not saying my way is the right way. I'm not advocating for this design approach. I just wanted to explain what makes me tick as a designer. I've received high praise and low aspersions. I won't go into detail here, but one fellow designer, with support and encouragement from another designer, had a public meltdown - a complete temper tantrum - over the mere existence of Churn. If this seems unbelievable, I understand. It was hard for me to believe too. At issue was how lengthy Churn is. On a size 5 board, it takes about 7,500 turns to complete a game. I'm still playing the size 5 I started in January. On a size 7 board, it would take around 950,000 turns. On a size 3, it's fairly reasonable - about 70 turns. I consider Churn to be my magnum opus. It's a beautiful mechanism, achieving nearly the theoretical maximum churn rate for a simple stone placement (and removal) game. Hence the name.
If you're not onboard with my design approach, that's totally fine. There are a thousand other games you can play here, including the recently added, highly regarded Yinsh. I've never played it, but by all accounts, it's a fabulous game.
So, please enjoy my games. Or don't. Of course it pleases me when a game is well received. But the primary reward is just creating and having these mechanisms.
I only first heard of BGA four years ago. Strange, because I've known about a lot of other game sites for decades. One day I saw BGA mentioned in a forum comment and I looked into it. I'm glad I did. BGA is a magnificent game site. It's had a big impact on my life. I learned how to program for BGA. I had taken a C programming class some 40 years ago, but it didn't prepare me. Learning the BGA ropes was a Herculean task. After programming 20 games, I'm still not an expert, but fortunately, experts have made themselves available to help me out of the inevitable jam. I'm humbled by the the staggering intellect of professional developers. Programming requires courage and maturity. In my case, I fall to pieces at the first sign of trouble.
I make my moves on BGA several times a day. I noticed that activity seems to subside on weekends. For me, weekends are not a deterrent. I keep up the pace on all days that end in "day."
Run Buster Rule Sheet and Game Page
https://www.marksteeregames.com/Run_Buster_rules.pdf
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=runbuster
420 Rule Sheet and Game Page
https://www.marksteeregames.com/420_rules.pdf
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=fourtwenty
Churn Rule Sheet and Game Page
https://www.marksteeregames.com/Churn_rules.pdf
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=churn
Blast Radius Rule Sheet and Game Page
https://www.marksteeregames.com/Blast_Radius_rules.pdf
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=blastradius
Conect Rule Sheet
https://www.marksteeregames.com/Conect_rules.pdf
All MSG Rule Sheets
https://www.marksteeregames.com/MSG_game_index.html