Oh, nothing nips at the back of my mind like dexterity games. All too often, when I'm playing a real board game, I find myself thinking about how it might be a dexterity game instead (I just had an idea on how to do Masons, while I was typing this). Why is that?
I think the main thing is, in a board game setting, you divide your attention between 3 things: decision-making, enacting, and storytelling. Decision-making is the actual game playing, the actual choosing from among choices, and is usually the fun part when it doesn't become overwhelming. Storytelling is also the fun part, where you associate the events in the game with a larger, thematic, metaphorical plotline that you can derive enjoyment from. Enacting stands in between, its the actual movement of pieces, looking up results in tables, shuffling cards - its not the fun part.
Different games make each of these easier or harder. Some games give you horrifyingly complex decision trees that are no fun to decide. Some games have rules so at odds with reality that its hard to keep your mental story connected to them. And some games make you spend forever screwing around with enacting the decisions that you're making that you're trying to tell a story with, to the point of ruining your fun.
This gets to the heart of what I like about dexterity games - their enactment is handled for you. You make a decision, apply force skillfully (which might be a new step), and stuff just happens. Sure you might have to do some setup and teardown, but during the game, you can work between decision and outcome, and therefore overall story, fairly seamlessly. Look at Pitchcar - rather than having to roll a dice, check your gear, and look up items in a chart in order to see if you make a turn, you flick a disc, and it either does or doesn't.
Its instant gratification, and when it comes to games and play and staying in a flow state of sorts, thats a good thing.
Two developments I'd like to see in dexerity games:
1) More story. Too many dexterity games are just about flicking discs or stacking blocks, without any thematic conceit on them. I like the idea that when a tower falls, that represents a tower of some kind, in some larger world, rather than just "my blocks fell!". Pitchcar remains a notable exception.
2) More real-time dexterity. There's an image in my mind of a game, Crokinole-like, with players sitting around a central area, flicking objects into the middle. They are on two asymetrical teams, and each has a reason to go quickly, generally to outpace the other team in establishing positioning, or achieving some other goal. Thematic punch is attached, and players have to balance rushing with lining up their shots well. This is vague, but its been kicking around in my mind for years - I'll try to dedicate a post to it some time.
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2 comments:
So, abstractly, marbles seems like a great game. Great dexterity skill meets specialized pieces in a social, physical space...sometimes even with real-world consequences (keepsies!). God, the same argument could even be made for pogs. Why then am I not interested in marbles (or pogs) in the same way I am interested in other, arguably lesser, dexterity games? It feels like it should be mostly theme and story (and stupid, tacked-on collectible liscences), but I still feel like if my marble represented a spaceship or an electron or a penguin I would not be fulfilled.
The fun thing about making dexterity varients on top of pre-exsiting game boards, or with pre-exsisting pieces the spontaneous assignment of new meanings and causalities based on physical events that are just as spontaneous, unplanned, and delightful.
I want a dexterity game with a rule set/theme robust enough to handle the most impossible physical event with thematic grace, because its those events that make the games different and exciting to levels impossible by way of rolling dice and drawing cards. Most of my disappointment with PitchCar is the poor handling of crashes and freak events, which cause me as a player to take fewer risks and constantly be mindful of "allowed events".
I think my thesis is that I want a dexterity game that is more mindful of physics and the social end than of what events are and are not allowed. This just requires a very very well conceived board that physically limits what can and cannot be achieved. And maybe some fire, ice, magnets, and wind.
Agreed - I also have a soft spot for "pure" dexterity games, and no, they probably don't need any theme to improve them. The social drama is similarly gripping, perhaps making a story in place of a theme-based one.
Also, your point about pitchcar is well made. I do feel discouraged by its coarse handling of crashes, leading to a game that seems a bit unfair, somehow.
I think my favorite point you make though is about avoiding "disallowed events" I hadn't even thought of that as a design guideline, but its true. Part of the fun of the dexterity game is its unpredictability and "anything can happen", that should be played up, when possible.
Oh, our dreams of wind and magnets - I had nearly forgotten.
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