Week 12 - Transparent (but the board game kind)

Starting our final groups off with an interesting choice was the way it went. Choose two antique book covers for inspiration and from there, we were to choose one of the two ideas and… run with it. After playfully squabbling with a fellow group over a cover, our group’s final choice was one titled: The Story of the Sun. Our base idea is to develop a moving, circular board and see where that idea takes us. However, that is not necessarily transparent. At the 2014 Game Developers Conference, Soren Johnson talked about the idea of transparency in one’s video games. The four ideas he addressed were presented on screen at about (00:25:59). They were telling the audience that: “Transparent, consistent rules run in the player’s head, creating engagement.”; “Transparent abstraction focuses players on the inner game.”; “Transparent visible mechanics increase player comfort.” and; “Pre-luck is a transparent way to present interesting decisions.” His notions stemmed from examining player experiences throughout the games he helped develop, but others as well- including board games.

For example, a quote he found in his research was that “Competitive games tend to shut out most of the population because they tack on extra skill tests...“ ( “How Board Games Matter” 00:15:08). The example given in the rest of the quote, Street Fighter, and other competitive games like the Smash Bros., and Mario Kart series do have this ‘shutting out’ of the population due to the nature of their games. Similarly niche demographics like the one that FromSoftware and other souls-like games have are an example of a player’s comfort being taken from them, and therefore lacking transparency.

Further, Johnson describes how “Games have a core inner version of the game that is invisible to casual players so it is important to make that inner game as transparent as possible…” and that to this end, “...Abstraction is a great tool for teaching- which is a necessary to bridge the gap between novices and experts.” ( “How Board....” 00:16:24- 00:16:43). These ideas are used for video games, but Johnson mentions that these games come quite a ways before video games, in board games. In the game I researched this week, Tellstones: King’s Gambit, the gameplay is very transparent. On a card, all actions that can be taken are listed. They are as follows: place, hide, swap, challenge, peek, and boast. On another, the rules are situated. This shows transparency as the cards clearly list the directions for the game which remain consistent and easy to follow. As the mechanics are also listed out and shown clearly through large tokens, the mechanics are also visible and allows for the player to become more comfortable with the game. However, no pre-luck is quite shown and abstraction is limited. The creator behind How It’s Played states that, “In Tellstones, you and another player will be taking turns placing stones onto the line and rearranging them and the game becomes a mental tug-of-war between what you know, what you think you know, and what you think your opponent knows” (“Tellstones: King’s Gambit” 00:02:28 - 00:02:41). This can make players uncomfortable as tensions rise. However, this is the entire point of the game. Outside of transparency being important for general functions, the deeper thoughts into the game’s mechanics do not necessarily need to be shown for the game to be well made and fun to play- sometimes even heightening the fun in uncertainty.