This blog post explains how forcing players to take longer on their decisions (yes; increasing down-time) helped to remove randomness and apparent complexity.
Fight, Flight Bite is a ‘dudes on a map’, area control game where you send your tribe of critters into the forest to fight over food resources. The ‘hook’ is that combat is resolved through an asymmetric application of Rock Paper Scissors.
There are 3 types of pieces on the board. Your own pieces, opponents’ pieces and food resources. In any duel, if the attacking player wins with Fight (Rock) they may move opposing pieces, if they win with Flight (Paper) they may move their own pieces and if they win with Bite (Scissors) they may move food resources. Thus, the design intent is that before any duel, players engage in the mind game where the attacker decides what they want to achieve, and the defender decides what they need to do to try and stop the attacker. But, of course, the attacker knows what the defender is thinking so chooses an alternative attack…and the defender knows that the attacker knows…etc
This was inspired by the combat in a miniatures game called Freebooters Fate. It was more complicated than RPS, using attack cards to decide which parts of the body you were aiming at, matched by cards played by the defender to determine which parts were protected. It was by far and away the most fun I have ever had with toy soldiers, as every ‘battle’ became a battle of wits against the opponent.
Following a test of the concept of an asymmetric RPS game at an UnPub event, FFB was developed virtually in Tabletop Simulator (TTS). It was a bit of a test of faith. It was hard to playtest virtually. Mechanically, I used custom dice, simultaneously turned to the desired gesture, but as is often the case in TTS it took much longer and bounced off a lot of playtesters.
However, when I played face to face, the game took a comfortable 30 minutes and players liked the use of the familiar in a novel way.
So, I started pitching the game at UKGE and Essen. Several publishers took an interest and asked for either a Print and Play or a prototype. As feedback from publishers began to come back, I also continued to playtest. Feedback from each was different but common themes began to emerge.
“Too random.” “Too complicated.” “Too chaotic.” “It was too hard to process so I just chose at random.” “The use of RPS suggests a light game, but this is too complex.”
Players who played strategically would consistently win against those who gave up trying and just played randomly, so the strategy was there, but some players were finding it difficult to find it. And the fact that some players did just give up, is never a good thing!
I began to take Occam’s Razor to my design, removing everything that was extraneous.
An interesting experience was just going for a long walk with my wife, when she indulged my enthusiasm and asked me about the game. As I explained the game to her, I realised a lot of the things that I still feel the game does well. But I also realised that the split-second decision as to whether to choose rock or paper, needed to be clearer.
There were various reasons why one or other might be incentivised.
First there was the immediate tactical position – what did the attacker want at any particular point in the game.
Then there was the terrain where the duel was taking place. Unsurprisingly, fighting on rocky ground gave a bonus to ‘rock’.
Finally, there was the attacker’s special ability – the intent was that different tribes of critters would have a different play style. Bullying bears would be good at Fighting. Birds would be Flighty. And sneaky Snakes would be great at stealing food from opponents.
As a player, I knew that a winning strategy was to find in-game situations where whatever the attacker wins with grants advantage, but as a designer I began to recognise that this defeated the design intent. During that walk, I realised that if the defender was to feel that their choice was relevant, it needed to be really clear what the attacker wanted. So, I removed all these additional layers.
By the time I came to UKGE 2023 I had a lean mean version of Fight Flight Bite, which I was excited to playtest.
I met with a publisher who I had pitched the game to a year ago, and who had expressed some interest. I explained what I had taken out, and how I was trying to reduce the level of complexity.
“It is still too complex.” was their response.
So it was with some disappointment that I moved to another playtest with Jacob Jaskov, the designer of Fog of Love – a game I was very familiar with. I ran a stand to demo Fog of Love at several smaller conventions, pre-Covid. It is a truly unique 2-player game, part roleplay, part board game, in which players enact a couple’s relationship. Shut Up & Sit Down covered it in their podcast. (https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/podcastle/podcast-75-stress-testing-your-tarot/)
The relevant point however is that Jacob is an experiential designer. He focuses on what he wants players to feel, and chooses game mechanics which create these feelings. His BGG profile states, “Jacob Jaskov works with behaviour design: How do you affect people’s behaviour through interfaces, objects, physical environments and social structures?”
I happened to be staying with Jacob (thanks to our host Chris Backe), so on Saturday afternoon Jacob and I met up to playtest Fight, Flight, Bite.
We played a 3-player game – doublehanding the 3rd player – agreeing what we thought they would do, and alternating whoever wasn’t attacking to play the 3rd player. Jacob’s feedback wasn’t very different from others. He found the interactions on the map interesting but didn’t like the RPS over the table. “Ditch it” he suggested, “and focus on the bits of the game that are more interesting.”
I pushed back;
“RPS over the table IS the game. It is ‘the hook’ and table presence that you don’t have to pay for. Both publishers and players have been attracted to this aspect, if I remove it, then I don’t think there is anything unique about my game.”
“I believe in the use of RPS. I have to find a way to make ‘that’ work. If I can’t then I don’t think I have a game.”
And this is where inspiration struck.
I can think back to specific occasions, playtesting several of my games, where suggestions of very minor changes, have immediately and significantly impacted how a game plays – where another designer was able to remove a roadblock or to ‘fix’ a game. For instance, allowing multiple meeples on a single space instantly fixed a 2-player worker placement game that I was struggling to make work with 3 or 4.
“Well, in that case, do RPS beneath the table.”
“?”
“Make the sign, beneath the table and then reveal simultaneously. This will give players the opportunity to look at the ‘map’. Look at the other player. Look at the game state. And then make their decision. System 2 thinking. Not system 1 thinking.”
The whole concept of System 1 and System 2 thinking comes from a book by the psychologist Daniel Kahneman. System 1 thinking is the stuff that we can do – almost without thinking (it is fast, automatic and unconscious). Whereas System 2 thinking is engaged when we make plans, or think about consequences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow
I didn’t even have to playtest this suggestion to know that this just made sense. We immediately tried it a couple of times, but it was clear that while it would change nothing mechanically, this would have a very significant impact on how the game would ‘feel’.
It was also an obvious addition to replace the cards played by the attacking player, with a gesture made with their other hand. So, they raise one hand as a ‘tell’ or a ‘bluff’ or a ‘double-bluff’, before both players then reveal Rock Paper or Scissors. If the ‘bluff’ turns out to be true then the attack’s strength is doubled.
With marvellous serendipity, Jacob happened to know the publisher I had just met with. By the time I went back past their stand, he was animatedly explaining the change to the same person who an hour earlier had told me to reduce the complexity.
“When can we play it again?” he said.
I’m not sure what the takeaway from this story might be. Or whether there is anything here that other designers will be able to learn from.
Using RPS is a pretty unusual mechanic, in that it relies more on ‘muscle memory’ and system 1 thinking than most decisions taken within board games. What I hadn’t realised was that this would bypass the strategic decisions that a game presents to players. I can’t think of another of my designs – or even of another game – where this is an issue.
Most board games – by design – engage system 2 thinking. We talk about meaningful decisions and the decision space in our games, and this is what we design to include.
One aspect of games such as Dobble (Spot It!), Ghost Blitz or Jungle Speed is the juxtaposition of requiring an instant system 1 response, to something that actually requires system 2 consideration from most players. The handful of players for whom these games require only System 1, who can recognise these patterns almost unconsciously, invariably win without effort. Since she was about 6 years old, I have never seen my daughter lose a game of SET – even when playing against everyone else in the room.
However, this does encourage me to think more about the experience, of those playing my games.
To be truly honest, I am just excited to have made this step, and grateful to those who helped me make it. I just wanted to share it.