The Tools of Satan Hot

An interesting concept however I think one of the main draws of a board game is, and should be, that everything you need to play is in the box. Straight up. I even get annoyed when a game, and many war games now do this, tells you to get a coffee mug or some opaque container for random tile draws.

A game that assumes that each player will have a mobile phone or tablet computer or some such is gonna really irrate me to the point that I doubt I would ever buy it.

Oh sure there's some incentives to insert electronics or apps in games, but it does have a cost.
In a time where you're sometimes asked to perform a firmware upgrade to appliances as simple as a dvd player or a coffee maker, do we really want to go that route with boardgames ?
One of the beauties of our games is that they work autonomously, not being dependent on batteries, a device, a computer, or anything else than the box's contents and a lighted ,place to play, really.

There's also the platforms multiplication and the obsolescence issue. Sure it's nice to have a boardgame with an app that does all the tedious administrative work automatically. But will it work on my device if I have android instead of ios ? What about a ten years leap forward, will it still run on tomorrow's devices ? The copy of Clue i inherited from my father, and that he bought before I was born, can still be played as well as when it was bought. I can't say that much about various electronic-stuffed gadgets and gimmicks I used over time.

Last but not least, what if it just changed the very nature of our games ? Boardgames are by essence synthetic, abstract representations of systems, sometimes simulations too. Adding an automated assistant to that makes it easy to overcomplexify the game system, losing the abstract and synthetic aspects that defines the medium. It's easy to hide the core of the game in a lot of fluff that, eventually, does not add much value to it, or even removes value.

Of course this doesn't apply to some very innovative concepts - which I have yet to see.

Well I personally am fine with providing a cup for chits or a pad and pencil to keep score.

In my opinion there's a lot of room for electronic influences in boardgames and for the life of me I don't know why that hasn't happened yet. Management of secret information and all aside, something as simple as a modification to the rules due to political intrigue in the game's narrative could be added via a web page contact the day or even moment of play. Imagine pulling out an Eastern Front game and getting an update from the web -- "heavy rain across the entire front, the following special rules are in effect . . . " The core game would need to stand on its own but these add-ons could be provided via an alternate delivery route, one that could change over time and provide mini expansions to keep a game fresh.

As for the Platform Obsolescence issue, that's only a factor if you're putting gee-whiz content into the game instead of intellectual material. Text and audio aren't going away and their transition from one platform to the next has remained quite smooth for decades. This can be done IF the electronic material in question is not about the slicky. In boardgames that's an option. If it's adding intellectual interest to the game it can be platform neutral.

S.

Hasbro is integrating iPADs into some of their boardgames now. I think they are called zapped versions.

I too don't mind coming up with paper and a pencil, or a chit cup to play a game.

My first experience with an electronic device in a boardgame was Stop Thief!, a mainstream game by Parker Brothers or somesuch. My whole family really got into it for a while. You start the game on the device with the sound of breaking glass and an alarm going off, indicating that a crime just took place at one of the many crime scenes on the board. Each turn, a player activates the device, which does some additional sound effects, like footsteps, or maybe a door opening up. This provides an additional clue to where the robber has gone, if you keep track of how many footsteps he took before opening a door or things like that.

Those sounds also represent actual hidden movement on the board by the thief. And you can easily playback the entire cumulative history of the sound effects for that crime, so that you can count squares and rule out possibilities. Eventually, you move to a square where you think the robber is currently hiding and attempt to arrest him by punching in your current location. If you guess wrong, the robber gets a few free moves right then.

My mom and I usually won, because we were both fans of detective stories and loved working with the clues. Once, the battery burned out and it was a while before we got around to replacing it and playing again. On a later occasion, one of the buttons started malfunctioning, and that ruined the game for everybody. Stop Thief! is probably gathering dust in their attic to this day.

So that's my objection to adding gizmos to boardgames. They eventually break down and then the game is useless. And relying on external technology is iffy, because it keeps evolving and moving on. It's entirely possible that CDs and DVDs will land in the dustbin of old tech within the next 10 years, and then a game like Atmosfear or Space Alert will be a pain to play.

Me, I'd love to see more games with electronics in them. I mean, how much better would Scotland Yard be if Mr. X could move on the Ipad and the players keep to the board. It would keep things easier and more honest. Ninja: Scorpion Clan would be WAAAY better if this was the case as well.

Games with secret information really could benefit from this kind of thing, for sure. I mean, Spy Trackdown is a lot of fun and it's great to have a game where the hidden character is controlled by the game, but without a need for Ravenloft-esque AI cards.

But as to the question you ask about WHY these things don't exist? It's a matter that game designers aren't engineers, I think. They look to mechaincs from other designers to make games. The last "really" original game I can think of is in fact Space Alert, then back to Dominion, and beyond that you have to go back a ways to find something with TRULY unique, new concepts. So, the future may indeed be flexible screens in the center of boards, but it will take some creativity and imagination on the part of designers.

If you look at Kickstarter, or rather "The Kickstarter Effect" it's that consumers are not afraid to pay big bucks for a game if they feel it's cool enough. Fuckers paying 150$ for that Dreadball game that looks to be a 120$ more expensive version of BattleBall proves that. So, if cost is not a concern because you can always have the consumer front you the money, then designs can be more imaginative, and electronics are really cheap.

I agree 100% with RepoMan up above. I like the disconnect between board games and electronics, at least to a point. You can take care of a game, book, or similar and it will last a lifetime. An electronic device won't. It just won't. Do people own 20-year-old electronics that still work great? Sure, but it's not the norm.

Some excess moisture cause your book or game to get musty, or possibly even a hint of mold? You can clean that up. But there's a good chance the electronics will never work correctly again. Drop your book or game and the outside takes a big crunch or dent? The game will be playable, but the electronics questionable. Leave your game or book in the back of your car for some fun after work? On a hot or cold day that too can wreck electronics.

All that's avoidable; it's totally possible to build electronics (especially embedded systems) to be incredibly durable. But very few people are going to be willing to pay for it.

So I agree, too, that there's little to no room for custom electronics in board games, or RPGs, or what-have-you.

But integration with existing tech like tablets and smartphones? I avoid that shit like the plague. It's part of my own personality, I'm a bit of a completionist. If a game integrates so well with an external piece of hardware that I see it to be a moderately necessary game component then I immediately don't like it. I've been into hardware for far too long to use it in any way that isn't easily replaceable. Ten years from now I don't want a game that requires me to bust out an iPad2 emulator on my Android 12.3 tablet to load some crustly old app from external storage or server. I just want to play my crusty old game and not have to worry about compatiblity and upgrade paths.

Oh, this can't stand unchallenged.

Books and games are INFINITELY more damaged by moisture than electronics. If you drop a book or a game in the toilet, it's fucked. Your phone may not be. Your iPad may not be. So, this, on its face, is incorrect. Also, let's be real, you see that Dark Tower game on the screen? Yeah, it very likely still works, and if it doesn't, it's likely due to a motor, not the control board.

And let's also look at electronics assembly and design techniques. 20 years ago DFM and DFR was just beginning. Nobody knew what the fuck six sigma was. Nobody cared about ESD. Now, electronics are more robust and relible than ever. Alloys are arguably better, even the lead-free stuff. Reliability is a power word on the electronics floor for everything but the cheapest products. It's no longer cheaper to toss a bad board in the skip than it is to make it right the first time.

Going forward, electronics will be designed with a lot more robustness just based on the technology (of the components and assembly process) alone.

20 years ago, sure. But today, not so much. 20 years ago an exposed entire control board would be required when now a system-on-a-chip is potted under a polyurethane encapsulant, rendering it impervious. Entire boards are now conformal coated with UV-activated polymers to isolate them electrically and physically from moisture, elements, and shock. All but the cheapest shit is like this now.

Yeah, because people never drop their phones, keyfobs, MP3 players....sorry to be blunt but this whole argument is complete bollocks TODAY. 20 years ago I might agree with you, but today a 20$ point-of-sale priced item that cost 12$ to make could be included in a game box worth 100$, complete with a 2"x3" OLED display. Shit, maybe a touchscreen, but at a minimum an old-style button keypad with several buttons.

I agree there on a variety of levels...I'm the guy who is fucked off at Steve Jackson for not including a way to track levels in a box of Munchkin.

Fight!

You make some good points, I don't want to dissect the whole thing and take this comment thread on a tangent, but:

We're not talking about iPod/CowonAudio/HTC/Samsung levels of quality or robustness here. I understand SOC designs and modern shock & weather-resistant (I'm actually an EE and not just talking out of my ass) embedded systems. But you'll see none of that in a reasonably-priced board game. What you'll get, for a reasonable price, in a boardgame package, is system design with similar component and manufacturing choices to a $10 Walmart calculator in a less robust casing. A company that really wanted to take the plunge and create a generic system running an embedded OS platform that can accompany many future game titles might invest more in a design that has better longevity, but I wouldn't hold my breath. There no precedent and there's a pretty low chance they'll recover the development and support costs.

We're in he same world then...I was a process engineer at one point, then a manufacturer's rep calling on the assembly industry. So we both know I'm right, butyou're the pessimist role saying it can't be done due to costs and I'm the one saying, "look up the BOM in the Digikey catalog and tell me that youncan't make a bad ass board game with embedded RFID tags in spaces, buried in mini castings, and a SYS-ON-CHIP encapsulated in some Dow Corning goop (or some such shit), all under 100$. I mean, send me a sample design and I'll have it bid on, we can Pepsi Challenge this shit and turn it into a joint article that will kick people in the nuts to think harder.

1) Make a cool video for your electronic device board game with a lot of hipster style.
2) Place video on kickstarter
3) Create stretch rewards which will add 5 new plastic figures for every additional $50K pledged.
4) Fund game inspired by the 80s hit, Dark Tower, with millions of "donations."

Then we can release the neutrino stream to boost the photon sensor array and refract the rift in the time-space continuum!

(As long as we were going the techno-babble route I thought I'd relive some of my favorite Star Trek Next Gen episodes)

I'm saying you can't base your board game MSRP on component prices alone. Development costs are the money-sink, and when you do need to cut costs to bring the price down you can do it in production (read: components) on a per-unit basis.

If component prices were the main consideration, those nice graphing calculators TI, Casio, and HP make would cost $15. And they sell a helluva lot more calculators than FFG sells board games.

There's plenty of HMLV job shops in China and the US that could run a lot of 2000 boards for cheap. And all you need, as far as 'development costs' is an EE with some software and an emulator. We're talking pretty simple design goals here.

I'm telling you, this is not that expensive or difficult to do. It's a matter that most guys don't know shit about electronics assembly and what it entails and so when they have an idea for a secret information game, electronics aren't at the forefront of their brain as it's so foriegn.

I think you guys are overlooking the possibility of hybrid solutions as well. Cards or chits could still hold the secret information, driven by a web site that implements the deck ordering in order to provide a coherent narrative. As it stands a real deck of cards is either shuffled (providing no continuity) or scenario'd (providing no suprise to the person that set the ordering). Something as simple as a web page displaying deck draws or specifying an ordering via numbers on the backs of the cards would add to gameplay quality. A game like Betrayal in the House on the Hill could create maps that make sense on every play, yet still have a random feel to them.

That could be created in hardware, and a SIM chip could make for easy upgrade. But it doesn't even have to be that thick a solution. It could be whisper thin and delivered via ubiquitous hardware.

I appreciate that we everyone here is comfortable with the antique technologies that board games utilize and some actually prefer it. But a laptop or phone could add value to gameplay with very little additional work or purchase cost for the end-user. It places the onus on the publisher to deliver that intellectual content over time perhaps with no revenue stream coming out of it, but it also presents a dedicated channel at game time to reach out to existing customers. I could see a company like Days of Wonder using that effectively.

S.

There are two boardgames that I especially loved playing as a kid: Dogfight and High Stakes. Both games got damaged at some point.

With Dogfight, several of the cards for the yellow planes went missing. At age 11, I was able to overcome this difficulty by examining the other three card sets and deducing the missing cards. Then I got some card stock paper and made my own crude substitution cards. I didn't try to replicate the artwork on the card backs and so left that side blank. They would also stand out as different from the other cards, but as long as those three cards were distinct from each other, that would leave enough mystery as to which card was which when in the draw pile or a player's hand.

High Stakes had this cool miniature slot machine that you got to play whenever you landed on that Monopoly-clone's version of Free Parking. The slot machine was so cool that people kept fiddling with it even when it wasn't there turn. Finally, the little are broke off the machine, and it was unusable. The game was still technically playable, except for the slot machine, but it was the death of the most charming little component that killed enthusiasm in our family for playing the game. We went back to vanilla Monopoly.

Do you see the difference between these two tales of woe? I could replace the low-tech components on my own. I couldn't replace the neat little gizmo, nor would I ever be able to anything about an electronic part breaking down, at least not at any reasonable price. And for that reason, I am unlikely to ever buy any Kickstarter game that relies on an electronic component. Mattel, Hasbro, or Parker Brothers might be around for a long time to come, and potentially willing and able to replace a part, but Kickstarter folks are going to take the money and run.

Superfly, the other problem with your Kickstarter idea is that playtesting is hell. It really sucks. Either you tolerate your playtesters chewing up your game and spitting it out a few times, or you put a huge amount of trust in your own instincts and treat the playtest stage as a triviality. BGG is full of game descriptions of games that skimped on playtesting and then kind of sucked. If your playtest is going to need a custom electronic prototype, you are probably going to end up pushing back hard against playtesters and then put out a crappy game. Or you will spend a shitty amount of time on retooling your prototype gizmo, probably as the expense of the rest of the game design.

I thought of the playtesting - that's not that hard an obstacle. With the protos to the playtesters ships the code and an emulator. Not that high a bar.

Only if you consider the $700 cost for a laptop or ipad or $300 for a mobile phone to be little additional cost.

"But", you say, "people already have these things thus the expenditure is already made." And in certain places that may be true but not everywhere and not for everyone. Especially for the younger set. Not every 12 year old has a smart phone or unrestricted use of his computer.

What if I want to play my game where there is no internet connection? Or I just don't feel like lugging my lap top around?

As I said initially, everything I need to play the game should come in the box. The desire to add neat gizmos and gadgets is understandable but really compromises the nature of a "Board Game". If you want a machine to do the tedious parts, or enforce rules, or generate random elements then you really want to play a "computer game".

This subtle difference is an integral one though in the nature of the two.

A true (and affordable) implementation of something like the Microsoft Surface demo from a couple years back would be a complete game changer. Imagine setting up the board for a scenario for a game like Earth Reborn or Descent in seconds, and having range and LoS information displayed on-the-fly during gameplay; no more tape measures to measure movement in a tabletop minis game, the screen could just show you. Hidden movement, traps, etc. could all be handled behind the scenes, a GM could control hidden monsters from a connected tablet. The possibilities are endless and the technology is already fully capable of accomplishing all of these things and more, at this point it's only a matter of cost. Obviously this wouldn't be an in-the-box thing that would come with any specific game, but more an optional feature that gamers could have in their homes to augment their gaming.

Yeah, that's a solution....get a 8,000$ coffee table so you can play some 50$ board games.

Electronic Monopoly: 30$
Electronic Talking Battleship: 30$
Spy Trackdown: 20$

Y'all are acting like this is some insurmountable thing to put a gizmo in a game box, but as usual, it ignores all precedent and actual fact.

I mean, for fuck's sake, it's not that novel. It's been done to death. Skylanders does it currently, but in video game format...and there's probably a dozen in-print games that have electronics in them.

BUT PETE, you cry, THOSE AREN'T GAMES THAT ARE WORTH PLAYING!

Yep, but it just goes to show you that hobby game designers aren't thinking it's possible because of the same bullshit arguments put out here. It's been done. It's not that hard. Imagine ELECTRONIC RISK 2210...that's not that far a cry. Or Electronic Catan. I mean, these things are so easy to implement it's ridiculous. Risk is a big-box store game. Catan is now in Target. I mean...

REALLY?

I will admit that this engineering decision, like all others, will have an impact on the potential market for the game. I could make similar arguments for number of players, size of rulebook, price, etc.

But it's an option, one that adds zero additional material cost to publishing. In fact it may remove some costs.

S.

Imagine the reverse scenario... how many PC gamers, console gamers or iPad gamers would appreciate a game for their device that also required a board, some cards, or some dice?

Skylanders seems to be thriving...

Dude -- I own a Wii, and I have more crap sitting in front of it than you can imagine. They sell frickin' golf clubs for it.

S.

Good point. I forgot about the whole Rock Band thing, too.

I'll bet more stuff is gonna happen with this in the future. But cardboard has a very distinct advantage: it's easy to prototype and develop. I can design and build a reasonable card or board game which I can test and test without having to cough up a lot of dollars. But if I want to include some gizmo, I suddenly need more money for development, manufacturing and testing. Even adding a website to a board game to process some of the stuff going on in the game can be a major hazzle.

Another thing is that I could fear that electronics (or website or something similar) could obscure the mechanisms of a game. What I like about board games (one of the things) is that I can see how stuff happens. Not so with computer games - even turn based - where rules for combat, morale, religion, or whatever can be really obscure because the computer can handle the mathematics. And related to this I'm not sure if a plethora of opportunities are good for a game designer. If you don't have to consider how the players are supposed to read the game state, calculate stuff, and so on, I think you could far too easily make a bloated and not very good game.

I'm with mads b. on this one. The thing I love about boardgames is exactly the limitation that comes from the use of "lifeless" objects (dice, cards, chits, markers, etc). I love it that the designer has to be smart and creative to use this stuff to create a working system, and that the players are part of the system. I also love it (what mads b. mentioned) that the mechanics are transparent. E.g. as much as I love the Fallout computer games, it's frustrating that I don't really know what happens behind the scenes when I shoot at an enemy: there are dozens of variables that create the probability, that a shot will be a hit or a miss, and I don't see them at all, while in a tabletop RPG-ish adventure game (like Runebound or WoW:TAG), the variables and mechanisms are plain to see.

Another example: a couple of months ago I downloaded the free computer adaptation of HeroQuest. I was fairly excited about it, but it was a big disappointment. Everything was automated. The program calculates where I can move, so I don't have to worry about it (I just move a copule of times, and when my movement points run out, I cannot move anymore). Combat is basically just pushing a button, and seeing the results (it doesn't show an animation of the dice, or anything), without the pleasure of rolling the dice, and adding up the points. I really didn't give a damn, as long as I wasn't dead. And so on. I guess I could have paid a bit more attention, and see what's going on, but the format just didn't force me to, so I just rushed through the dungeons without actually feeling any sense of adventure.

I had a similar experience when I played Dominion and Thunderstone online. Yeah, it was nice that I didn't have to reshuffle my deck again and again, but it felt like something was lost in the translation. It's just not the same to see a number (of cards in your deck) on the screen and to have a physical deck in front of you. The play went much faster than IRL, but, at the same time, I felt less involved.

Anyway, I'm not saying that the use of electronics (or other automated devices) in boardgames is an anathema, but designers must be really careful how to implement it, lest they lose that something that gives boardgames their charm.

Wice, I agree that boardgames do have an inherent charm. In theory, boardgames should have gone the way of the 8-track tape by now. There are all the console games and computer games and even stupid little games on our phones. For more than a month, my girlfriend has been addicted to this iPhone game involving running a bakery with zombie customers. But boardgames are still around and doing pretty well, all things considered. Why? I think it's the tactile experience. People like to hold a hand of cards, or earn a pile of game money. There is something almost magical about high-quality poker chips, that certain texture and weight and even the weigh they clink when you toss a few into the pot. Rolling dice, moving tokens on a board. All the better if there is neat and colorful artwork slapped onto some of the components. A small electronic gizmo can fit right in with those other components, but if you stuff the whole game into the gizmo, you lose most of that tactile experience.

I could not agree more. This is the Deus Ex Machina problem that all electronic strategy games face..."how does that work?" There was a tabletop skirmish game called Ex Illis that I played a while back. The miniatures were MAGNIFICENT. I mean, easily surpassing the best GW shit. They had these terrain tiles that were OUTSTANDING and beautiful.

Unfortunately, they integrated a PC into the game. Epic Fail. Everything was "invisible" and the mechanisms behind the game were so obtuse that it was really just a video game that required you to drop 150$ on it up front and paint it.

Fuck. That. Shit.

Terrible game. Great bits.