2006.10.04
Rules Automation and Game Facilitation
I play a lot of board games, but for the most part, I don’t play a lot of computerized board games. The primary reason is that board gaming is a social activity for me, and playing a board game on a computer against computerized components seems a little too cold for me. Playing online against other humans is more rewarding, but still the social aspect always seems to be lacking. There’s often not a lot of personality in a small text chat window, especially when in many cases you have never met any of the people you are playing with before and consequently know nothing about them.
The current crop of computerized games do serve the following two useful purposes:
- They allow players which are geographically distant to enjoy a game together.
- They allow for a potentially much wider selection of players, which means it’s easier to play games at times that fit your own schedule, and also to find and play against players of a similar skill level. Sometimes, it might be one of the only easy ways to find other players who are even interested in a particular game.
These two needs are generally solved, although the mechanism sometimes causes the social aspect of gaming to suffer. For some games (notably, two-player abstract strategy games where both players understand the rules well and both understand a common notation language) E-mail may be all the computerization that is required. And in fact, this can work quite well.
I also see a third area where computerization of games would be beneficial: rules automation and game facilitation.
There are a number of games I play that have a rule set that is in some way unruly. For instance, if your character becomes blessed in Arkham Horror, you have to remember to roll a die every upkeep to determine if your character remains blessed or not. This is the kind of thing that is easy to forget or lose track of, especially when you’re still learning the rules.
Another good example from Arkham horror involves monster movement. I can remember that the blue borders mean a monster is flying, but what about yellow borders? Red borders? Which one is stationary? Which one moves at double speed? This is another part of the rules where I would really appreciate some assistance in facilitating a game.
However, I can’t imagine playing a strictly computerized version of Arkham Horror. Too much of my enjoyment of that particular game is derived from the social nuances that would likely be lost in a computerized version of the game.
What I can envision is the integration of some sort of computer assist into the board game itself. Something packaged as part of the game that helps keep track of the fiddly bits and lets me focus on playing and enjoying the game, without getting in the way. I’ve never seen such a beast, and I don’t even want to begin what it would do to the sticker price of a game. Still, in a fictional universe, here’s what I envision at a very high level:
- The game still has physical bits that get manipulated, but they are all linked seamlessly into the software so it is aware of them.
- The game can manage the fiddly bits for me.
- The game has a training mode that can be dialed up or down to suggest moves and strategies at the highest level, or at the lowest level can at least make me aware of what moves are currently valid (or even only moves that involve the card or piece I’m currently holding in my hand).
- The computer system is unintrusive, and is part of the game itself – there are still real human players all physically present, and the same social interaction happens naturally.
My ideal implementation might be something like the following, though much of it is still science fiction:
- The board is actually a high-resolution display that also contains the guts of the hardware and software.
- The board includes “blank area” if required. For instance, for a game like Arkham Horror, your character sheet and your current cards would go in this area.
- All of the game bits (pawns, cards, etc.) can be sensed by the board itself, so the board is always aware of which bits are where. This could be done with something like RFID, although the location of each game bit would have to be resolved to a very high resolution somehow.
- Game bits that are strictly for housekeeping might not be physical bits any longer, but would become part of the game. For Arkham Horror, this would be things like the clue tokens, insanity and stamina counters, money, etc.
- The board would also be touch-sensitive, to provide a simple and intuitive way to manipulate these non-physical bits.
If such technology existed, it would be much easier to play games like Arkham Horror with a wider variety of people, since the rules are partially automated. I’d like to not have to remember that I need to roll to maintain my blessed status every turn – either the game would automatically roll for me, or it could somehow remind me that I need to roll.
Besides the technology, though, there is the question of how much of the game should be automated and how much should merely be assisted or facilitated. The balance is certainly delicate; if I had the Star Trek computer’s perky voice reminding me to roll for my blessed status every turn, I’d probably get annoyed very quickly. On the other hand, if that is automated completely, the tactile part of the roll is lost, and that can be an important part of the game experience.
Ultimately, I think the game would have to have some sort of slider you could adjust as to how much stuff is automated and how much is merely facilitated (for learning the rules), and then to what extent the game software is just sitting back and being silent until a rule is broken (most often innocently and unknowingly). This type of configurability would probably require the game to have physical bits that could be optionally used instead of digital counterparts. For instance, it would be nice to have the option to roll real dice if I wanted, instead of having the computer roll the dice when I tell it to. I might to do some types of rolls myself (combat rolls, maybe), and have the computer automate others (upkeep rolls, maybe).
The other route to achieving a sort of computer gaming panacea, is that the game will exist entirely in a virtual world. This may in fact be the more likely route, but only time will tell. Once virtual reality immersion technology exists at the level where at least the visual, tactile, and auditory senses are completely seamless, building a board game in a virtual world makes sense – social interaction becomes natural, and since the game is composed of entirely virtual pieces, it doesn’t matter if they get manipulated by a human’s avatar or by the software driving the game itself – both could easily be accommodated in a virtual world.
Though I guess until this sort of thing is both technologically possible and affordable by mere mortals like me, I’ll have to settle for gaming the old-fashioned way, with real dice and nobody to remind me to roll to maintain my blessed status.
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