Board Game Heuristics

A personal set of heuristics designed for my board games to become the best I can make them.

Games generally should:

• have meaningful, interesting decisions
• speak through their themes
• be easy to learn, hard to master
• be more than a sum of their parts

1. Rules

1. Rules should have short simple sentences (10-20 words); use as few words as possible.
2. Wording should be in an active voice (e.g. "Place one tile").
3. Use as few comma's as possible.
4. Aim for short paragraphs, ideally 3–5 sentences maximum.
5. Place crucial information in the first sentence of a paragraph or section.
6. Correct line-height for optimal reading.
7. Use headings and subheadings for easier scanning of text.
8. Use bold only for emphasis or keywords.
9. Use italics for subtle emphasis; e.g. titles of actions.
10. Correct hyphenation.
11. Use bullet points for lists of actions, options or conditions.
12. Include icons used in the game when explaining the rules.
13. Use visual examples that are simple (separate expert exceptions).
14. Edge cases should be handled in separate sections.
15. Players should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.
16. Use as few pages as possible.

1.1. Setup

1. Setup should be as short as possible.
2. Check order of setup and effect on player positions; luck, advantages, or even a favorable position resulting in winning the game.
3. Have variability in setup or gameplay (goals, positions, cards, etc).
4. No need for sorting and placing loads of tiles/cards on different positions if only necessary later during play (Brass Birmingham player board, or for example stacks of differently nominated points tokens)
5. Game should be easy to get out and back in to the box; provide enough bags.

1.2. Reference Sheets

1. Should be understandable almost instantly for first time players
2. Focus on the actions and rules that actually need reminding (are often forgotten, or try to redesign the game so this does not happen).
3. Use text + icons where possible.

2. Gameplay

How the game plays, from learning, what the player can do and can't do, to how the game "reacts" to how players play.

1. Great main gameplay loop that rewards long time planning and short-term tactical decision making.
2. The game length feels not too long, not too short, and doesn't often result in dragged out or cut short games.

2.1. Learning the game

1. Playing requires little upfront knowledge of the game, unless that is the focus of the game (e.g. knowing which cards come out at certain phases).
2. Reduce exceptions to a minimum.
3. Include a reference sheet for complex actions and rare (edge) cases.
4. Scoring should be clear and easy to remember.

2.2. Player Agency

1. The game should have interesting decisions, meaningful choices
2. No (or hardly any) irrelevant choices.
3. Avoid having decisions that are normally clearly good decisions turn out bad in a way that a player cannot see coming.
4. Avoid having to make decisions relying on unknown information (strategy cards that are in a hidden deck, giant decks of cards that have a high variation of cards experienced players "know").
5. Knowing that you're losing and cannot win anymore should be limited to the last round(s) of the game (final scoring round).
6. Remember that people have a strong negativity bias and hate having things taken away from them (better to reward trailing players than to penalize leaders).

2.3. Emotion

1. Sense of ownership/warmth.
2. Feeling of meaningful, but hard earned, growth.
3. It sparks joy!?
4. Never the same twice, endlessly surprising.
5. Memorable moments or situations that are talked about after the game; "I thought you had.., I didn't expect.."

2.4. Downtime

1. Ideally have three to five choices of which at least two are good choices (less chance of analysis paralysis). The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices. (Hick's Law).
2. Downtime between players turns and between rounds is smoothened and minimalised as far as it can be.
3. Setup of the game is as short as it can be.
4. Even if there's factions, don't let it force too much on one exact way of playing?
5. Limit the amount of different actions and orders players can take.
6. No zero turns: turns where you cannot do anything useful in the game.

2.5. Randomness

1. The game relies on some input randomness but does not have any output randomness.
2. Possible to mitigate bad luck, bad starting positions or bad starting decisions.
3. Not easy to game the game (in deck builders, shuffle cards in your preferred order).
4. No (large amounts of) upfront knowledge required (exact number of certain cards in a deck, or the cards that could be in a deck, which you can randomly draw based on payment?).
5. No situations in which players' actions have random outcomes without effect (e.g. spending an action to draw a card that does nothing, throwing a die that can either earn money or not).

2.6. Interaction

1. Game should have both positive and negative player interaction.
2. If blocking is possible; make it possible to achieve goals or gain resources in multiple ways.
3. It's far better to give a scoring boost to lagging players than take away earned points from the leader.
4. Interaction should be limited in time duration; e.g. should not lead to long negotation phases between players in a more than two player game.
5. It should not be possible to give players resources/money in the game without anything (useful) in return.
6. Kingmaking should be (at least) difficult.
7. Conflict feels rewarding no matter the outcome.

2.7. Scalability

1. The game experience doesn't change significantly and/or not in a problematic way when adding more players.
2. The game state doesn't change too often to plan with an increasing amount of players.
3. Game length for different number of players is well balanced; the game doesn't feel too long or too short with any player count.
4. Game has the same feel of growth (increases as more player take part per turn) for each player count.
5. Game has nearly the same amount of total time, and adjusts number of turns accordingly to reduce downtime between player turns.

2.8. Balance

1. No endless loops in the game; getting money allows you another action, which allows you to get more money, which allows another action, etc.
2. Players should not be able to become a runaway leader; a catchup mechanism should be included.
3. Game economy should feel tight (especially at the start), but not too restrictive (especially towards the end).
4. There should be at least five valid possibly winning strategies.
5. Turns should have limited amounts of objectively correct move.
6. No paths to quick victories.
7. Rewards and bonuses should be balanced and useful throughout the game.

2.9. Theme

1. Solid connection between theme and mechanics.
2. Game is historically mostly accurate.
3. Limit the amount of exceptions because of the theme.
4. Handle sensitivity / potential issues carefully.

3. Graphic Design

Includes hierarchy, color use, typography and more.

3.1. Visual Hierarchy

1. Board game state should be easy to judge from across the room.
2. Board usability/orientation; board is readable from multiple sides (depending on player count).
3. Is readable from a distance often occuring in the game; players don't have to stand up or lean across the table to read cards, other players' cards, etc.
4. Graphics support play by showing necessary information on the board.
5. Graphics put emphasis on most important information on the board.
6. Art does not clutter the board, cards or tiles.
7. Game board does not distract from player mutations or information needed for actions.

3.2. Iconography

1. Icons have the same meaning throughout the game.
2. Icons are easy to distinguish by shape, color and/or pattern.
3. Icons + text are used where possible.
4. Icons differ enough to be easily separated at distance necessary (2m for game board and stacks, 1m for player board and own items).
5. Icons should be simplified to improve readability (think Castles of Burgundy buildings, foreign tiles Clearance)
6. Icons have different shapes so they can be easily recognized

3.3. Colors

1. Test for Protanopia and Deuteranopia color blindness and have alternative way to make it easier; patterns, backgrounds, etc.
2. Use more vibrant colors for important information.
3. Color coding and easy overview to make decisions.
4. Game pieces need to have different color + patterns (stripes, dots, lines, nothing)
5. Different card types and action types use different colors and patterns, or if necessary even different layouts
6. Use dark text on light backgrounds, or white text on dark backgrounds.

3.4. Typography

1. Titles have optical kerning.
2. Correct line-height for optimal reading.
3. Correct hyphenation.
4. Use type scales for optimal hierarchy between text.
5. Text size on cards should be 8-10pt, down to 6-7pt for fluff text.
6. All caps or small caps only for keywords, titles or very short sentences.

4. Game Interface

1. The game should be entirely playable without referring to the rules after five plays in a month.
2. Elegant design; not having to overly rely on exceptions to rules or have (parts of).
3. Actions should be clearly visible on the player board/reference cards.
4. Recognition rather than recall: Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible.

4.1 Error Prevention

1. Easy to find out the current turn in case this is important.
2. No upkeep problems during rounds; players can easily keep track of what has been processed.
3. In longer procedures (more than two steps) there should be a clear order to avoid errors.

4.2 Component Damage & Usage

1. Different card decks should have the same color of edges if worn cards would influence the game.
2. Use highest quality components possible for components that are used most during the game.
3. Damaged or highly used components should have no influence on the game (knowing which cards, tiles are coming, etc).
4. Learning which tiles are scuffed, see the next cards in order, etc, should not cause any advantage to players.

4.3 Game Usability

1. Enough space for maximum amount of components allowed on a space (e.g. if then meeples are allowed, have space for ten meeples).
2. Components shouldn't obscure essential information.
3. Often used components placed on the board, less used components can be placed aside the board.
4. Enough distance between different spaces (especially on tracks or scoring tracks); bumping the board or bumping into the table shouldn't instantly lead to a lost game.
5. Enough distance between card or tile draw piles/stacks, so drawing cards/tiles doesn't bump other stacks.
6. Double sided tiles if there are many different tiles and players need to look for specific tiles (often).

5. Solo Mode

1. No inconsistent rules for different players/npc’s.
2. After not playing for a while, rules/icons/orders/etc should not be difficult to remember
3. Game should have little upkeep for automa.
4. There should not be too many decision trees for automa.