Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games

TLDR

Collaborative mechanisms are emerging in computer games, yet their complexity makes them difficult to study, whereas board games offer simpler, more transparent gameplay that facilitates analysis. The authors aim to understand collaborative games. They analyze collaborative board games, focusing on Reiner Knizia’s LORD OF THE RINGS as a quintessential example. Their analysis yields seven observations, four lessons, and three pitfalls that inform collaborative game design and highlight opportunities and challenges for computer games.

Abstract

Collaborative mechanisms are starting to become prominent in computer games, like massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs); however, by their nature, these games are difficult to investigate. Game play is often complex and the underlying mechanisms are frequently opaque. In contrast, board games are simple. Their game play is fairly constrained and their core mechanisms are transparent enough to analyze. In this article, the authors seek to understand collaborative games. Because of their simplicity, they focus on board games. The authors present an analysis of collaborative games. In particular, they focus on Reiner Knizia's LORDOFTHERINGS, considered by many to be the quintessential collaborative board game. Our analysis yields seven observations, four lessons, and three pitfalls, that game designers might consider useful for designing collaborative games. They reflect on the particular opportunities that computers have for the design of collaborative games as well as how some of the issues discussed apply to the case of computer games.