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Simplicity vs Complexity in Board Games
A friend and I were discussing playing board games. He mentioned that a simple board game is a better board game. I had to disagree as I like some pretty complex board games a lot. Then I was thinking about the pros and cons of simplicity and complexity in board games and had to write about it. I plan to focus mostly on the good things about these elements so this doesn’t get too repetitive.
Simple
• Easy to teach
• More likely you can play with different types of people (gamers and non-gamers alike)
• Usually quicker to play
Complex
4 Responses to “Simplicity vs Complexity in Board Games”
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Good post. I think the best strategy board games are fairly easy to learn to play (Risk, Settlers) but have multiple ways to win. Some of the more weighty games (Agricola, World of Warcraft) are just too much for me, at least. In fairness to Agricola, there are simpler forms of play as well as the full game.
There are also very simple games that have very complex strategies. For example, Go (aka wei chi, aka Baduk). There are only a few rules, a very simple board, and yet the strategies are too numerous to even conceptualize. To some extent, the size of the board is important because the set of possible moves in a given turn is a subset of all playable locations on the board.
Great point, Rob! There is a difference between simple game play or simple mechanics and simple strategy. Maybe I need to consider simple game play and complex strategy vs complex game play and simple strategy. Or maybe some games seem simple but once you play more often yours eyes are opened to the real complexity of them. I’ll have to think about this more.
My personal preference is to have a complex game, however you also have to look at who your playing with. So when i play with my wife their is no point in having a game that is going to take hours and that there are 50 things goin on at the same time, as she will lose interest in that case we try to play a simple game, but when i get together with the guys then we can bring out the more complex games.