Post-Elegance: Experimental Aesthetics In Tabletop Game Design

or, "Going Beyond The Efficient Interface In Interactive Art."

Jul 07, 2023

A Thesis Submitted To The School of Visual Arts In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirement For The Degree of Master of Arts In Design Research, Writing, and Criticism.

For Dr. Lewis E. Pulsipher and Meaghan Dunn.

May 2020.

“Every good mathematician is at least half a philosopher, and every good philosopher is at least half a mathematician.”

— Gottlob Frege

“...A brand new gaming experience! 8 to 12 players, two wizards, a maverick, the arbiter, two warriors, a corporal, and a ledgerman. Now the ledgerman keeps score, and he wears this hat. The object is to accumulate cones, four cones wins, but in order to get a cone, you have to build a civilization. The other amazing thing is the challenge play. Now let me tell you more about the trivia cards, cause you are going to need to know more about roadblocks. ...Are the cones a metaphor? Yes and no.”

— Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott), The Cones of Dunshire, Parks and Recreation

Abstract

“Elegance” refers to an efficient interface and style of play that became popular within the tabletop game industry starting in the mid 90’s from the influence of games like Heimlich & Co. (1986). Elegance is a foundational aesthetic in the Eurogame genre of tabletop games and also has influenced the recent “hybrid” genre of tabletop games. The concept Elegance, as I argue, can shun player interaction from tabletop design, and advocates a non-interactive form of gaming. I introduce a new term, “Post-elegance”, referring to traits that are experimental, eccentric, and modular, which are antithetical to the nature of efficiency and “puzzle-like” conditions in Elegant tabletop game design.

Tabletop games like Cosmic Encounter (1977) and Pyramid Arcade ( 2016) invoke an origin of design similar to that of post-elegant game design. A survey of casual tabletop gamers conducted, as part of this research, suggests that players today are looking for original innovations within the tabletop game hobby, and further would balance this desire for nostalgia of older designs.

I propose that these insights are derived from a tradition of game designs, and that a “ludological” approach could foster a new form of tabletop game design for the avant-garde artist that goes beyond the puzzle, or non-interactive, template offered in the market, and fostering a return to interactive gaming between players. Tabletop game design is ready for a new period of artistic renewal, with a focus on designs that are experimental, eccentric, and modular in mechanics, and, as I wish to demonstrate with a push towards a “psychedelic” theme.

Research Questions

1. Would a mechanics-based approach in the history of tabletop games, and for the purposes of this research, be a good analysis for tabletop game design?

2. Is the consumer base for tabletop games crucial to design trends in the industry?

3. Have the aesthetics of elegance, narrative-building, and process-solving morphed into bad influences within the culture?

4. How might “post-elegance” enrich tabletop game design?

Glossary

Action Point Allowance System - A player receives a number of “Action Points” on their turn. They may spend them on a variety of Actions. An obscure board game, Special Train, from 1948, is the first recorded instance of the system. Little is known about the game and the original designer. Wolfgang Kramer would later modernize this system in his own games. Eurogames highly rely on action points in order to operate.

Alliances - Within games, players sometimes can officially or unofficially join in union for mutual benefits or win the game together.

Ameritrash - A slang or insult term to describe American games, or games that are heavy in theme, high player interaction, poor in design, and sold for commercial purposes.

Eccentric - Unconventional, even strange in theme and outside the norm of an expected theme.

Elegance - An efficient and simple interface within a tabletop game that is universal and any player can understand. A trend developed by Wolfgang Kramer, (popularized by industrial designer Dieter Rams) and implemented within children’s games and turned to adult Eurogames. Still a popular paradigm.

Eurogame - A genre of board games that put emphasis on non-interactivity, ranking, zero-luck, and mechanics.

Experimental - New, unpopular, or innovative mechanics and play within game design. A creative experimental is embedded through the structure and play of the game. This is different from “experiments” conducted in game design. Tabletop game design becomes experimental and creates an unorthodox experience from the ordinary game.

Game - For definition purposes, a game has an uncertain outcome and cannot be solved. Play is usually random, situational, and challenging. This is oppose to being a puzzle (a fixed solution), or a toy (no goals or fixed solutions).

Game studies - The study of games, playing them, and the players and culture surrounding them. The branch of Game studies can best be described through Ludology, Narratology, and the Sociological. While often it could mean video games, for the purpose of this thesis, Ludology will be referred only to the school of mechanic-based design in tabletop games.

Highest-score-wins - The player with the highest score (immediately, or at the end of the game) wins. Wolfgang Kramer advocated this paradigm with his Kramerleiste, a scoreboard printed around the game board, first introduced in Heimlich & Co. A majority of games have this victory condition. However, a recent understanding of the concept became dominant within Eurogame design. Previously, war-games often end with player elimination. A “highest-score-wins” concept validates a scoring system to all game design. Sometimes, an experimental designer must ask, “is this the only way a tabletop game could be based upon?”

Hybrid - A tabletop game (post 2010) influenced by the Eurogame design, but has unique traits counter to it, or is made for a general (family) audience.

Interactive - Influencing or having an effect on a human player. Some have said interactivity can happen within a game’s system or an AI player, but this is a “one-sided” (or solo) interaction. True interactivity is between real human beings, a crucial ingredient missing in modern games.

Kramerleiste - A printed score bar (usually 0-99) around the game board. Players each have a victory token starting at 0 and progresses score throughout the game. The game ends immediately after reaching a certain amount of points, or after a period time. The player with the highest score wins.

Ludism.org - A website by Ron Hale-Evans that advocated his own subculture, Ludism. Ludism refers to a philosophy of gaming, in particular, tabletop gaming. The aesthetics presented on Ludism.org have a strong influence in what I see as “post-elegant” design. Post-elegance, and Ludism, have the traits of the experimental, eccentric, and modular.

Ludology - A branch of Game studies that argues that games are player-centric and mechanic-based, and should be studied (and created) around them. This is a scientific approach to game studies, like engineering.

Modular - Units, mechanics, or rules that influence, construct, or create a more complex structure within the games system.

Narrative-building - Within the game’s system, a narrative is constructed between players. The game plays like a novel or a movie, where players literally “play” out the story that is being unfolded. A narrative can create an engaging experience, however, ultimately is not a game in itself. A popular trend among commercial games.

Narratology - A branch of Game studies that observes and sees games as devices to tell a narrative, or story. Game design can be constructed the same way a novel is written. Mechanics, according to Narratology, should be aligned with the theme or the narrative of the game. This is different from a narrative constructed from the game, as the purpose of Narratological game design is creating narratives as the system, rather than mechanics.

Non-interactive - A game without interactivity, or player interaction. Each player works or plays in their own space. Non-Interactivity is best summed up as a contest.

Play - An activity for enjoyment and recreation. Play happens within a game, toy, or even puzzle. Miguel Sicart has a detailed explanation of play in his book, “Play Matters.”

Player elimination - A player can be removed from the game, no longer participating. Other players continue within the game.

Post-Elegance - In reaction to the elegance trend, a series of aesthetics in tabletop game design characterized by the experimental, eccentric and modular, with the express intention of giving players more control over gameplay and the experience as a whole.

Postmodern - For clarity purposes, a criticism of a “modern” tabletop game would result in something that is postmodern. Is post-elegance a postmodern phenomenon? Yes and no. Yes, that the future of tabletop games should favor the artist, and no, that the future of tabletop game design is not a linear progressive one. Paradigms often rule the market and influence of design. I would say post-elegance pays respect to tradition while envisioning a future niche of tabletop designs outside the mainstream narrative of popularity.

Process-solving - Often players will learn a skill within the game’s system in order to master the strategy. Like a puzzle, once players figure out this strategy, they “solve” the game. Games should be uncertain and unsolvable. Process-solving advocates that games are based around skills players “learn” and master in order to win or be good at the game. Raph Koster would be the advocate of Process-solving.

Psychedelic - Relating to or denoting drugs that produce hallucinations and apparent expansion of consciousness, or denoting or having an intense, vivid color or a swirling abstract patterns, in theme and design.

Puzzle - A challenge, that might exist within a game or toy, or on its own, that has an ultimate solution. A Rubix Cube is an example of a puzzle. Puzzles have solutions, while games do not. Often games are thought of as puzzles.

Roleplaying - The mechanics of acting out a particular person, or taking on another persona within the game’s context (in order to win the game or for play).

Roll and Move - Players roll the dice and move their pawns in accordance with the roll on the board. One of the oldest mechanics in Tabletop design.

Sociological - A branch in Game studies that sees games as historical, cultural objects with significance around the society that made it. By learning about the game, one learns about the people itself.

Tabletop - A term to describe a wide variety of board, card, tile, and war games under one name. Not everyone likes the same game. A term used for commercial purposes as well.

Theme - A recurring idea or thought within the games setting. A theme can control the game’s mechanics (Narratology) or can be anything to fit in the system (Ludology).

Toy - An object that is meant for play. Does not have a goal, nor has a solution.

Variable Player Power - Each player has a special action, or power, that they can only perform. Often each power can break a rule in the game. Role Playing games use this mechanic through freeform roleplaying, while other players (or one player as the “game master”) has to be the judge of their actions. In Cosmic Encounter, the Variable Player Power is random.

Victory Condition - An ending situation within a game that determines a winner and loser.

0. Introduction

1986 was an important year in the development of games. Two things happened: the mass publication of the proto-Eurogame, Heimlich & Co. by German game designer Wolfgang Kramer, and the release of a little-known computer game, Lords of Conquest by Electronic Arts. For the first time, the publishing house Eon, a self-publishing pursuit by Peter Olotka, Bill Eberle, and Jack Kittredge, who designed Cosmic Encounter ( 1977), took their obscure war game, Borderlands (1982), and implement it into a video game format, under the new name of Lords of Conquest. Lords of Conquest was a mix between the battle conflict found in Risk by designer Albert Lamorisse (1957), and the random resource management that later was adopted in the best-selling Eurogame, The Settlers of Catan by designer Klaus Teuber (1996). Meanwhile, Heimlich & Co., a German children’s game by Wolfgang Kramer, made up two new mechanics. The “Action Point Allowance System,” where a player can “spend: a player choice, in any order, and a printed score-bar around the game board, referred to as the
“Kramerlieste.” Previously, the Kramerlieste appeared in his game Das große Unternehmen Erdgas (1982) and the Action Point Allowance System in an obscure game called Special Train (1948). With these two things in mind, Kramer would synergize both mechanics into Heimlich & Co., which would win the Spiel des Jahres award in 1986.

The tabletop industry, starting in America and becoming popular in Germany, developed an obsession for a design template in the mature genre of board games, known as Eurogames. With the growth of video gaming, many players who resort to tabletop games tend to rediscover what it means to make social connections. Many American tabletop games are influenced by Eurogames, called “Hybrids,”1 are often cloned variations of the Eurogame. A lead influence includes The Settlers of Catan, as the design by Klaus Teuber has a precise, Rube Goldberg-esque, mechanics that focus on players solving their own “puzzles,” without affecting other player interaction. Earlier games, like Cosmic Encounter and even Dungeons & Dragons, were intended to break that paradigm in the industry, but instead, many tabletop enthusiasts scorn these hybrids as “Ameritrash”,2 an insult for highly thematic and luck-based American board game.

I believe that “Elegance,” as a concept, advocates non-interactive puzzle solving, which characterizes Eurogames and American Hybrids, even “Ameritrash.” It is, in some sense, also characteristic of video games, creating an illusion that players are actually doing something. The current tabletop scene, sadly makes this even more apparent. Through my research, I hope to present a taxonomy for an alternative future of tabletop game design, what I see as a “post-elegant” period that should take influences from the experimental, eccentric, and modular. In this literature review I will set out the foundations of my view.

In 1996, American tabletop designer Andy Looney decided to program a video game, Icebreakers, based on a modular system of three-dimensional pyramids that he made up (Fig. 16). In Icebreakers, each pyramid represented a trait, by color, that served as an obstacle against the player. Players could also customize their own level by choosing and placing the color pyramids that they desired on the map. Hypothetically, Looney’s eccentric pyramids could actually be implemented in the physical world of tabletop games.

It would make sense that Andy Looneys sees video games, a medium which has now become synonymous with consumerism, were once being designed by the same people who made Cosmic Encounter and Icehouse Pyramids. Game design could have taken on a more futuristic approach, investigating the experimental, eccentric, modular, and “psychedelic” in theme. That is to say, taking on the aesthetic tradition of the early development of tabletop games in the 1970s, reflecting on the post-counter culture of the time. My research asks, where is gaming going in the next few decades? Whatever happened to the game designer, and the interest in creating interactive, classic games? My thesis is about tabletop games that exist outside the current paradigm of popular, mainstream design. The ancestors of Lords of Conquest and Icebreakers came from the board game variants of Cosmic Encounter and Icehouse Pyramids. Moving forward, the hybrid tabletop game needs a new modular system in design.

Why not create a “post-elegant” game?

Game Studies as a Discipline

Game studies can be best described as the study of games, the act of playing them, and the culture it produces. Games are proliferating in all sorts of digital mediums and the “gamification” of everyday life. The oldest medium of game-playing is through the physical. Asides from sports, board games, or professionally called “tabletop” games, make up a large portion of the history of games. With the advent and popularity of video games, consumer culture has taken a sharp turn back into the novel and new interest of modern tabletop games. Tabletop game design becomes a serious endeavor into discussions of philosophy, art, and design.

The history of the modern tabletop game industry can be summed up in half of a century. Within the last decade, tabletop games seek pleasure around the design of mechanics.3 As a common observer and consumer of tabletop games, I started to see regressive trends in design and of aesthetics around the early 2000s decade. What is currently being produced in the market, I believe, is not living up to the standards of “good” game design (and I mean to say that there is a value to “good” design). Instead, the Eurogame model, and its hybrid influences, has dominated the industry since the mid 2000s to present day. The Eurogame can be defined as a mature, adult-oriented board game, where non-interactivity, skill, and efficiency in its interface becomes central to the game’s design. This creates a design that is more like a puzzle than an actual “playful" game. The aesthetic that best describes the Eurogame and hybrid model, is “elegance.”

The concept of elegance, according to Keith Burgun, is described as “efficiency,” or “accomplishing as much possible with as little as possible.” Accordingly, game design is not a calculating machine, but instead, a technical, engineering problem, where efficiency becomes a requirement. Efficiency, for Burgun, is beautiful. Burgun also advocates that video games should take the “elegant” way forward, as presented in Eurogames. Elegance in Eurogames means an efficient interface with sophisticated outcomes. This is similar to moving a piece in chess or placing down a stone in Go. Many variations in the game state can happen, and the player only has to make a single choice. efficiency of elegance, however, submits a player to the control of the game. The game controls the player’s dependency, and creates an echo chamber of little to no player expression. This echoes the commentary of game writers Lewis Pulsipher, Chris Crawford, and to an extent, Jesper Juul. The experience of elegance in tabletop games is similar to playing an addictive video game with no replay value.

It is safe to say that Eurogames has contrived the notion of “elegant” play, and in doing so, an aesthetic around it. As mentioned previously, the two mechanics of the Action Point Allowance System and Kramerleiste were modernized by the work of Wolfgang Kramer. However, they were not showcased for mature gamers until the popularity of his own game, Heimlich & Co. (1986) In the game, players roll a die and are given actions to move the wooden spies around the Bavarian village. Players score points and move their score counters around the Kramerleiste. The player with the highest score, after one round around the Kramerleiste (passing 41 points), is the winner. The legacy of Wolfgang’s Action Point Allowance System, as mentioned by Larry Levy,4 remains influential in Eurogame mechanics.

Raph Koster, a respected intellect in game studies, argues that the purpose of all games is to teach people, while at the same, have fun. Koster has gone as far as to argue that “the only real difference between games and reality is that the stakes are lower within games.” This would mean that existence itself- is a game, and that learning new skills in real life has the same consequences as learning new skills in a game. This is what I refer to as “process-solving,” or the aesthetic of “learning” new skills in a game. The point is to learn these specific skills and hopefully win the game. However, this assumes that games are mere learning devices to teach people random skills and subjects, and overlooks the fact that games can also be unserious and playful.

A different kind of aesthetic I have also coined is “narrative-building,” or an aesthetic where a game can be a device to recite a narrative. Many roleplaying games and modern video games tell stories. These types of games assume that the story is the most important part of the gaming experience. My criticism against this approach is that games are not stories. I believe, however, that the narrative-building aesthetic is often misunderstood as process-solving, where the story is often used as a transformative template to disguise a sophisticated puzzle. Narrative-building can be beneficial for designing games outside this norm. But too often, narratives are used as political devices than a mechanic that is playful.

The aesthetics of elegance, process-solving, and narrative-building are popular within the market for tabletop games. This literature review will examine tabletop games through design and cultural theory, while acknowledging these aesthetics to the emergence of a new, transformative aesthetic, which I will dub as “post-elegance.” Post-elegance is an aesthetics that shares the tradition of the experimental, eccentric, and modular traits in tabletop game design.

In my own terminology, these terms are defined as the following:

The Experimental is new, unpopular, or innovative mechanics and play within game design.

The Eccentric is unconventional, even strange in theme and outside the norm of an expected theme.

And the Modular are units, mechanics, or rules that influence, construct, or create a more complex structure within the games system.

In addition, there is a “psychedelic” theme to post-elegant games, which comes from the tradition of tabletop games in the 1960s through the 1990s. The best examples of these types of games are Cosmic Encounter and Icehouse Pyramids.

Several questions will be addressed. Is a mechanic-based approach in the history of tabletop games ultimately good for design? Is the consumer base for tabletop games crucial to design trends in the industry? Has the aesthetics of elegance, narrative-building, and process-solving morphed into bad influences in the culture? And how will post-elegance ultimately enrich tabletop game design? All this ties to the question about the ethics of social control and how design can liberate this paradigm.

A Brief History of Tabletop Games and Game Studies: A Mechanical Approach

The word “tabletop” is a professional term to describe the board games hobby as a whole. For the purpose of this terminology, I am referring to any game with physical components as tabletop games. This includes ancient games, like Mancala, Chess, and Go. These important cultural games developed an evolutionary progression towards the commercial tabletop game of the 20th century. An accelerated understanding of tabletop games have emerged in the past 50 years.

In game studies, there are two major disciplines: Ludology and Narratology. Ludology, as also a term used in video games, views games as “player-centric” and mechanic-based, while Narratology sees games as narratives, or story devices. There has been a divergence between the two schools, and game study academics often have to choose between the two sides. Even in the tabletop market, an “Ameritrash” game refers to an American tabletop game based around high-luck outcomes and theme driven play, while Eurogames are exclusive to mechanics over theme.

For this case, I have my bias as a ludologist, and denote “good” game design as being player-centric, focusing on the player first, and mechanic-based, that a game is structured by a series of balanced rules and structures. A bad design is a game that has zero interactivity, where a player cannot interact with another human (or an active, non-human player). This is a lot like watching raindrops fall from a window, and predicting which one will hit the bottom first. The player has no influence in this rain speculation whatsoever (and by definition, is not a game). A game with a single solution is therefore a puzzle.

“Good” design emerges from bold definitions and principles, as stated in Ludology. This is not to say that the aesthetics of narrative-building, process-solving, or even elegance is bad. Narrative-building can create a unique and original story experience for the player, but does not mean that the game should be a non-interactive novel. Process-solving and elegance are culprits of non-interactivity and will be criticized further.

With similar interest in tabletop games, Jesper Juul makes the claim that video games have real rules with fictional worlds. Juul, as a proclaimed ludologist, strictly believes that games, including tabletop games, should feature these six principles, that games are:

1. A rule-based formal system;

2. With variable and quantifiable outcome;

3. Where different outcomes are assigned different values;

4. Where the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcomes;

5. Players feeling emotionally attached to the outcome;

6. (And) the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable.

Roger Caillois, like Juul, states that games are rules or fiction. He claims that “rules themselves create fictions” and that games are abstractions of real-life activities. And importantly, “games are not ruled and [are] make-believe.” Rule-based games can be just as real. To a ludologist, a “game” is not merely the same thing as “play.” Rather, a game can be a vehicle for play, which is often portrayed as an illusion through narrative-building and process-solving.

Computer programmer Chris Crawford claims that the sole, missing ingredient from most computer games was interactivity. According to Crawford, “interaction transforms a passive challenge into an active challenge, but a game opponent reacts to a player’s action and presents different challenges in each game.” It is the player who is interacting with another player, not the game itself, with a “continuous quantity with a range of values.” More so, Crawford remained firm that “a story presents its facts as an immutable sequence” and that “a game offers a branching tree of possible sequences and allows the players to make choices at each branch point.” This theory was adapted by video game designer, Sid Meier, who argued that games should be “a series of meaningful choices.” Raph Koster, who cites Meier, argues that “games are puzzles to solve” and that “language is built into the brain and that there is something in our wiring that guides us towards language.” Koster would be in favor of a process-solving, while Crawford would side with narrative-building.

The resurrection of a mechanic-based discipline in tabletop game design is important because tabletop designs should be examined and criticized by interactivity. The “interactivity” I am referring to is the direct to player-to-player interaction, similar to Roger Caillois’s concept of “Agon,” where there is direct, competitive interaction. Mechanics are important in the evolution of games that always refines the design process over and over again.

Aesthetics in Tabletop Game Design

I have defined five important aesthetics in the tabletop game industry. Eurogames adheres to the aesthetics of elegance and process-solving in the tabletop game, while something of a “hybrid” has more than one aesthetic I mention.. Since there are so many Eurogames, it is better to focus on the best-selling board games that represent each aesthetic in the market. In my own experience in the tabletop community and applying my depth of knowledge about board games, I greatly consider the five board games important to tabletop game design: Cosmic Encounter, Heimlich & Co., Icehouse Pyramids, The Settlers of Catan, and Root. Each game represents an important historical turn in tabletop game design.The following five games, in chronological order, each represent an aesthetic in bold:

Cosmic Encounter (1977) is based around Narrative-building.
Heimlich & Co. ( 1986) is based around Elegance.
Icehouse Pyramids (1989), or Pyramid Arcade ( 2016) is based around Post-Elegance.
The Settlers of Catan (1996) is based around The Hybrid.
And Root ( 2018) is based around Process-solving.

An understanding of these aesthetics help construct a better comprehension of tabletop game design, and the concept of post-elegance. While Icehouse Pyramids could have the traits of the experiment, eccentric, and modular, Cosmic Encounter also shares similar characteristics that may overlap. The same could be said about The Settlers of Catan, although it is more of a mixture of elegance and process-solving without the antithetical nature of narrative-building or post-elegance. Post-elegance can be best understood by the notion of play.

Miguel Sicart has a radical belief that games “don’t matter that much” and are solely for the interface of play. Play can transform the game’s environment. According to Sicart, “By disrupting the context in which it takes place, play is a creative, expressive force.” Within “dark play,” there can be the emergence of a system of game design that disrupts the nature of an elegant interface, a novel narrative-building experience, and a process-solving IQ test. Play becomes a fundamental desire that has been shunned from Eurogame discourse, as so much of the genre becomes dependent upon the previous aesthetics.

Oddly enough, there has always been a subculture based around “dark play,” or experimental tabletop games in the past decades. The best examples might in the work of Ron Hale Evan’s Ludism.org and Andy Looney’s Wunderland.com. Hale-Evans, a graduate from Yale University, proposed a semi-religious club called “Ludism,” while Looney, the designer of Icehouse Pyramids, operates his private gaming club, “Wunderland.” Both websites celebrate the psychedelic aesthetics of Rubik’s Cubes, Kaleidoscopes, Lava Lamps, and the art of Peter Max. For example, Wunderland encourages playful curiosity, “Give yourself time to get lost here, and you'll find games, photographs, stories, poems, opinion pieces, essays, recipes, wacky art projects, and other stuff, too. It's quite an eclectic assortment.”

The Consumption of Tabletop Games

Tabletop game design is appreciated through its own niche market, group of internet influencers, and dedicated consumers. Previously, commercial games were sold alongside classic games like chess and often would be associated with toys. The introduction of Avalon Hill Games Inc. in the 1950s set the paradigm of adult war games. From this influence begat the rolepalying game Dungeons and Dragons, and created the roleplaying game. There was a market for a new type of game. Currently, the tabletop gaming store is filled with popular hybrids that carry influences from both elegance and process-solving.

Through the states of Pennsylvania and New York, there are four tabletop gaming stores that orbit the entire subculture of tabletop gaming on the East Coast. Those stores are The Compleat Strategist ( PA), The Games Keep ( PA), The Uncommons (NY), and Hex & Co. (NY). I have conducted personal interviews with the managers and as well common consumers who attend game night. Players are curious for games that are innovative, but as well looking for familiar classics they grew up with. Two of the four stores, The Uncommons and H ex & Co., also sell alcohol and food, which becomes a greater revenue than tabletop games. The Compleat Strategist and The Games Keep rely exclusively on the sales of tabletop games. Root is the popular best seller at The Games Keep, while The Settlers of Catan is a best seller at The Compleat Strategist.

Outside these storefronts, tabletop gamers use the internet as a form of communication. The data collected from these sources indicate preferred biases of board games in the tabletop industry. In addition, the tabletop community has a niche network of sources that dictate trends in products and preferences in game design.

The data indicates certain trends in tabletop gaming. In Stewart Woods’s dissertation, “Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games" (2012), Woods collected data and analyzed “mechanical” preferences from players in the 2012 tabletop scene. Using data determined from Aki Järvinen, and applying it to Eurogames, the “choosing” mechanic was the most favorable. This was followed by “placing,” “point-to-point,” and “building.” The mechanic that scored the lowest was “voting.”

Another game designer, Yehuda Belinger, purported that the most popular mechanics in Eurogames were “title placement,” “auctions,” “trader/negotiation,” “worker placement/route selection,” “set collection,” and area control.” These are emblematic to the elegance aesthetic. Hypothetically, these mechanics can be “weaved” together in order to produce new Eurogames, which thus become something of the hybrid. Woods also notes that “accumulation” is also a popular victory condition, what I refer to as “highest-score-wins.” Woods also asserts that player pleasure is obtained through games that utilize social interaction, strategic play, intellectual challenges, and an actual sense of competition.

And with interesting insight, Erving Goffman, in “Fun in Games" (1961, pp. 17-18), wrote that, “For the participants, this involves: a single visual and cognitive force of attention, a mutual and preferential openness to verbal communication; a heighten mutual relevance of acts; an eye-to-eye ecological huddle that maximizes each participant’s opportunity to perceive the other participant’s monitoring of him.” This basic insight into human activity is as well that same passions that exist in tabletop games. The desire and consumption for particular designs in tabletop games is expanding. Many casual players are seeking for something original, yet also nostalgic to the tradition of the experimental, eccentric, and modular.

The Future of Tabletop Game Design: Harmful or Pleasing?

It is important to consider if there is a harmful or pleasing effect within tabletop game design. Gaming is an important part of culture. Many cultural theorist debate and critique the way we think about games. For Example, Fredric Jameson in “Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” (1984) argues “that aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production.” Products are being produced at a greater rate to create aesthetic innovation and experimentation. While capitalism produces these commodities, the thrust of this “newer art” is celebrated. The Settlers of Catan, as a mass-produced “designer” board game, becomes available to the normal consumer, not solely for a niche audience. This disregards any innovation in tabletop game design. Quite possible, constant consumption is a source of nihilism in an age of accelerating technology. Eurogames are produced under fast-rates and will recycle elements of elegance, narrative-building, and process-solving.

A game could be defined by the culture of players alone. Sociologist Erving Goffman sees the individual constantly “performing” in new situations. The individual is given a few cues, hints, or directions within society. And like understanding rules to a tabletop game, players will adapt this playful performance. But unlike Eurogames, the culture of elegance follows a strict code of rule-abiding principles. Eurogame players are more prone to passive behavior.

Also, Clifford Geertz observed that human behavior is an interaction between two parties. Reading rules, like learning the English language, is cultural. Behavior is defined by interactive play. Dick Hebdige uses this similarity in his own study on punk subcultures. For example, boys in lipstick are just “dressing up,” similar to a Goffman player performance. It is “the conversion of subcultural signs into mass-produced objects” and the “re-definition of deviant behavior by dominate groups.”

More so, subcultures, “also articulate, to a greater or lesser extent, some of the preferred m earnings and interpretations, those favored by and transmitted through the authorized channels of mass communication.” The concept of a “gamer” culture orbits around one hegemonic consumer culture. The social signs and behaviors all originate from either a single product (like a board game), or a desire to prefer peculiar genres of games over the other. Eurogame players are likely to choose a game that acts more like a puzzle than a game that is random. What is popular ultimately crafts the subculture, and the trend for elegance within tabletop game design is a mere influence of a dominant consumer subculture in power.

Each game therefor packs a certain ideological bend. Max Horkheimer & Theodor W. Adorno in “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” writes that culture is passed through the filter of an industry dedicated to the culture (or, the culture industry). “The familiar experience of the moviegoer, who perceives the street outside as a continuation of the film he has just left,” also replicates “the world of everyday perception.” Subculture can create an illusion, an existence outside of reality, and the behavior is ultimately controlled by a market. One who associates with “gamer culture,” consumes in certain games, ideologies, and fashion. This “withers the imagination,” stopping the consumer from ever thinking critically of the product (and culture) that is being consumed. This represses any form of original creativity. Within tabletop design, elegance, narrative-building, and process-solving stifles creativity because it advocates a submissive, complacent consumer for the dominate ideology of gamer culture.

And finally, Jean-Francois Lyotard cites Wittgenstein’s language game as an important influence within his own argument about the discourse used in postmodernism. Lyotard had three observations about the postmodern language game:

1. Rules are made up between players,

2. If there are no rules, there is no game, and that an outside word is not apart of the game,

(and) 3. Every word is a “move” in a game.

It is then interesting that postmodernism itself becomes a game. If by learning new concepts, ideologies, and words within the discourse, one becomes skilled in a new way of thinking. This can subscribe to how culture learns cues from one another, and how tabletop games can be ideological.

Conclusion

Tabletop games are an exciting field for design. The importance of a mechanic-based approach, the criticism of elegant design, and a new trend for the experimental, eccentric, modular, and psychedelic in tabletop game design is fundamental to my thesis. A proper criticism of the Eurogame design is long overdue. I believe something of a post-elegant aesthetic will emerge in the future for tabletop game design. Otherwise, social control shall reign supreme in all future designs. It may answer many problems currently in tabletop game design.

With the framework presented in this literature review, each case study will follow:

The significance of a mechanic-based discipline in game studies and why an understanding of Ludology will increase the appreciation for tabletop game design.
The overall aesthetics of tabletop games and why post-elegance matters.
The business of tabletop games, its consumer culture, and the values and biases associated
with it.
Cultural theory and criticism with regards to tabletop games and why post-elegance will
advance tabletop game design.

1. A Brief History of Tabletop Games
and Game Studies: A Mechanical Approach

"No, there is no endpoint. It [tabletop game design] will go on and on, as well as in literature, music, painting and film. There will always be new impulses and new genres will be invented. This can be seen clearly in today's gaming world, which today is much richer and more diverse than it was 40 years ago."

-Wolfgang Kramer

(From an original interview conducted for the thesis, which can be viewed here).

This history of tabletop games, and their designs, can be summed up by examining the work that was published in the last two centuries. “Game studies” refers to the discipline of studying games and the impact they have on society. A sudden surge in the interest of tabletop games started to appear in the mid 20th century. Many academics were compiling information on various games. Robert C. Bell wrote Board and Table Games From Many Civilizations (1960) and Harold J. Murray wrote A History of Board Games Other Than Chess (1969). This bulk of information was later published by David Parlett in The Oxford History of Board Games (1999).5 Parlett’s work remains one of the most influential in the history of tabletop games. Finally, the 21s t century saw the release of Rules of Play by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, which established the modern discipline and vocabulary. Within Rules of Play also sources the intellectual development of game philosophy, and importantly, design.

The first philosophical studies on games were introduced by Johan Huizinga in Homo Ludens (1938) and Roger Caillois in Man, Play, and Games (1961). Huizinga believed that games create a “magic circle,” and that players consent to an alternate reality around play. Caillois built upon these notions to expound upon concepts of “play” and the conceptualization of “rules.” There is also to mention Ludwig Wittgenstein, who suggested that language can be a “game.” But this was an early understanding of what a “game” may be. Wittgenstein surmised that games were a form of play, as opposed to a set of rules.

Ludology, Narratology, and The Sociological.

There are three important disciplines for distinguishing tabletop games: Ludology, Narratology, and the Sociological. Ludology is a branch of game studies that argues that games are player-centric and exclusively mechanic-based. This is a scientific approach to game studies, like engineering. The term originated on Gonzalo Frasca’s blog of the same name, ludology.org. In opposition, Narratology assumes that games are devices to tell narratives, or stories. Game design can be constructed the same way a novel is written. These games include Dixit (2008), Once Upon a Time (1993), or even Dungeons & Dragons (1974). And the Sociological sees games as historical, or cultural objects with significance around the society that made it. These games include Mancala, Senet, and Chess. By learning about the game’s design, one can learn about the people who made it.

In ancient games, the mechanics revolved around rolling dice, the movement of player pawns, and capturing opposing units. In the modern board game of the 20th century, the mechanics became more advanced. This is in part because of the steady development of a mechanic-based approach to game design. The discipline of Ludology helped foster a science around tabletop game design.

The Significance of Ludology

Ludology views games as “player-centric,” meaning human players should interact with one another. I believe a “bad” game lacks this human interactivity. Often interactivity is thought to be replicated through a simulated opponent,6 but designers fail to understand that interactivity is expressed through human emotions and desires within the game’s structure. If there is no agency, the game is essentially a puzzle. Jesper Juul in his book Half-Real (2011), asserts that video games have real rules with fictional worlds.7 Video games become illusions to the physical game. So much of what is considered a “game” today is actually misunderstood as the theme, or virtual reality, presented in the video game’s environment. Games cannot be understood unless it is deconstructed, without theme, revealing the mechanics which players interact with.

Based on the ideas posited by Roy Harris, “language games” use the analogy of games in order to render reason unto the “self-containment” that is present in a language.8 A game can present a new framework by addressing words or thoughts in a similar fashion to moves in a chess game. A player only needs to ascertain what “roles” the rules of the game delegate to those words.9 To a Ludologist, there are limitations concerning what constitutes a game, and what does not. Juul’s six principles are foundational to the purpose of designing a “good” tabletop game.

In the 1960s, Roger Caillois made a similar observation that games are essentially rules or fiction.10 He asserts that “rules themselves create fictions” and purports that games are simply abstractions of real-life activities.11 Caillois observes that both rules and fiction are inseparable, as they are one and the same. Twenty years later, Chris Crawford in The Art of Computer Game Design (1984) claimed that the missing component in computer games was interactivity.12 It is the player who is interacting with another player, not the game itself. From a Ludological perspective, interactivity is what makes a good game.

Crawford also believed that the fundamental aspect of gaming was to learn.13 Despite this, Crawford still believed that “a story presents its facts as an immutable sequence.”14 A story cannot be changed, but a player can make his own narrative. This theory was later adopted by video game programmer, Sid Meier, who argued that games are “a series of meaningful choices.” This provides insights on the development of the Narratology discipline, and when games became more focused on stories than of interactivity.

Modern Tabletop Games

The game mechanic of “Roll and Move,” or rolling dice and moving a player pawn, has became synonymous with generic board game design.15 Perhaps Monopoly (1935) was conceived as the first “serious” game for both children and adults that moved away from racing. Unlike Chess, it boasted a negotiation mechanic, fake money to keep score, and spaces on the board as “property.” There was no start or finish, but rather, a loop around the board. The concept of a race was eliminated from its design, breaking the tradition Parcheesi had made. It was the first Western board game to be credited by an individual, Charles B. Darrow. Darrow became a celebrity during his time. However, he utilized Elizabeth J. Magie’s original design, The Landlord’s Game (1904), which was produced to teach players about Progressive-era politics. Monopoly became more of a game than a tool to teach people. It paved the way for a general mainstream interest in board game.

Dice became less apparent with the 3M Bookshelf series of the 1960s that introduced board games exclusively for an adult audience. Two important games in the series, Sid Sackson’s Aquire (1964) and Alex Randolph’s TwixT (1962), were popular alternatives to Monopoly or Chess. In the next few decades, the 90s was a boutique period of “trading card games.” Richard Garfield’s Magic: The Gathering (1993) became popular and proved that card games could have written rules imprinted on them without relying on numbers. Still, video games were increasingly popular, and the home consoles of that time defined the game paradigm.

Meanwhile in Germany, children’s board games relied on mostly skill. The influence of game designer Wolfgang Kramer proved to be an important shift in the game industry. The “Spiel de Jars,” or Game of the Year awards in Germany acknowledged the work of Kramer, winning twice for his game Heimlich & Co. in 1986, and Auf Achse in 1987. Some of these German games were translated in the 90’s, while the rest of Europe was still under influence of Dungeons & Dragons. Games Workshop had a series of narrative-building, semi-modular adult board games influenced by roleplaying games. These games included Talisman16 ( 1983), Dungeonquest ( 1985), Kings & Things (1986), and Rouge Trooper ( 1987).

In the 2000s, many board game companies started to capitalize on the emerging “Eurogame” fad, losing interest in trading card games and roleplaying games all together. Eurogames were developed in Germany as a way to make adult games without luck or interactivity. One such company, Fantasy Flight Game, became a producer of outdated “Amerigames,” and eventually by the late 2000s, started to exclusively reissue classic tabletop games, like Cosmic Encounter (reissued 2008) and Dungeonquest (reissued 2010). In the same 2000s decade, Boardgamegeek.com was established as an internet forum and marketplace to discuss and catalog tabletop games.

A consumer culture around a “tabletop gamer” was established, or someone who enjoys all non-digital games and makes an identity around them. Eventually, this grew interest in the substantial number of consumers who want to become tabletop game designers, thus advocating game studies as a legitimate force. This fascination in game design was influenced by the Eurogame movement, that insisted the designer’s name be on the front of the game box. With the designer now being recognized as the “author,” a game can be an artistic expression of the designer’s personality and vision.

Important Designs in Tabletop Games

The importance of the genealogy of tabletop games cannot be understated, as it bears great significance in the development of tabletop game design as an artistic medium. The following elucidates a timeline of six important games, I believe, to have a strong influence in the development of a mechanic-based approach within tabletop game design:

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1977) - The advanced version of Dungeons & Dragons introduced a rules system that allowed the players to design the game themselves. Reading and applying the rules became an enjoyable pursuit. An important mechanic included roleplaying, or taking on a fictional character and applying it to the game’s setting. This game has continued to evolve over the years, as an increasing number of manuals for gameplay were printed. Taking vague inspiration from previous games like Parcheesi, the dice dictates much of what happens, matching the roll to various attributes, such as ability scores, “armor class,” “hit points,” and many other statistics.

Cosmic Encounter (1977) - Cosmic Encounter came out at the same time, or even before, the release of Dungeons and Dragons (the prototype was first conceived in 1973). The game uses a deck of cards in order to determine random “encounters” and resolve combat. The goal of the game is to win five foreign colonies. Each player has a variable player power which breaks the rules of the game. The negation mechanic is similar to Diplomacy (1959) or even Monopoly, where players must carefully make an agreement or compromise of extended discussions that will change the state of the game.

Heimlich & Co. (1984) - Players take on the role of spy in order to obtain secret information. Players use “Action Points” in order to move spies around the board, earning points to score. The player with the highest score wins. The main mechanics employed are bluffing, deduction, and “Roll and Move.” Originally intended as a children’s game, I argue that “elegant” aesthetic originates from this game.

Icehouse Pyramids (1989) - Rather a new system, many games can be played with a set, or “stash” of colorful pyramids. There is a steep emphasis on the placement of the pyramids and requires that a barrage of chaotic rules must be followed, similar to the freewheeling fun of Dungeons and Dragons and Cosmic Encounter. The original version clearly obtained inspiration from the game of Chess. The designer, Andy Looney, went as far as to write “What Chess is to medieval warfare, Homeworlds [a game played with Icehouse Pyramids] is to Star Trek and Star Wars.”17

Root (2018) - A sophisticated game where asymmetrical forces vie to win by pursuing their own objectives. In a way, Root has a “selfish” design, in that players are trying to focus on their own challenges than interacting with the other side. This new design uses an array of sub-mechanics such as action points, dice rolling, area movement, hand management, and variable player powers all while remaining isolated from interacting with other players. Combat is much like its predecessor, Risk (1957). The art style is cute, like a children’s book, but targeted for an adult audience. Root is currently a best selling game as of 2020.

—

Most tabletop games are assumed to be goal oriented. This is from the major influence of Eurogames, where earning the highest score is the most common victory trait. A survey was conducted in Stewart Woods’s book on Eurogames in order to determine which types of mechanics were favored by players of these games.18 “Choosing” was the most desirable mechanic. There was some praise and some grievances, with no discernible middle ground. What matters to tabletop gamers are the characteristics of the games, or the design of mechanics. Ludology, a discipline that is mechanic-based, has provided a systematic way of designing tabletop games.

But the crucial question to ask is, what is “transformative” within these mechanics? And what mechanics are outside the norm of the Eurogame?

Conclusion

Considering that tabletop games are no longer as novel as they once were, in conjunction with the fact that video games are still more popular, a mechanic-based approach towards tabletop game design may prevail in bringing tabletop games back to the forefront of the mainstream. Thinking outside of the box will improve tabletop game design, and it can facilitate innovation by allowing new ideas to proliferate throughout the process of game creation and production. The history of tabletop games shows that new mechanics have always drastically transformed the market and the gaming environment. Ludology is a mechanical approach to provide this transformation. A taxonomy based upon tabletop game aesthetics may provide answers to create a new space for tabletop game design distant from the Eurogame.

2. Aesthetics in Tabletop Game Design

“New games come out and they're really just a sort of tweak on one of the existing ten or so video game game designs that we've had laying around and that has been constantly reproduced. So to wrap it up, I am very pleased to see that."

-Keith Burgun

(From an original interview conducted for the thesis, which can be viewed here).

The mid 70’s saw a cultural climate composed of radical movements that changed American society and the arts. Within the tabletop game industry, hexagon-based war games transformed into the free-form nature of role playing games. The year 1973 saw the first prototype of Cosmic Encounter. And a year later, the Dungeons & Dragons variant for Chainmail was published in 1974. These experimental designs ironically enough, help create the industry for tabletop games. To elaborate further about this influence, a taxonomy of aesthetics is required to understand the artistic approach within tabletop game design and the future of it. It is possible that all tabletop games currently in the modern market could be classified with this simplified list. Each aesthetic corresponds to a popular tabletop game.

(Engelstein on action points).19

1. Elegance – An efficient and simple interface within a tabletop game that is universal and any player can understand. Coined by Keith Burgun in Clockwork Game Design (2015), this aesthetic within tabletop game design was cultivated by Wolfgang Kramer and utilized within his children’s games. The earliest known example was implemented in his game Heimlich & Co. (1986). E legance, as mechanics or traits within this game, are the Action Point Allowance System and the Kramerleiste. The Action Point Allowance System allows the player to freely choose which “actions” to pursue, in any order and any combination, like a currency. Actions are used to move “spies” around the board and scores when they land on the space that has the safe on it. And the Kramerleiste, named after Kramer himself, is a score table printed around the game board. Score counters are placed on the “0” space, and moved along the board up until a certain number, or when the game is over. Kramer describes his general design process as followed:

“...players act constructive in order to improve their own results. They do not act destructive and destroy the playing of their opponents. In my games a player damages another player only then, when he makes a good move for himself. The sense of his move is to help himself and not to damage the game of the other players”20

2. Post-Elegance – A proposed aesthetic which follows after the trend of elegance. Traits of post elegance are the Experimental, Eccentric, and Modular. The Experimental is new, unpopular, or innovative mechanics and play within game design.The Eccentric is unconventional, strange in theme. And the Modular is made up of units, mechanics, or rules that influence, construct, or create a more complex structure within the game’s system. These traits are principal to a tabletop games design that is post-elegant. Icehouse Pyramids (1987), o r compiled in Pyramid Arcade (2016), is the best example of a post-elegant game.

Icehouse Pyramids is a modular system featuring “stashes” of 3D modeled pyramids. A stash is a set of three pyramids of the same color. Each pyramid is a different size and contains dots on the bottom that are indicative of status. The Queen has 3 dots and is the largest size; The Drone has 2 dots and is medium sized, and The Pawn has 1 dot and is the smallest size. Pyramids Arcade supplies 3 stashes of 10 different color and as well as additional material to play other games with the pyramids. The pyramids were originally introduced as a fictional game called “Icehouse” in Andy Looney’s design-fiction story, The Empty City. A once fringe concept became Looney’s adventure into game design, where he still creates new and original concepts using only the pyramids he has conceived. This approach to tabletop game design is post-elegant in that games become playful than a mere calculating machine enforced by rules of elegance and process-solving.

3. Narrative-Building – An aesthetic where a narrative is constructed between players within the game’s system. The gameplay is often novel-like and participants literally “play” out the story created by the game. The narrative may create an engaging experience, but it is not the game as a whole. Popular video games tend to be exclusively about narrative-building. This is further discussed in Jesper Juul’s Half-Real ( 2005). While not popular within Eurogames, narrative-building can create a sense of escapism. Dungeons & Dragons ( 1974), using the roleplaying mechanic, is a good representation of narrative-building. However, a better example is Cosmic Encounter (1977), because it is a board game, rather than a set of rule books.

Cosmic Encounter was created as a prototype in 1973, but later published for a wider audience in 1977. The game has been prominently influential in tabletop game design. Popular board game critic Tom Vasel of the The Dice Tower has casually cited this game as his favorite, as well as making several videos dedicated to the game, including “Why I Love... Cosmic Encounter.”21 When this game was released, the roleplaying mechanic had already became popularized in Dungeons & Dragons. Cosmic Encounter, however, shared the Variable Player Power mechanic, where each player is given a random ”power” that can break a rule of the game. It shares similarities with roleplaying, in that the players will invest in their power to help achieve success. Because of its random outcomes and modular expansions, Cosmic Encounter’s game state is always changing, and thus a device to tell a unique game experience every session.

The cultural impact of the mid 20th century was also an important influence in the design of Cosmic Encounter. Bill Eberle in a 2015 interview on boardgaming.com,22

“We were part of a generation that was questioning everything. Remember, this was a time that did not seem sane; the aftermath of a destructive world war had given birth to the constant threat of a nuclear conflagration. We were stirred by awareness of long standing injustices and inequalities. Our parents and our friends’ parents, our government and its leaders . . . we didn’t trust any of them and we were doing our best to invent new realities that made sense to us. Questioning the essence and structure of the games we played made perfect sense. We were questioning the essence and structure of everything around us.
We couldn’t change our government or our culture overnight, but we could imagine and create a board game that broke all of the rules and redefined the experience of playing a game.
So we did.”

And the answer from Peter Olotka, from the same article:

“The short answer is that we were all young counterculture hippies who thrived on defying authority. Making a game that was steeped in breaking the rules for fun and frolic was pretty much all we could do.
In 1971, someone published The Godfather Game. It came in a violin shaped box with a machine gun on the cover. That stuck in my head, like when a song gets stuck. To me it was an easy road to riches. Cool game idea + smart box cover = money.
Meanwhile Jack and I became chronic Risk and Diplomacy players with whomever we could drag in. Jack won most games. Regardless. Think single minded steel trap brain. (Tiny advantage to the opponent if enough wine had been consumed.)
The other major common thread among the four of us was Science Fiction. It’s what we read: Asimov, Herbert, Ellison, Pohl, Niven, Bradbury, Bradley and many more. But there were no science fiction games to play. So if the Godfather could make a violin box, all we needed was a Universe Box..or so it seemed.
So there it is...without explicitly giving the definition of ‘it’.”

The critical magnitude of the culture, the interest in Risk and Diplomacy, and attraction to science-fiction aided in the creation of an experimental and eccentric board game that was truly postmodern. The metaphor of a universe inside a game box is like Pyramid Arcade, in that the game is actually modular, where the player may freely add new rules and take away them. This freedom gives players meaningful choices and an artistic expression within the game’s medium. Most notably, Cosmic Encounter can be classified as both a post-elegant and narrative-building game. Post-elegant, as the game’s design retains relevancy in the tabletop industry, and narrative-building, as a player can construct eccentric experiences.

4. Process-Solving – This aesthetic refers to the process of solving the game’s strategies and system, and in doing so, will encourage the players to learn new skills in order to master the game. The game is ultimately a puzzle, and players must essentially solve the game. Raph Koster in his book Theory of Fun for Game Design (2004) has a similar argument that the purpose of gaming is to learn. Many games that I call “process-solving” are games with puzzle-like qualities. This intersects with elegance, in that games with an efficient interface, often are like puzzles to learn and to solve. Elegance and process-solving are popular trends within tabletop game design. This is correctly exhibited in the game Root (2018). It is a war game with an adorable theme comprising animal villages vying for supremacy in the forest. “Process-solving,” in this instance, refers to players to memorize a series of strategies, choices, and plays in order to win a game. The object of the game is to win by the victory condition listed on a player’s army. Root follows The Action Point Allowance System found in Heimlich & Co., and often using these points, players will deploy units, draw cards, gain resources, and buy new assets in the game.

My biggest criticism was that the game’s popularity has to do with its cutesy art direction by Kyle Ferrin, that it shares a heavy influence of the emerging CalArts style (or mocked as the “Beanface”) art direction present in Steven Universe or Star Vs. The Forces of Evil, and that it is still a Eurogame with unnecessary player choices leading to the same goals. Root may have the asymmetrical nature of Variable Player Powers, but it does not share the same type of experimental, eccentric, or modular elements observed in Cosmic Encounter or Icehouse Pyramids. There is still a firm, video-game oriented, process-solving found in Root.

5. The Hybrid – While this term can be vague, this aesthetic represents tabletop games in the post-2010 period, which is influenced by the Eurogame design, yet retains unique traits that are antithetical to it, or is produced for a general audience. Hybrid games mix process-solving, elegance, and narrative-building into one form. Root can be a hybrid game, but The Settlers of Catan ( 1996), an original Eurogame, is actually the best example of this. Catan is a “gateway” game for many new players into the hobby of tabletop games. In the game, players roll dice and collect resource cards, only to trade those cards or buy assets to get more resources and eventually win the game. The first player to get 10 victory points is the winner.

Many mechanics in Catan, such as rolling the dice, random production, shopping, and the trait of non-interactivity has influenced a majority of newer tabletop games, like in Root. The game was designed by Klaus Teuber, who had several Spiel des Jahres hits including Barbarossa (1988) and Adel Verpflichtet (1990). Catan was something of a sleeper hit, and within two decades, an intense advertising campaign was established around the game. Catan continues to be advertised as “the game of our generation,” which is often seen as an unfortunate revision of board game history.23 Still, Catan has persuaded the general public to play serious tabletop game designs.

Post-elegance would follow after the paradigm of the hybrid tabletop game. No longer will process-solving or an elegant interface shall be a mandatory aesthetic when designing an artistic, as well interactive, tabletop game. Certain internet subcultures around post-elegance, like Ludism.org or even Andy’s Looney’s own Wunderland.com, provide insight for a future design of tabletop games that does not follow orthodox aesthetics. Ron Hale-Evans, the founder of Ludism.org, said this about Looney’s projects:

“There's a whole mystique around Icehouse, just as there is with Go, for example. People make and paint their own regulation-sized pieces. ...The Wunderland Toast Society subculture which the authors of Icehouse have helped build, and of which Icehouse is only a part, embodies the principles of the philosophy of Ludism admirably.”24

Comparing all five aesthetics mentioned, there is a significant turn in the art of tabletop game design. Maybe, there is a paradox in “market-driven” creativity that the hybrid has produced. The constant “marketability” template of elegance, process-solving, and even narrative-building promises profits and sales, however, often tabletop game design will fall short. It is not so much that newer designs should always be “creative,” but rather, the market should make a radical change to the experimental, eccentric, and modular. This is different from gimmicks presented in a “mechanic salad” found in the hybrid, because tabletop games that possess a true creative design will follow a culture, and aesthetic appreciation, yearning for games that break normative contentions.

Catan, while having a “random resource management,” is not truly random in structure, but in symmetrical operation to ensure a balanced game. A tabletop game must have absolute randomness, akin to games like Cosmic Encounter, where every encounter and alien is randomly generated. The argument for a true creative game may be an aesthetic taste, as kids may gravitate towards the random, and adults to law and order. There needs to be a balance between the two demographics, as a true experimental design may reward both sides, while offer a sincere game that is both competitive and playful.

Conclusion

The similarities between each of these games is that they have mechanics that both relate and contrast with one another. Heimlich & Co., Icehouse Pyramids, Cosmic Encounter, Root, and The Settlers of Catan are substantial games in the tabletop industry and each represent an aesthetic that works and operates within tabletop game design. I favor games that have post-elegance and narrative-building, as I find these two aesthetics to be meaningful to the designer who creates original and avant-garde tabletop game designs.

Elegance, narrative-building, and process-solving are popular foundations in tabletop game design. However, through the evolution of design, a hybridization has happened, and this has caused stagnation of new innovations in a niche medium. It is not asserted here that these aesthetics harm the industry, but there is already dominance in production based upon one aesthetic, that of elegance, which other new designs tend to copy and clone. This might be from consumer assumptions on what makes a “good” game. These five games provide insight where tabletop game design is progressing in the future, and how a space for post-elegance can be crafted.

3. The Consumption of Tabletop Games

“...Games are like software... human computers execute the program of how to play a game in a way that's like a computer running code. But the problem is, the humans won't necessarily read the code correctly.”

-Andy Looney

(From an original interview conducted for the thesis, which can be viewed here).

Subcultures still remain an important aspect to the creation of types of art. Within culture provides the context, principles, and foundations which an individual has the motivation to construct a reality outside the normative. For example, Feral House, a publishing house founded by the late Adam Parfrey, gained a reputation of publishing books that were deemed too transgressive or considered “outsider fiction” for mainstream book outlets. This was, however, an exposure of underrepresented cultures that were mistreated. An anthology that has been influenced by Parfrey’s work includes Anita Dalton’s TL;DR ( 2018), which covers esoteric topics from Aliens, Criminal fiction, “Bizarro” fiction, and selected writing that a majority of readers may find disturbing. Parfrey and Dalton only scratch the surface where strange subcultures can develop and prosper.

[I was able to do a podcast with Adam Parfrey in March of 2017 before he died, which can be viewed here].

In the world of tabletop gaming, multiple subcultural shifts have happen. It seems trivial to discuss the history and turns of the fads and attitudes in the consumer culture of tabletop games, but this also gives us answers why certain philosophies and ethical choices are implemented within tabletop game design. From my own investigation within the tabletop subculture, I noticed each generation has preferences towards a certain tabletop design. In my own upbringing, I played as many games as I could on a regular basis. For over a decade, I was being thrown into a different game every time as I approached a table with people around, and had to learn a new game, as a group, together. My gaming diary indicated that I had played a Eurogame named Walnut Grove i n 2011, and I once claimed that it was “the best economic game I have come across.” My preferences and terminology has changed since then. But this example presents that it takes a long time to be acquainted with the hobby of understanding tabletop games.

I came across what I assumed to be a plethora of good games, but they were simply fads. An example of this would be Hanabi ( 2010). The innovative aspect of playing cards backwards was enjoyable, but the game quickly became stagnant. I questioned whether or not it was simply my own personal tastes that led to this reaction or the mechanics caught up during that decade. The majority of customers view tabletop games as disposable. In spite of this, I believe that good games can be much more than this, and can sustain their relevance over time.

I isolated myself from the tabletop scene because of this realization. The new people I played with afterwards did not seek regular intervals of gaming, which was different from what I was accustomed to. Rather, people invent social bubbles, and never leave them. I enjoyed playing games with those who I am familiar with, but this effectively placed me in an echo-chamber. Under this thought-process, I originally began my primary research on the negative effects of consumer culture. How much has the tabletop scene changed?

Four Tabletop Stores

While having a huge presence over the internet, in reality, a consumer is limited to a single store per regional area. I conducted research around four important tabletop stores in the Mid-Atlantic area. Those stores are The Uncommons, Hex & Co., The Games Keep LLC, and The Compleat Strategist. It is safe to say that these stores provide a majority of the business outside the internet. Otherwise, players have to find games through Meetup.com, private clubs listed on Facebook, or attending annual convention events.

The Uncommons

My first consumer report took place at The Uncommons “board game cafe” outside Washington Square Park. The cafe is an exceptionally small space. Players must pay $10 in order to have access to any game. Ironically, they make superior profit selling alcohol and food than tabletop games individually. I interviewed Jack, the manager of the store. This is what he has to say about consumers:

“There’s a good variety, but one of the main demographics is generally students. NYU and also otherwise, we have a student discount during the week, so it's obviously very enticing. Some other people who come through include families, people from out of town who want to come see the store, a lot of dates and we even get the occasional rowdy, mid-thirties party, just looking to have a good time. It feels like there's a lot of people love board games across all ages and all backgrounds. It covers a pretty broad swath.”

In front of the register counter are two gaming tables, often “reserved” for players that use Meetup.com, which is not affiliated with the store. Strangers often walk in and casually find a public table on the side. Some will wait extended hours till a seat is opened. I sat down and observed the people playing. As I did so, I was able to interview one of the other players. He will be named “Guy” to hide his identity:

Me: So just to ask you, what are your favorite board games?
Guy: I want to start with Love Letter, I think that that's an awful lot of fun. Carcassonne, Dominion, a really great “deck-building” game. Really... There are no limitations to how many board games I love.
Me: Do you think of game design more as story-based or mechanic-based?
Guy: It all depends on what you're in the mood for. I love good story-based ones, so like “legacy” games where you actually go through a long-term story mode. Those are a lot of fun, especially with the right group of people to go through. Mechanical based ones, that don't necessarily have a story mode, are also fun. It just is all dependent upon what it is that you're interested for, how intimate you want to be and how invested you want to get in terms of length of game time.

I interviewed several other players. I found the survey here quite surprising, as a common player is looking for popular games to play, not so much of an esoteric Eurogame title. However, the influences of the hybrid game seeps through the liking of Carcassonne and Dominion.

Hex & Co.

Hex & Co. is on Broadway street, near Columbia University. Around 9 pm, on the exact time, people congregated into smaller groups. If you missed that 10 minutes when the games were starting, it would be difficult to jump in, as the gaming group does not want to be disturbed. On that night, the common games that were being played were The Settlers of Catan, Dixit, Root, Brass: Birmingham, and Magic: The Gathering. The store also sold bulks of food, with waiter services, in addition to the $10 game night fee. To my surprise, there was a group of kids playing Monopoly and Risk: Game of Thrones. This is the first time I saw a group playing traditional games during the time of my visitations. But I also observed three different groups playing the board game, Brass: Birmingham. I was granted the chance to play the game Root for the first time as well. A player that night criticized Root, saying “It’s a game that easily breaks.”

I met a lot of nice people, and the staff was very friendly. However, I recently learned that Root is the current best seller at The Games Keep in West Chester, PA, where I would further investigate.

The Games Keep LLC

Outside of New York City, The Games Keep LLC, supplies tabletop games to the Philadelphia area. It is known for its large, walk-in, inventory, likeness to visiting a fully-stocked warehouse.

I interviewed the manager, Carl, about his store:

Me: “How many games does this store actually have?”
Carl: “Somewhere in the neighborhood of about 3000 titles. That includes expansions and whatnot, but as far as like number of titles, probably, I'm fairly confident that it might be the biggest board game store, at least on the East coast. Beyond that, I don't know.”
Me: “What is the most popular selling product in the store?”
Carl: “As far as individual board games... Oh, that's tough. Well, if I had things like Root and Wingspan in stock, they'd probably be top of the list of bestsellers at this point. Because every time they come in they're like right back out and I'm waiting for more of them.”

Game night happens on Saturday nights, as the store is empty ever day of the week. The quiet nature of the store feels like walking into an uncharted library. If there is a game that cannot be found at mainstream stores, Carl has it in the back. The Games Keep LLC would be the most reliable place regarding vintage tabletop games and availability of obscure titles. The large inventory and exposure of unique tabletop games can create an intellectual subculture here.

The Compleat Strategist

Another small store outside Philadelphia, is in King of Prussia, called The Compleat Strategist. This is different from the main store that also has a presence in Manhattan. I have nostalgic memories attending every game night at this location. There is always a stack of brand new games that have not moved the store over a decade, similar to what happens at The Games Keep LLC. The environment is like entering someone’s house, with reclining chairs and an apparent microwave to cook Hot Pockets. The manager, Carolyn Marie Caton, had this to say regarding the stores demographics and sales:

"We sell a lot of Dungeons and Dragons material in our role playing side. In our board game side, we sell a lot of the standards, like Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Carcassonne games, games like that.There's a private D&D [Dungeons & Dragons] group that meets today, but normally every second and fourth Saturday of every month is a Dungeons and Dragons Adventurers League that meets here. And then on the first and third Saturdays, it's Pathfinder's Society. We have, we have parents that bring their young children in and we strongly encourage building our young player participation."

Again, a slew of hybrid games are the best sellers. There was, however, a single copy of Root at the store, but not enough that it was in demand. It is also important to mention that Ticket To Ride is a popular family board game that features the Kramerleiste, that was first featured in Heimlich & Co. These three games can be described as having elegant interfaces. Personally, this is my favorite store. This is a safe, kind environment to discover and play new games.

Some Primary Data Examples:

With the data collected from various interviews, I formed the following excerpt as an example to show critical information regarding consumer trends and preferences.

This is only 5 of the 12 consumer interviews:

1. Guy (The Uncommons)

Liked Board Games: Love Letter, Carcassonne, Dominion. “Are no limitations to how many board games I love.”

Love/ Hate: “Unfortunately I'm not familiar with Cosmic Encounter. Monopoly is a game that was made to show how bad capitalism is and it really does show it. Settlers of Catan, I really love though.”

Theme or Narrative: “It all depends on what you're in the mood for. I love good story-based ones, so like legacy games where you actually go through a long-term story mode. Those are a lot of fun, especially with the right group of people to go through. Mechanical based ones, that don't necessarily have a story mode, are also fun”

2. Girl #1 (The Uncommons)

Liked Board Games: Pente, Chess, Carcassonne.
Love / Hate: “So not Cosmic Encounter because I don't know what it is, although possibly just

because it sounds interesting. But I think Monopoly is very boring, so Settlers by default.

Theme or Narrative: "I mostly get into games that feel more mechanics-based to me. I haven't really done many role-playing sort of story kind of games, but they are intriguing from afar. But yeah, I'm more on the mechanic side.

3. Girl # 2 (The Uncommons)

Liked Board Games: A zul, The Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Pente, Agricola.

Love / Hate: “Settlers, because I am very competitive and I enjoy winning and Monopoly is too long and doesn't have enough strategy in my opinion... I guess I don't like statistic sort of strategy as much and it's more of a statistics heavy game. I don't know what the last game is.”

Theme or Narrative: “ I like games in both categories. No, actually... I like games that are either mechanics or mechanics and story. I don't like story only. I think that the best games have a good story surrounding and I don't think... I don't know, even Agricola would be the same if we were just playing with anonymous pieces rather than having the little pigs reproduce and losing more props and the whole story around, like the shift in the economy structure.”

4. PhD student (The Uncommons)

Liked Board Games: Cards of Humanity, Exploding Kittens. [Text Wrapping Break]

Love / Hate: “ Cards Of Humanity, Exploding Kittens. They're fun because you get to know people a little bit more and their humor.” ...”Probably Monopoly or Settlers of Catan. Those are just classics and you can't go wrong.”

Theme or Narrative: “ Yeah, so narrative and storytelling-based. I think it makes more sense than just something mechanical.

5. The Hobbyist (Hex & Co.)

Liked Board Games: Brass: Birmingham

Love / Hate: "Well, one of the game that we're about to setup is called Brass: Birmingham and that's been one of my favorites from the last few years. I enjoy it for a couple of reasons.”

Theme or Narrative: " I'll be difficult and I'll say I'll say both. I prioritize mechanics probably, but a game with really nice mechanics and no theme, nothing to tie things together, often seems very dry to me and I will sometimes lose interest in it if there isn't enough flavor and art and visual elements.” “I really like city building games, I like historical and economic games. And in terms of mechanics, one of the reasons that I really like Brass, is that it has certain elements that are almost semi-cooperative. You kind of do things for other people, sort of accidentally, and you are kind of reacting to the opportunities that other people provide to you.”

—

The lack of commentary on mechanics in a general sense implies that there is less consciousness about the games themselves. There seems to be a trend of reluctance to engage in tabletop games that are not immediately advertised to the consumer, meaning that some older, more influential games may fall into unwarranted obscurity. However, there is still a yearning for something that is innovative in the consumer’s discovery, even if they are ignorant or not.

The Tabletop Influencers

It is also crucial to discuss the influencers that motivate players to prefer and buy certain games. The availability of Youtube.com allowed players to create personal tutorials and reviews videos exclusively around tabletop games. Often, watching a video on “how to play” is an important factor when buying a game. There are three major YouTube channels regarding this consumer influence.

Watch It Played by Rodney Smith is a channel dedicated to tutorial videos around tabletop games. Rodney’s first review was in 2011. He also appears in the “Game Night!” show, another YouTube program about a group of friends playing games together. Rodney appeals to an older demographic, around the age of 40, with a family and sizable income. As of April 2020, the channel has a subscriber count of 179,000 plus.

Rodney’s most popular videos, as of April 2020, are as followed:25

1. Scythe (856,000 plus views)
2. Dead of Winter
3. 7 Wonders
4. Codenames
5. Zombicide
6. Descent Second Edition
7. Blood Rage
8. Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition
9. Pandemic
10. Small World

It is important to note that Rodney works closely with Boardgamgeek.com, and consumer interest reflects on the site. On Boardgamegeek, the “ranking” page lists the most commonly voted games of all time. The list changes from time to time, but often reflects upon consumer trends. The highest ranking list, as of April 2020, follows:26

1. Gloomhaven
2. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
3. Terraforming Mars
4. Brass: Birmingham
5. Through The Ages: A New Story of Civilization 6. Twilight Imperium (Fourth Edition)
7. Star Wars: Rebellion
8. Twilight Struggle
9. Gaia Project
10. Great Wester Trail

Games like Brass: Birmingham, Terraforming Mars, Gaia Project, and Great Western Trail are hybrids, coming from the tradition of elegance. These games continue to be popular with gamers who prefer aesthetics of elegance and process-solving.

Tom Vasel

The oldest Youtube channel on tabletop games, The Dice Tower, began in 2006. The owner of the network, Tom Vasel, has since reviewed over 5000 board games.27 He still runs his YouTube channel and is a frequent guest of honor at tabletop conventions. Vasel has created a cult of personality because of his critical taste in games. His demographic, like Rodney’s, is an older audience, or for middle-class families.

The Dice Tower, as of April 2020, has about 246,000 plus Youtube subscribers.28 The top 5 popular videos on the channel are the following:

1. Top 10 Essential Games EVERY Gamer Should Own - Oct 25, 2013, 1.2 Million plus views.
2. Top 10 Games for the Classroom - June 26, 2014, 998,000 plus views.
3. Top 10 Essential Games Everyone Should Own! Oct 13, 2016, 997,000 plus view.
4. Top 10 Games We HATE, Feb 19, 2015, 621,000 plus views.
5. Top 10 Overrated Games, Jul 10, 2013, 492,000 plus views.

In the contents of “Top 10 Essential Games EVERY Gamer Should Own,”29 the list is based on the favorites of Tom Vasel, Sam Healey, and Zee Garcia:

10. Gemlo, The Pillars of the Earth, Telestrations
9. Summoner Wars, Biblios, Kahuna
8. Tzaar, Say Anything, Dominion
7. Nexus Ops, The Resistance, Smallworld
6. Lost Cities, Jamaica, Ultimate Werewolf
5. Summoner Wars, Jamaica, Wits and Wagers
4. King of Tokyo, King of Tokyo, Shadows over Camelot
3. Stone Age, No Thanks!, Factory Fun
2. Ticket to Ride, Shadows Over Camelot, King of Tokyo
1. Ticket to Ride, The Pillars of the Earth, Pandemic.

While the list is personal, consumer favorites include Dominion, Ticket to Ride, and Pandemic. This list is revealing on the fact that these “favorite” choices affect what other gamers should buy.

Quinton Smith

In 2017 saw the creation of Shut Up & Sit Down, a YouTube show by Quintin Smith. Smith presents stylish videos and comedy skits around the board games he plays every week. The show’s target audience are a younger audience, and casuals who are outside the hobby but would like to get into it. Smith is known for his highly detailed and persuasive pitches about game mechanics.

His most popular videos, as of April 2020, are as followed:30

1. War of the Ring (958,000 plus views)
2. Gloomhaven
3. Twilight Imperium, Fourth Edition
4. Scythe
5. Crokinole
6. Root (and the Riverfolk Expansion)
7. Dune
8. Star Wars: Rebellion
9. Kingdom Death: Monster
10. Terraforming Mars

Most of these games are on the Boardgamegeek list, and represent popular trends in the tabletop market through the 2010’s. Dune, the 2019 reissue of the game designed by Peter Olotka and Bill Eberle, is on the list. Ironically, in this review,31 Smith calls the game’s mechanics “outdated” and out of touch with today's modern hybrid market. Smith is rm in his belief that old designs are lackluster, and newer games, like Terraforming Mars, must take their place. This could be seen as a criticism towards the post-elegant game, as Peter Olotka and Bill Eberle are responsible for Cosmic Encounter, the game that helped create the industry and as well destroy it. Cosmic Encounter is controversial to some because of the experimental, eccentric, and modular nature of the game that is antithetical towards games which are based upon puzzles and process-solving.

The future of tabletop games may be heading towards highly mathematical, choice-intense environments, which will ironically still try to target the casual gamer. There is still hope that tabletop gaming will create a space for the audience looking for something new. As referenced from primary sources and looking over popular games, consumers are looking for designs that are outside normal conventions.

Conclusion

The subculture that surrounds tabletop gaming is clearly influential when it comes to the designing iconoclastic works outside the market. However, the dominance of popular trends is articulated through the review, tutorial, and “play-through” processes that are inherent exclusively in the internet media that seeks an older demographic of tabletop gamers, compared to younger ones who hang out at the stores. The popular trendsetters who create this visual media successfully call the shots, as they prompt the consumer to purchase certain games with specific mechanics through their own biases and whims of the decade. This is what propels some games into popularity, while causing others to fade into obscurity. The market is dominated by a “gamer” identity culture, driven by profits or consumer fads. With recognizing this condition, game design may cater to these interests, but a true work of art never falls exactly into a single, niche market. The tabletop subculture is always morphing. It has certainly become normative in the past few decades, but also seeing a divergence again through the resistance of the individual.

4. The Future of Tabletop Game Design: Harmful or Pleasing?

"If you're a gamer who thinks, you're better than everybody and can't stand it when something goes wrong, you're not going to like this game [Cosmic Encounter] very much. It's not designed for you to act in a way that will dominate everything. It's designed for you to be able to figure out what to do when you find yourself in this strange situation with all these things happening around you and to you and because of you. How do I deal? Do I have to make a deal with that [Bill] Eberle guy, you kidding me?"

-Peter Olotka

(From an original interview conducted for the thesis, which can be viewed here).

A burning question has entered my research with regards to the ethics of design and culture. Is elegance harmful or pleasing to tabletop game design culture as a whole? It is best to first focus on Cosmic Encounter as an example relating to these ethical decisions that I delved into.

Cosmic Encounter is a science-fiction based board game which employs the use of strategy as the main component of game play. To begin, each participant must choose which specific alien species that they will role play throughout the duration of the game. Each alien species is imbued with a special power that allows them to break a single rule in the game. The aim of their strategy is to essentially take over the universe that these alien species reside in. This game can be played by up to 8 players.

This particular game lends itself well to the ideas which were articulated by French sociologist, Roger Caillois in his book entitled Man, Play, and Games (1961). Play and games are defined through as sociologically derivative. The social structures that are typically followed by the general population are considered to be games that are ornate in their execution, and the majority of human behavior is viewed as various forms of play. Caillois believed that there is more to gaming than simple competition, as he illustrates that game play can be more comprehensive and complex when it comes to the intentions of the players themselves.

There are 6 different core components to game play as defined by Caillois, despite the fact that he had conceded that play can be illusive when it comes to objective definition:

It exists outside of mundane life, inhabits a unique time and space.
It is ultimately ambiguous, so the outcome of play cannot be preset.
It is devoid of productivity in that it generates no fortune.
It is regulated by rules that postpone common laws and behaviors and said regulation mandatory that this is followed by those playing.
It requires simulations that verify the existence of fanciful realities that might be determined against the ‘real world'.

There are many European countries that have histories that are steeped in colonialism. This history has effectively influenced the social structures of the past and present in certain European countries, and this game is essentially a fantastical microcosm of the previously stated. The entire point is to find and secure more colonies for each player by taking them from their opponents. Players are cosmic colonists and are fighting to take over the whole universe.

For example, the game also has cultural imperialistic implications that mimic the social structures of those who created it and the society in which they originated from. To illustrate this, it is important to further articulate the gameplay itself. Players are in control of an alien race which seeks to establish colonies within the universe. In order for a player to do so, a turn must be used in order to have an encounter with another alien race. While this encounter takes place and before they play their cards, players may call upon their allies to aid them in some form of conflict resolution. The players may elect to either attack or negotiate. Should the attacking player win the conflict or negotiation, a second encounter can occur. It is through each of these encounters that players obtain colonies. It is in effect the creation and retention of disparate relationships between the alien civilizations.

Eurogame Colonialism

Miguel Sicart asserted the idea that to play is to be a part of the world. Essentially, play is a way of understanding everything that envelops us and also is a way for us to engage with other people. Sicart argues that playing a game is much more than what one observes on the surface, it is simply a part of the human condition. If one considers that Eurogames, such as Puerto Rico, Train, and Imperialism: Road To Domination, also promote a sense of cultural imperialism, the more problematic aspects of the play that is inherent of these comes to light.

Cultural imperialism, also known as cultural colonialism, is composed of the facets of culture that embody imperialism. Imperialism, as mentioned above, is the establishment of inequitable connections between civilizations. The aforementioned establishment promotes the civilization that has more power than those it has conflict with. It imposes the culture of a nation that is politically stronger than its adversaries over those that have less power than them. Since play, according to Sicart, is considered to be an intrinsic part of humanity at its psychological core, it would stand to reason that this microcosm of cultural imperialism reinforces its core concept through the game play that is a fundamental aspect of these games.

There is another criticism that can also be made of Eurogames in terms of culture. Some of the more problematic games contain overarching themes that are intensely capitalistic and tends towards the promotion of consumer culture. As an example, the game Puerto Rico the players take on the roles of colonialist governors occupying Puerto Rico. The goal of the game is to collect victory points through the construction of buildings on the island or by shipping goods over to Europe. Players are each supplied with a board with which to place their plantations and city building, as well as other resources. There is a built-in resource cycle in which players are made to grow specific crops that they may use in order to gain victory points or exchange for doubloons.32 The consumerist aspect of this game is observed once played start to make varied purchases with their gains. Johan Huizinga asserted that “play is older than culture”. The cultural tendencies that led to the reinforcement of consumerist tendencies are uniquely human, and as such the origins of this play can be found reflected back in our society. Creating a lifestyle through our purchases is entirely human pursuit and is play for all intents and purposes, is it is not necessary and the intentions behind said consumerism are oftentimes fantastical.

Another note on Sicart, his concept of “dark play” can be utilized to provide an explanation for certain unethical implications that are observed through the duration of certain games. The majority of players who tend towards ethical behavior while executing the rules of the game, such as ensuring that each player has a fair chance at equity in play, are allowed to effectively suspend their moralistic and ethical tendencies. As actions taken during the course of the game are simply fantasy as opposed to real life, players can act in ways that they may consider antithetical to the core of their being on a moral and ethical level. This allows players to construct a temporary identity which provides an outlet for the darker thoughts. A mischievous tone is typically adopted for the endeavors that dark play commonly entails.

While tabletop games can typically offer players a chance to engage in a social activity, there is more to these games. Eurogames have a following that has amassed an entire subculture of hobbyists and the ways in which seem more at home in Europe than the rest of the world, barring the U.S. It is here that one can apply the arguments created by Hebdige as they relate to subcultures in modern times. With our technological advancements, there seems to be little room left for the average table-top game as they have been rendered less popular after the popularity of digital games found their way into ubiquity and mainstream acclaim. It is because of this that those who play board games have now been relegated to sub-cultural status because they shirk the common trend of digitized gaming entertainment. Hebdige asserted that every subculture takes the same path in that they elect to adopt a similar form of defiance. Those within mainstream society tend to view these groups as radicalized, although this effect is most likely less observable to those who utilize board games.

The importance of game design lies in its ability to engage participants in its play and aid in the social aspect of the aforementioned. The idea of the “presentation of the self” from Erving Goffman can be extrapolated unto players in a way that caricaturizes their actions as they engage in game play. Some game designs are set in such a manner that players must adopt a new persona entirely, thereby over exaggerating preexisting characteristics of themselves. Goffman posited the idea that all forms of social interaction were essentially theatrical and that individuals act in such a way so as to generate a favorable impression of themselves. Game design can set the stage for this concept in that it may draw out certain aspects of the self as the social circumstances surrounding game play tends to be unique.

Cultural Theory & Play

Discussions on the aesthetics of a board game are frequent as players understand and mentally organize games based on their mechanics (as elegance is common in Eurogames). This is not a surprise, as game mechanics are typically the most obvious of any given game. Inevitably, there is the consequence of putting together games that share a common mechanic. In introducing the aesthetics as it relates to the game and playability, the ideology of the worker-placement game must be noted. Then, the discussion is able to move toward what a worker-placement game entails, and how to ensure that this aesthetic meets that foundation for the player. Elegance becomes systemic, restraining from the freedom of play.

Often lacking is an understanding of what brings on an understanding of the particular game, and why there is an appeal. The aesthetics should link to an appeal, first-and-foremost, where Johan Huizinga outlines the elements of play, noticing the appeal of aesthetics as holding meaningful value in the direction of the game. Here, the author suggests some are unable to see why the actual theme of the game holds importance.

The abstraction vs. theme scale is introduced by Roger Caillois, where immersion becomes a crucial element of the games. The ability to lose the self in the imaginative game and abandon reality is enjoyable, and is a fundamental element of the board game. Aesthetics, of course, are indicative of whether one will be able to take on this journey and find a false reality, using the game as a meaningful strategy to shift focus, and embrace an outside activity, beyond every-day life.33 The aesthetic, in particular, sets the standard for the player, where he wants to know that this game is going to promote immersion and a distraction from the non-imaginative reality.

Winning or losing holds little importance, where the aesthetic nature of the game promotes opportunity to evaluate something more important. The concept of competition may be included in the game, but more important than winning is the impact on the living and breathing universe one has experienced, compared with what one has left behind in the scope of reality.

In Goffman’s book, the alternative reality is critical in how one is going to portray the everyday self. As one is able to explore using imagination and seek new ventures, the player is now building up a stronger reality, using this imaginative environment as a way to lessen the gap. This is not necessarily a false reality, but an improved reality that one may integrate into real life.34 Any mechanism such as worker-placement or other specific elements of the game recognized as an aesthetic will be meaningful in taking on this journey and further-elevating one’s true reality, which remains separate from the game.

Games are more important than play, where aesthetics are encouraging in these elements of the game, beyond playability. Play recognizes the outcome of the game. Games have an individualized sophistication and cultural surrounding. As mentioned, dark play allows for the emergence of a post-elegant system, or one of game design succeeding elegance, narrative-building, and process-solving. The need for dark play is important in this capacity, where elegance becomes problematic as it does not acknowledge the creative forces behind dark play. In appreciating the aesthetics of the game, one is taking a wider view of the concept and imaginative elements, beyond the playability. This is useful, where Caillois appreciates the mechanics of the evolution and creation of the game, and the effort that has been put in to imagination and creative thought. The game-makers are aiming to promote appeal using the aesthetics as they are presented.

Games are sophisticated, where each has been developed with a particular player or group of players in mind and thought. As Jean-Francois Lyotard appreciates, knowledge has become profound in the postmodern environment. Lyotard reports on knowledge in the contemporary environment, finding innovative, creative imagination, and a new means of exploring outcomes. Here, the development is fundamental in the aesthetics of these games and the overall appeal. Aesthetics can be counter-intuitive, where games heavy on exploration are typically the first to come to mind for an imaginative player. This does not mean that discovery and extended value are not important, as the basis of Lyotard’s argument is that exploration is a development that has been adopted by the modern generations. As games have more content, construction, and customization, not only is it aesthetically-appealing, but the game has enhanced value overall and appreciates the player who is sophisticated and knowledgeable in this contemporary environment, one that Lyotard appreciates for knowledge and creativity.

Design as a Consumer Function

Elegance is fascinating as relative to general design, game functionality, and the wider design of the board or pieces internal to the game. The fascination of elegance within general design relates back to “functionalism,” where the history originates from design research. Elegance can rather be insidious than practical.

Stewart Woods outlines the functionality of the traditional games with respect to design, playability, and overall influence. All of these elements transition into the business concepts, where game design finds that there is a focus on the system itself, the mechanics, and the presented interface. How players interact and engage will be crucial in how well the game is able to sell in the market, and show appeal to the interested consumer. Woods finds there is a major appeal in functionality and how well the design dictates playability, interaction, and an overall level of engagement. When evaluating the concepts explored with the contemporary environment, where people have essentially created a network focused on conversation and engaging communication, the game itself should promote this value. Here, there is a coordinated connection between Woods and Lyotard, and among others who have been previously discussed. The appeal of the game does not start when one begins playing, but well before as the consumer wants to know this is going to be an appealing experience, and not just a competition.

Harmful, or Pleasing?

Clifford Geertz observed human behavior as an interaction between two parties. Rules, like learning the English language, are cultural. Behavior is defined by interactive play. Dick Hebdige uses this similarity in his own study on punk subcultures. For example, boys in lipstick are just “dressing up,” similar to a Goffman player performance. The concept of a gamer culture orbits around one hegemonic consumer culture. The social signs and behaviors all originate from either a single product, such as a tabletop or board game, or a desire to prefer peculiar genres of games over the other. Eurogame players are likely to choose a game that acts more like a puzzle than a game that is random. Ultimately, crafting this subculture is the trend for elegance within tabletop design is a mere influence of the dominant subculture in power.

Any game holds its own ideological elements, as described in the aesthetics and highlighted in the consumer appeal. Horkheimer & Adorno write that culture is pass through the filter of an industry dedicated to the culture of development and pleasing the consumer. Subculture can create an illusion, an existence outside of reality, and the behavior is ultimately controlled by a market. One who associates with “gamer culture,” consumes in certain games, ideologies, and fashion. This theme takes away from imaginative learning, stopping the consumer from ever thinking critically of the product consumed. This represses any form of original creativity. Within tabletop design, elegance, narrative-building, and process-solving stifles creativity because it advocates a submissive, complacent consumer for the dominate ideology of gamer culture.

Conclusion

The principles of Ludology, hegemonic consumer culture, the criticism of elegant design and the advocacy of the experimental in tabletop games are all elemental to this discussion. Diligence in understanding the history of tabletop game design and the industry shows credibility. A proper criticism of the Eurogame design is overdue. In seeking an answer to this design problem, post-elegance becomes the proper methodology and philosophy for the future of tabletop gaming. Elegance hinders design and enforces social control and advocates Philistine behavior. Post-elegance, therefor, upholds the aesthetic appeal of elegance while ensuring the creative imagination is not lost on the player.

Post-elegance will create a new ethical space in design, artistic innovation, and intellectual integrity.

5. Conclusion

Before this research began, I underestimated myself about the culture surrounding tabletop games. My bias was that any form of consumer culture ends up controlling people’s whims and desire, this in itself, leads to bad art design. I was surprised to learn that a few tabletop gamers are clinging to anyone who is passionate enough to speak of mechanics over theme.

The most critical change is that my own original research with consumers debunked much of my own elitism on the topic of current tabletop gaming scene. By listening to other players, I developed a deeper sense of the individual’s complex relationship to tabletop games and the ever developing field of newer innovations. I did not know of the existence of Root, and I am quite embarrassed by it. While the question of social control is still at issue, individual players get value out of game play – and find ways of expressing and subverting the rules – in their own unique ways. For example, acknowledging that some asymmetrical forces are broken in the game of Root, encourages a player to think outside the box, or at least think of game design in a new light to their interest. A player may finally ask, “why am I playing a game that is a big, sophisticated puzzle?” Or, “maybe, design should be constructed this way, the way I like it!” Dialogue with players and the game’s system encourages a playful design theory that will develop into the post-elegant form.

The most surprising factor that I learned in gaming – and maybe in life – is that some people enjoy being controlled. Players have their pick with regard how they want to be controlled. Yet, what can game designers take away from this critique? Can they be encouraged to design with a post-elegant point of view? One that values the experimental, eccentric, and modular? As new games are introduced to the market, can tabletop game designers apply these characteristics to their critique, asking whether they are engaging users in forms of rigid social control or allowing a design for more expansive set of possibilities?

My hope is that after this social control paradigm, game designers should use the experimental, eccentric and modular sensibilities to invent new games that ignite the senses. This correlates to my previous project, “Ludism,” which was published as a catalog of noticing these type of free-formed, psychedelic, and post-elegant tabletop games. The purpose of this thesis was to create clarity and purpose for a future taxonomy that I believe, is an important contribution to tabletop game design and the general world of postmodern art. I strongly believe any form of media can be use as a tool for “social control,” and my underlying concern about elegance is that it controls people, negating the free will of the artist.

I eventually I want to create my own games, or experiences, similar to this taxonomy I have created. I love art journalism, and a part of my artistic pursuit is investigating strange subcultures and traditions. This thesis is a contribution to the continuing efforts of discovering the abnormal and refining the unexplained.

Psychedelic artist Peter Max once said, “I never know what I’m going to put on the canvas. The canvas paints itself. I’m just the middleman.” I believe this same approach should apply to the design of creating new tabletop games.

END.

Bibliography

“Board Game Rank.” BoardGameGeek, April 17, 2020. https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame.

Burgun, Keith. Clockwork Game Design. 1st ed. Burlington, MA: Focal Press, 2015.

Burgun, Keith. Game Design Theory: A New Philosophy for Understanding Games. 1st ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2017.

Caillois, Roger. Man, Play and Games. First Illinois Paperback ed. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001.

Crawford, Chris. The Art of Computer Game Design . Berkeley, CA: McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media, 1984.

Elias, George Skaff, Richard Garfield, and Karl Robert Gutschera. Characteristics of Games. 1st ed. MIT Press, 2012.

Engelstein, Geoffrey, and Isaac Shalev. Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design. Boca Ranton, FL: CRC Press / Taylor & Francis Group, 2020 p 72-73.

Geertz, Clifford, and Robert Darnton. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York, NY: Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, 2017.

Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books, 2008.

Greenfield, Rebecca. “Sorry, Settlers of Catan Is Not the New Monopoly.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, June 8, 2011. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/ 2011/06/sorry-settlers-of-catan-isnot-the-new-monopoly/240104/.

HaiKulture. “Foundation Gaming: Encountering the Cosmos.” BoardGaming.com, February 3, 2015. http://boardgaming.com/news/fondation-gaming-encountering-the-cosmos.

Harris, Roy. Language, Saussure and Wittgenstein: How to Play Games with Words. London: Routledge, 1996.

Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen & Co., 1979.

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: a Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2016.

Jameson, Frederic. Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 1992.

Juul, Jesper. Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2011.

Koster, Raph. A Theory of Fun for Game Design. 1st ed. Sebastopol, CA: Paraglyph Press, 2004. Looney, Andrew. Home Worlds Instructions . College Park, MD: Looney Labs, 2020.

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Conditions: a Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.

Parlett, David. Parlett's History of Board Games: The Updated Edition of The Oxford History of Board Games. Ofxord / New York: Echo Point Books & Media, 2018.

Sicart, Miguel. Play Matters. Cambridge (Estados Unidos): MIT Press, 2017.

Smith, Quinton. “Dune Review - Dusting Off a Legend.” YouTube. Shut Up & Sit Down, August 30, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6BKjk_2UTE.

Smith, Quinton. “Shut Up & Sit Down.” YouTube. April 2020. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyRhIGDUKdIOw07Pd8pHxCw/videos.

Smith, Rodney. “Watch It Played.” YouTube. April 2020. https://www.youtube.com/user/WatchItPlayed/videos.

Vasel, Tom. “Contributions: Profile: Tom Vasel.” BoardGameGeek, April 2020.https://boardgamegeek.com/user/TomVasel/contributions.

Vasel, Tom. “The Dice Tower.” YouTube. April 2020. https://www.youtube.com/user/thedicetower/videos.

Vasel, Tom. “Why I Love... Cosmic Encounter - with Tom Vasel.” The Dice Tower. YouTube. April 23, 2017.

Vasel, Tom, Sam Healey, and Zee Garcia. “Top 10 Essential Games Everyone Should Own!” The Dice Tower. YouTube. October 13, 2016. https://youtu.be/HKgz-UBEhss.

Woods, Stewart. Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games. Jefferson, N. C: McFarland & Company, 2012.

Yu, Dale. “The Art of Design: Interviews to Game Designers #7 – Wolfgang Kramer.” The Opinionated Gamers, June 2, 2011. https://opinionatedgamers.com/2011/06/10/the-art-of-design-interviews-to-game-designers-7-wolfgang-kramer/.

- Original companion interviews can be viewed at this link, here.

- Original podcast program for the thesis can be viewed here, and as well the original draft for the podcast can be viewed here.

Thesis revised on July 7th, 2023.

Originally published for School of Visual Arts in May of 2020.

Share Dark Elf Navy

https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Ameritrash (see “Hybird”)

https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Ameritrash

Woods, Stewart. Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games. Jefferson, N. C: McFarland & Company, 2012. pg 149 - 151.

http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/SpecialK2.shtml

Later updated in 2018 as “Parlett’s History of Board Games.”

Elias, George Skaff, Richard Garfield, and Karl Robert Gutschera. Characteristics of Games. 1st ed. MIT Press, 2012, “One human, simulated opponents,” p 22-23.

Juul, Jesper. Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, 4MA: The MIT Press, 2011, p 5.

Harris, Roy. Language, Saussure and Wittgenstein: How to Play Games with Words. London, 1996, p 24.

Ibid., p 28.

Caillois, Roger. Man, Play and Games. First Illinois Paperbacked. Urbana, IL: University of 8Illinois Press, 2001, p 8.

Ibid., p 9.

Crawford, Chris. The Art of Computer Game Design . Berkeley, CA: McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media, 1984, p 10.

Ibid., p 13.

Ibid., p 8.

Likely coming from the influence of the ancient game Pachisi, which became the Americanized Parcheesi.

Talisman (by Robert Harris) is actually two board games combined into one design: Parcheesi and Dungeons & Dragons. Players are assigned a character, and every turn, roll a die and decide which way to go on the board. A player draws a card and an event happens. Dungeonquest and Rouge Trooper are directly influenced by Talisman’s template.

Looney, Andrew. Home Worlds Instructions. College Park, MD: Looney Labs, 2020 p 2.

Woods, Stewart. Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games. Jefferson, N. C: McFarland & Company, 2012 p 85-88.

Engelstein, Geoffrey, and Isaac Shalev. Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design. Boca Ranton, FL: CRC Press / Taylor & Francis Group, 2020 p 72-73.

Vasel , Tom. “Why I Love... Cosmic Encounter - with Tom Vasel.” The Dice Tower. YouTube, April 23, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KkhCRa7hhA.

HaiKulture. “Foundation Gaming: Encountering the Cosmos.” BoardGaming.com, February 3, 2015. http://boardgaming.com/news/fondation-gaming-encountering-the-cosmos.

See: Greenfield, Rebecca. “Sorry, Settlers of Catan Is Not the New Monopoly.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, June 8, 2011. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/sorry-settlers-of-catan-isnot-the-new-monopoly/240104 /.

Hale-Evans, Ron. “Center for Ludic Synergy Game Links.” Ludism.org, March 5, 2000. http://www.ludism.org/game-links.html.

Smith, Rodney. “Watch It Played.” YouTube. YouTube, April 2020. https://www.youtube.com/user/WatchItPlayed/videos. "Most popular"

“Board Game Rank.” BoardGameGeek, April 2020. https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame.

Vasel, Tom. “Contributions: Profile: Tom Vasel.” BoardGameGeek, April 17, 2020. https://boardgamegeek.com/user/TomVasel/contributions. "Board Game Review - 5196”

Vasel, Tom. “The Dice Tower.” YouTube. YouTube, April 2020. https://www.youtube.com/user/thedicetower/videos. "Most popular"

Vasel, Tom, Sam Healey, and Zee Garcia. “Top 10 Essential Games Everyone Should Own!” YouTube. The Dice Tower, October 13, 2016. https://youtu.be/HKgz-UBEhss.

Smith, Quinton. “Shut Up & Sit Down.” YouTube. YouTube, April 2020. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyRhIGDUKdIOw07Pd8pHxCw/videos. "Most popular"

Smith, Quinton. “Dune Review - Dusting Off a Legend.” YouTube. Shut Up & Sit Down, August 30, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6BKjk_2UTE.

Woods, Stewart. Eurogames: the Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2012.

Caillois, Roger. Man, Play, and Games, Etc. Thames & Hudson; printed in U.S.A., 1962.

Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books, 2008.

Post-Elegance: Experimental Aesthetics In Tabletop Game Design

or, "Going Beyond The Efficient Interface In Interactive Art."

Abstract

Research Questions

Glossary

0.

Introduction

Game Studies as a Discipline

A Brief History of Tabletop Games and Game Studies: A Mechanical Approach

Aesthetics in Tabletop Game Design

The Consumption of Tabletop Games

The Future of Tabletop Game Design: Harmful or Pleasing?

Conclusion

1.

A Brief History of Tabletop Gamesand Game Studies: A Mechanical Approach

Ludology, Narratology, and The Sociological.

The Significance of Ludology

Modern Tabletop Games

Important Designs in Tabletop Games

Conclusion

2.

Aesthetics in Tabletop Game Design

Conclusion

3.

The Consumption of Tabletop Games

Four Tabletop Stores

The Uncommons

Hex & Co.

The Games Keep LLC

The Compleat Strategist

Some Primary Data Examples:

1. Guy (The Uncommons)

2. Girl #1 (The Uncommons)

3. Girl # 2 (The Uncommons)

4. PhD student (The Uncommons)

5. The Hobbyist (Hex & Co.)

The Tabletop Influencers

Tom Vasel

Quinton Smith

Conclusion

4.

The Future of Tabletop Game Design: Harmful or Pleasing?

Eurogame Colonialism

Cultural Theory & Play

Design as a Consumer Function

Harmful, or Pleasing?

Conclusion

5.

Conclusion

Bibliography

- Original companion interviews can be viewed at this link, here.

- Original podcast program for the thesis can be viewed here, and as well the original draft for the podcast can be viewed here.

Discussion about this post

A Brief History of Tabletop Games
and Game Studies: A Mechanical Approach