Week of Nov 9, 11

After watching the How Board Games Matter video discussed by Soren Johnson I chose two different board games to watch how their played so I could see what elements of transparency these games had incorporated into them. The game that I watched was Rock Raper Scissors Deluxe. One of the things I noticed in Rock Paper Scissors Deluxe is that incorporated an element of Post Luck. Post Luck is when you do something in a game such as level up your character a certain way and then when you fight you see the benefits of the way you leveled up your character come into effect. Post Luck is the opposite of Pre Luck. Pre luck is a transparent way to present interesting decisions. An example of this would be having a deck of cards and then when it is your turn to play you can only you use a couple of those cards at random so you don’t have an exact idea of what your play can be. This leads to more spontaneous and varied game play than Post Luck. So Rock Paper Scissors Deluxe incorporates Post Luck by making the players playing the game choose either a rock, paper, or scissors before you play. After choosing this you play your hand at the same time as the other players. This would be Post Luck because whatever happens after you draw your item is based upon the item you drew. Rock Paper Scissors Deluxe also has consistent transparent rules which is key for an enjoyable playing experience. An example of this is that everyone knows how to win Rock Papers Scissors and how to lose. It is a very simple game where Rock beats Scissors, Scissors beats Paper, and Paper beats Rock. This would also be considered transparent abstraction which simplifies complex games down to a few mechanics on how to win. However in the case of Rock Paper Scissors Deluxe the transparent abstraction is basically the whole game because you only have few core elements of the game. Therefore the game is very simple and it doesn’t require any long learning processes which is more enjoyable for new players.