Board Game Analysis: Battlestar Galactica

Introduction
As an assignment for our advanced game design course we students were divided into groups of 6-7 people to play a board game of our choosing and analyze it as group and later write an individual analysis of that game. My group chose Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game for our analysis.

Battlestar Galactica is a semi-cooperate game for up to 3-6 players. The game is set in an ongoing space battle were you as a human player has the goal […]

Game of Thrones: The Board Game Analysis

Game of Thrones: The Boardgame is a strategic, resource-centric experience similar to Risk, but with several elements added to it. You take control over one of the major factions in the setting as you attempt to claim as much power as you dare – through settling or force. While doing this you must also compete with other players in terms of politics, military and subterfuge. This analysis will focus on the game’s strengths and shortcomings, the general overlay and […]

Board game analysis: Citadel

Hello Peons.
This past two weeks we’ve been playing board games. Going back to analyzing systems and to understand the systems.
Me and my group have been playing Citadels, a game where you try to raise the most magnificent citadel with beautiful districts.
Citadels
Board game
In Citadels, the players take rounds to build and erect a city, in order to do this player’s takes aid from different characters to lend their different abilities. The goal in citadels is to erect the most magnificent city, […]

Board Game Analysis #1 – Small World

Introduction to the game
Small World is a turn-based board game, for 2-5 players, where players battle for control over a world which is too small for everybody to live peacefully.
The game box includes:
Several different boards that are used depending on how many players there are.

4 Maps of Small World.
6 Player summary cheat sheets- These explain the different abilities granted by the different races and special powers.
14 Races.
20 special powers.
Tokens for every race.
Plenty of victory coins.
Several special pieces, like Fortresses, Mountains or […]

Board Game Analysis: A Game of Thrones

For the first board game assignment of our game design course, my group decided to play A Game of Thrones: The Board Game, Second Edition.
Game of Thrones is a 3 to 6-player game, the objective of which is to own the most castles on a world map. There are a total of 20 castles laid out over the map, and the first player to own 7, or to own the highest amount of castles by the end of the game’s […]

Board Game Analysis #1 – Pandemic

 
Game description
Pandemic is a 2 to 4 player board game where the players work together to save the world from disease. The games goal is to find cures for all 4 diseases. To find a cure you must collect 5 player cards of the same colour (the colour is representing which disease it is) and discard them while standing on a research station.
Each player is assigned a role that has different characteristics that buffs one kind of action. There […]

Board Game Analysis #1 – Pandemic

 
Game description
Pandemic is a 2 to 4 player board game where the players work together to save the world from disease. The games goal is to find cures for all 4 diseases. To find a cure you must collect 5 player cards of the same colour (the colour is representing which disease it is) and discard them while standing on a research station.
Each player is assigned a role that has different characteristics that buffs one kind of action. There […]

Board game analysis: Citadel

Hello Peons.
This past two weeks we’ve been playing board games. Going back to analyzing systems and to understand the systems.
Me and my group have been playing Citadels, a game where you try to raise the most magnificent citadel with beautiful districts.
Citadels
Board game
In Citadels, the players take rounds to build and erect a city, in order to do this player’s takes aid from different characters to lend their different abilities. The goal in citadels is to erect the most magnificent city, […]

Board Game Analysis #1 – Small World

Introduction to the game
Small World is a turn-based board game, for 2-5 players, where players battle for control over a world which is too small for everybody to live peacefully.
The game box includes:
Several different boards that are used depending on how many players there are.

4 Maps of Small World.
6 Player summary cheat sheets- These explain the different abilities granted by the different races and special powers.
14 Races.
20 special powers.
Tokens for every race.
Plenty of victory coins.
Several special pieces, like Fortresses, Mountains or […]

A Game of Thrones: The Board Game

Foreword
What you are about to read is an analysis of a board game. The analysis will be structured in such a way that it will be easy to follow. It will begin with an introduction and then carry on with a basic look at what the game is followed with a listing of mechanics and explanations; then a list of the good and the bad followed by target audience and conclusions. Each subject matter that is touched on and explained […]

A board game analysis

This blog post is going to be about an assignment in the course Advanced Game design.
 
The class is split up in groups for when we do assignments and this is about when we play and analyze a board game. The assignment is to play a board game 3 times and analyze it. We do this to better understand how the game system works and how it is built and what components it is built with. This helps us understand the […]

Week 2: The MDA Framework and SiSSYFiGHT

This week we were taught about the MDA Framework and worked on modifying the card game SiSSYFiGHT.
MDA stands for Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics and makes up the fundamentals of how you design a game. Mechanics is all the systems at work. For example, if you were playing a card game, then you could say that the systems include drawing cards, playing cards and resolving their effects, basically setting the rules on how the game is played. If Mechanics is how the […]