Player Interaction

So when we sit down at the table with our friends and we pull out a game to play, what is the main goal here? What is the appeal of it? Why don't I just go back to the couch and pop in a video game? Well the biggest reason is to get that interaction with other people. But a lot of popular games seem to miss this point...

Let's take Dominion, for example. This game is very popular, the mechanics are solid, there's a lot of strategy, and it is competitive with other players. The problem is that the only thing you're really competing over is the limited number of cards on the table, and usually just one card that is in every game. Ignoring attack cards (which many games won't have anyway), the only player interaction in nearly every game of Dominion is just fighting over the limited number of Province cards on the table. In fact, there are even cards that will easily let you win without holding a majority of the Provinces, which can lower the player interaction even more. Dominion is commonly criticized as being a 'multiplayer solitaire' game, and rightfully so.

While I do think that Dominion can be fun, and the strategy can be very deep (despite not knowing what cards are going to be in each game), the lack of player interaction kills me. My room mate and I were playing an online version of it with all the cards, and nearly every game was played completely ignoring what the other was doing. I'd usually be watching something while waiting for my turn. Aside from attack cards and him buying provinces, what he did had zero impact on my game.

Now let's take Puzzle Strike next. It plays quite a bit like Dominion, and honestly shared more similarities with it than most other deck building games. But instead of the win condition being usually 'whoever has the most provinces once they're all gone', you're trying to survive a constant onslaught of player attacks. This makes the game a lot more tense. What the other players do greatly matters. I generally enjoy a game of Puzzle Strike more than I enjoy a game of Dominion because I feel like I'm actually playing with my friends, and not next to them. We're constantly struggling with each other, not just seeing who can make the best Lego engine.

Another example in the deck building genre is Quarriors. This game uses dice instead of cards, but it still falls into the same genre. Now this game involves a lot more luck on your turn (rolling the dice), and most of the decisions are just what things to buy on your turn, but there's still some player interaction. On your turn, any creatures you summon will attack everyone else's creatures automatically. Any creatures that survive a whole turn will score you points. This can kind of feel like autopilot sometimes, but it can still be tense, and what happens on everyone else's turn does matter. The drama comes from your smirking grin as you get a great roll and are able to summon three creatures to the field, and then your shaking fist as your opponent rolls the perfect combination to wipe them all out. Your plans were foiled yet again, thanks to the wonders of player interaction.

Player interaction is important. To me, at least. Not every game I play has to feel like a constant game of Tug-o-War, but I need to feel like the other people at the table are making a difference.