Devlog 11

During this week (November 7 and 9), we began discussing our next project: designing a board game based on cartridge designs from the annual My Famicase Exhibition. For context on how board games operate, we played some games based on Disney theme parks, such as Haunted Mansion and Space Mountain. In Chapter 3 of Critical Play: Radical Game Design, Mary Flanagan discusses various aspects of board games. The chapter begins with discussing board games in general before moving on to more specific sections, each providing historical board games as examples: the spirituality of board games, games of the epic and the everyday, American games, artists and surreal games, games and hard times, games and contemporary artists, and the most popular games mirroring conflict and war. I find the introductory section of this chapter intriguing; it states that while early game boards remain important because their play patterns continue to influence contemporary design, they also embody fundamental differences in philosophy. For instance, Go and chess have all of the information making up the system of the game visible on the board at all times, which is called "perfect information"; by contrast, the earliest board games feature imperfect information, and many games include elements of chance. Also of interest is the section on American games, which provides several examples of nineteenth-century American board games. The section makes clear that American games were based on morality and behavior, with wealth also coming into the picture as a measure of success near the end of the nineteenth century; this contrasts with many European games, as those chiefly focused on folktales and historical events. The points made throughout the chapter are very interesting, and I imagine they will be helpful to consider when designing our own board game as part of our next major project.