So a couple of weeks ago I played a game called deep vents with my friends. It is a board game and the main objective of this game is to collect the most archaea. Before I get into the mechanics of the game, I will take some time to describe the gameplay and player experience. So at the beginning of the game, each player starts off with one hex time named deep vent and a select amount of archaea. At the start of a player's first turn, one of the 5 hexes display at the center of the board to add to their board. Once the hex is added, a player must then choose to grow or trigger each of their hexes. Growing adds archaea onto a specific hex while triggering spends archaea on a hex in exchange for an attack, distribution, demolition, or shell gain. Once all of a player's hexes are grown or triggered, their turn is ended and it becomes the next player's turn. There are a total of 8 rounds, and after the 8th, each player scores their archaea, and whoever has the highest scores wins. This game is very challenging and requires a lot of mental skill, however, one major flaw to the game is the long wait in between turns. Towards the end of a game, players have to grow or trigger a lot of hexes which become time-consuming. When I discussed this flaw with my peers, we came to the conclusion that this long wait could be reduced if we were all experienced in the game.
Now let's talk about mechanics. Mechanics are fundamental properties that give structure and purpose to a game. In this post, I will be discussing 8 game mechanics: space, time, rules, procedures, objects, skill, chance, and players. Space is the boundaries in which a game takes place. Now we humans are used to thinking of things in 3 dimensions, however, space can take place in different dimensions. Now, this idea can be a little confusing, but the important thing to remember is that space doesn't always have to be a 3d space. In deep vents the space is the game board. Everything takes place on the board. The next game mechanic is time. Time is how long the game lasts. A game can end in one minute or one hour. Time does not always meantime, however. It's a little weird but, if time defines the length of the game. What this means is that games like deep vents can have a limit of 8 turns. While this is not a specific time, the time mechanic is fulfilled because the length of gameplay is defined. Another mechanic are rules. There are 3 types of rules: rules that give consequences for actions taken in the game, rule that describe objects, and rule the limit player actions. Deep vents has several rule but I will list a few: you must grow or trigger each hex, if attacked you must remove archaea from personal supply, predation hexes are use to attack other hexes, you may not take a hex that is displayed in center of the board. Think of rules as a funnel and the game as water you are pouring down that funnel. Rules work with space and time to limit game possibility so that players can focus on what it important to the game.
Game procedures are the actions players take in order to complete the game objective. There are several procedures in a game even though you might not think so. Placing hexes, growing, and triggering are all actions that are actions taken to reach the objective of deep vents. There are 4 types of procedures: starting, procedural, special, and resolving. Starting procedures are actions taken at the beginning of the game, procedural procedures are actions that are taken to keep the game moving, resolving procedures are actions taken to reach the end of the game, and special procedures are occasional actions that are defined by the game rules. Next up, we have objects. Game objects are things in a game that a player can and is meant to interact with. Next is a skill. Skill is defined as something a player needs outside of the game in order to complete the game. There are 3 types of skills: physical, social, and mental. As a game designer knowing the types of skills needed will help determine your audience and game's challenge. In deep vents, mental skill is required if a player wishes to win the game. The next game mechanic is chance. Chance is the likelihood of an outcome. In a game, there may be a specific likelihood of an outcome. An example of this would be that there is a 50% chance that you pick a yellow card. There are some times, however, where the outcome is random. A healthy amount of randomness excites a player. In deep vents, randomness come from the hexes that are displayed in the middle. The last game mechanic I will be discussing is player. As you might have guessed, the player is a mechanic that describes the audience of the game. having a specific audience in mind allows designers to make a game based on that audience's wants and needs.
Now I did not go into specifics about all the game mechanics in deep vents. If you wish to learn about the game mechanics of Deep Vents, please refer to the graphic attached to this blog post. To conclude, game mechanics are the glue that holds games together. A good game will have mechanics that are easy to define and in the case of deep vents, all mechanics are present.
-Game summary of deep vents
-Discussing game mechanics
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