My favourite game KASPER LAPP
The designer of Gods Love Dinosaurs and Magic Maze tells us why his favourite game is probably the next one he’s about to play, and the search for ‘the perfect game’
When I’m asked what my favourite game is, I used to answer Space Alert. It was the game that made me realize that you can use ‘realtime’ in board games, which led me to design Magic Maze [and now Magic Maze on Mars – reviewed last issue]. I also loved the humor of Space Alert. For example you had to move past one of the spaceship computers regularly to toggle a mouse in order to avoid a screen-saver. The game allowed you to create some great stories to be told afterwards – during the first 15 minutes you are programming your movements, making elaborate plans, and only then do you begin to execute the plan. And if anybody has miscalculated anything along the way, the rest of the plan falls apart – often in a hilarious fashion. It’s really a board game demonstration of the butterfly effect.
But honestly, I haven’t played Space Alert for a long while. I think it’s because the game idea is great, but the experience is kind of similar from game to game. It’s a one trick pony. On the other hand, that’s how I feel about most games. 90% of games I try, I only play once – or a couple of times in a row if they are short – even if I enjoyed them. I play games to experience new mechanics, and once I have tried them, I’d prefer to experience new ones instead. If I win the game the first time, I often never play it again, because I feel I already have it figured out.
But sometimes I fail to figure out a mechanic the first time I play. Then I have to try again. Recently I played Undaunted: Normandy with my girlfriend. In the game you draw four cards from your deck each turn. When you shoot an enemy soldier, one of that soldier’s cards is removed from the enemy’s deck. She beat me every time, because I failed to realize that it didn’t really matter if I shot more of her troops than she shot of mine – it just made her remaining troops faster. Once I realized that, I lost interest in the game (I actually became a bit angry at the game, because it presented itself as a realistic war game, but the game mechanic I just described makes no sense in terms of realism). So when I want to play a game several times, it’s not nescessarily because I liked it.
Another reason why I always skip to the next game, is that I’m searching for ‘the perfect game’. And there’s always something that bothers me about every game. Elements that just don’t work as well as it could have for example. I conclude that “this game wasn’t the perfect game” and move on to try a new one.
This search for the perfect game is also what drives my design process. Every time I have a new design, I have a feeling that ‘this could be the one.’ And at the same time I am of course fully aware that there is no such thing as the perfect game. Players have different tastes. No game can be the perfect game for all players. My dream of the perfect game is the motor that drives my design, but since it can never actually be fulfilled, it might never run out of steam. At least that’s what I hope.
The question ‘what is your favourite game?’ is hard for me to answer, because shouldn’t a favourite game be a game you want to play again and again? I have no such game. If the question is rephrased to ‘What game do you wish you had designed?’ I have an answer –
The Mind. It is such a clever and simple idea and it’s just the kind of game I want to design. I have played it many times, but again: not recently.
But there is one game, I always look forward to playing. One – or rather three – that you are not supposed to play more than once: The Pandemic Legacy series. Every time you play it, it’s a new experience. I love to be presented with some slightly new rules for each session and having to figure out the best way to exploit them together with my friends. The story is not mindblowing, but it doesn’t try to be. I like that they have kept the story so simple, that you don’t have to read long pages of text (games should not tell you stories, but allow you to create them). Is it the perfect game? No. But it’s perfect for me, while it lasts.
90% of games I try, I only play once – or a couple of times in a row if they are short – even if I enjoyed them