Unboxed the Board Game Blog

Abstract Games generally eschew theme and instead focus on pure mechanics. These games tend to have only a few rules, but a lot of tactical and strategic depth.

Ameritrash Games emphasize a highly developed theme, characters, heroes, or factions with individually defined abilities, player to player conflict, and usually feature plenty of dice chucking!

App Driven Games use a digital component that is essential to playing the game.

In campaign games players play through a series of linked games, the outcome of which typically affects future games. In these games players usually play as the same characters, growing and evolving with the story of the game.

Card Games typically use cards as the primary engine of the game with fewer other components, such as a board.

Games designed specifically to be played with children.

Collectible Components games are ones where the components required to play the game are purchased incrementally, rather than all at once.

In cooperative games, all the players work together against the game to achieve a common goal.

Dexterity Games involve some form of dexterity, such as stacking, flicking etc.

Dice Games are games where the focus of the game is dice. The games often include other elements but the dice form the core of the game engine.

Educational games have been specifically designed to teach people about a certain subject, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand an historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play.

Such games typically have relatively simple rules, short playing times, fairly high levels of abstraction and player interaction, and attractive physical components. Euro games typical have less confrontational themes such as trading and building.

Small games with simple rulesets that play in under half an hour.

Legacy Games are similar to campaign games in that they tell a single grand narrative about a group of characters. Legacy games differ in that components are permanently changed or destroyed as part of the play.

Mature/Adult games often contain explicit humour and situations that might be offensive to some adults and not appropriate for younger gamers. Many of these games contain sex or alcohol related humour.

Miniature games are games that use plastic minis to represent characters or troops etc on the tabletop.

In these games players typically have their own printed sheets that they use to track their progress through the game by drawing or checking off boxes etc

Party Games are intended to be played with larger player counts and typically have simple rules.

Puzzle games are those in which the players are trying to solve a puzzle. Many Puzzle games require players to use problem solving, pattern recognition, organization and/or sequencing to reach their objectives.

In real-time games, players are encouraged to take their turns as quickly as possible, often simultaneously. In some real-time games, a player is penalized if they don't do something within a set amount of time.

A game in which players are cooperating and competing with each other throughout the game, while trying to complete a common objective.

These games can be played solo, usually against an AI or Bot/Dummy Player although sometimes they can just played to beat your own previous high score.

These games have a large narrative they are telling which is advanced by the players as they play the game.

In team-based games, teams of players compete with one another to obtain victory. There are a variety of possible team structures, including symmetrical teams like 2v2 and 3v3, multiple sides like 2v2v2, and even One vs. All.

A traitor game can be seen as a kind of team game, or as a cooperative game with a betrayal mechanism. The traitors typically win by triggering a failure condition for the players. For this mechanism, a traitor game is characterized by traitors that begin the game with hidden identities, or are assigned them during the game.

Trivia Games rely on general knowledge, typically with players scoring points for answering questions.

A game in which players put military units or military-type units in direct or indirect conflict with each other. The goal of these games is typically annihilation of opponents and/or the attainment of certain strategic conditions. These types of games will often have high thematic content and a varying degree of abstraction.

Word Games use words or letters as the primary way the game functions.