Unboxed the Board Game Blog

The map is added to as it is explored. Examples include Mississippi Queen and Eclipse.

Over the course of the game, the map shrinks.

Players may buy from or sell resources to Markets, where prices and quantities can vary. This is often a primary feature of Economic games, but sometimes only a secondary mechanism.

Pieces may be moved up to a certain distance, measured by a ruler.

A set of cards in a specific relationship to one another that allows them to be played to a table or scored as a meld. When laying these cards down, the way the cards splay, or overlap one another, may sometimes reveal or conceal certain abilities or attributes.

Hidden, trackable information whose tracking gives players an advantage.

Play occurs upon a modular board that is composed of multiple pieces, often tiles or cards.

Players Move Through a Deck of cards. Typically the goal is to reach the bottom (One Deck Dungeon), find and defeat a boss (Chainsaw Warrior), or simply know when to quit (Incan Gold).

A piece is given a number of points to spend on movement. This is common in a variety of games, but particularly war games, where spaces can cost different amounts depending on the terrain. This is distinct from Action Points in that it is a property of the particular piece or terrain, rather than player options (which may ‘’include’’ movement).

A defined Movement Template is used to determine where a piece moves to.

Actions may Move one or Multiple Units.

The game takes place on Multiple Maps which are connected at defined points.

Multiple action options are presented to the players via a narrative format.

Players make agreements about coordinating action, beyond simply Trading.

The game involves the development of connected routes and nodes, often represented as routes between destinations. This is differentiated from Connections in that it provides some in-game effect beyond merely scoring, such as the ability to trigger actions, or requiring maintenance costs.

Players have a special ability that they can use one time per game.

Open Drafting is used in games in which players pick cards (or tiles, resources, dice, etc) from a common pool, to gain some advantage (immediate or longterm) or to assemble collections that are used to meet objectives within the game.

Players place "Order Markers" into specific regions (or zone, or hexagon, or square) of the game board, indicating what they want to do in that particular region of the game board. After all markers are placed, they are executed in sequence.

Players own entities, and perform actions for those entities, or collect benefits if others use them.

The game is developed using paper and pen to mark and save responses or attributes that, at the end of the game, are used to score points and determine the winner.

Players must configure game components in sophisticated patterns in order to score or trigger actions, as would be typical for games in the Puzzle category.

Players must recognize a known or emergent pattern created by the game components to gain objectives or win the game. This could for instance involve markers, typically with a color or symbol, placed to certain locations on a board, or relative to the other markers, forming an abstract or meaningful pattern, requiring deductive reasoning by players to determine its significance.

Pieces are removed from a structure, and play is affected by things that fall (as in Ker Plunk), or a complete collapse of the structure (as in Jenga).

This mechanism usually requires players to pick up an item or good at one location on the playing board and bring it to another location on the playing board. Initial placement of the item can be either predetermined or random. The delivery of the good usually gives the player money to do more actions with. In most cases, there is a game rule or another mechanic that determines where the item needs to go.

The Pieces themselves compose the Map.

A player can be removed from the game, no longer participating.

One player, the judge, decides the outcome of the Action.

On a board of a game with point-to-point movement, there are certain spots that can be occupied by markers or figurines, e. g. cities on a map. These points are connected by lines, and movement can only happen along these lines. It is not enough that two points are next to or close to each other; if there is no connecting line between them, a player cannot move his or her piece from one to the other.

Players make a prediction about what they will do in a future part of the game, and score points based on how well they match the prediction.

Each player has a choice between Cooperating or Defecting. Total payoff is maximized if both players Cooperate, but if one Defects and the other Cooperates, the Defector will score more individual points.