Unboxed the Board Game Blog

Players must decide between settling for existing gains, or risking them all for further rewards, in a game with some amount output randomness or luck. Push-Your-Luck is also known as press-your-luck.

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.

Games where the first player to achieve a key objective wins the game. Typically this is expressed as the winner being the first player to reach the end of a track, but any type of fixed goal also qualifies as a Race mechanism. CATAN is an example, where players race to reach 10 points.

Resources are generated from a random process and distributed to qualifying players.

Dice may be rerolled, or may be locked, preventing rerolling.

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.

The precise location of units is not tracked. Only their Relative Position is important.

Players expend a Resource to Move. This is commonly themed as fuel, but other games use money or other commodities.

There are three possible options, and they are cyclically superior (A beats B, B beats C, and C beats A).

Some board games incorporate elements of role playing. It can be that players control a character that improves over time. It can also be a game that encourages or inspires Storytelling

One or more players are secretly assigned roles at the start of the game which have different win conditions, and receive different starting information about the game state.

Roll / Spin and move games are games where players roll dice or spin spinners and move playing pieces in accordance with the roll.

A game system that can be applied to a variety of different maps, starting resources and positions, and even different win and loss conditions. These variable conditions can be assembled into a broader narrative or campaign, or they can be entirely disconnected from one another.

A game in which players play until reaching a stopping condition, then record scores, reset the game, and play one or more additional rounds. The game concludes after some number of rounds, and the cumulative score is calculated to determine a winner.

Secret unit deployment games are games that contain hidden information. Only the player controlling certain playing pieces has perfect information about the nature (or even the whereabouts) of those pieces. This mechanic is often used in wargames to simulate "fog of war".

Selection Order Bid is a form of multiple-lot auction in which players are not directly bidding on the lots themselves, but the order in which they’ll draft the lots. As the bid increases, players may pass and accept a later place in the order. In some cases, players must pay their entire current bid (an all-pay mechanism), and in others they may recover some of their bid.

The value of items is dependent on being part of a set; for example, scoring according to groups of a certain quantity or variety.

Simulation games attempt to model actual events or situations.

Players plan their turn simultaneously and secretly. Then, they reveal their plans at the same time.

A game which concludes when a single player loses.

Players push or slide a token, and other tokens ahead of it are also pushed.

A pattern is revealed, typically through a card flip, and players try to be the first to find a match with other game elements on the table, or see if a match exists.

Pieces are placed on a board tessellated with squares, which is used for adjacency and/or movement

Players must physically stack and balance pieces.

There is a target number required to succeed at some test. A random number is generated (by card draw, die roll, etc.), which is compared to the target. If it meets or exceeds the target, the action succeeds.

In storytelling games, players are provided with conceptual, written, or pictorial stimuli which must be incorporated into a story of the players' creation. Once Upon a Time uses a selection of words while Rory's Story Cubes include ambiguous symbols. Some games like Snake Oil and Big Idea prompt players to pitch a product, which frequently takes the form of a brief story or vignette.

Game objects, typically cards, have icons or other identifiers that identify them as belonging to specific categories. These tags may trigger special effects and/or have values and meaning that can vary, even within the scope of a single play. Tags are additional parameters on top of the base meaning of the game element, so tags represent a means of coupling the game element with more mechanisms and systems. Tags are also bookmarks that can reference a variable set of possible rules that are encoded elsewhere, so tags are also a means to modularize, or uncouple, game triggers and game effects.

Competitive maneuvers that directly target one opponent's progress toward victory, but do not directly eliminate any characters or components representing the opponent. Such mechanics include stealing, nullifying, or force-discarding of one opponent's resources, actions, or abilities. A take-that maneuver often results in a dramatic change in the players' position of power over a relatively short period of time.

A player gives clues that they want some, but not all, players to guess.

During the course of the game, new Actions become available to specific players, or existing Actions are improved. These are often themed as Technologies, but do not need to be. Sometimes this is expressed as a Tree, where gaining one Tech unlocks multiple other Techs. Or it can be a track, where advancing along the track unlocks upgraded or new Actions.