Exercise 6.3: Board Game Analysis

Choose one of the games listed above and play it with a group of friends. Write your analysis of the formal, dramatic, and dynamic elements of the game in your game journal. Now find another group of players who have not played the game before. Have them play the game while you watch and take notes. Do not help them learn the rules. Note the steps of their group learning process as well as their impressions of the game in your analysis.

 

Catan

With dozens of international awards and over 30 Million games sold since 1994, the Catan series (previously known as Settlers of Catan) is one of the most popular board game series in modern history (Lee, 2019). Its creator, Klaus Teuber, a retired dental technician in Germany, confessed in a 2016 interview that in the beginning, he knew Catan was going to be a success because he had created a "peaceful game with a lot of interaction bringing people together." 

That is a simple promise, but how much weight does this statement lend to Catan's overwhelming success? We will argue the key to its success lies in the boardgame's uniqueness and its simplicity. 

While playing the game, we analyzed Catan using Tracy Fullerton's concepts of formal, dramatic, and dynamic elements of the game. As the game progressed, the players noticed that Catan incorporates many of the traditional formal elements of competitive board games but departs from the norm in many innovating and captivating ways when developing the dramatic and dynamic elements. 

Here are some of the key elements that stood out for us the most. 

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Formal Elements 

• Players: Resembling many of the popular competitive board games, such as Monopoly, in Catan 2- 4 players engage in a multilateral competition by collecting and managing resources while navigating a complex bartering system. 

• Objectives: As with other construction-based games, the main objective for players of Catan is to build and maintain their economic strength long enough to gain 10 points and thereby win the game. 

• Procedure: Players earn points through a relatively easy and familiar two-stage procedure.  In stage one, players compete for strategic occupation of resource-rich positions on the game board.  

• Rules: Resource cards are the primary object or product, of Catan and as a result, the rules of the game focus on maintaining a balance on the quantity of resources each player can hold at one time. Mechanisms such as the Robber are designed to prevent hoarding - an aspect that differentiates it from the basic concept of Monopoly, Risk or The Game of Life. 

• Boundaries: Competing for resources on an isolated island creates a sense of boundaries - an important aspect of the game's unique feeling. This restrictive sense of boundaries is extended to the interaction between players as well as players are limited to retrieving resources from the specific hexagons they occupy and, therefore, must trade with other players occupying other boarders. 

• Conflict: Conflict between players emerges quickly, and tensions build as players realize the benefits of cooperating, if only briefly, against stronger players and complaining, the more dramatically, the better, when they have been wronged.  
   

Dramatic Elements​

• Premise: The premise of Catan initially got old quickly. The makers of Catan, well aware of a game's product cycle, have produced numerous expansion sets to keep the game premise of exploration and trade fresh. 

• Character: Player characters hold potential for the game. One suggestion might be to expand a basic premise of the game to include dramatic character profiles. For the tabletop board game, the players do not adopt a character in the game. Perhaps if the players were to choose a character with a specific advantage or disadvantages, similar to games such as Dungeons and Dragons, this would add a layer of story, challenge and quandary to the start of the game.  

• Dramatic Arc:  The primary objects of Catan, the hexagon map tiles, allow for a different game experience each game. The resulting dramatic arc in Catan is unique every time. Sometimes it is a slopping hill ending in a cliff and other times; other times, it is rolling foothills with no end in sight. 

• Challenge: It is said that the challenges in a game are those features that engage players emotionally (Fullerton, 2014).  The source of challenge in Catan comes more from the dynamic elements of the game than from the formal and dramatic. One's ability to manage relationships while growing an economy test their skills and make the game interesting. 

Dynamic Elements

• Objects: The map is always changing, keeping the game fresh each time. With 49 expansion sets, with most changing up map tiles, exciting variations are always possible.

• Behaviours: Where the maps provide a variety, the rules that limit a player's behaviour in Catan maintains the balance in the game. Strict rules surrounding the placement of development pieces create sufficient complexity that challenges players but not enough to stump or annoy players with the rules.  

• Relationships: Much like Monopoly, the relationships in Catan change with the winds of trade. Intense rivalries explode, and strong alliances are destroyed. Complaining is a dramatic element of the game, and the makers of Catan suggest players use this tactic earnestly and often. Negotiations happen in games like Monopoly and Risk. Still, in Catan, the game provides the illusion that players are, for the most part, in control of their situation so long as they pay attention, make wise decisions and avoid drawing too much attention to themselves. 

• Economics:  Where games like Monopoly fall short—with playing times that far outlast the players' interest, Catan is designed to maintain intensity with complex market forces. Unlike games of Risk that can famously last for days, Catan usually lasts for 60 to 90 minutes.  Catan is not a zero-sum game. A single roll produces resources for multiple players, and trades are often mutually beneficial.
  
  Because Settlers is a unique game that rewards economic cooperation more than confrontation, the game elicits positive competitive play.

 

References

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Fullerton, T. (2014). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, NY: Taylor & Francis

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Lee, A. (2019, August 29). The 20 Highest Selling Board Games of All Time. Retrieved February 17, 2020, from https://moneyinc.com/highest-selling-board-games-of-all-time/