Time, savor every drop…

            A current large concern of game consumers and desingers now is time.  Actually, it’s time, depth/re-playability, and ease of understanding and then 1^st timer equality.  I have only been doing this for a few years but I have formed a strong opnion about this.  Some of these are opposing attributes.

            Depth/replayability- while this requires a great deal of work it can be achieved pretty easily.  Long detailed story lines buried with in the subtext of the game can be a tool for this, especially good for those creatively inclined. A modular board that can change with set-up can help with the replay-ability aspect and cause players to re think strategy can be a good cheat to buy you some more replay ability (but will require more extensive play-testing, you really should play test every possible combination and more then once. Randomization is my favorite (although very un-popular among designers) weather it be card allocation or dice a random variable that will cause you to change you strategy is something that adds re-play ability and depth of thinking (although not depth of theme). This is usually the counter measure of time.  Adding depth/replayability usually adds time which players want to spend less of.  So replay-depth are on the opposite spectrum of time  for the most part..the trick is to give a full rich experience and not add too much time. (Think about movies, they want you to love a character before they want tragedy to befall them, and you have to do it all within two hours and some change).

      Along with time, ease of understanding is also the adversity of complexity, which is also a great tool of…..Depth and replay-ability. It extends the learning curve and highlights discovery as they unfold all the subtle nuances of the game.  These are the struggles that we battle with games.  I hope I have managed all these well with Siege of Verdan and the upcoming Scoundrels, Scavengers and Smugglers.