Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanisms by Geoffrey Engelstein

Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanisms Reviews

• 
  Serge Pierro

  As the hobby expands, so does the range of subjects available for books. With “Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanisms”, authors, Geoffrey Engelstein and Issac Shalev, have written a book focused on the analysis and categorization of Game Mechanisms. Let’s take a look at what this important work has to offer.
  
  The book weighs in at a hefty 500+ pages and is predominantly laid out into thirteen chapters, featuring topics such as, Game Structure, Auctions, Worker Placement, Area Control, Set Collection, etc.
  
  Each chapter is further subdivided. For instance, there are 16 distinct types of Auctions listed in the Auctions chapter. Each of the subdivisions have their own means of classification, such as; AUC-01 Open Auction or WPL-01 Standard Worker Placement. It reminds me of the “Dewey Decimal System” used in libraries.
  
  Each subdivision receives a name, a classification, a graphic, a description, a discussion and a list of sample games.
  
  Name: Standard Worker Placement
  Classification: WPL-01
  Graphic: Daniel Solis provides a graphic element at the top of each of these sections. He does a nice job of conveying the essential elements of the topic at hand with a well designed minimalistic graphic and uses the same graphic design throughout the book.
  Description: The description section is devoted to a short paragraph that explains what the particulars are for the current topic. These are typically two sentences long.
  Discussion: This is the “meat” of the book. It is here that the authors provide various insights into the subject matter.
  Sample Games: At the end of the classification is a list of games related to the subject matter. For instance, for WPL-01, there are 19 games listed.
  
  The back of the book features an index of games and some, but, not all, of the classifications that they use.
  
  A sample listing: "Russian Railroads", Ohley and Orgler, (2013): ACT-16 Tech Trees/Tech Tracks/Tech Bonuses, WPL-03 Acquiring and Losing Workers, WPL-05 Adding and Blocking Buildings.
  
  Overall, this is an important addition to the library of Game Designs literature. The authors do an excellent job of distilling all of the relevant information into a concise package and further enhance it with the inclusion of many examples of contemporary games. While certainly ambitious in its scope, the results are scholarly and useful for both game designers and gamers interested in knowing more about the subject matter. While not every mechanism is included, many of the essential ones are, and perhaps we’ll see a second book dealing with some of the others. If you are a game designer this is a must have book for your library!
• 
  Mikko Saari

  Erittäin käytännöllinen lähdeteos näin lautapeliarvosteluja kokoavaa sivustoa rakentavalle – tässä esitelty luokittelutapa on hyödyllinen ja kiinnostava, joskaan ei mitenkään lopullisesti valmis.
  
  Jos harrastaa lautapelien suunnittelemista, tästä saa paljon ajattelemisen aihetta – etenkin jos oma kokemus erilaisista pelimekaniikoista on vajavaista.
• 
  Zedsdead

  Ambitious. Sets out to build a standardized vocabulary for game designers, developers, and players.
  Discusses how to apply game theory and strategy to real world problems: election mechanics; economic incentives; maximizing fairness in a democratic society.
  
  And in reverse, how real-world concepts are ported into game mechanics. Eg, intransitive comparisons (rock-paper-scissors mechanisms) and Prisoner's Dilemma choices.
  
  Identifies a problem that I see often in cooperative games: When all players share the same info and the game state is not too complex, alpha player behavior becomes likely.
  
  I read through the first 175 pages and it was interesting to see how the author categorized and organized the multitude of game design elements. Were I to make a serious attempt at a design, this would be an invaluable resource.
• 
  Matthew Rohn

  Very solid. It's exactly what you'd expect.
• 
  Matt

  Good discussion of the different mechanisms that make up a game. Helpful for analyzing, and I suspect useful for a designer looking to formalize their design process. Recommended.
• 
  Swapnil Agarwal

  This is a great collection of design choices in board games. The text is easy to read and to the point.
• 
  Ryan Langewisch

  Full video review here:
  https://youtu.be/h7aCM491j6s
  
  In Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design, the authors set out to provide an academic-level classification of tabletop game mechanisms, providing clear definitions and grouping the entries into logical categories. In total, it covers over 180 unique mechanisms, and each entry includes a brief description, an example illustration, a discussion of its use and implications, and a list of example games that utilize it.
  
  The book is really one of a kind; no other book breaks down tabletop game mechanisms in this kind of comprehensive manner. If you are considering reading this book, there aren't really any comparable alternatives that might be a better fit, this is really the only one that exists. It is great to see though, as the production of a book like this really shows a maturing in the art and craft of tabletop game design. It helps to provide a more concrete vocabulary for designers and gamers alike to use when describing the DNA of games.
  
  In my read-through of the book, I found the discussion of the mechanisms interesting as it detailed many examples of how mechanisms are implemented in specific games, and how that affects the overall player experience. However, the effectiveness of these examples may be very reliant on your own exposure to modern board games. The fact that I was familiar with 95% or more of the games referenced meant that I could vividly picture the examples and supply additional context from what I knew about the games. Not knowing many of the games may make it more difficult to get the most out of the examples, or may require some extra research on the part of the reader to seek out that additional context.
  
  The book walks a fine line between the objective definitions you would expect from an encyclopedia, and the opinions and insights from the authors. I think they did a good job of balancing the two, and the analysis presented definitely lines up with widely accepted best practices and provides insights to the reader that are valuable and rooted in the authors' voices of experience.
  
  One of the biggest benefits that game designers may find in this book is how it simply sparks so many ideas as you are reading it. It is easy to start thinking of ways that a specific mechanism might be used, or a variant of it that may provide other interesting possibilities. I could see it being a very useful reference for not only when you want to read up on a specific category of mechanisms, but also when you are feeling stuck in a design or just need a little bit of help getting those game design juices flowing.
  
  This brings up the point of whether this a book that is worth just reading once. I very much enjoyed my read-through, but it is also a bit like drinking from the firehose as you move quickly from mechanism to mechanism. I think the greater value comes in having this as a book that you keep on the shelf and can come back to as needed. Yes, you could rent or borrow the book and get value out of reading it once, but it is a harder sell as you are missing out on the value as a recurring reference.
  
  Which leads us finally into the price. Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design is not a cheap book. And for many people, that is going to be an immediate dealbreaker regardless of its quality. For me, there are three things to consider on this point:
  
  1. The book is really one of a kind. You won't be getting this content elsewhere at a cheaper cost.
  
  2. It is really structured more like an academic textbook, which maybe gives some context to the pricing.
  
  3. This book has an extremely niche target audience. It is not the kind of book that is going to be a best seller, so as someone who falls right inside of that niche, I want to support resources like this being made for the hobby and craft that I love. Things like this won't get created if they can't manage to sell modestly, so I want to help make it viable to add more resources of this quality to the hobby.
  
  Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book and appreciate the work that the authors put in, and I know that I will return to it over the years and find new ways to glean value from its contents.