Kris Hall: What Makes A Long Game Good

Last weekend some of the Appalachian Gamers tried our first game of Twilight Imperium 3rd edition. We finally abandoned the game after five hours when it seemed that Travis was certain to win. But although the game flirts with being intolerably long, some of us were eager to try it again.

During the week, I rediscovered Civilization, the Sid Meier computer game that is now in its fourth edition. Civ is another game that can last many hours, and yet it is extremely addictive.

And so I started thinking about what makes a long game good. None of my observations here are particularly original—I think Jonathan Degann may have made some of these observations in his Journal of Boardgame Design—but I write about what I’m pondering at the moment, and long games are this week’s concern.

So what makes a long game good?

1. A variety of activities. You can get away with doing the same thing over and over in a short game, but you need variety of things to do in a long game. In his recent review of Before the Wind, Larry Levy mentioned that the game seems a little too long considering that players do the same thing over and over. In games like Twilight Imperium and Civilization, players often do a variety of things within each turn. They may produce military units, fight battles, improve their nation’s capacities, grab new technologies, or engage in diplomatic activity. It is choosing from the wide variety of possibilities that makes these games fun.

2. Improvement of capacities. In many long games, players grow their abilities throughout the game. In Struggle of Empires and Age of Empires III, players buy tiles that give them special abilities. In Twilight Imperium, players can snag technologies that are the equivalent of special ability tiles. In the computer game Civilization, players can research ordinary technological developments that are available to all, or build World Wonders that can be created only once. In Arkham Horror, players can acquire spells that can give them a variety of special abilities. Things that improve player capacities are among my favorite game mechanisms.

3. An endgame. Many of these games have mechanisms that focus or increase competition at the end of the game. At the end of Twilight Imperium, players are likely to be fighting for control of Mercatol Rex, the most important planet. In Age of Empires III, the struggle to grab the final special tiles that give bonus victory points can make the endgame more intense. In Arkham Horror, players often end the game with a final battle with the Great Old One. And you know you’re in the endgame of Civilization when other nations start building a starship. Having some special mechanism for the end of the game creates story arcs that make games more fun.

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