Gaming What Video Games Can Learn from Board Games

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/retro/2012/01/04/what-video-games-can-learn-from-board-games/1

 

I have never played that kind of adventure board game but the experiences described sound like teenage LAN parties in my best mates brothers garage; long nights of playing serious sam and counter strike, eating Chinese takeaway and drinking litres of orange fanta. It seems on-line gaming has killed the experience of playing games together.

 

Good article, but not always true. Think of something like Left4Dead, that's very much like a boadgame in the sense it's a confined world but with random elements.

Many games are more like films or books than board games in their narrative and presentation, so I think it's unfair to compare them. However there are many games that are almost indentical to the way board games work - Neptune's Pride anyone?

 

When I did my Computer and Video Games course one of the modules was on board games. Was quite good!

 

Total War games remind me a bit of chess for some reason :/

 

4 way or more skirmish over LAN on Total Annihilation is about as close as I've ever got to a board game experience on a PC as that is still one of the most structured RTS games I've played where RTFM is a must (well, if you want to win anyway).

Bauul does have a point about L4D though, I remember who I was playing with and what stunts were pulled more than what I shot, the fact that doorways were almost always me low and left with an auto shotgun and one of my mates high right with an M16, "rescues" from a horde resulting in more damage from friendly fire than I would have taken clearing them out the slow way etc.

 

Why would they learn when they can just sell the games without consequences...
There are sooooo many flaws in modern games, yet people still play them and would still purchase the next iteration...
If only there are some sort of consequences, or some sort of motivation, then, they would do "consider" doing something about it. (But probably not as patches, as $15 / GBP15 DLC is more likely)
You can choose to remove a part of the game and later release it as DLC just to get some extra profit... Why not?
Well, we are releasing another iteration in 23 months, why not just put the patches into the next game? It's not like "significant" amount of people would stop playing... (This seems exactly how they think.)

 

I'd love to see some randomness in games which are meant to be serious which alter the gameplay style making it a more believable, intense, exciting & funny adventure which randomly alters the difficulty, maybe have a check box in gameplay on settings for people who would like this, everyone trips up or goofs up on something now & again but this gets completely unacknowledged in games & lead characters are too perfect in their actions I liked in stalker where guns become faulty & cause a panic to try & run away that kind of stuff is awesome & offers a bit of spontaneous gameplay change which keeps a game fresh, I'd like to see more of that but also characters tripping up & still be interactive while falling & getting back up so can still swing or shoot your weapon, would be a good step in the right direction for an immersive game.

All games could use some randomness to them so it doesn't feel stale at all while playing, even skyrim while trying to climb a mountain why no falling boulders or rubble or hefty gusts of wind which blow you around needing a battle to keep going straight, I do like the surprise bear attacks though & man they can run & are super angry like they are in reality if you surprise them & think you are a threat, first bear attack I had in skyrim was worse than the dragons, thought meh could easily handle a bear after a dragon but was very wrong about that & couldn't even run away fast enough from it so got mauled was great .

 

Board games, video games, even sports, are fundamentally the same thing. I don't think board games have anything to team video games as such, rather specific games can learn from each other.

To be honest though I've played a fair share of modern board games and for me they've always struck me as the stunted monkey cousin of video games. In the same way that the video game has surpassed the movie and book as a storytelling medium it has overtaken the board game. I think the best games have pretty much plundered all they need from lesser media by now.

 

@Wayno, only issue I see with your "tripping" mechanic, is the ever present collision detection fails. Eg BF3 has issues with trying to walk over a 2" high door frame. So if you could trip, I'd probably spend half the game on my face in the dirt...

Just sayin...

 

On first space, i think you mispelled "space marines" with 'soace marines'. Loved the article ^^

 

I played HeroQuest and Battlemasters when I was younger. Both were fun, but took a lot of prep work and neither really required much imagination per se. They did however, require a lot of rule reading and checking the manual. I played D&D one night with a few friends, but never got into it afterwards. I more or less grew up playing video games (first on Nintendo, Gameboy, and SNES before I finally got my first computer - right before highschool graduation in preparation for college).

Video games that allow character customization and multiple skill trees allowing for customized play styles are my favorites. Yet, I agree that there is typically one major storyline and not enough random events that have any significant impact.

There is no substitute for the human imagination. No random events, or sophisticated AI will ever come close to replicating that, but video games do offer other advantages. For example, you don't have to schedule to meet with friends at someone's house to play. This is especially significant as you get older and people start to have families and less time to hang out with the buddies to play table top games. Instead you can fire up a game, either as single player or multiplayer and get right to it. The other advantage I see with playing multiplayer video games is that you can meet and game with people from all over the world. Or perhaps just play a game with or against a friend that has moved away.

Both types of gaming have their pros and cons, but I agree with the premise of the article that video games do need to continue to strive for more open ended gameplay. At the same time, they should not become so complicated that it takes studying a manual for a couple of hours before getting starting.

 

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup at "telnet crawl.develz.org 345" that is all.

 

Seriously check it out...

 

Anyone played Risk?