My Top Five Favorite Game Mechanics

My brother Ryan is engaged! Happy Engagement Ryan!

My Top Five Favorite Game Mechanics

(5) Little to No Downtime (such as Simultaneous Action Selection)
Downtime is the drag on all games. Nobody likes to wait around the table doing nothing and waiting for it to be their turn so that they can finally do something. When I design a game, I often think about downtime and strive to eliminate it. In games like 7 Wonders and Sushi Go, however, all players take their turns at the same time, so there is very little downtime. Adding something you can do when it's not your turn, such as trading in Settlers of Catan, can also eliminate downtime. Any game that eliminates excessive sitting around waiting for your turn again has marks for them in my eyes.

(4) Variable Player Powers
I love it when games have variable player powers, or something that you can do that the other players can't. It feels as if you are better at something or more powerful at something. For example, in TZolkin Tribes and Prophecies, a player could be able to treat two wheels as the same wheel, or treat a spot as if it were empty, or pay a corn to do an action right in front of them, basically a turn early. In co-op games such as Pandemic and Forbidden Island the player powers really shine, as it makes you feel like an important member of the team, doing what only you can do.

(3) Deck Building
Dominion is my all time favorite game. I love the idea of deck building, of playing your turn not just for your turn but also setting up what you can do on future turns! If I want to be able to do something on a future turn, I can take this turn to set it up. Something else that is so awesome to me is the idea that at the end of the game your system and another player's system can be completely different, even when you started with the same stuff. And which system to build and how leads to all sorts of awesome things involving my number 1 favorite game mechanic, explained in greater detail below.

(2) Worker Placement
For some reason, the idea of putting a guy in an area to take an action is just so awesome to me. Maybe that's why my game Somerset had a Worker Placement style mechanism. I love the fact that there are only so many things you can do, but they're all there in front of you, and you have to decide which order to do them in, and which ones, adn on top of that it's a race to get to them first becasue in most worker placement games if someone else goes there first you can't go there, so there's a race element to it too.

(1) Multiple Pathways to Victory
I love games that force you to think about which of the multiple pathways you could go down to win. For example, in Village, do you win by sending people on journeys, or getting stuff for the market, or killing people off the fastest, or putting them in the church, etc. etc. In TZolkin, do you go for resources or corn or skulls and which technology track do you focus on? In Dominion, there could be anywhere from 10-15 different paths you could try and take based off of the combos the cards give you. Which combo would work better? Which cards can supplement those? In 7 Wonders, do you go for green, or try blue, or get a lot of brown and grey so that people pay you, or build your Wonder? I love games where there isn't a clear answer on this and you have to choose and hope that for this particular game your choice was the best. It's way better than knowing you have one thing you have to do and then you do it. So, Multiple Pathways to Victory is my favorite game mechanic.