3/27/15 Episode 213: Ten Things Every Board Game Needs--Catch-Up Feature

All podcast content by Mark Rosewater

I’m pulling out of my driveway! We all know what that mean! It’s time for another Drive to Work.

Okay. So today is another in my series, “Ten Things Every Game Needs.” So I’ve talked about a goal or goals, I’ve talked about rules, I’ve talked about interaction. Today we get to the catch-up feature.

Okay. So I’m not sure if there’s a better name for this category than the catch-up feature. When you talk about game design, this is the term that gets used, but I’m going to broaden it a little bit today. Really, what I’m talking about with this mechanic, or with this element of game design, is you need to give your player investment/engagement.

So here’s a little secret. When you’re designing a game, you are trying to make sure the group as a whole is having fun. But each individual player is judging the game on did they have fun. Was it enjoyable for them? If people play a game and all their friends are having a wonderful time, but they’re not, they don’t walk away from the game necessarily going, “That was an awesome game.”

So one of the things that’s very important is, you want to make sure that everybody playing the game has some investment in the game. And that’s really, really important. And part of what the catch-up feature is, is really talking about “How could we make sure that there’s investment? How do we keep people invested?”

Now, number one, I’m going to talk about this a little more today. But number one is, can they win? That’s the easiest way to keep them invested, which is, what can I do to win the game? The second that somebody feels they can’t win, that they are out of it if you will, it is very hard to stay invested.

So something Richard used to call kingmaking. So back in the day, I talked about this in some of my previous podcasts, we used to have a folder called “Kickshaw.” Where R&D would talk about different game design issues. And one of the ones, we talked about different pitfalls games would fall into.

So one of the pitfalls is something Richard called “kingmaking.” What kingmaking means is, I can’t win the game, but I get to pick who does win the game. And that is very frustrating for all sorts of people. A., I can’t win anymore. That’s frustrating. And whether or not someone else wins is dictated on me and how I feel rather than what they do, it’s sort of like have they made me want to help them win? And there’s politics in group games obviously. But kingmaking is kind of a problem. You don’t want people feeling helpless.

The other thing is that you don’t want someone, like, “I’m out of this game, I completely lost, yet I still have to play this game.” One of the tips, and I’ve talked about this before, if you are going to keep somebody from being able to win, if they get to the point where basically they can’t win, look, eject them from the game. It is much kinder as a game designer to kick them out than to make them play when they cannot win.

Anybody who is playing the game, and this is an important rule of today’s thing, if your player is playing the game, they should be able to win. That doesn’t mean they have to have a great chance of winning, it doesn’t mean that—the games don’t necessarily have to be random, I don’t want to be like, “Anybody at any moment could win,” but anybody that’s in the game has to feel like there is a chance.

So the first thing that this feature does, the catch-up feature, is it gives hope to the players. You need hope. You need to believe like you have a chance. Now, you don’t need a lot of hope. Just a little hope goes a long way. What you want is, you want to make sure that every player has—they can dream up a scenario by which they can win.

It doesn’t mean the scenario has to be super likely, but at least there’s a chance. There’s something they can hope for. There’s something that could happen that would allow them to win the game and get back in the game. And there’s a bunch of different ways. We’ll get into that how you do that. But there’s a bunch of different ways.

Okay. Another thing that having a catch-up feature does for you is it can help create tension in the game. Because if you know that other players—one of the things you want to make sure is, you want to make sure that a game—that everybody that’s playing the game has to worry about other people playing the game.

That what makes a game fun. Having one player walk away with the game is not particularly fun. I’m going to win, I know I’m going to win, everyone else knows I’m going to win, not a particularly fun time. I mean, maybe, maybe it’s fun for the guy who’s way ahead, maybe. But it is not fun for anybody else. And even the guy who’s way ahead, if he doesn’t feel like there’s any threat from anybody else, it’s really not nearly as fun.

Another thing is, and you’ll notice a lot of these things I’m naming, like surprise, are other elements of my top ten things you need. So one of the things hopefully you’ll get as I go through the series is, these are all interconnected. The reason you want one thing connects to another. Hey, having a catch-up feature helps have surprise in your game. Surprise is important. We haven’t got to surprise yet, but we will. But you want your players to not quite know what’s going to happen. That you want a little bit of, “Ohh, is this going to happen? Is that going to happen?”

And part of that is, hey. Is this—are one of players going to get a little lucky, or do something, or am I going to get unlucky? Is something going to happen that would allow somebody else, who right now is behind, to catch up?

Another really important thing that a catch-up feature does is it creates interaction. One of the things, and once again, this is another one of the top ten things you need, is you want the players to feel like they’re not playing solitaire. That they’re having an interaction with other players. And one of the ways to do that is to have the catch-up feature allows other players to feel like, oh, I have to worry about these other people. Maybe I’m in the lead, but just because I’m in the lead doesn’t mean I’m safe. That other people could do things that might affect me.

Okay. Flavor. Sometimes the catch-up feature, not always, but a lot of times dripping with flavor. Where it really makes a lot of—it adds a lot to the game that the reversals and stuff can happen. That someone could catch up. And that a lot of times, it can reinforce the flavor in a way that is a lot of fun.

I know like Monopoly for example, a lot of it’s—you get the Community/Chance cards, you get the cards, things happen. And that there’s a lot of flavor that can come from there. Oh, why did bad things happen to you? Well, this thing happened.  And you know, stuff like that can happen.

And so you’ll notice in a lot of games, when they have the catch-up feature, that a lot of times they’ll add a little story to it. “Well, here’s what happened. Here’s why you got unlucky or someone else got lucky.” And so the catch-up feature has a bit of the ability to build flavor into it.

Also, there definitely is some fun. So for example, I’ll use another one. So another thing we talk about is having a hook. Sometimes, your catch-up feature can be your hook. So I’ll use the game Sorry! as a good example of a game built around a catch-up feature.

So for those that have never played the game Sorry!, it’s a straightforward game. It’s a board game, it’s a roll and move. Where you have dice, you roll, you move so many spaces. Essentially it’s a race. You’re racing against the other players. And there’s not that much interaction in the game. I’m trying to do my thing before you do your thing.

But, and this is what makes the game the game, there is a mechanic that says, “If I land on your piece, you have to go back to the beginning.” And you’re supposed to say “sorry.” Which is an important part. So whenever I hit you, [I] go, “Sorry!”

And there is—I mean, Sorry! is not the most breathtakingly great game. But I will admit, when you roll the die, you hit your payer, you get to go, “Sorry!” That is fun. I had a lot of fun as a kid. And I played with my kids, and you know what, it can be fun. The catch-up feature can be a lot of fun. Especially if it’s built into the game in some way where there’s a moment that happens.

And Sorry!—like even just having to say the word “sorry,” there’s something about that that is very fulfilling. I don't know why. But the catch-up feature can help you have a hook, it can be fun. Especially if there’s some anticipation.

I know, in the game Sorry!, for example, whenever you roll, you’re just like, “Ohh, is there a chance? Can I do this?” And it very much is a focal point. “Okay, I need to roll five! If I roll five, I get to make them go back! Oh, I rolled a five! Sorry!”

Also, the catch-up feature can be very involved in strategy. One of the things that can happen is, part of learning the game is learning how to either catch up or to stay ahead. And so it is also possible the catch-up feature can very much become part of the strategy of the game.

And finally, there’s definitely some inertia that happens with the catch-up feature. Part of what goes on is, part of controlling how the game’s going to end is, as I’ll get to, there’s a bunch of ways you can do that that not only helps the game end, but increases the chance of someone catching up.

Okay. So let’s talk about how to make a catch-up feature. Okay, we’ve talked about why you want a catch-up feature. It does a lot of good things. It definitely helps the game, keeps people invested, keeps them engaged, and then there’s a lot of components you can mix with it to do interesting things.

But functionally speaking, what do you need to do? Okay, catch-up features fall into two different categories. A. you can help players make huge gains, or you can help players get knocked down. So there’s sort of a positive catch-up feature, which means players can dream of “Ooh, I can make a big jump or something can happen,” or there’s the negative catch-up feature, which is, I’m the guy in the lead, something bad can happen to me. Sometimes the game does it to me, sometimes other players do it to me.

So let’s walk through them. Okay. So let’s start with huge gains. So the first one, and this is what Magic uses, is what I call a power slope. And so what that means is, the way the game works is, the power level of the game ramps up during the course of the game. So what happens is, things become more and more powerful as the game goes along. What that means is, the ability to have swings just increases.

We’ll take a look at Magic. Magic’s a perfect example of this. Magic has a mana system. The mana system controls how big of spells you can get. So in the early game, you can only play small spells. There’s only so much that you can do in the early game. But later in the game, as the spells get bigger and bigger, they can have larger and larger effects.

So one of the things Magic does is, if I get ahead, okay, I’m ahead of you. But as the game progresses, the ability to do wild, crazy things gets higher and higher. So the ability to make the change just goes up over time.

And that I think is a very—it’s something that is subtle but important is, that if you can sort of have your power level grow with the game, it allows you to just have larger swings later in the game. And that means anybody, anybody has the hope of drawing the thing they need.

You know, one of the things about Magic is, the whole catch-up feature is about making sure the player has hope. The player has some moment where they go “Come on.” In Magic that moment is drawing the card. “Okay, I have cards in my deck that could do this. I have a card that can do what I need to do. Come on, did I draw that card? Yes! No! Did I draw it?” There’s tension, there’s an amazing moment there.

Now, in other games it can be rolling the dice. In something like backgammon. Or there are other factors where there’s some moment where like, okay, I’m drawing a card off of, like in Monopoly, or I’m doing something where I’m not sure of the outcome. And that that outcome could help me go my way.

Another thing that you can do is what we call a “giant burst.” Where just somebody can get super lucky, and get a huge win gain. So the classic example of that—and funny, the classic example of that wasn’t even originally part of the game it comes in. Which is free parking in Monopoly.

So free parking is, every time people pay a fine it goes to free parking. And if someone lands on free parking, they get all this money. And like I said, originally free parking, this rule was not even originally part of Monopoly. But it really—Monopoly needed the catch-up feature, and so it became a house rule so much so that eventually it just became part of the rules.

And the reason is, I have this dream that I can win this money. Most people aren’t going to get it. And even if I win it sometimes it’s not necessarily a lot of money. But it can be, and I have a dream, and I can hope for it.

And every time I go around the board, it’s like, “Okay, if I roll the right number, I could get a boost that will help me back in this game.” And the big thing about the giant burst is, it’s the same reason people play the lottery. Which is that there’s just—there’s a lot of hope in the huge gain. That there’s this moment, “I could have this thing, and wow, that would put me back on the map. That would really be something that would help me. Okay, come on, come on. Focus, focus, focus.”

Next are what I call “collect-mes,” which is another way to make it is to say, there’s component pieces, that if put together can be very potent. And so the idea is, oh, if I can collect the right combination of things, oh, by putting them together, I get something very potent.” Monopoly’s a very good example here, which is, I’m getting properties.

But, Monopoly has a neat thing which says, “Oh, if I get the three…” Usually three, sometimes two, but if I get the right properties together, all of a sudden, oh my God, it’s much more powerful. And so I have this dream of, if I can collect the right number of things, the right combination of things, I can gain power. That’s another way to sort of do a power slope, is to say there’s component pieces that I might want to do.

And then, now, now what’s different there is, it’s kind of like the giant burst moment, but it’s personalized. I have two of the yellow properties, I need the third yellow property. For me, landing on the yellow property might be like landing on free parking. That there’s a big turn that will happen. Also, we’ll get to that. Monopoly has both sides of, I can hope to get the thing I need, but then I hope my opponent doesn’t, so we’ll get to the negative stuff in a second.

Another thing that can happen is you can have what I call a “power-up goal.” Which is, there could be something that says, built into the game that says, okay, there’s a chance for something—a swing to happen, but it’s not random. You have to earn it. You have to get there. The classic example of this would be in checkers.

So in checkers, if I can get my piece to the other side, you king me, and then all of a sudden, now I have a piece that has more power than the average checker piece. It can move in any direction. While checkers can only move in one direction. So it’s like, oh, I have this dream, if I somehow can manage to accomplish this task, which is not easy, because my opponent knows I have this goal, likewise they have the goal, but if I manage to do it, I’m able to do it, I get to upgrade my pieces and make a more powerful piece.

The other thing, by the way, the last one is just—if your game has built within it some kind of randomness, some ability for me to get lucky. One is, there could just be a component to the game like dice.

For example, in backgammon, the way backgammon works is, you’re rolling two dice, and moving. But if you roll doubles, move two of the same thing. Instead of getting two increments you get four. So the game just has this extra variation element, which is, okay, I can hope to get this added bonus that I can roll something that would help me even more.

And what that means is whenever I have a turn, I have a dream of something that will make me extra lucky. And so it’s like, “Oh, come on, double sixes! Double sixes!” If I roll double sixes, all of a sudden, I could have a pretty wide swinging move. (???) same way, I get to draw the card, there’s a lot of variance in the card drawing.

The other thing is, you could have a game in which the components of the game have variance built into themselves. Scrabble’s a good example here, which is if I can get a mix of letters that are worth a lot of points, but happen to spell a word, there’s potential for me to have a big moment because I just get the right combination of letters.

And either because I get a combination of letter on the board, because the board has the double spaces and triple spaces, I somehow manage to do something on the board, or I manage to get the right combination of letters, or some combination thereof. But the chance there is, I have the ability to do something awesome, and that awesome thing that will leap me ahead.

Plus Scrabble also has a rule that says if you use all your tiles, there’s this extra bonus fifty points. So what Scrabble does, which is important, is it says if you have this major moment—and the major moment is skill-based. I mean, part of it’s luck, I have to have the right combination of letters and the right combination of board spaces.

But I have the dream. That there’s moments in Scrabble where I use all my letters and get the bonus and hit the double word score, and maybe have a few more expensive letters, and just all of a sudden, there’s skill involved, but I can have a momentous moment where there’s this huge swing, because I did something really cool.

And a catch-up feature, like I said, it doesn’t just have to be luck. It’s not just like, “Oh, I got lucky.” It could be, I did an amazing skillful thing, but the game built into it that said, hey, when you have a really skillful moment, there’s a lot of payoff that can happen.

Okay. That’s the positive side. Now let’s look at the negative side. Okay. Players can get knocked down. And what that means is, instead of the catch-up feature being player behind can catch up, player ahead could get knocked back down.

Okay. First and foremost, there’s just the “bringing them back to your level.” So that’s Sorry! Sorry! is, “You’re ahead? Oh, now you’re not.” And that—so part of it can just simply be mechanic that just straight-up knocks them down. Backgammon has a similar thing, which is, if you have a piece on the board that’s not protected, you don’t have two but only one, then your opponent can capture it.

And so there’s moments based on dice rolls where you have to leave yourself vulnerable. And then the opponent has the chance of, “Okay, I’m behind, but if I can capture them, here is the chance for me to turn it around.”

And it creates a lot of dramatic moments. I know in backgammon, every once in a while you have no choice but to leave yourself vulnerable, and then your opponent goes, “Okay, now I’ve got to take advantage of the fact you’re vulnerable. I’ve got to hit it.”

And this creates—a lot of the excitement of backgammon comes from those moments. Which is like, I’m ahead, oh but I had to leave myself vulnerable. There’s a moment, can you capture it? Can you do what you need to do to pull back up and come around?

Okay. The other thing that can happen is, you can have the bad luck, much like you can have the good luck but just reverse. You can have the bad die roll. You can draw cards that do specifically negative things to you. Like I said, in Monopoly, you can pull the cards, and oh, (sad trombone), something bad. And a lot of games just built into it have components where something can go bad.

And sometimes there’s even moments, like in cribbage for example, if your opponent beats you by enough value, there’s a scoring bonus. And so like ohh, did I skunk you? Did I beat you by enough that I get a bonus in scoring? So one of the ways for me to catch up is you just have a really bad turn.

The same is true in something like gin rummy, where I just get caught with a bad hand, and the way the scoring system works is, the farther ahead I am when I get my gin, the more points I can get. So you just having a really unlucky turn can make a huge swing.

Now, sometimes it might be I’m very lucky and I’m fast, but also just like, ohh, your things got caught in your hand. So a lot of times, the game has built into it some means by which the opponent has the ability to get unlucky.

Now, a lot of that’s tied—gin’s a good example where like, I have to get a gin. Not only do you have to get unlucky, but you have to get unlucky when I’m able to do what I’m able to do. So there’s a combination that once again, that sometimes the luck is just, “Ohh, I just rolled a bad die roll,” it’s just randomization straight up. And sometimes like, “Oh, I had a bad series of luck, but you had a good series of luck and capitalized on it,” and that particularly punishes me.

Same in Scrabble, for example, which is there is a double word score, triple word score or something, and you are able to get it. Well, now I don’t get it. And so my bad luck is not just me being unlucky, but also from you capitalizing on what you’re able to do. So having bad luck doesn’t mean that skill doesn’t play into it.

Okay. So the final thing is, is sometimes you can stall out the good player. So Trivial Pursuit is a good example of this. So in Trivial Pursuit, you’re trying to get all six wedges. There’s six categories, you have to answer trivia questions to get them.

Well, once I get five of the six categories, I now—each piece is harder to get. When I get the first category, there’s six spots that get me my piece. Then there’s five spots. Then there’s four spots. Then there’s three spots. In the end, when I want to get my final question, I have to get one particular thing.

And so it feels harder for me to do it than people earlier on. And that’s another way to do it, where just the task that you’re having people do gets slightly harder as you go along. So the guy near the end has a harder task than the person near the beginning.

And once again, that just—like I said. There’s a lot of different ways to build in the catch-up feature. Part of what I’m saying today is, you can build a catch-up feature where it’s built around randomization, you can build a catch-up feature where there’s just moments of skill, where one person can get ahead. You can build it around the fact of there are moments of vulnerability where bad things can happen to you.

But the crucial thing is, whether you’re building up or knocking down, the crucial thing of the catch-up feature is that there is something built into the game that says, hey, guy who’s behind... or person who’s behind, or person who’s ahead, you have hope or you have worry. If you’re behind, there’s hope that you can do something to be able to get what you need to get. If you’re ahead, there’s a little bit of worry that you’re never out of the clear. That you always have to look behind your shoulder. That there’s someone trailing you that has the ability to catch up.

Now, one of the things to understand is, you have to figure out the kind of game you are. That different games are going to use different catch-up features. Are you a more strategy-based game? Are you game that is, if you’re trying to have a high skill level? Well, you want to be careful then. Maybe your catch-up feature is more built around giving one player a moment of greatness.

Like I said, Scrabble’s an example where, it’s not that you can’t get lucky. I can get bad board position and I can draw poor letters. There’s things that can happen to me that are bad. But it’s not as if—one of the things to remember, and this is when I talked about randomization is, there are things in which you feel like your opponent got lucky or you’re not as lucky as you can be. And others where the game is punishing you.

And like, getting substandard letters or substandard board position, it’s like, well, my opponent—I’m playing against my opponent, they dictate some about what the board position is. I pull my letters, oh, I got a bad mix of letters, but there’s always like, oh, maybe I can find a way to use them, or maybe I can find some position on the board to take advantage of it.

So like I said. It’s important to understand with your catch-up feature what your game is trying to do. Because your catch-up feature, the goal of the catch-up feature is the same in your game. But you’re trying to match the mood of your game.

Now, if your game has wild swings to it, if that’s what it is—I’ll use some kids’ games that are, if you know me, both Candyland and Chutes and Ladders are not technically games from a pure game standpoint because there’s no decision-making to be made. I’ve talked a lot about sort of how to define games. They’re games from a dressing standpoint, and obviously, I like to think of them as intro games, in that they teach kids an element of games because they have trappings of games.

But one of the things you’ll notice about Candyland and Chutes and Ladders is, just huge swings. I can be about to win and then I get a card that sends me back to Molasses Swamp. You know, Candyland. Or I’m playing Chutes and Ladders, and like, I almost have it, and ohh, giant chute! And I go back to the bottom. That kids’ games tend to have a lot of variance because kids enjoy the variance of it. And as you get older, there’s less variance that goes on.

Now, once again, some games like backgammon do have a lot of variance in it. And part of the fun is trying to deal with the variance of—part of what makes the game skillful is, there is high variance and you have to deal with it.

Other games, like Trivial Pursuit, like I said, is, well, the variance is in the questions. Do you know the answer to the question? Yeah, it’s a little harder to get the final questions, which helps catch up, but still, in the end, it’s like, I win or lose because I was able to do the questions. So a catch-up feature should—you do not want to make the players… this is the flip side of catch-up features.

You don’t want the catch-up feature to make the players feel as if the outcome is random, or to take away hope—you don’t want the guy in first place to go, “Oh, whatever, I’m in first place, it doesn’t matter.” You want the guy in the lead to feel happy they’re in the lead, and feel like they have the edge to win. And you want the guy who’s behind to feel like they’re behind, and they’re losing, but there’s still a chance.

That the catch-up feature is not supposed to take any skill out of the game, it’s not supposed to make it seem like—the problem with kingmaking in general is, you feel like, oh, I don’t have control of this, and the person who has control, they themselves can’t win. There’s a very helpless feeling there that’s frustrating. You want to make sure the people in your game feel invested, and feel engaged in your game.

And the catch-up feature—and like I said, you have to figure out the kind of game you’re making, because the kind of catch-up feature will mirror that kind of game. Like, one of the things in Magic that I really enjoy is, Magic is a very skill-testing game, but there’s obviously variance to it. In fact, you draw off a deck. I have a deck of cards but I shuffle them. I don’t know the order I’m going to get.

And a lot of the fun of Magic is, there’s some suspense in the order I’m getting things in. I built my deck, I have answers to things, but oh, there’s a threat. Will I get the answer? I have the answer. Will I be able to get it?

And I think a lot of Magic’s excitement comes from there’s a neat mix of you have built what you needed, but you don’t always get what you need in the right order. And a lot of the fun of Magic is adapting. Is going, “Well, I don’t quite have what I need, but let’s see if I can use what I have to get the task done at hand.”

And I think a good catch-up feature helps build that in. One of the things that I think makes for a good game is that things don’t always go the way you planned, but that there is stuff you can think ahead to and stuff you can think about that will help keep you invested and keep you engaged with the entire game.

Like I said, I call it the catch-up feature, but in some ways you could call this engagement or investment. That really what this whole category is is, you want your player for the entire length of the game to feel as if they are part of the game they are playing. That they are not removed from it.

And that one of the biggest problems is, the second your player feels removed from the game, they feel like disconnected from it, they start losing interest in the game. And that you have to make sure that all players at all times—and remember. In most games—there are games that are different from this—in most games only one person can win. Only one person at the end of the game actually goes, “I won.”

But you want everybody playing your game to feel invested in the game. That one of the things about a good game is, even when you lose, you feel that you were part of the game and it was exciting. And like one of the things for example is, it’s like at the end of a great game of Magic, or the end of any great game, it doesn’t have to be Magic, where you’re like, I lost! But oh that was an amazing game! Oh, there were swings and cool things and…

You want somebody at the end of the game to feel like there was a chance. And that oh, it just… if something had gone a little bit different, maybe they could. Because when the game ends, and I mentioned this before, if your player doesn’t want to play again when your game ends, you are doomed. You want your player ending your game going, “That was fun, when can we play again?”

And part of that is, if they feel hopeless, the game will end, and it’s not a good feeling. That’s not a feeling they want to recreate. “Man, that game made me feel hopeless. When can I play that hopeless-feeling game again?”

And that the trick, the brilliance of a good catch-up feature is that everybody feels like they could have won. That they had a chance. That if things were a little differently, the game could have swung their way. And even though they lost, man, it was close. They were in it. There was a chance.

Because when that game ends, like when they feel like they almost won, and like things could have been a little differently? Then they want to play again. If they feel like it was hopeless, and there was no chance, that doesn’t make them want to play again. And so make sure that you use your game to create the latter, and to the former. Make them feel as if there was exciting things that could happen, that there was a moment where they could have been the victor, rather than there’s nothing they could have done and it was all hopeless.

Anyway, I’ve just parked in my parking space. So we all know what that means, it means it’s time to end my drive to work. So instead of talking Magic, it’s time for me to be making Magic. Talk to you guys soon.