Grand Unified Gateway Theory

A Design Pattern

I recently got the 2009 game Finca to the table. I adore this game, but this one is a particular favorite of my wife’s, so happily it hits the table frequently. In this case, however, we had two new players, so I had to explain the rules.

Here’s a quick overview of Finca. There are two parts to your turn. First, you move one of your farmers around a windmill. This uses a modified Mancala mechanic. Your farmer moves a number of spaces equal to the total number of farmers in that space. Each space is marked with a type of fruit. You gain a quantity of fruit equal to the number of farmers in the space you end up in. If you cross between the upper half of the windmill to the lower, or vice versa, you gain a cart token.

For the second part of your turn, if you have a cart, you can make a delivery. There are stacks of tiles on the board, each of which needs from 1-6 fruit to claim, with the specific combination of fruit required shown on the tile. Those tiles are worth 1-6 points at the end of the game. There are also various bonuses that you can earn during the game, which are based on the tiles you have claimed so far.

There’s a bit more to the game, but that’s enough for this discussion.

Finca’s Flow

While I was explaining the game, I had a bit of an epiphany about why it was a relatively easy game to grasp for new players. The basic structure of the game is that you claim resources, and then you use those resources to get the tiles, which are what actually scores for you. And certain combos of tiles may give you bonus VP.

The flow of the game is only in one direction. First you get fruit, then you use that to gain tiles. The tiles give you points.

There is no backwards flow. There is nothing in the tiles you gain that changes the way you get the fruit. Yes, the Mancala system is a clever mechanism that you need to figure out how to use to your advantage, but it never changes. None of the tiles you gain give you a special move on the windmill, or anything like that.

The flow is just one way.

Finca is a clever mechanic - getting the fruit - coupled with a reasonably straightforward second part - buying the tiles.

This compartmentalizes the actions and allows new players to easily focus on the different pieces.

Widening the Circle

So that got me thinking - what’s another game that has a clever resource collection mechanism followed by a placement task?

Well, Azul is one. In Azul you gain tiles and then place them onto your grid. The mechanism to take tiles makes for interesting choices, as you balance what you need with what you are leaving for other players.

When I made a diagram for Azul it looked suspiciously familiar:

Well, gosh.

Like learning an unfamiliar word, once I noticed this pattern I started seeing it everywhere.

Here’s Ticket to Ride:

In this case the “Get Cards” action isn’t where the clever mechanic is. It’s in taking routes and the tickets. Still, the action is only one way. Nothing you do on the map helps you get more cards or better cards, or whatever. It’s a one-way flow through the actions to the VP.

I am proposing that this design pattern is the framework for what we often call “Gateway Games”.

Light Feedback

There are slight variations on this pattern for games that most would still find simple. For example, here is the diagram for Splendor:

There is a little bit of a feedback loop in Splendor. Buying cards generally will make it easier to get cards in the future. However, it applies it as a discount to the cost. Nothing you do in Splendor makes it easier to gain more gems. It just makes it easier to use them to buy something.

Here’s Patchwork:

There’s a light feedback loop in Patchwork, but again it’s contained within the same circle. There are actually two ‘steps’ in that first circle. First you move your time marker and gain buttons. Then you use your buttons to buy a tile. However, I don’t think I’m cheating by putting those two steps into one circle. The “Gain Buttons” step has no decisions involved. You must move your time marker until you are one ahead of the next lowest player. The only choice you have is which tile to buy.

The feedback loop I’m showing is created because there are some tiles that give you extra button income. So there are actions you can take that will increase the amount of resources you receive.

Let’s turn our attention to Catan:

Now we’ve got the first real feedback loop that we’ve seen. You gain resources from dice rolls / trades. You then spend those resources to buy stuff (Towns, Cities, Roads, etc). However, now, some of those items do directly impact the quantity of resources you receive.

This “backwards” arrow increases the complexity quite a bit for new players. This is a new interaction they need to consider, and until you get some experience it can be hard to judge the value of different paths. Should I focus on Cities or Settlements or a blend? If I try to get the Longest Road VP or VP from development cards, am I going to put myself way behind the economic curve? Or is that a viable approach at this point in the game?

I think it’s clear how this increases complexity and consideration for players.

This backwards feedback arrow between gaining resources and gaining what you need to win is what turns a game into an ‘engine builder’. The idea of the “engine” is that you can do something to increase your resources or otherwise make your turns more efficient. It’s also broad enough that we have not (as of yet) included it as a specific mechanism in Building Blocks of the BGG Mechanism list.

You will also note that all of these examples have a bonus VP mechanism. I think this is particularly important in these one-way flow games, as otherwise it might simply feel like “wash-rinse-repeat”. In Finca, once I spend my fruit to by tiles, I am back to where I was a few turns ago. However, the Bonus Tiles create a ‘meta’ goal that gives a different texture to the decision about which tiles to go after. So I have to solve enough of a different problem to keep me interested.

Similarly, Azul, Patchwork, and Ticket to Ride all have ‘meta’ puzzles that you are looking to solve, that change over the course of the game. With Azul you want to form groups of tiles on your grid. Patchwork the empty spaces you are trying to cover constantly shift in shape. In Ticket to Ride you may get new tickets or routes may get blocked off. The Bonus VP circle is actually pretty important.

In contrast to the “Gateway” we have more complex games like my favorite Through The Ages. Here’s a similar system diagram for TTA:

Basically every resource and system is interconnected and flows back to the others. You need to put people on buildings to generate the various types of resources. You need food to get people. You need tech to get better buildings. You need Actions to take cards and everything else. Governments give you more Actions.

The complexity here is obvious. If you pluck a string in one part of the game, everything else vibrates.

It is a common design adage to make games simpler by cutting out rules - or, in general, to eliminate rules wherever you can.

That’s still good advice, but I now believe it is perhaps more important to look at rules that create linkages between different systems within your game. Yes, feedback loops can give players intriguing choices and ramp up their feeling of mastering a system. But each feedback loop that you add builds complexity. You may be after that, but you may not be.

In particular, if you are looking to make the next great gateway game, try to eliminate any feedback loops at all. Create a game ‘loop’ that is a straight path from actions to victory points.