You say "completely unnecessary" here but I see it as "SOME designers that actually remembered that games are a form of play, and therefore you can design them as toys." Starfarers of Catan is the king of this and I'm surprised it wasn't on your list - you get these cool toy rocketships with tons of little plastic components to customize your rocket, and at certain points you get to pick up the rocket and shake it and put it down again! Completely unnecessary, mechanically speaking - they could've had a board with starship stat trackers and a single die with color combinations on it - but oh boy did they understand that the first thing anyone does when learning the original Catan is to build some kind of structure out of their roads, and lean into that.
Mousetrap is also the obvious place my head would go for this. The contraption you built never seemed to actually work properly, and it served no mechanical purpose, but without it you'd be stuck with a completely nondescript roll-and-move.
I've thrown some shade at Knizia for how ridiculously overproduced Lost Cities was, but dang if it isn't a gorgeous game with great hand-feel.
When I taught game design, I would definitely talk about this, how the choice of components to use in boardgames should be a *deliberate* choice. Mathematically, there's no difference between dice, a spinner, a teetotum, or a deck of cards where you draw then replace; UI/UX-wise they are entirely different experiences to interact with. Often the consideration is just how to make the components as cheaply as possible. Sometimes it's what produces joy to touch and feel and play with. Knowing which components to sacrifice for a lower cost and which to fight with the publisher over because it's a necessary and memorable part of the experience... is game design.
Starfarers definitely deserves a place on this list. Good suggestion! I considered mousetrap, but that Rube Goldberg machine is really the whole justification, so I didn't think it quite met the (arbitrary) criteria I had for 'unnecessary'.
The plastic spaceship is the real reason my father (who has an automotive engineering degree and worked in automotive his entire non-Army career) will play Starfarers, and he always spends so much time trying to customize his ship to make it "cool" that he forgets to actually try to win the game. I guess he's winning by his own rules.
Bilionaire was fun game as a kid. You're right about the spinners - lots of fun to flick them as hard as you can to get them to spin a long time. But I really liked the carbon pads the most - no messy cleanup and worrying about pens drying out. When I gave it away a few years back, everything still worked!
The one that instantly jumps to my mind is the completely unnecessary gigantic 'board' for Battle Masters. While you could argue that the map 'needed' to be that big because they wanted the units to be actual groups of minis... C'mon. That massive board was what made that game, even if the game could have been done on a regular sized board.
Marvin Glass pops up in this fascinating and recent video from Amabel Holland https://youtu.be/TH3QT05C25w?si=-JdZ-elwzpBiCrO9&t=1887 (the link is to the first mention of the name). I suspect in decades gone by the label "designer" was used a bit more loosely than it is today.
Dammit! You’re so right! That is what i always ask first: “What’s the hook?” There must be a reason for the prospective gamer stop for a moment and say, “Hmm…”
War on Terror (2006) needed a way to show who amongst the players was the terrorist. Could they have gone for a simple marker placed in front of the player? Yes. Yes, they could. Did they instead ship a balaclava mask, thoughtfully embroidered with the word "EVIL," in every box, and insist that the player wore it as long as they remained the terrorist? Yes. Yes, they did.
It was very, very uncomfortable. But very, very memorable.
My copy of Scotland Yard that I got when I was 12 did not come with a visor, and now I feel cheated.
I agree that the plastic swords in Shogun and Samurai Swords were essential. My friends and I would aggressively wave them at each other whenever our armies entered combat.
I remember looking at the UBOOT kickstarter and how tempting it was at the time and how easily that 3D boat inspired the imagination and drove a desire to explore it.
You say "completely unnecessary" here but I see it as "SOME designers that actually remembered that games are a form of play, and therefore you can design them as toys." Starfarers of Catan is the king of this and I'm surprised it wasn't on your list - you get these cool toy rocketships with tons of little plastic components to customize your rocket, and at certain points you get to pick up the rocket and shake it and put it down again! Completely unnecessary, mechanically speaking - they could've had a board with starship stat trackers and a single die with color combinations on it - but oh boy did they understand that the first thing anyone does when learning the original Catan is to build some kind of structure out of their roads, and lean into that.
Mousetrap is also the obvious place my head would go for this. The contraption you built never seemed to actually work properly, and it served no mechanical purpose, but without it you'd be stuck with a completely nondescript roll-and-move.
I've thrown some shade at Knizia for how ridiculously overproduced Lost Cities was, but dang if it isn't a gorgeous game with great hand-feel.
When I taught game design, I would definitely talk about this, how the choice of components to use in boardgames should be a *deliberate* choice. Mathematically, there's no difference between dice, a spinner, a teetotum, or a deck of cards where you draw then replace; UI/UX-wise they are entirely different experiences to interact with. Often the consideration is just how to make the components as cheaply as possible. Sometimes it's what produces joy to touch and feel and play with. Knowing which components to sacrifice for a lower cost and which to fight with the publisher over because it's a necessary and memorable part of the experience... is game design.
Starfarers definitely deserves a place on this list. Good suggestion! I considered mousetrap, but that Rube Goldberg machine is really the whole justification, so I didn't think it quite met the (arbitrary) criteria I had for 'unnecessary'.
The plastic spaceship is the real reason my father (who has an automotive engineering degree and worked in automotive his entire non-Army career) will play Starfarers, and he always spends so much time trying to customize his ship to make it "cool" that he forgets to actually try to win the game. I guess he's winning by his own rules.
Bilionaire was fun game as a kid. You're right about the spinners - lots of fun to flick them as hard as you can to get them to spin a long time. But I really liked the carbon pads the most - no messy cleanup and worrying about pens drying out. When I gave it away a few years back, everything still worked!
The one that instantly jumps to my mind is the completely unnecessary gigantic 'board' for Battle Masters. While you could argue that the map 'needed' to be that big because they wanted the units to be actual groups of minis... C'mon. That massive board was what made that game, even if the game could have been done on a regular sized board.
I never had a chance to play Battle Masters - I will check that out!
I loved it as a kid! I don't know what happened to our copy. I wish I was in a position to pick up the Restoration Games remake Battle Monsters.
That was fun! Thanks.
Marvin Glass pops up in this fascinating and recent video from Amabel Holland https://youtu.be/TH3QT05C25w?si=-JdZ-elwzpBiCrO9&t=1887 (the link is to the first mention of the name). I suspect in decades gone by the label "designer" was used a bit more loosely than it is today.
Dammit! You’re so right! That is what i always ask first: “What’s the hook?” There must be a reason for the prospective gamer stop for a moment and say, “Hmm…”
The Incredible Patent Picker Move Maker Machine sits on a shelf in my office.
Great article, thanks for sharing.
War on Terror (2006) needed a way to show who amongst the players was the terrorist. Could they have gone for a simple marker placed in front of the player? Yes. Yes, they could. Did they instead ship a balaclava mask, thoughtfully embroidered with the word "EVIL," in every box, and insist that the player wore it as long as they remained the terrorist? Yes. Yes, they did.
It was very, very uncomfortable. But very, very memorable.
(Example: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/590582/war-on-terror-the-boardgame)
My copy of Scotland Yard that I got when I was 12 did not come with a visor, and now I feel cheated.
I agree that the plastic swords in Shogun and Samurai Swords were essential. My friends and I would aggressively wave them at each other whenever our armies entered combat.
I remember looking at the UBOOT kickstarter and how tempting it was at the time and how easily that 3D boat inspired the imagination and drove a desire to explore it.