Episode 120 AP Table Talk: Mega Topic: Hidden Information

AP Table Talk: Mega Topic: Hidden Information

Episode Summary:

In this episode of AP Table Talk, the hosts Brian and Dave Eng explore the “mega topic” of hidden information in games. They explore hidden role games and games with hidden information, discussing examples like Battlestar Galactica and Scotland Yard. They touch on games such as Inside Job, Werewords, Dune, and HeroQuest, exploring their unique gameplay elements and how hidden information impacts strategies. They talk about the challenges of teaching these games to new players and the importance of understanding game states for effective gameplay. They share their experiences with different games, emphasizing replayability and excitement. The episode also covers communication-limited games like Codenames and Just One, highlighting how such mechanics enhance the social aspect of gaming. They also discuss traitor games and the psychological intrigue they add to gameplay. Overall, the episode provides insights into the appeal, challenges, and evolving nature of games with hidden information in modern tabletop gaming.

Brian Eng:

Hello and welcome to AP Table Talk, a podcast where we explore board games and what makes them interesting to us. I'm your host, Brian, and joining me as always, my co-host, the Chewbacca to my Han Solo, Dave.

Dave Eng:

That is me. I am the hairier one, so clearly I'm the Chewbacca in this duo.

Brian Eng:

All right. We've got kind of a special episode this time. Right, Dave?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, it's a big one. It's our first mega topic episode.

Brian Eng:                                     

And we are going, I guess what we mean by that is we chose kind of the group a few mechanics that we think we talk about them together. So in this episode…

Dave Eng:

Yeah, they seem like they went together.

Brian Eng:

Right. In this episode we've grouped a bunch and we are talking about games with hidden information. Some of the ones we've got in there, I guess the more official topics, so are games with hidden roles, roles with asymmetric information, secret unit deployment, and communication limits. I may actually touch on some other ones that kind of overlap with those a little bit, but those are the main ones that we are looking at.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Then just from a planning perspective, when Brian and I were thinking about this episode, we were looking for those mechanics that we felt like would be good to talk about together because there's a lot of overlap, so that's why we've decided to record this big mega episode for all of you.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Okay. So I guess we'll get started with our kind of defining these mechanics again, and I guess I'll give a definition for each of those sub-mechanics.

Dave Eng:

You want to start off with a hidden roles first?

Brian Eng:

Sure. Okay. So by hidden roles, so what would come to mind to me would be a game where players are assigned roles and they're kept secret from each other, and generally these roles would have different abilities or different victory conditions.

Dave Eng:

All right.

Brian Eng:

Why don't you do the official and then I'll go on to the next one.

Dave Eng:

Sure. So Brian just gave his personal definition on hidden roles. The hidden roles mechanic definition of a BoardGameGeek is: “In games with hidden roles, one or more players are assigned differing roles that are not publicly revealed.” So pretty short definition there.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So the next one, I'll go out to roles with asymmetric information, which I kind of feel is almost a subset of hidden roles because it's the same thing you have, I guess they don't necessarily have to be hidden, but in this one, some of the roles or some of the players will have different information than others, thus the asymmetric information.

Dave Eng:

So for the roles with asymmetric information definition straight from BGG, so probably talked a little bit about it before: “It is one or more players are secretly assigned roles at the start of the game, which you have different win conditions and receive different starting information about the game state. This is typically a subset of hidden roles, except that all players have incomplete information.”  So this definition also says in Werewolf, all werewolves know the full game state, in contrast and Spyfall, most players know the location but not who the spy is, while the spy has the opposite information. So often tied together with hidden roles, but not always.”

Brian Eng:

That's funny, because I would say that Werewolf is a roles with asymmetric information. I was trying to avoid naming games in my definitions so that we, because we'll probably talk about this later. You know what, let's save that for the next section, I guess.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, we'll talk about it then.

Brian Eng:

Okay. Moving on.

Dave Eng:

So you want to cover the next one, secret unit deployment?

Brian Eng:

Secret unit deployment, okay. So that would be where pieces or whatever your units in the game are put into play, but not all the information is revealed. And so for example, that could generally, I usually think of the location being hidden, but I was thinking about it could also be the type of piece or some attribute of that unit is hidden.

Dave Eng:

So really close here. The official BGG definition is “In secret unit deployment games, some or all pieces enter the board in secret and only the player controlling certain playing pieces has perfect information about the nature or even whereabouts of those pieces. Other players will not know where those pieces are located on the board, or they may know where pieces are but not know the full details such as strength or type of those pieces. This mechanic is often used in war games to simulate Fog of War.” So a lot of overlap there, Bri, is what we talked about.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yes. Okay. And so the final one, communication limits. So this one I think is pretty straightforward. Some sort of constraint on the way that information can be shared or what information can be shared. You know what? I can say Charades, because it's not a board game, that Charades comes to mind. So you can't speak, you have to act out your clues. Yeah. So what's the-

Dave Eng:

BGG definition?

Brian Eng:

BGG one, yeah.

Dave Eng:

So BGG says: “Games may limit players from communicating with one another openly. These restrictions can be absolute as they relate to certain specific pieces of information, or they may restrict certain types of communication such as speaking.” So like you said before, Bri, with Charades.

Brian Eng:

Okay. All right. So I think as far as the definition, it's pretty straightforward each of them. There's not really any weird naming there.

Dave Eng:

No, I don't think so. But we're going to get into the new show here.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, we'll move on to our major examples then.

Dave Eng:

All right. So if you have not listened to AP Table Talk before, this next segment is called Major Examples, and what we like to do is both Bri and I have D-20s and we're going to roll them to determine who has initiative and whoever has the highest initiative is going to start off first. So Bri, my D-20 is ready, is yours?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I'm ready.

Dave Eng:

All right. I'm ready to roll in. 3, 2, 1.

Brian Eng:

I got 11.

Dave Eng:

I got four, so you win. You go, Bri.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So the first thing we will talk about is the first hidden information game that we played. I am leaving out Battleship from this one, but that might've been the first. And I'm going to stick with the more traditional kind of board games. So my first one that I remember is also an older game, actually, Scotland Yard, which was published in 1983. So for those who aren't familiar, in Scotland Yard you play either a group of, I think they're detectives or police, and you are hunting down Mr. X. And at the beginning of the game, I think Mr. X, I think you actually just get to pick any, so the game takes place on a map that is a bunch of nodes connected by three different ways of traveling between the nodes. I think it's bus, or sorry, subway, streetcar and taxi. Taxi has the most connections, but goes the shortest, followed by streetcar, and then subway goes the longest, but there's the least number of nodes.

And then I can't remember exactly how the starting positions are chosen, but each Mr. X has a little chart sheet of paper where they keep track of all their movements, and each turn they have different tokens that have to show what type of travel they used. And then throughout play, I don't know, every five or something turns, Mr X has to reveal his location and that will allow the policeman to try to corner Mr. X. And if at any point Mr. X is ever on the same spot as any of the policemen, Mr. X loses. If Mr X can evade them for the however many number of turns it is, then Mr. X wins.

Dave Eng:

And to be clear, Mr. X is played by a player, it's not an NPC.

Brian Eng:

Mr X is one player. So it's a one verse many game. I mean, I guess you could play one vs. one and just the one player plays all the policemen, but generally it's a one verse many.

Dave Eng:

Okay. All right. I have a similar game that I'll save for later, but I'm glad you brought up Scotland Yard.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I was going to, because that game has, I mean it was a strong enough game, even though it's an early '80s game that it has evolved over time into many other games. So I'm wondering if that's one of the ones you're going to talk about.

Dave Eng:

Wait. Maybe.

Brian Eng:

Should I talk about it now or should I wait?

Dave Eng:

Let's wait because I feel like we're going to be talking about a lot of different games in this episode because there's a lot of different mechanics.

Brian Eng:

Okay.

Dave Eng:

Anything else for you, Bri, for your first game?

Brian Eng:

So that's my first hidden information game.

Dave Eng:

Okay. So I'm really glad you didn't bring up Battleship because-

Brian Eng:

Are you going to talk about that?

Dave Eng:

No, it is a secret unit deployment game.

Brian Eng:

It definitely is. I'm not saying it's not a hidden information game. I just didn't want to talk about, I wanted to talk about more of a gamey game. And actually, I may have played Scotland Yard before I played Battleship, I'm not sure.

Dave Eng:

Oh really?

Brian Eng:

It's possible. We had that a long time ago. It's funny, I was watching those videos you've been putting up because the kids want to see them of our old videos, and I don't know if you saw, but there's a video of us playing Battleship.

Dave Eng:

Oh yeah, of course. I mean, it's a staple, right?

Brian Eng:

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Dave Eng:

And Brian's referring to a personal project I'm working on right now, which is to document our Eng family history. So I'm digitizing all of our old home movies and there's some, there's Brian and I as kids playing games. It's like a forecast in the future here. But yeah, we are playing Battleship.

Brian Eng:

I think almost every video where we are visiting our aunt, our family in Toronto, there is video of us in the background not hanging out with anyone else playing board games.

Dave Eng:

Or just like, "Where did Brian and Dave go? Oh, they're in the basement playing games."

Brian Eng:

Playing life or playing whatever we could find in the closet. Yeah.

Dave Eng:

Okay. So my first game, I was going to talk about Battleship, but I won't because it's a classic.

Brian Eng:

I mean, go ahead. I wanted to come up with another one and honestly, I'm not sure if I played Scotland Yard before Battleship or after.

Dave Eng:

All right. But I'm going to talk about two games. The first one I'm just going to give a shout out to because I feel like, like Battleship, it is a classic for any game closet in the '90s. So first secret communications game would be Taboo, because I did play that way back when, way back when, and I feel like that's a staple of any closet. But I will bring up the first hidden role game I played is actually, I'm going to talk about it called Coup. Remember when you first played Coup at PAX East?

Brian Eng:

Yes. You introduced me to Coup.

Dave Eng:

Right, right. And I think that Coup, C-O-U-P, if you've not heard of it or played it before, I described it in my notes as character poker because I feel like it took all of the great bluffing elements of poker and just kind of summarized it down into these individual roles. I'd have to say that as my first hidden role game I played in modernity, I guess.

Brian Eng:

Absolutely. I agree with you on the poker feel. I've always felt like Coup feel, I get the same feeling when I play Coup as heads-up poker. It feels exactly like that to me, and it's one of the reasons it's still one of my favorite games.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Really good game. I mean, it's not the top game anymore because it's been out for years, but I think it's a good mainstay. A lot of people in my group own it.

Brian Eng:

And it's a good, it fits in well if you have a mixed group where not everyone is a gamer too.

Dave Eng:

That's true. That's true.

Brian Eng:

It's easy, the rounds are so quick so they can learn really quickly, and they always go through the same kind of meta as everyone is, like everyone's the Baron or is it the Baron?

Dave Eng:

No, it's a Duke. The Captain takes money.

Brian Eng:

Duke, everyone pretends to be the Duke. The Duke meta always.

Dave Eng:

I just pretend to always be the Duke. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

That goes until someone starts to pound that strategy down and then it evolves. But yeah, I still like Coup a lot. All right.

Dave Eng:

So we talked about our first game. What about favorite game for you, Bri?

Brian Eng:

Okay. Favorite games. So I have a few contenders here who was on my shortlist, but I think that I have to go with Battlestar Galactica, which is released in 2008. It was pretty well-known I think in the board game circles. They have since lost the IP, I think, and they have re-released it as Unfathomable.

Dave Eng:

I played that as well.

Brian Eng:

Which is a, I guess it's Cthulhu themed.

Dave Eng:

It's Cthulhu themed on a steamship.

Brian Eng:

And I have not played it, but I've heard that if you are just getting into that game now, you might as well just play Unfathomable. But I was a big fan. The Battlestar Galactica game is based on the remake version and I was a big fan of that show and me and Violet actually purchased that game early in our kind of board gaming together time, my wife Violet, not really thinking about how we would play that in two players. There is a two-player variant, but it's not nearly as fun. So, we ended up having to find more people to play with that. But because we liked the show a lot, I still really like that game, but you do need the right group to play it. I tried to play with non-gamers and it just didn't work out. You don't have to be a fan of the show, but it definitely helps.

I guess I should explain the game a little bit. So Battlestar Galactica is what I call I guess a sub-genre of hidden roles is a traitor game, so that is where I call, or also a semi cooperative game. So from the onset, the premise is that you are a group on the ship and you're trying to get home and avoiding the Cylons, which are robots. And they have some that are disguised as humans. And in the show and what they've used thematically in the game is that some of the players are secretly Cylons. So everyone's trying to get home, but some of them are working against the rest of the players, but they have to do it in secret because if you know who the Cylon is, the non-traitors can work against the traitors to essentially isolate them so that they cannot work against you in secret.

And most of your turns, you are voting, you are basically playing actions on an event in secret and you're using different colors that you have to play a certain number of colors to pass the event, but you play them in secret. And so you can play against passing the vote, but you don't want to do it make it too obvious because again, it's like many of these games, there's a lot of social deduction in finding out who that traitor is. And I mean, there are situations that come up that just you are forced to play against the team, so you may not be the traitor. And that's kind of the fun is that everyone's accusing everyone else of being a Cylon.

Dave Eng:

Or you could even play a game where there's no Cylons, and everyone's just like-

Brian Eng:

I think there's always a Cylon.

Dave Eng:

Oh, is there? I read some stories where people are playing where they just never had a Cylon, but it's like everyone is still suspicious of each other.

Brian Eng:

I will say that I have played and forgot that I was the Cylon for half the game.

Dave Eng:

And you're just thinking you're human, you're like you're Human?

Brian Eng:

Because I generally as the Cylon, I will play as if I'm the human for the first little bit. And then before I start to find opportunities to sabotage. And I know I've played before and I've kind of forgot I was a Cylon for a little while.

Dave Eng:

That's exactly what a Cylon would think.

Brian Eng:

And then that game, and I even think that was not a remake, but the previous traitor game that was pretty big was Shadows over Camelot, which is Knights of the round table theme, like Arthurian legend kind of stuff, which is another one very similar, I think. You go on these missions and there's traitors. And then there's the newer ones that kind of came after. I know a big one was Dead of Winter, which that was when Walking Dead was very big, zombie so theme.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, really popular zombies.

Brian Eng:

I didn't like that one as much.

Dave Eng:

You never got to play it.

Brian Eng:

I played it a couple times and I don't know if it's just because I like Battlestar Galactica, but I didn't get into it as much. But that one was, I know Dead of Winter was really popular. So my favorite hidden role game I think is still Battlestar Galactica, even though it doesn't hit the table as often, but-

Dave Eng:

Got it. Yeah, I know you went all in on.

Brian Eng:

Oh yeah, I went all in. I paid for one of those expensive inserts that cost as much as a game, but I still hopefully get to play it once in a while. But for now it sits on the shelf.

Dave Eng:

It's a statement piece.

Brian Eng:

Yes.

Dave Eng:

So from my favorite game, again, I had a lot of really good contenders here, but I'm really going to focus on my favorite role with asymmetric information game. There's a lot of good ones, but I settled on Décorum. Right. I think we talked about Décorum before. Are you familiar with it?

Brian Eng:

Right. I think we've talked about it, but I don't think I've... Oh, sorry. Yes, we talked about it and I want to play it.

Dave Eng:

It's super fun.

Brian Eng:

I think we planning a trip to PAX East this year and maybe get to play it there.

Dave Eng:

Hopefully we do. But if you've not played Décorum and you're listening to this episode, it's a cooperative game where everyone is playing roommates that live in a particular house and you are playing different items that can go into different rooms like the kitchen, the living room, bathroom, et cetera. And each item has a type, it's a piece of art or it's a piece of furniture, or it's a house plan or something else, and also has a color.

And everyone has a certain specific rule, meaning Brian's rule could be he doesn't want anything that's colored green in the bedroom. And my rule could be I don't want any plants in the kitchen, but we can't share those rules with each other. And each turn you have to either place an item in a room or remove an item from a room and then your partner basically just has to say, I love it or I hate it based on they, if it breaks the rule or it supports the rule. And I really like it because I didn't think you could make a board game about the passive-aggressive roommate disagreements, but you can with Décorum. And I think that's where it really shines.

Brian Eng:

I was going to say the response is 100% realistic.

Dave Eng:

I hate that.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I definitely want to try that one. I think that's fun. And I think it would be, how many players did you, or what player count did you play at?

Dave Eng:

We played it at two. I played with my colleague named-

Brian Eng:

I feel like it works at two, but it would be interesting, I mean, too many might be chaotic, but I think three or maybe four might still work okay.

Dave Eng:

Well, Naomi told me that the sweet spot for the game is two or four, three is not good.

Brian Eng:

Oh, interesting. Okay. Maybe I don't know the rest of the mechanics of the game enough to make that call.

Dave Eng:

You did indicate that four is much more difficult than two players though. There's four rules to figure out. Okay.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Yeah, that's on my list for sure.

Dave Eng:

Nice. Those were our favorite games. You want to go on the last one topic here? Most noteworthy?

Brian Eng:

Most noteworthy. Okay. So excuse me. So we're going to go and kind of do one for each of these subcategories in this one. Right. Okay. So the most noteworthy that I have down for hidden roles, I actually put Coup in here because I was trying to stick to strictly hidden roles and not what I call the sub mechanic of roles with asymmetric information. But Coup was pretty big, and it's when it got kickstarted, I think. I mean it was successful enough to have an expansion and whatnot. I do have an honorable mention here that I think is also a pretty big one, but I can't get a feel of how popular it ever became. I know it has definitely a cult following. And you've played this one. I've never had the opportunity and it's Two Rooms and a Boom.

Dave Eng:

Oh yeah, I played that.

Brian Eng:

So that one's played in teams, so a hidden role, and I think there's a bunch of different roles. And actually I've never played this one, so I don't know if maybe you're better off explaining this one, but essentially the main ones is there's got to be a president on each team and there's got to be a bomb on each team, right?

Dave Eng:

There's only one bomb, one president.

Brian Eng:

Sorry, there's one bomb and one president, and one team is trying to end the game with the bomb in the same room as the president and one team is trying to end it in separate, and you're making a series of negotiations and trades or something like that, right?

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Sending people to different, basically it's red team, blue team.

Brian Eng:

And then I guess the twist in that is, and there's been many fan made roles and stuff, is that there's just a bunch of other roles. So everyone is kind of playing their own minigame, but also the game on the team, the one that I thought was humorous is there's Romeo and Juliet where they just want to be in the same room with the bomb.

Dave Eng:

They didn't want to die together with-

Brian Eng:

Something like that. So there's plenty of other rules going on to make people so, I think you have a card with your color, your team, and a card with your role. And you can choose to show, you can choose to give that information to people or not, or whatever. You can show only your team or only your role or whatever. I think there are restrictions, some of the roles restrict that information, things like that. So it sounds, and also I believe that game, you really need a large group to play that one, right?

Dave Eng:

Yeah. It only works with a large group.

Brian Eng:

So I've never had the opportunity to play it. I would like to play it one day, but yeah, I'm just not sure how popular that one is. Again, I know it has a cult following, but yeah, so that's why I went with Coup instead.

Dave Eng:

Okay. Okay.

Brian Eng:

How about you for most noteworthy?

Dave Eng:

So this is most noteworthy for hidden role game?

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

I'm going to go with The Resistance: Avalon. And I bring this up specifically because I got introduced to hidden role games like social deduction hidden role games through Werewolf playing those camping. So Werewolf kind of brought hidden role games in little limelight only because it was kind of like a reiteration of Mafia, which a lot of people played before. But the reason I like The Resistance: Avalon is because you had to go on missions.

So Brian talked a little bit about this with the Battlestar Galactica game because there's some sort of other formal game element like missions where you need to take some sort of action, but even though you may be playing for the red team or the blue team, you have to take an action that's going to benefit the other team because you don't really have any other actions available for you. And I think The Resistance: Avalon does this in a really elegant and streamlined way where it's like, well, listen, I know I'm on blue team, but I have to help out the red team here because I honestly don't have anything better to do. And it's up to people to believe you or not, and you could actually be on the red team and you're helping your own team, or you could just be in a really bad situation. So I think The Resistance: Avalon as a hidden role game and reiterates on what Werewolf and Mafia was able to accomplish makes it really noteworthy in my opinion.

Brian Eng:

So our next section, roles with asymmetric information. I only played, I think I played The Resistance, I don't know if I played The Resistance: Avalon, but I-

Dave Eng:

It's basically the same game. It's just a different theme.

Brian Eng:

I might be misremembering the rules, but I think I put The Resistance into roles with asymmetric information.

Dave Eng:

It kind of falls into both.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Again, it's kind of a subset. So I actually have listed here Werewolf in this one because Werewolf is such a iconic game and it definitely falls into this. So we were talking in the definitions that I think we had Werewolf as kind of in the definition for hidden roles. So I think it falls into the roles with asymmetric information because the werewolves know who the other werewolves are. So I think that that is why I put it into the asymmetric information.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, makes sense.

Brian Eng:

So Werewolf again, kind of evolved from Mafia as more of what is kind of the open source Mafia. And I specifically put One Night Ultimate Werewolf because I actually feel that that made the game a lot more accessible. I had never played Werewolf until that, because again, you get those fast rounds, you can use the automated narrator, so you don't need someone to run the game. But again, I think it's the fast rounds that really gets into it. Because one thing I noticed when I saw Werewolf being played is when you're eliminated in Werewolf, you kind of just have to sit there.

Dave Eng:

You don't get to do anything else.

Brian Eng:

So I understand it thematically, but it just seems less fun.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, a little bit.

Brian Eng:

Sorry, go ahead. I do have an honorable mention for this one as well, but why don't you say yours for asymmetric first?

Dave Eng:

Sure. So Werewolf is definitely a go-to in this category again, because we talked about roles with asymmetric information being subset of hidden role game, but I'm actually going to throw this one out to Blood on the Clocktower. Have you heard about that game, Bri?

Brian Eng:

Okay. So I have this one listed, but I didn't put it in my list because I don't know anything about the game. I just know that it became, it was super popular.

Dave Eng:

It's super popular.

Brian Eng:

And basically people said this is the be-all, end-all Werewolf type game.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. So it is seeing a huge surge of players. I played it once with my friends. It wasn't really a game for me because I feel like if you really like Werewolf and you are good at Werewolf, this is like Werewolf on steroids because it's Werewolf and hidden role asymmetric information, social deduction game turned up to 11 for this one. And I think that it's really going to set the standard for, if you want to iterate on social deduction games, you're going to want to see what's come before. And Blood on the Clocktower really set the new bar for what social deduction games can become. But just to give everyone a broad overview, it operates a lot like Werewolf or Mafia where there's a day phase and a night phase and a lot of discussion and intermingling and just talking to each other between rounds. But what I really like about Blood on the Clocktower, even though it's not a game for me, is that the roles are so diverse.

And one of the things that I think that is interesting about this is that there are roles with asymmetric information, and this was also kind of included with Werewolf, but is especially true for this game, is that you may be getting information from the gamemaster, but your role indicates that whatever information you get is not actually true, but you don't know that. You always act as if your information is true, but only the gamemaster knows that the information you're getting is actually not true. When people talk to you, they're like, "This guy is crazy because none of what he's saying is verifiable with any of the other characters." So I think the role is called the Drunkard or something, but I think that is one of the many reasons why I think it really shines, even though, again, it's not a game for me, but I do respect its design.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, that's another one where I'd like to try it. I feel like you'd need a good group for that one, but that's fairly new, I believe. So I haven't had the opportunity on that one. But yeah, I know there was a lot of talk about that one. It looked really cool how the box was that big tome or whatever.

Dave Eng:

And it also has, it's like a player shield. It shields other people from seeing what the characters are. You have to sit in a specific spot in the circle because it corresponds to the diagram inside of the book.

Brian Eng:

Got you, got you. So I had that one listed, but I couldn't put it in my list because I didn't really know much about it and I never played it or anything, but I just knew it was big. My honorable mention game is when we played, and I think we got introduced at one of the PAX as we went to with your friends, it' Secret Hitler. That one also I think got really, really popular when it came out. We had a ton of fun playing at that PAX, I think was it Matt had done his own print-and-play copy and brought it?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, it was like an advanced print-and-play copy.

Brian Eng:

So that was really fun. Again, same idea. This one is, there's a group of fascists and you're trying to figure them out. Is it Hitler and fascists or-

Dave Eng:

Yeah, Hitler's on the fascist team. Everyone else is on the liberals.

Brian Eng:

This one Hitler, some fascists that are on his team, you're trying to pass policies essentially, or assassinate Hitler.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Blue team, you want to assassinate Hitler, prevent him from becoming Chancellor red team is you want Hitler to become Chancellor.

Brian Eng:

And I liked that they made the fascist lizards to kind of just avoid mixing politics into just having fun with a game because not everything has to be-

Dave Eng:

Political.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. We had so much fun that I remember people seeing it and had hearing about it and coming over was like, "Oh, when you guys are done, can we play?" That kind of stuff.

Dave Eng:

"Can we play this?"

Brian Eng:

Everybody wanted to play that game. So yeah, I put that one in there just because we had so much fun with it. I remember it being super popular.

Dave Eng:

So that was our roles with asymmetric information game. You want go onto secret unit deployment?

Brian Eng:

Secret unit deployment. So again, I avoided putting Battleship into this one just because I was just avoiding the classic, they're too obvious I guess. But I will say that this game is almost like the hyper evolution of Battleship, Captain Sonar, which we again also played at PAX. So Captain Sonar is essentially a role-playing Battleship where you have two teams and each person on the team is kind of a different role in the Battleship. So I think, I don't remember the roles, but you had a captain, the radar operator, communications-

Dave Eng:

Captain, navigator.

Brian Eng:

Weapon Navigator, and there was-

Dave Eng:

Engine.

Brian Eng:

Right. And you are playing in real time, and the little catch to it is you're playing in real time and operations have to be done by talking to the other players about where you're moving and stuff. So what you're trying to do is listen to the other team and figure out where they're moving based on, so you have your map and you're writing it down and based on hearing what they're doing, trying to figure out what they're moving and getting your torpedoes loaded and all this stuff, and the captain's got to hear from different people. So it's total chaos. PAX is probably not the best place to play it because there's so much noise, but it was still fun. And yeah. Now I was trying to remember. I think it is, you do pick your starting position, so it is secret unit deployment, but it is, oh, actually, yeah. You know what? It's not hidden. I was going to say it's also hidden movement, but it's not hidden movement because you're saying your movements out loud.

Dave Eng:

You're saying your movements out loud, but it's up to the team, the other team to the deduce where you are now.

Brian Eng:

To determine, so yeah, your map has, you have the same map and you have smile and stuff, so you can kind of deduce based on the movements, where they might be and things like that. And that was a really fun one that I think was also, again, I remember a lot of the YouTube videos talking about it when it came out and things like that.

Dave Eng:

Right. I'm glad you brought up that one, Bri, because that's exactly what I had as well.

Brian Eng:

Okay. All right.

Dave Eng:

Because there's no better way of describing Captain Sonar as in, it's like the adult modern version of Battleship. I actually call it Hunt For Red October, the game because that's what I-

Brian Eng:

Absolutely.

Dave Eng:

I just think about Sean Connery in the background as Captain Ramius basically piloting this up.

Brian Eng:

It's LARP Battleship for sure.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, basically. But the tough part about me is that I tried to play this game with my students when I was still teaching at the small college, trying to use games-based learning for the first time, and I never could get them to play real time, which is the best way to play it. We could only play turn-based, but even turn base-

Brian Eng:

Yeah, because this is a variant to play turn-based, right?

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can't play turn-based. That's a better way if you've never played before, and honestly-

Brian Eng:

And maybe to learn the roles and stuff like that might be easier.

Dave Eng:

But I mean, I did play it several times and I never got to play it real time. And that's really my big-

Brian Eng:

The chaos is the fun.

Dave Eng:

I know, I know. A funny story, the one time I brought this to play with my group of friends who I wasn't using it for games-based learning was I was introducing the game, we played it turn-based and one of the players playing as the sonar operator. So the sonar operator has the map, but they also have a transparency, and then they log the different direction that the ship is going in. And then based on where the islands are on the map, you can start to deduce where the other ship probably could be, so you can hunt them down.

But this player, instead of using the transparency with the map, this player was writing down the emotion said with each direction and then writing down the emotion and then trying to determine from the map the deduction. And I'm like, "I don't believe that's how the game was designed for, but I'm not going to tell you you can't do that because that probably could help us." We didn't end up finding that sub, but I give that player a lot of credit for really flexing on the design for trying to determine what you could do as a sonar operator.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Again, that game, I think if you have the right group, that game could be so much fun. But I think ideally you want someone for all the roles. So what is it? You need eight people then?

Dave Eng:

You need eight people now.

Brian Eng:

Right, right. So again, it'll be tough for most game groups, I think, to have that consistently.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, exactly.

Brian Eng:

All right.

Dave Eng:

Should we go on to-

Brian Eng:                                                            

We move on to communication limits.

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Okay.

Dave Eng:

And you go first.

Brian Eng:

This group of games I found a lot of party games, I think fall into this. So there was a lot to choose from, but I settled on one that I still think is very accessible and I still think is popular, and that's Codenames. So in Codenames, and you know what? I haven't played it in so long, so now I'm trying to remember. There's a grid of words, I believe it is. What is it you're trying to uncover certain ones?

Dave Eng:

The clue-giver has a map of what code words are your agents and what code words are the other agents. You're trying to get all of your agents.

Brian Eng:

Yours uncovered first before the other ones, right?

Dave Eng:

Yes.

Brian Eng:

Right, right, right. So you got to give clues that relate to only the words that you want to be uncovered, I guess. And you are limited, and obviously you can't say any of the words on there, but you say one word or does that matter?

Dave Eng:

You can only say one word and a number, and the number is how many cards the clue refers to-

Brian Eng:

Yeah, that's right. That's what it is, a number with it. And I actually think that the better evolution of that game was the one word they exchanged the words for pictures.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, Codenames pictures.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, yeah. Just because it makes it more universal.

Dave Eng:

I think so.

Brian Eng:

And a little more subjective in those words that you can choose then to, but yeah. So anyways, essentially it plays pretty good with almost any, I mean, you probably need about four minimum to play that game.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Four is the minimum to play.

Brian Eng:

But it plays pretty good. It's pretty quick. I think most people get into it pretty quickly. It's pretty simple, but it was pretty fun. I'm not normally into those games as much, but that one got really, really popular and I still think it's a good game for anybody.

Dave Eng:

Right, right. Nice. I had that down actually, but that was for my favorite communication limits game. The one I listed here is actually The Mind, which I believe you have.

Brian Eng:

I have The Mind. I won that one on a-

Dave Eng:

BGG raffle?

Brian Eng:

BBG game roll.

Dave Eng:

Free entry and free roll?

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

So I think that The Mind is a really underrated and really divisive game because a lot of people will say that The Mind is not a game, and other people will say it is totally a game. But if you've not played it before and you're listening to this, The Mind is a cooperative game where everyone's playing together. Everyone's got a number of cards numbered 1, 2, 100, I believe, and each round you're playing a number of cards, but you have to play them in ascending order, but no one can talk. That's the communication limit. You can't talk, you can't signal, you can't do anything else. The only thing you can do is just look at the other players.

So my favorite nickname for this game is it's the Game of Staring, because you're just looking at other players trying to determine, you may have 97, but someone has 96, and you're like, okay, well, as soon as they play, or I just have to wait until later in the order in to play my card. But I really like it because it's, I'm not a cooperative game person, but I like this game because it is elegantly simple. It's just this fact that you have to play numbers, cards with these numbers in ascending order, but you can't talk about it.

And I was asked, this was funny. I did a board game trade on BGG with another user, and this user reached out to me again and said that, "Hey, I'm actually, I'm a writer for Vulture and I'm writing an article about cooperative games, and I saw that you have this blog and everything. Do you mind, can you just provide a quote about your favorite cooperative game to include in the article?" And I said, "I'll talk about The Mind then, because it's so elegantly simple." I don't know if the article is run yet, but that was the first time I had done an interview about just The Mind or cooperative games in general. But I thought that it is, again, devilishly simple, very easy to explain, but very hard to play. I've never actually finished a game in The Mind successfully, but that would go for my number one communications limit game.

Brian Eng:

Do you have a copy of that in your collection?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I do. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Okay.

Dave Eng:

It's tough, man.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I don't know if I've, I'm not sure if I've played it. Mine is still sitting on the shelf over there.

Dave Eng:

I mean, it's very small. It doesn't take up a lot of space.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I don't know if it's my type of game because I think another one that it reminds me of is that I think you like but I'm not a huge fan of is Hanabi.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

We played that again at PAX with I think one of your fraternity buddies was there. And I can't get into it. I couldn't get into it, I don't know.

Dave Eng:

Well, that one with Hanabi, you can actually use a little bit of deduction based on the clues that people get. But The Mind is staring at people.

Brian Eng:

Whereas The Mind is nothing.

Dave Eng:

Just like I just got to play my 97. You play your other cards.

Brian Eng:

All right.

Dave Eng:

So that ends that section, Bri.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Actually, you know what, I'm going to name one more as my honorable that you actually introduced me to. I think this was at one of the Christmases that you came to my family's, Just One.

Dave Eng:

Oh yeah, that's a really good one.

Brian Eng:

I actually had a lot of fun with that one. So in that game, the one person is the guesser, I guess, and everyone else is trying to get them to guess a specific word by writing one word on their, there's little white words, so everybody writes one word. But the trick is that if anyone who any of the clue givers write the same word, the guesser doesn't get to see that one. So you want a word that is related to what you want them to guess, but not so obvious that someone else writes it. And then of course that becomes better and it's like, well, this one's so obvious, no one else is going to write it, so I'll write it.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I am. If you play enough, you'll learn that everyone starts writing really esoteric clues. You're like, I have no idea what-

Brian Eng:

I'm just going to do the simple ones because nobody's going to write them. Yeah, I definitely liked that way. It kind of gave me some vibes of, did you ever play Scattergories?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. So it's kind of reminded me of that where it's like you got to write the thing, but you don't want to be so obvious because if you write the same word with that letter as someone else, then you don't get any points for it. But I wanted to name that one because I had a lot of fun with that one.

Dave Eng:

Nice.

Brian Eng:

Okay. Yeah, sorry. So that wraps up our most noteworthy section there. Okay.

Dave Eng:

Should we give everyone the overview on this next section, Bri, because this is the first time we're doing it?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. We're going to switch things up a little bit. Why don't you talk about what we will do in our next section now?

Dave Eng:

Sure. So this next section is called Beyond the Basics. And what we're actually going to do for starting with this episode and moving forward is we're going to examine these mechanics according to some of the following characteristics. So one of them is we're going to discuss them as they integrate with theme, how they represent depth and strategic options in gameplay, their balance and fairness, player engagement and fun, variety and replayability, innovation and originality and other elements like that. So we're going to try to examine all these game mechanics according to those characteristics and hopefully be able to take a little bit of a deeper dive into them.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yeah. So I guess what do you want to do? You want to roll or should we just start the conversation here?

Dave Eng:

Let's roll again. I like the rolling part. Okay. So I got my D20 here. We're going to roll again for initiative to see your lead. So I'm ready to go, Bri, when you are.

Brian Eng:

3, 2, 1. I got a natural 20.

Dave Eng:

Oh man, I got 18.

Brian Eng:

That was terrible.

Dave Eng:

Terrible. So you lead again, Bri.

Brian Eng:

Sure. Okay. So let's start off with talking about theme. And one thing I would say my feeling on hidden information in general in relation to theme is it generally can provide a richer thematic experience. So again, I'm thinking of games like Battlestar, where that's a big part of the theme of the show was these Cylons that you didn't know who they were, or Scotland Yard where you're tracking down the fugitive kind of thing. Even something like Captain Sonar again, Hunt For Red October, it gives you that feeling immediately because of this hidden information where you're trying to find that other sub. So I do think, obviously anything if not done well won't work, but I think it's a great tool to integrate with theme.

Dave Eng:

Right. Nice. For me, I think that again, the integration with theme is really going to depend on the mechanic. I agree with you, Bri. I think that the theme can make this mechanic shine the same way that the mechanic can make the theme shine. So I think it works really well with Battlestar Galactica because it works really well together. When I am examining theme, I'm looking as it being just compatible or just even of a stretch. So I have two examples here. One of them is a game called Inside Job. Have you heard of that game, Bri?

Brian Eng:

Inside Job? No.

Dave Eng:

No. So Inside Job is a hidden role game, but it matches the other hidden roles with trick-taking. And in Inside Job, one person is the insider for this spy organization, and everyone else are the actual agents. But you're playing tricks. And each trick, there's a special rule. The second player to play has to play a number higher or two numbers higher than the last one. And by doing this, you win the trick and that allows you to win intel, which is another token. But as soon as a player has for intel, they reveal their role and if they're the insider, they win automatically. And if not, you have to keep completing mission so that the insider cannot win. But with a lot of other games we've seen before, and especially trick-taking games, sometimes you just don't want to win, but you have to win. And I think that this was a really interesting take. Again, past episodes, I like to see mechanics mashed together in ways that we haven't seen before. And I think Inside Job really does a good job of doing that.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Dave Eng:

So the other game I want to talk about was Stationfall, and this was on Kickstarter. Did you see this campaign, Bri?

Brian Eng:

Yes. Yeah.

Dave Eng:

Stationfall.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I saw the campaign. I didn't look too much at the rulebook yet at that point, but I remember seeing that one go through.

Dave Eng:

I thought it was interesting, I liked the fact that it had high player account. I got play once at a PAX Unplugged event. And it's interesting that it has different roles that have different wind conditions. However, I didn't really see that theme come in through the gameplay. It was basically just like, for some reason I'm a monkey on this space station and I have this very specific wind condition for it. So here, I didn't think that the hidden information was that thematic. It just was kind of like an additional thing. Long story short, theme can complement this mechanic really well. The mechanic can complement the theme really well. But I think it's really up to the designer, the developer, in order to make that solid connection.

Brian Eng:

Right. And I think if the theme doesn't fit well with the mechanic specifically in hidden information type things, it can definitely lead to a lot of frustration in the game. Because if it doesn't match well the clunkiness, when you're already trying to deduce things and you don't have perfect information, I think that that could be a very frustrating thing. Talking about the Inside Job, which it reminded me again talking about how theme with hidden information can work well, one of my favorite examples that I remember is in the original Dune game, I mean it got a remake in 2019, I think. So those unfamiliar with that game is everyone's playing different factions and you're trying to win, there's different ways to win. The general one is conquest victory, where you're trying to take these outposts and if you get three outposts you win or you can ally. And if as an alliance you take four outposts, you have a shared victory.

But one of the factions is the Bene Gesserit. And if you're familiar with the books or the movies, they ally with people, they give information, but they're kind of pulling the strings from behind. You don't actually know if they're helping you or not. And their secret, they call it subterfuge victory conditions.

So for the Bene Gesserit at the beginning of the game during the setup, the Bene Gesserit can make a prediction of which faction will win and in which round because there's a maximum of 10 rounds. And if they are correct, when someone wins a conquest victory in that round and that faction, then the Bene Gesserit are the sole victors regardless of what else happens. And I just think that's such a neat little thematic thing. And it's like, yeah, so they might help you in this battle, but are they helping you for whatever your agreement is, or do they want you to win at this point so that they can actually take the victory and then you might want to throw the battle. Just those things can add those interesting choices that I like. And again, I think that's an example of how the theme works really well with the hidden information in that case.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, nice.

Brian Eng:

And another thing as far as, I mean kind of related to theme is I think with certain ways of using it, you can add tension in the game as well, which I think can be thematic. So you talked about briefly in the definitions, the Fog of War. So going back to, I was thinking about, I know it's usually used in war games and whatnot, but in the original HeroQuest game, that used a Fog of War mechanic as well. So the gamemaster book had the maps and the monsters wouldn't be revealed until they were in line of sight of the heroes. So you could turn a corner and suddenly all these monsters appeared. And so you kind of had this tension as you explored the dungeons, which I mean it's kind of old hat now, but yeah, it's definitely can be used in that sense. Again, a positive way to add theme to the game.

Dave Eng:

Right. Yeah. I think it's really up to how you want to combine it right between the theme and the mechanic. And I think a really good designer is going to be able to integrate both of those well. Should we go into depth? Do you have something else, Bri?

Brian Eng:

Oh, no, no. Sorry, go ahead.

Dave Eng:

Okay. So next characteristic we wanted to cover is depth and strategic options. So we wanted to really discuss this from a high level, if the mechanic offers any meaningful choices and decisions for players, and if those create interesting decisions and trade-offs. You want to start off, Bri?

Brian Eng:

Why don't you start off on this one since I did the last one.

Dave Eng:

Okay. So for this one, I think yes and no, and I say this because as much as I really like social deduction games like Werewolf and actually Werewords, I know you said you One Night Ultimate Werewolf. Werewords is kind of like an alternate version of that game where you're trying to guess a word that a specific mayor is trying to answer yes or no questions about. What I like about it is that it's very satisfying to play if you know how to play it. But if you've never played any sort of modern tabletop games, I tell people that any game that has hidden information or asymmetric information or anything that's secret and it's not public information is very difficult to teach because you have to expose the game state to that player in order to show them why some information is significant.

So I'd say that yes, hidden information does offer a lot of depth and strategic options. And I go back to Coup because that's like character poker, but it is also difficult to learn if you are not familiar with the conventions of hidden information. And I think that's the real trade-off, modern tabletop gamers that high game literacy will get a lot of plays out of these. If you're not though, it can be very, very difficult and kind of demoralizing to start playing these games and not know what's going on. So I think that's the real trade-off on depth and strategic options.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yeah, I definitely can see that point. One of the things I would say though that generally happens in these games is, I mean obviously if it's not a purely cooperative game is that hidden information kind of encourages somewhat of a cooperative play. I wrote it down as dynamic alliances.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, that's true.

Brian Eng:

So essentially working with someone because you don't have enough information, but just long enough so that you do have enough information. Or again, if it's even the cooperative games with the games I like with the traitor mechanic, yeah, you'll work with them enough to determine if you think they're actually working with you or if you are the traitor working with them enough to fool them into thinking, "Yeah, yeah, I'm on your side." Now, hey, that guy over there, that's the traitor. Let's go get..." Those kinds of things. And as far as strategic options, I was thinking of war games and some of the strategies only work if can have hidden information. So ambushes and flanking really only work if you can't see them coming. So being able to hide that information kind of is the only way to make those types of things work well, I think. Yeah, definitely as far as secret unit, or again, it's not one of the ones we talked about, but hidden movement, it kind of falls into that.

Dave Eng:

And I would even say, Bri, we just played this prior to recording this, but Sky Team is great with strategic and options and depth.

Brian Eng:

Absolutely.

Dave Eng:

We played two scenarios so far, and again, it's a cooperative game. We don't really like cooperative games, but I like playing this game. But I think that the reason that it's strategic is if you haven't played Sky Team before, you're playing, it's a two player cooperative game or one player is a pilot and the other player's a co-pilot and you're trying to land a passenger plane and you do so using dice placement, but you can't discuss those dice with your partner, and as you play, you can't even talk to your partner. There's only certain times when you can talk. And I think that game offers a lot of really interesting strategy in depth, but it's a little bit more approachable than I would say other social deduction games.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, we've definitely been having fun with that one. And I think one thing with communication limits is it really requires that ability to read the game state, to judge the game state in the moment. Because since you can't, I mean it can limit quarterbacking a lot. And by that I mean one person kind of taking the lead and making the decisions for everyone. But then on the other hand of that is it that it requires the team, everyone to be able to have that skill of judging the game state and making a decision based on reading the board kind of thing.

Dave Eng:

Right. All right. So that was depth and strategic options. Anything else for that, Bri, before we go up balance and fairness?

Brian Eng:

We can move ahead.

Dave Eng:

All right. Do you want me to start on this one or want to?

Brian Eng:

I can start on that. I don't have a ton of balance and fairness, but I will say that since balance and fairness is important, things where you have hidden roles or asymmetric information, I think it's very important from a design standpoint to figure out how to balance those things. And my example of that would be, so for example, in Battlestar Galactica, dependent on the player count is it determines how many Cylons are in the game.

And I think there is a point where before becomes, it's one Cylon for three or four I think. And then at six players it's two Cylons, but at five, because it's kind of this in-between, they put a role called the sympathizer. And I think a lot of other hidden role games do this as well, where they have a role that kind of flips dependent on the game state. The way the sympathizer works is when you reach a predetermined halfway point of the game, it determines how well the humans are doing. And if they're doing poorly, the sympathizer stays as a human. If they're doing really well, the sympathizer becomes a Cylon. And that's their way of balancing out that game. I don't know if that's necessarily the most elegant, it does work in the theme of that game, but I do think that I've seen that mechanic used a lot or that method of balance used a lot in hidden role games.

Dave Eng:

Nice. I think it's because the last time we played, Bri, we didn't have five players, so that rule was not a concern.

Brian Eng:

I think it's the high odd numbers or whatever. I think in BANG! The Dice Game, there's the Renegade I think is kind of the same idea.

Dave Eng:

Renegade just wants to kill everyone.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yeah. They kind of play on their own as a self-balancing player, just wants to be the last player...

Dave Eng:

For me, for balance and fairness, I specifically want to talk again about hidden roles and roles with asymmetric information, because I talked about this in the last section about teaching new players how to play these games with these mechanics and it being very difficult. And I think it is because hidden roles and roles with asymmetric information, there's definitely a difficult and challenging learning curve here where if you've never played these games before, you're probably not going to win or do very well the first time you play them because not a lot that you know how to do unless there's some sort of structure or framework for how you gain information or interact with people.

Otherwise, I think that if you've played the game often and you have a lot of experience, just really high game literacy, you're going to excel at these games because you kind of know what to expect from the genre and from these mechanics. But I would say from a balance and fairness perspective, if you've never played these games before, you're probably going to lose the first few times. But if you're experienced and you play this game, especially with the same group of people and you've developed a meta, I think it's a little bit more balanced. But I'd say at the very beginning, if you're still learning, then it's going to be challenging to start. But I think that if you just stick with it, you can become really good at these games eventually.

Brian Eng:

And I think that highlights what we were talking about before in that the more fun for kind of the more general gamer are, we talked about One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Coup how, because the rounds are very quick, you're able to learn that game quickly. And there's not a lot of stake in those learning rounds because okay, the game is a few minutes, so if you did poorly because you didn't know what was going on, well, the next game is just a few minutes, so it's not a big deal.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, you just go play again. That's part of the reason why I also like Werewords because again, the game rounds are five minutes. It takes the Werewolf theme, but makes it so that you're trying to guess a word. And my game group really likes it because again, if you didn't get it the first time, we'll play another game. They're only five minutes long and it's just very replayable, very approachable, and that's my go-to social, I don't know if I call it a social deduction game, but it's a hidden role game, one of my go-tos.

Brian Eng:

All right. Well, I don't have much else in the balance section.

Dave Eng:

I went over everything. You want to move on to player engagement and fun?

Brian Eng:

Sure.

Dave Eng:

Okay. You want to lead off this one?

Brian Eng:

Sure. Yeah. So I would say generally with regards to fun, I enjoy having some type of hidden information mechanic in games in general. I think they add a complexity that I like and I understand that for some that's a frustrating thing, but I definitely enjoy that. To me, the frustration is kind of part of the fun. We say I call the party games, but we talked about Captain Sonar, the frustration and the chaos to me is the fun of that game.

Dave Eng:

I think that these mechanics are all super fun. I don't know if everyone will consider them super fun, but some of the things that I really like is secret unit deployment. And I think this is great, particularly with Fog of War because you get this really interesting balance of Yomi. It's like, will they or won't they? Are they trying to make a faint? You talked about the Bene Gesserit with the Dune game before and it makes for really exciting turns and dramatic reveals. And I think if anything, Dune is really dramatic. Battlestar Galactica is really dramatic and I think that anytime you get to deploy secret units or just be able to action this secret information, I think makes for really exciting gameplay.

Brian Eng:

Absolutely. Again, as I was saying, the mystery and the forced, you're kind of forced to be invested in the other players' actions. So I think that just ramps up that player engagement for me and I definitely enjoy that.

Dave Eng:

So the other part for player engagement and fun is communication limits. So I played another party game this past weekend called So Clover!. Have you played that one before?

Brian Eng:

Yes. Yeah, that one I've played.

Dave Eng:

So if you've not played So Clover! before, it is a clover leaf that has a grid, a two by two grid in it, and each Grid can fit a card and each card has four different words in it. And you're trying to, each player gets these grids randomly set up, and so on each clover you'll have two words that faces it on each leaf of the four leaf clover and you need to come up with some word that ties those two words together. But what I really like about this game compared to other party games is that it's a process of elimination and deduction. If you really feel strongly about these two words that fit on one clover, that means that there're Jason words of the fit for the other clovers. And it's just really approachable. And I think that not all party games are as approachable as So Clover!. I mean, for the most part, all party games have to be approachable, but I think that the way that So Clover! implements is really cool and simple and elegant.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And I mean I think that specifically communication limits mechanic lends itself to party games, probably most of the ones we're talking about today. But I do, I mean I would say that it's definitely divisive. We definitely like them, but I can see that if you think that's more frustrating than fun, you're not going to like these games.

Dave Eng:

No.

Brian Eng:

Whereas again, I see that frustration is the fun. That limit and forcing you to have alternative ways to solve the problem is the fun to me.

Dave Eng:

All right. Anything else for player engagement and fun, Bri? Should we move on?

Brian Eng:

That's for me, so let's head on to Variety. I'll let you lead off on this one.

Dave Eng:

All right. So for this characteristic it's variety and replayability. So we want to know if this mechanical offer enough depth and variability to keep players coming back for more. So I talked about Coup before. I think that what hidden roles, it provides a lot of replayability and variety because it's kind of like character poker. And if you are playing with the same people, you develop this really cool meta that I think is really fun to explore, particularly if one player in your group is always going to be lying about a particular strategy, you're definitely going to hammer them on that strategy. And mine is going to be the Duke because the Duke can always just take money. And when I get enough money, I'm definitely going to Coup someone.

And I think that for some of the other games, they do offer some variety and replayability, but it's going to be replayable if you play with different groups of players. I think that developing that meta with your own group is really interesting, but if you can also bring this same game to a lot of different groups, I think you'll get a lot of interesting situations and variables there. So yeah, I think hidden information does provide a lot of variety, and depending on the game you want to play with the same players, and depending on some other games you may want to play with different players. That's my take.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I definitely see, I mean I'm specifically thinking of hidden roles right now, but definitely increases that replayability. Variability, we're talking about Coup, the fact that how many, is it seven roles in Coup?

Dave Eng:

I think so.

Brian Eng:

Something around seven roles. But the fact that you have two cards, so you have two possible, I mean you could have two of the same, but you have two different roles that variability is exponential, right? Because everyone has their combo as we talked about the Duke meta, which immediately leads to the captain meta, counter meta of like, "Oh, you're the Duke too? Well, I'm also the captain, so you can't..." That kind of thing.

And the other one too that can I think add a lot of replayability is when there are different victory conditions, not specifically a hidden information game, but a game that my understanding evolved from that original Dune game was Cosmic Encounter, where you can have all these crazy different victory condition. I mean, I guess it's the same victory condition, but there are some species that can have crazy victory conditions where it's like if you win once you win the game or whatever. Actually, you know what, there's a variant to play that one where you hide your role until you use your secret power. So I'm going to say it still fits into this episode. But that one, again, you've got an infinite number almost of variability in the different win conditions, different powers that you have. So as far as increasing replayability, I think it's a huge benefit in that sense.

Dave Eng:

And I think that's why a lot of players are going to be attracted to these mechanics because it provides that more depth. When you can't examine the entire game state, it makes playing a lot more difficult and challenging.

Brian Eng:

And you know what, I think you get that a similar, maybe not quite the same way, but with secret unit deployment, since the initial game state is kind of unknown, each game can feel unique and that will again add to that variability in the game.

Dave Eng:

All right. Anything else for variety and replayability, Bri?

Brian Eng:

That's all I got there.

Dave Eng:

All right. Let's move on to-

Brian Eng:

Yeah, go ahead with innovation and originality.

Dave Eng:

All right. So for this section, innovation originality, we asked the question, does the mechanic offer something new and interesting or is it just a rehash of existing ideas? We talked about this before, we kind of like the history of Werewolf going back to Mafia and how Blood on the Clocktower is also based off of Werewolf and other social deduction games. I think that hidden information is a relatively new set of mechanics for modern tabletop games, board games and card games in general. And I say this as someone that's been doing some research on some older cultural games like Go, chess, checkers, mancala and other games like that. A lot of the games that have kind of survived history do not have hidden information. You kind of just know the game state. And I think that's just kind of a construct based on the components that are required for that game.

So I don't think that hidden information as a whole is something that is based on a lot of classic games. So I'd say that it's innovative in that respect. However, if it's a hidden role game, you know what to expect from that specific game. If it's a game with roles with asymmetric information, sometimes those roles could have a different power. Sometimes those roles could have a different wind condition like Bri said before with Dune and some of the other games we discussed in this episode.

I think that if I was going to choose one of these four mechanics that I think has the potential for the most amount of innovation, particularly as it's tied to other mechanics would be secret unit deployment. Because I think depending on the game and the game state, it could really make an interesting setup. But that's not to say that other games that have hidden roles couldn't be innovated on because if you don't know the game state, it could literally be anything. Like you said that with Coup your two characters before. So I'd like to see the innovation, and I think it's relatively original, but I see a lot of current games either rehashing the same idea or making a large leap with Blood on the Clocktower.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I don't know if it's a symptom of, because a lot of, again, I'm calling them party games, a lot of the simpler large player count games fall into the hidden information. You do see a lot of rehashing of those games often. But what I will say for the better, the stronger hidden information games, again, I'll call Scotland Yard as one of the older ones that I think is still a strong game. What you see in terms of innovation, you kind of see almost an iterative design because, so there was Scotland Yard and then that became what evolved out of that was the Fury of Dracula. So it was essentially a very similar game, but themed on finding Dracula. And then there was a couple versions of that where they added combat I think later in that game. And there's also I think Letters from Whitechapel, which again-

Dave Eng:

That's a Jack the Ripper game?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, it's Scotland Yard except now you're hunting now Jack the Ripper was more adult-themed. I think it had combat in that one as well. And that one again, I think then evolved again into Whitehall Mystery, which was again is still based on that same thing, but they're kind of introducing some new elements to it. So there is innovation there, but based on that strong foundation of that original strong game.

We talked about Werewolf growing and I think I also talked about Two Rooms and a Boom and those games being left to the community as well, the innovation comes in, well, I would say countless player-made roles and things like that. So the innovation comes in that way in those games where the game is almost modular in that anybody can just go and make a role and just play with it and it works or it doesn't work and you like it, you add it in. If you don't like it, you leave that role out. So I do think there's kind of both in there is you do see a lot of rehashing of ones that they work and they're simple games and if it's the general public, they're not going to know. And I don't like seeing the, okay, Codenames is popular, so here's 50 different themes of Codenames.

Dave Eng:

Here's the latest Codenames IP license.

Brian Eng:

You're always going to get that. So yeah, here's Codenames Disney Princesses, Codenames X-Men, yeah, okay, that's great. But I don't like that in terms of it's not really growing the game at all, but that's what happens with anything that becomes kind of mainstream and popular, I suppose.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. I'm going to go to my go-to which is mash up these mechanics with something else and I'll be interested in them.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, absolutely. Whenever somebody can kind of combine mechanics in a way that hasn't been done before or done interestingly, I mean my current favorite game I think is still Dune Imperium. I haven't had a chance to play Uprising yet, but it's the same idea is this mash up of deck building and worker placement, which again, I didn't look into it. I'm sure there's another game that does that, but it does it well. It adds direct player conflict, which I like.

Dave Eng:

You love that.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. So that game works perfectly for me. So again, I think the opportunities are always there, but that's what I see in the games that we've looked at as far as innovation originality.

Dave Eng:

Nice. All right, Bri. Anything else for innovation in your originality?

Brian Eng:

No, I think that's all I had there.

Dave Eng:

Should we go to our bonus round?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, our bonus round where I guess we have this round set up to anything else we want to talk about in relation to the mechanic we're talking about. Do you have anything specific you want go on?

Dave Eng:

Just a few points that I wanted to reiterate, but do you have something, Bri, you want to lead off? If not...

Brian Eng:

I mean, I have some talking points. Why don't you go ahead and we'll go from there.

Dave Eng:

Okay. So the main takeaways from this episode I would say is that with all of these different mechanics, again under the topic of hidden information, so we covered hidden roles, roles with asymmetric information, secret unit deployment and communication limits. Hidden role games are not my go-to genre of games when I'm introducing players to, or new players who've never played modern tabletop games before because they can be very difficult to teach if you've not taught a lot of games because a player cannot evaluate the game state. So I'd say that if you are looking for a hidden role game and you want to start out new players, my go-to is Werewords. I don't want to speak for Bri, but I think his go-to is One Night Ultimate Werewolf.

Brian Eng:

One Night Ultimate. Or I mean I've introduced Coup to non-board gamers with some success, but again, the rule there is not so much the game, but quick, a relatively simple rule set and quick rounds. So you might not be able to pick it up in the first couple games, but since the games are only a few minutes each, it's not a big deal.

Dave Eng:

I think having that short play time is definitely going to help you there. With roles of asymmetric information, I think that my favorite element here is whenever you are able to use either social deduction or just deduction in general to be able to deduce other people's roles and then therefore their intentions, that's a really cool captivating puzzle that I like to figure out. So that's something that appears-

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Hidden information definitely it creates those puzzles for players to solve anything like, what is it? Is it Mysterium is one that we played. There's that Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective game. I mean those are all popular because people like to solve those puzzles, right?

Dave Eng:

Yeah. And I had this actually listed before, Bri, but you're the one who brought it up was Fury of Dracula. That was one of the very first secret unit deployment games I played. And I think that just the concept of the one versus many is really cool. And I think that pairs really well thematically, at least with hidden information and secret unit deployment.

Brian Eng:

I was just going to say related to one versus many. I talked about Scotland Yard being one of the early, the first game I played with hidden roles in secret unit deployment, and we talked about my distaste for cooperative games. So when I do play one versus many games, I like to be the one.

Dave Eng:

Everyone's against me.

Brian Eng:

Yes. Then I don't have to work with anybody. Sorry, go ahead.

Dave Eng:

And then just the last part about communication limits, I think that that is the go-to element for party games. There's so many party games that fill out this genre. We talked about Codenames, we talked about Just One we talked about So Clover!, I want to give an honorable mention to Wavelength, which I think is another cool communication limits game.

Brian Eng:

I remember I haven't played that one, but that one looked super interesting to me and I definitely could see that one being it's just fun because the answers are you're reading the person. Right?

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

And you know what that brings me to a point I have is one of the things that comes in with a lot of this information is kind of the power of bluffing. And maybe that's what gives me that heads up feeling and Coup is that feeling of poker is that ability to bluff and read someone else's bluff. I really enjoy that. That's what I liked about poker or what I like about poker. So have you played Skull?

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

That's another one where it's heavily relies on bluffing and being able to mislead others. And I think that's a-

Dave Eng:

And tangentially, also Liars Dice, Bri.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And I think that's a heavy factor in why I like those games.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Anything else you wanted to cover for our bonus round?

Brian Eng:

So we talked about traitor games, because we didn't specifically have that as a mechanic, but that intrigue of the hidden roles again of just that unknown of you're all working together or are you? I always like that it's kind of the playing on the psychological aspect of the game I think is fun. And I think that's why I like specifically traitor games. And I remember when we first got Battlestar Galactica and were able to play in a group, I think it wasn't until the sixth or seventh time I got to play that I got to be a Cylon and I just wanted to be a Cylon.

Dave Eng:

It's like you want to be on red team. You want to be the...

Brian Eng:

So I would always pick Gaius Baltar who in the show is the traitor, spoilers for anyone who has watched the show.

Dave Eng:

Whoa. Spoilers, Bri. 20-year-old spoilers.

Brian Eng:

Yes. Sorry, we have to give a spoiler warning there, but-

Dave Eng:

Yeah, spolier tag.

Brian Eng:

So the thing that he does in the game is that when you pick, so at the beginning of the game, everyone gets a loyalty card, which is what tells them whether they're a Cylon or not a Cylon. Gaius Baltar takes two. So he has twice a chance of being a Cylon. So I picked him every single time and it took me forever before I finally got to be a Cylon.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I wreck you guys.

Brian Eng:

But yeah. So that imperfect game state, imperfect knowledge, one thing, you know what? I didn't bring it up in the balance section, but maybe this fits in there is, one thing that you can't really, maybe, I mean I don't know if it's designed around, is if someone has a better memory than someone else that can really help with, since a lot of this is based on deduction and being able to remember hidden information, things like that and clues and whatnot, that can really skew and give people an advantage if you have a better ability to make out those clues or to remember information if you're better at deducing of using logic to deduce things like that. I mean, to me that's part of the game. I don't know. Whereas I guess maybe because my memory's not as good, but my logic is pretty good. So I'm like logic's part of the game. But memory, that's an unfair advantage.

Dave Eng:

Well, it's a good connection Bri's we're playing Paint the Roses right now.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yes.

Dave Eng:

Paint the Roses comes with a notepad where you can take notes. So it's actually like the…

Brian Eng:

Actually, they fill it out for you, which is great.

Dave Eng:

I was like, wow, this is great.

Brian Eng:

Playing the way that we're playing, I think it's almost mandatory to playing this kind of, I don't want to call it turn based, play by mail, really. You kind of have to have it and we've been having trouble with that one.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, we haven't won game yet. We haven't won a game. It is hard. But if we get to play that live, I would like to play it live too.

Brian Eng:

Or even in real time. I think it would be different.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, real-time more.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Yeah. But that game's hard.

Dave Eng:

It is hard. We'll keep flying on.

Brian Eng:

So the last thing I just wrote down here was our thoughts on the future of hidden information. We talked about, I guess it kind of relates to innovation and stuff, but I was kind of wondering what your thoughts on how can technology be used to enhance hidden information mechanics and board games? Maybe as a jumping off point for this discussion point is technology. We've seen games that use apps, which has kind of evolved into, there's a Kickstarter game now where it uses a full on web app to be a dungeon master.

Dave Eng:

Oh, nice.

Brian Eng:

I forget the name. I did the BoardGameGeek raffle contest because I do every single one of those.

Dave Eng:

Nice. Want to know-

Brian Eng:

What are your thoughts on that?

Dave Eng:

For technology? I can see technology being assistive for those certain roles if someone doesn't want to be a dungeon master or something else like that. A hidden role game that I had, not hidden role, roles, hidden information game I played before, actually I administered for a conference at this presentation I was giving. It's an old Sid Sackson game called Haggle. And the way Haggle is played is that everyone gets an envelope of cards and in that envelope is cards of different colors or numbers or anything else like that. And you also get a specific rule card and everyone gets different rule cards and no one knows what all the rules are at the beginning of the game or how many rules there are. And some of those rules could be like all the orange cards are worth a square of their quantity, or all red cards are worth one point, so long as they're paired with a blue card or something else like that.

And you play the game by just going around the room and haggling for cards. You can haggle for anything. You can haggle for other cards, you can haggle for rule cards, you can haggle for the promise of rule cards later. You can form alliances and just pull all your cards together. So I think that if there's a way for technology to just make that whole process simpler, because I had to print out all of these cards for everyone at the conference. I think that would be a lot easier because it's a relatively simple concept, you're just trading cards with each other, but they also have rules in them.

Brian Eng:

It's really just using some sort of electronic balance sheet almost.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, like a medium.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Cool. Cool. That wraps up our hidden information mega episode of AP Table Talk. If you'd like to hear more content like this, please be sure to subscribe. You can also check out more of our content projects and other information about us at www.universityxp.com.

Dave Eng:

Thanks for joining us. We'd love it if you took some time to rate the show. We'd lift and lift others with learning. So if you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could also benefit. Until next time. Game On!

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Cite this Episode:

Eng, D. & Eng, B. (Hosts). (2024, September 15). AP Table Talk: Mega Topic: Hidden Information. (No. 120) [Video]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/video/120

Internal Ref: UXP7PHD83K2E