Friday Night Shots – One And Done Games

It’s Friday again!

That was fast (that could be because I’m not writing this on Friday, since I’m actually out playing games tonight!)

Grab a seat, and I hope you don’t mind the Delerium playing on the speakers. The volume’s not high.

Can I get you a drink?

Let’s talk a few minutes about one and done games.

What does that mean?

Those games that you play for the first time (hey, they’re “new to you!”) and after playing it, you just think “eh, I don’t need to play that again.”

Factory Fun is the perfect example of that for me.

Ew.

But there is a bit of a nuance to this question, at least how I’m going to address it here.

It’s not just “I don’t like that game, I’m never playing it again.”

There’s also the response to that.

What do I mean?

More after the break…

And we’re…no, never mind.

That joke is old.

Anyway, the nuance for me is when people post about these one and done games on BGG or some other forum.

We’ve all seen it (if you look at forums, anyway).

“I played this game once and I hated it.”

“You just have to give it a chance! It’s only after 5 plays that the quality of the game really comes out!”

I actually look at this the same way I look at TV shows to watch (or binge).

First, I have to say that if your initial reaction to a game is loathing, or even a strong dislike, there is nothing wrong with you not playing it ever again.

Some game mechanisms do that for me.

But is there any kind of accuracy to the “you need to play it more than once” statement sometimes?

For me, a good game (or a good TV show) has to draw me in at the beginning (or at a play).

For a TV show, sure, it can start slow and get better as it goes along. How many shows are out there where somebody says “give it a couple of episodes and then it really kicks into high gear?” (Editor: “None, because nobody uses that phrase anymore”)

For me, that’s fine. But there has to be something in those first few episodes that at least indicates to me that it’s going somewhere. That the quality is going to definitely be there if I give it a chance.

It has to hook me at the very least, even if I do think the first episode or two is…not very good.

The same with a game.

I can be totally lost in my first play of a game and I may still enjoy it.

I can see that the mechanisms in the game are attractive and that it will take a few plays (or even just one more) to really get an idea of what I am doing in the game.

I have to see that potential.

If it’s just “ew, that game was so boring. I didn’t feel like I had any agency whatsoever,” then I will probably give it a pass.

Or maybe the mechanisms kill it for me.

For example, Bärenpark.

This is a game that so many people love, but it’s a polyomino game where you are planning out the locations of certain tiles, trying to fit them together.

That is not me.

I played it once, just to try it and see what the hype was about.

I bounced off of it hard. I don’t like spatial games.

Maybe there’s a discussion about the game with my friends afterward. If they point out some things that I may have missed, maybe I will try it again.

If after my first play, my reaction is “wow, that really didn’t seem that great, but now that the game is over, I can see different ways to do things that might be interesting,” then I will definitely play it again.

A perfect example of this for me is Terraforming Mars.

This game was so hyped that I knew I wanted to play it. It took me a few game days to play it, because it came out and there were other games I wanted to play too.

When I finally played it?

I was kind of meh about it. I thought it was probably good, but I didn’t see what the hype was about. It was fine, I’d definitely play it again, but it was only fine.

Then I played it again.

It was better…then again, and it was awesome!

I have now played it 23 times (plus a few asynchronous app games).

That’s an example of a game that my initial response to it was that it had potential buth otherwise I was lukewarm to.

A lot of my one and done games are small little games, some card, some other mechanisms, that the shortness of the game really makes trying it out appealing.

The one play may say “never again,” but you can be pretty sure that you’re not missing any nuances that would make the game better.

What you see is what you get.

My first play of Bites is a perfect example. A short little, innocuous game that didn’t really appeal to me at all, but I’m glad I tried it.

But I don’t need to play it again.

Which brings me to the question of game length.

Does this affect your one and done decision?

If a game takes 15-20 minutes, it also makes it a lot easier to try multiple times. Even if you hated it, it’s only 15 minutes and hey, you gave it another shot.

What about a 4-5 hour game?

Some of these games (especially wargames, but also others like Twilight Imperium) take a long time to play.

If your first play wasn’t fun, how much more potential do you have to see in the game to actually want to give it another try?

Since I haven’t tried any of these long wargames, I hesitate to name one as an example, but even if it’s a great game to most other people, what happens if your first play isn’t that fun for you?

Sure, you will probably do poorly unless it’s new to all players, but did you have fun?

What if you didn’t?

Are you willing to invest another 4-5 hours for another play just to prove that?

Or are there just so many other games you would rather play?

What if it truly is one of those games you need a couple of plays of to really get a handle on it?

For a 30-60 minute game? You might be willing to try it.

For 4-5 hours?

Maybe you won’t?

When I play a game for the first time, there are four levels of my thoughts about it: disliked it because it was either boring or the mechanisms drove me away, liked it ok and maybe there’s some potential to enjoy it, really liked it but it could sour in subsequent plays, and loved it.

Some games just click with me right at the start.

Most Garphill Games do (I know, I know…I’ll shut up about them), though Explorers of the North Sea didn’t. Otherwise, they’re all high on my list.

And then there’s Lucky Loop, which just offended me with how bad it was.

What’s your tolerance level when you first play a game?

Have you ever hated a game the first time you played it and then ended up liking it?

What about the other way around?

How often do you have a one and done?

Let me know in the comments.