Friday Night Shots – Games Where the “Extras” Make the Game Better

We’ve all played those games before.

The games where just sitting there playing the game, using the mechanisms (card drafting, worker placement, whatever) and you just think “this isn’t really that different than (fill in the blank) and it’s kind of boring.”

But then there’s those games where you feel that way, but there’s just something about this particular game that grabs you for some reason.

In looking at it, there’s really nothing special there.

Can we add something to this to actually make it worth playing?

That’s what I’m talking about when I say “extras.” It’s either something that you add to it as players (I’m not talking about an app, which would be totally different) that makes the game enjoyable when it otherwise might not be, or it’s just the theme.

Sometimes the theme itself carries the day, and sometimes you have to use a little more effort.

Of course, the ultimate example of this for me is Rock Hard 1977, where players are fledgling rock stars wanting to make it big in the music business.

Designer Jackie Fox (formerly of the band The Runaways back in the 1970s) has designed a game that, taken to its basics, is a run of the mill worker placement game.

I like worker placement games, so I wouldn’t call it boring.

But it is kind of just that.

Where Rock Hard becomes brilliant, however, is how much it is dripping in theme.

You really feel like you are a young person trying to make your way in the music business, year by year (which is condensed in the game to month by month, but hardly anybody would hit it big that quickly in real life unless they got really lucky).

You are trying to juggle your day job, learn some new musical skills, play some shows to get some reputation out there, and hanging out in the bars and clubs to try to make a name for yourself.

All of this is why it’s in my Top 50 games played of all time.

This game does most of the work itself, immersing you in the theme so you just need to go along for the ride.

How about games where you will have to do some of that work?

Let’s Go to Japan is a really good card drafting game about planning a trip to Japan and deciding what activities you want to do for those six days (or seven if you have one of the mini-expansions).

At its basics, that’s what you’re doing: drafting cards and trying to match icons in the most efficient way possible, moving up the experience tracks to try and maximize your points.

The card drafting itself is kind of interesting, with you passing other cards to your right or left and gaining cards that you will eventually have to place (or pass) as well.

It’s a fun game and I like it.

But it’s just kind of there sometimes.

Unless you take it upon yourselves to narrate your trip!

On Monday, I took a stroll in Kyoto down the Philosopher’s Path to see how Nishida Kitaro came up with his philosophical teachings, but it’s a long and stone path so it was a little stressful. But taking the bullet train back to Tokyo was great, and allowed me to visit the beautiful and peaceful Shijuku Gyden park. I ended the day visiting the Meiji Jingu Shrine, which was very moving.

On Tuesday, we hit a sumo wrestling match!

Etcetera..

This definitely lengthens the game so it’s not a lunch time game anymore, but if you want to really feel like you’re planning this trip, talk about it!

That’s what immerses you in the feel of the whole thing.

Otherwise, you’re just matching icons.

Which is fine. I do enjoy the game.

But it loses a lot of its impact.

Another game along the same lines, though I haven’t actually played this one (other than an asynchronous BGA game that I’m currently playing) is a game I talked about a week or two ago in a BGG Century post.

Bohemians is a game where players are artists making their way in Paris back in the day, living their day to day life, trying to produce masterpieces, improve their craft and their social life, all while dealing with the daily drudgery that makes artistic talent hard to express.

The cards, with their gorgeous, evocative artwork, really bring this out and what cards you are dealing with also help set the theme, including the hardships you have to endure for your art.

The pictures above were both included in Dan Thurot’s review of the game, and he expresses what I’m talking about in the text as well.

“Bohemians is such an overt comedy, in fact, that it encourages players to describe their daily routine for the edification and amusement of everybody at the table. This morsel of role-playing isn’t strictly necessary to the experience, and if given too much breadth can sap it of some vigor. But in the right quantity, it’s worth noting how you spent the day working up the energy to paint — or compose, or write poetry, or whatever else — only to collapse into a love affair that seemed more pressing at the time.”

The game does seem quite good, but it is a lot of icon matching and dealing with troublesome cards that get into your deck because you decide to not work one day (or because one of your other hardships produced another one!)

The theme and the artwork bring you to Paris in these heady days, but it could get kind of dry to just match your icons and get enough resources (inspiration, in this case) in order to buy new cards for your deck, or maybe get one of the five Achievements you need to win the game.

In fact, the rules actually lean into this by calling the execution phase when you see what icons you matched and how much inspiration you earned the “Narrate Your Day” phase.

They want you to narrate it!

Finally, there are the story games where the essence of the game is the story.

If you broke it down to its mechanics, it would be really dry.

A friend played Tales of the Arabian Nights with some of his friends the other night, and described it so that it fits this post perfectly.

I want to blurb this one so I get the “how it plays” correct.

“Players choose a character card, a quest, select a set skills, and move across the board to fulfill the quest. A player’s movement is based on their wealth and each player draws an encounter card at the end of their move. Dice are thrown and these determine the player’s responses to the encounter based on their character card. In a very simplified sense, it’s a very big Choose Your Own Adventure game – with the added spice that the players to your right and left control the matrix and the Book of Tales during your encounter – so the game moves along at a good pace. The first player to finish their quest wins.”

The basic mechanic is rolling dice to see what happens with each encounter paragraph, depending on what skill you have or don’t have for this specific story beat.

You’re moving around the board, encountering things, and seeing what happens.

The most interesting part of the game is the huge book of random encounter paragraphs that really drives the game as you are trying to fulfill your quest.

Boiled down to its mechanics, it’s just a series of dice-chucking encounters as you move around trying to complete things.

But immerse yourself in the story as it progresses through the story prompts?

That can make a decent game night experience.

(There is apparently a new version of this game coming out, or already came out recently, that removes some of the more…problematic story bits and language in the game).

There are definitely other games like this, where mechanics alone won’t make a game worth playing, but that when you add certain elements to, suddenly it’s much more attractive.

Any other suggestions on what might be included in this one?

Let me know in the comments.