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Board Games 101: What is an Engine Builder game? - YouTube
Channel: Nights Around a Table
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H!
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It's Professor Ryan from Nights
Around a Table.
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What is an engine builder?
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Today on (singing) Board Games 101!!
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So engine building games.
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i
think i can demonstrate the concept
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pretty simply.
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i've got a fake game here
that is about cards.
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Now, an engine
builder is a game that has components to
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it, so they can be cards, they could be
tiles, or tokens - it really doesn't matter
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-
maybe even dice?
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But the idea is that
each little component has a piece of
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functionality.
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So in our fakie game, the
rule is you get to play one card, and
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activate one card on your turn.
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These are
not necessarily the cards i'll get in
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this order, but check this out: i'm gonna
play the first card, and it says "Score
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1 point."
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So, i played a card.
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Now i'm
gonna activate a card... boom! i get a point.
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Okay, fine.
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Not that exciting.
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But check
this out: on the next turn, i'm gonna play
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this other card, which lets me score 2
points.
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Now i get to activate a card, so
between the two of them, i'm obviously
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gonna choose the 2 point card over the
1 point card.
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Boom - i activate it, and i
get my 2 points.
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Now, it's a little bit
of a shame that this 1 point card sort
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of went to waste.
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However, later on, i'm
going to play a card on my turn that
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says "score 1 point and activate
another card."
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Well, this is cool!
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So i'm...
i'm getting better and better.
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So i'm
going to activate this, and get my one
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point, and then i get to activate another
card, so i'm gonna go for the two-point
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card.
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So great!
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So now i went from one
point in a turn, to getting two points
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in a turn... now i'm getting three points
in a
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turn.
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Then, of course, on a later turn, i'm
going to play a card that looks like
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this... "score 1 point and activate 2
other cards."
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Now check out this
daisy-chain combo reaction: so i'm gonna
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activate that, and i get 1 point, and
that lets me activate two other cards.
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So
the two other cards are going to be this
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one - score 1 point and activate another
card - which lets me activate this one, and
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this one still has one left over, so boom!
i'm gonna activate that one!
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And i'm
gonna get - what is it? - one, two, three,
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four,
five points on a turn!
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So i've just
demonstrated sort of how an engine
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builder works: you get little pieces, and
you use those pieces to build a machine
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that hopefully generates points for you
as the game goes on, and more and more
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points, so you're building a better and
better contraption, or machine, or
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whatever the theme happens to be, in the
game.
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Pretty neat!
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Now it's a pretty broad
generalization of a mechanic.
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It's a
little bit hard to pin down, but there
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are tons of different games that you can
try that are in that engine builder
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umbrella.
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One of the favourites of the channel is
called Race for the Galaxy, but i don't
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highly recommend it to people who are
brand-new to board games.
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It gets a
little bit hairy and a little bit
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difficult to suss out what all the
different icons mean.
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If you want more of
a gentle introduction to this sort of
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concept, you could try out something like
Splendor, or the marginally better (in my
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opinion) Century: Spice Road.
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There are two
versions of that.
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There's one with boring
graphics, and there's ones with cool
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giant golems on it.
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Perhaps interestingly,
the very first one that i think i ever
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tried - and again, it's debatable whether
it's gonna be called an engine builder or
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not - was called This Game is Bonkers,
which was an old roll-and-move game from
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the 70s, where the idea was to lay down
tiles that changed the board, that made
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you go back two spaces, go forward X
number of spaces, collect this many points.
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And the whole idea was you were trying
to rig the board and get your pawn
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trapped in this endless loop of
generating points.
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So i would call that
an engine builder.
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i think it fits.
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Now, i
think one of the key parameters, or key
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design choices, a designer makes when they
build an engine building game, is to end
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the game while people are still having
fun, if that makes sense?
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So in a lot of
these games, you get your whole machine
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up and running, your whole engine's going,
and it's ready to generate points for
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you, aaand that's the last round and it's
over.
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But like my friend Doc says - you
know - people complain about that
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sometimes, but it's really no fun if the
game lets you run your engine for a few
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turns, because what's the point of that?
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The point of it was building.
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i mean,
anybody can just - you know - crank out
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points after points after points.
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The... the
challenge is just getting there in just
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enough time to maybe squeeze some points
out of it, and get your fun out of it, and
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then the game ends.
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But if you're just
round after around - you know - printing
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money or whatever it is the entire
time, it's not gonna be quite as
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enjoyable.
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But that's a taste thing.
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So for
those of you who are TAs and are
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auditing my course or helping out, what
do you think?
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What is your favourite
engine building game?
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There's so many to
choose from,
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but i'd like to hear from you in the
comments below.
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Let me know.
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If you'd like
to discuss this with me in person, my
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office hours are... always... pm
the Discord channel, so just follow that
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link and you can jump in and we can chat
about it.
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And in the meantime, for those
of you suggesting i am NOT a real
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professor, i don't know what you're
talking about.
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i have a beard.
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i have a
corduroy jacket, and look: i'm even
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wearing glasses.
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So basically what else
do you need?
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Thanks for watching!
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Class dismissed.
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Nights Around a Table is the only
place where you can earn your pH B in
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board games!
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(*Nights Around a Table is not
an accredited educational institution) GAH!
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To see a full course syllabus, visit
nightsaroundatable.com.
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To fund an
endowment, visit me at my Patreon page.
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And as usual, click the Subscribe button
and the bell to get notifications when
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new course materials are available.
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What
did i get my undergraduate degree in?
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Hey -
we're out of time.
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