Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #248 - 10 Things Every Game Needs: Strategy

Episode Date: July 31, 2015

Mark continues with part 7 in his series on 10-things every game needs.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, today is another in my series, 10 Things Every Game Needs. Okay, so I've talked about needing a goal or goals, about needing rules, about needing interaction, about needing a catch-up feature, about needing inertia, about needing surprise. Well, today we get to strategy. So number seven in our 10 things every game needs. Okay, so strategy does a whole bunch of different things, but it has one major purpose. So the major purpose of strategy is when you make a game, one of the goals of your game is to want people to play it many times. And so one of the major roles of strategy is that you want

players to have a compelling reason to want to play again and again. You want your games to have a continuity throughout the game. What I'll refer to as a narrative. You want a player narrative. And what that means is the player wants a relationship with the game where they can see growth over time. Okay, this is very important. That when you play a game, you individually, there is a relationship between the player and the game.

And it's very important that you, the game player, allow the player to create this narrative. And what the narrative needs to be is, I've interacted, the game player, allow the player to create this narrative. And what the narrative needs to be is, I've interacted with the game, and through the interaction, there is change that happens. There's a couple different ways to do change, but the most common way to do change stems from the player themselves. That the player's like, I played this game and I have gotten better as we've progressed. So, the best way to think of it is when you are playing a game,

you know, when you think of I'm going to use Tic-Tac-Toe as an example, only because Tic-Tac-Toe is a game in which there's a beginning, a middle, and an end. Obviously, it is not the most strategic of games, but it has some strategy.

So, when you play tic-tac-toe for the very first time, at the beginning, it's just like, ooh, what happens? Oh, I play things, they play things? Does someone win, does someone not win? And little by little, you start to realize that where you place things starts dictating where other people will place things.

Like, when you first start playing tic-tac-toe, the idea that I put an X somewhere and you put an O somewhere, okay, what's going to happen next? And then at some point, you're like, oh, if I put my X here, they have to put their O there or they will lose the game. And if I know their O is going to go there, you know, you can start piecing it together. Now, tic-tac-toe, the reason I chose that as an example is it has a limited amount of strategy. There comes a point where you learn enough

that you realize that you can never lose. I don't know if most of you have hopefully reached that point. There comes a point in Tic Tac Toe where you're like, oh, well, I understand these steps. If I take these steps and I follow them, well, there's no way for me to lose. Because, I mean, I can't win. In fact, it's the most frustrating game in the sense of once you understand the rules enough, neither player can win.

It will always end in a tie if both players understand what they're doing. But the interesting thing is that there's a narrative that you go through with tic-tac-toe where you start and it's fun and exciting. You don't know what's going on. And little by little, you start to learn things. And as you start to learn things, you want to keep playing, because you're like, oh, I've learned from this. So in general, one of the things that strategy does is

it enables the player to level up. So let's talk about that real quickly. A very common thing that goes on in games is, in fact, this is so important, this concept is built into many games, especially video games, the idea of leveling up. And what that means is that over time, there is strength that happens, that you get better over time. Now, in games, a lot of leveling up is literally you, the character, gain abilities, gain resources, you know, you are getting things

you didn't have before. But external to that, there is a skill level up. That when you play the game, as you understand the game better, you are more capable of playing the game. And it's very, very important. Players, there is a lot of satisfaction that comes out of people feeling like they've improved. In fact, it's a basic human emotion, that the idea that I have gotten better, that there's some sort of inherent skill. So one of the things I talk about, when I talk about the psychographics, when I talk

about Timmy, Tammy, Johnny, Jenny, Spike, what I'm talking about is that there's just basic needs, you know, that Timmy and Tammy want to experience something. But you know what? All humans want to experience something. But you know what? All humans want to experience things. Everybody has their Timmy and Tammy moment. Everybody. That goes, oh, that was fun. That was awesome. That was exciting. I want to do that again. You know, and everybody has their Johnny slash Jenny moment where they just, they want to express something and they go, look what I did. Look what, that was me. I made this. This represents who I am.

Everybody has those moments. And, important for this, everyone has their spike moments, which is, oh my god, I did that. I figured it out. I solved it. I won that game because I won the game. I was better than the other

player. I was, you know, triumphant and that there's a spike of moment that strategy enables which is really important in that people want to feel good about themselves in fact, the reason people do things is because it allows them

I mean, not the only reason but one of the reasons it allows them to feel good about themselves one of the reasons people play games is it is fun, not just to win, but to win because you know that things you did dictated the winning. So, for example, when kids start playing, the earliest, I'll put games in quotes, but the earliest games that the kids start playing is things like Candyland,

where there literally is no decisions when we talk about, you know, is Candyland the game or not? There's no decisions. You never decide anything. I guess you could take the shortcut, but you should always take the shortcut, so it's not even a decision. But my point is, it's just random events happening, but kids get excited by the random events. You know, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, a lot of kids' games, they're not deciding anything, but it's exciting to see what will happen, okay?

But as you get a little older, you want to feel as if you have input. games, they're not deciding anything, but it's exciting to see what will happen, okay? But as you get a little older, you want to feel as if you have input, if you have agency in the thing you are doing, you know? And the reason people do things, not just games, is you want to watch yourself improve with time. You know, the reason you take lessons, whatever it is, is you want to see yourself having experience growth, of being able to see you want to see yourself having experience growth, of being able to do things you didn't do before. You know, the reason learning things

is cool is you're like, I wasn't able to do this before and now I am. So what strategy does for games is build that into game that if you make your game such that there are things to learn and there are things to do it adds a depth to your game which allows just longer gameplay time. I mean,

for example, in each of these ten things you need, one of the things I said is, ten things every game needs is sort of a primer for beginners on some level. There are games that don't have any, each of the ten I'm naming, there's games that don't have it. But a game that doesn't have strategy, really, there's a limited amount of time you're going to play the game now there are other reasons to play games a lot of playing games is not just about about your own growth

it's not just necessarily about you getting better there are games that don't have tons of strategy to them now most games have some strategy to them assuming there's any decisions possible and I would argue games by definition have some strategy to them. There's, I mean, assuming there's any decisions possible, and I would argue games, by definition, have some decisions.

Okay, you can make better or worse decisions and you can learn how to maximize those decisions. Now, some of the decisions you have to make are, you know, more layered

and more, give you more choices than others. You know, a game like Magic, there are a lot of decisions to make. A lot of decisions to make. So there's a lot of room for strategy

because there's so many different things you're doing and so many different ways and different decisions and different things you can make, there's lots of room for strategy. But if you take strategy out of a game, then it's about the experience of playing the game. It stops having the linking

between the games other than maybe experiential stuff in between. Now, there are games that just, they're fun experiences you have, and you might remember a previous experience and bond socially, for example, with your friends. And that's one of the reasons to play some games is, you know, they're just exciting and fun,

and they're not strategic, but they're fun, you know. Okay, but so that's the number one. The number one reason that you want to have strategy in your game is you want to create this narrative for players to be able to have growth over time. Because one of the things that... Okay, another thing that strategy does is

it enables variety in the gameplay. And what I mean by that is if your game is structured so there's lots of different points of strategy, one of the things that happens is you create a growth for your player to go through, that there's things that they get to learn. So one of the neat things is,

so, for example, I'll take chess as my example now. Okay, so chess is, the first thing you're learning when you play chess is just how the game functions. How do the pieces move? What is the goal of the game? So early on, early, early chess is really about just functionality

of how things work. And then, eventually, you learn the lowest levels of strategy, which is, well, here's the general rules of pieces. One of the things you do in chess is they assign value to the pieces. So the idea is, well, as a default, this piece is more

valuable than that piece. So if you have a decision between losing piece, you know, between losing your queen and losing your knight, oh, well, it's much better to lose your knight than your queen. The queen's a more powerful piece. And, as you start learning more and more about chess, some of the default,

like, a lot of the early defaults that are there as sort of a template to help you slowly get taken away. There's a point where you realize that, well, in general, certain pieces are more valuable than others. But once you understand game state, once you understand where things are, you start to realize that in a certain situation, yes, on average, it's better always, you know, save the queen and lose the knight. But there might be circumstances, I mean, okay, I picked an odd one there, but there are definitely circumstances where, you know, the value between a rook and a knight will change or something. There's a little closer in value. And then as you get better, you start to get to the point where you start, like, looking at opening moves. You start studying, start studying general strategies.

Okay, there's people who have played this game for a long time who have studied it, and you start to study the masters. You start to study the people like, okay, I want to sort of get into the groupthink of understanding the people who have mastered this game, what have they learned about it? And there's just layers and layers and layers. There's an onion you're constantly peeling. And so one of the neat things

about that is, when you play, you're just looking at different things. Like, one of the things that's very interesting is, a beginner playing a game

and an advanced player playing a game, on some level, might be playing very different games. So, I use magic again. This is a fine example here,

which is, when a beginner plays magic, they are focused on the turn they are playing. It plays Magic, they are focused on the turn they are playing. It's like, okay, it's my turn. What can I do? What am I capable of doing? How much land do I have? What spells in my hand am I capable of playing? They don't think beyond that. Now, an advanced player is thinking many, many turns ahead. It's like, I, you know, what's my route to victory?

What do I need to do? What do I know my opponent can do to stop me? You know, one of the things to understand is, you know, and for advanced player is picking up on what the matchup is between the two decks, what the threats are, and what answers you have for the threats that you need to say for those specific threats. They're going to have card X. I have answer in card Y. I don't want to waste card Y on another answer because it's the only answer I have to X, which is a problem for me. And then, as you get even better than that,

you start to realize the importance of reading your opponent, of looking at what they do and how they act to understand in the moment if they have things. Oh, he hesitated before he tapped that land. That probably means he has this particular spell. I need to play around it. And I only know that information because of watching subtly about what my opponent is doing. And the thing is, so one of the things that's neat is two beginners playing a game of magic versus two intermediate players playing a game of Magic versus two pros playing Magic. I mean, at the core, it's the same game, but it's very different.

So that's something else that strategy does, is it allows sort of your players to upgrade and the game to upgrade with the players. And one of the things that's neat is strategy does a really good job of hiding complexity. So this is important. Let me explain this one, which is there are different kinds of complexity built within a game. So one of the things I talk about

is like a comprehension complexity, which is do you understand what things do? How do things work? You know, like I was saying with the pieces and chess, it's like, okay, how does a knight move? How does a rook move? How does a pawn move? You know, and I was saying with the pieces and chess, it's like, okay, how does a knight move? How does a rook move? How does a pawn move? You know, and that you need to, early on, it's just like, do I understand how the components work?

Okay. Then there is, in magic we call it board complexity, but sort of an interactive complexity, which is, okay, first is understanding how the individual components work. Next is understanding how do the components click together. You know, how can, oh, if I have this piece and this piece, I can put my opponent into check because, you know, I can thread him in such and such a way. You know, and that the pieces start to work together,

that, oh, it's not just that one piece is threading him, I have multiple pieces that can thread him. You know, if he moves here just that one piece is threatening him, I have multiple pieces that can threaten him. You know, if he moves here, then this piece can capture him. So he has to take that into account. Finally, there's strategic complexity, which is a step beyond board complexity. Board complexity is understanding how components work together.

Strategic complexity is understanding larger values of what things mean. Chess is a little quirky because board complexity and strategic complexity are a lot closer. So let me describe a different game. Backgammon, for example. So Backgammon is a game where board complexity is understanding what's on the board and what can happen on the board. So knowing if I have a singleton that can be captured, knowing what threats are out there. Strategic complexity is understanding what I can roll and what possibilities are

so I can dictate how I want to move things. A lot of times, for example, when you're making moves in backgammon, you are thinking about what the potential things that can happen are and there's a lot of odds that go into backgammon. Like, it's more likely I'm rolling X and Y. Okay, well, let me set up so that I have the greater chance of things that are going to happen that I can make use of them.

Or sometimes it's merely figuring out what can happen and what is the greatest chance to happen for the less chance to happen. chance to happen for the less chance to happen. Anyway, the key here is strategic complexity is something that beginners tend not to see because until you understand, you know, strategies come in layers. Until you understand the layer of strategy where it matters, you don't even know to look for it. And so this is another thing that strategy can do for you, is it allows replayability, but that it can hide itself. It does

a good job of a lot of it being invisible to players until they are able to see it. In fact, the best complexity, well, the best strategy is ones in which it's carefully crafted in the game that it slowly unravels itself as players learn more about the game.

A good strategic game is a game that, as you learn something new, there's a new level of strategy, there's a new layer of strategy, and that you keep getting to unravel new layers of strategy. As I explained with Magic, Magic's really good at that, that there's a lot going on, and as you learn things in Magic, you pick up, oh, I need to start thinking about this one aspect. Once that door opens and that one aspect you're aware of, now there's all this strategy that comes with understanding that aspect of the game.

And if you look at real strategic games, that's a big part of it, is that there's lots of different compartmentalized pieces. And players, beginners, the idea is they will uncover piece by piece new strategies. And that strategy can be peeled over time. A lot of what's neat is you can compact a lot of strategy in the game because until somebody

understands that element of it, they're not going to see it. Okay. The other thing that strategy does for you is it makes playing the game have a tangible outcome. So I talk a lot about, when I talk about writing, one of the things I say that's very important in writing is the idea of a tangible takeaway. That when I write something, I want my reader to go,

oh, I've learned something from reading this that I get to take away, and now my life is improved because I have interacted with this writing. That very good writing has this takeaway moment. Games is the same way. You want your game to have takeaway moments. You want your game, you want the player to play a game and go, wow, I as a person have walked away from this game with something I didn't have when I sat down at the table.

And that one of the things that strategy does for you is it turns time playing into a resource. It makes it have value. I didn't waste my time playing this game. By playing this game, I have learned something. And that thing I have learned has value for me. Now, some strategies, I mean, different strategies have different values, real world, of course. But you want to feel, it's an important basic human thing to feel like whenever you level up, whenever you've learned something new, you feel good about yourself.

You're like, okay, I'm better. And it's not just knowledge. A lot of games is knowledge. But like, you know, if you go to a lesson and you learn something and now you do something you can't do before, or you practice and you get something, you figure something out that you haven't done before, that there's a sense of added value that you, humans really want to feel like the things they do matter to their life. Now, not everything does. There are things that are sort of throwaway.

But things where you get some substance out of them just makes you feel, it makes you justify the time spent. So another thing the strategy does is it helps justify the time. It's like, I've got to play a game. Well, I spent half an hour playing that game. Was that a good investment of my half an hour? Well, games allow you to say, yes, I learned

something. I am smarter. I am more clever. I have a better understanding, you know, that I walk away from a game feeling like it was, I'm not sure if educational is the correct word, but I took something from it. And maybe educational is the right word. That people put value when they can look at the activities that they participate in and feel that there's a tangibility to that activity. Strategy does a really good thing of helping make time played in the game have meaning. And that is very important. Okay, next. Strategy allows a game to adapt to a player.

And here's what I mean by that is when you make your game, you want your player to find some niche that speaks to them. The way you get someone to play your game again and again and again is that they're able to take the game and have some personal connection to the game. There's something about the game that they feel bonded to. Now, strategy is not the only way to do that. When we get to flavor, flavor is a big way, for example, to do that. There's other components that do that. But strategy does do it in a very interesting way, and I want to talk about that, which

is one of the things that happens is, most games are more complex than the individual. Most people walk in a game and go, wow, there's a lot going on here. I can't master everything. I'm going to master one thing. So the best example in Magic, in a draft, and I do this for example. So, Skars and Mirrodin, I mean, so, Skars and Mirrodin introduced the poison mechanic,

for those that don't know. The poison mechanic is whenever you do, you have to give poison to your opponent. Whenever you give 10 poison counters, you win the game no matter what. No matter what. Doesn't matter. They give them the 10th poison, they lose.

Now, I am a big fan of poison. Skars and Mirrodin was the big return after 14 years of poison. And the idea is, there's a lot going on in Scars of Draft. So I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get really, really good at drafting poison. I'm not going to get good at drafting everything. In fact, this is a general strategy a lot of people have in drafting is they know they can't get good at drafting everything.

So they pick one thing, one archetype, and they go, you know what? I'm going to force this archetype. I'm going to get really good at this archetype, and they go, you know what? I'm going to force this archetype. I'm going to get really good at this archetype. And what it does is, by doing that, is it allows you to invest and adapt the game to say, like for example, when I played Scars of Mirrodin, I was playing

Poison. That's what I was doing. I mean, like I said, it's a classic story. I'll tell the story just because it's funny. I think I've done this in my article, but I've never told it in my podcast. So we're drafting Scars of Mirrodin. So Eric Lauer is sitting to my right, meaning he's passing to me in the first and third pack, because he passed to the left. At the end of the draft, he looks at me, he looks at my deck,

and I'm black-green because black-green was the poison colors. And Eric's like, were you not paying attention? I was in those colors. What are you doing? Were you not paying attention? I was in those colors. What are you doing? Were you not paying attention? I was trying to draft that. You were to the left of me.

You should have figured out that's what I was doing and gotten out of those colors. And I said, Eric, this is the sixth draft you've done with me. I've drafted poison every turn. Have you not been paying attention? I draft poison. That's what I do. You know, to the left, you just write to me. Be aware that's what I was doing., to the left, she just write to me, be aware, that's what I was doing

and one of the things is for me, that draft became the poison set, that's how I identified it, and I got really good at drafting poison, because I would dedicate myself, I understood not just what cards in poison were good, but what the supporting cards were, what colors I could and couldn't

go into to be in poison, it changed as the draft went along, you know, that I gave myself an identity in which the game now had, I was allowed to, I sort of, from the game, crafted from it an identity that represented to me. And part of that was, it allowed me to focus on a singular strategy and get good at that strategy. And that's one of the things that strategy does is, it allows players to sort of personify the game by picking the strategy that means something to them, and then it gives them an identification. So I'll stress this again, which is

players like to identify. So earlier I talked about the spike moment of how it's very important that you can demonstrate, you can do good at something. Well, there's also the Johnny Jenny moment where you can, hey, I'm saying something about myself. This is who I am. This is the kind of thing that I get attached to. And people go, hey, he's the blah guy.

It gives me an identity. That's important. People like having identity. People like being able to associate with something. And strategy is one of the tools that you can do to do that. Like I said, it's not the only tool. It's one of the tools. But it's a very valuable tool. And it also gives a focus. Like, one of the things that's important is when someone's playing your game, you want them to feel like they're putting their time and energy towards something. So

having a sort of strategic depth allows players to sort of pick a facet and focus in on that facet. And then, you know, it allows them to sort of shine in one area, and then they can get better. Because sometimes, if there's a lot going on, they can focus on that one thing. Okay. Next thing strategy

does is it really makes your game play differently. And let me explain what I mean by that, which is that the first time I play a game, like, I don't necessarily, you know, I'm just experimenting. I'm exploring, you know. And strategy A encourages the exploring.

I'm trying to figure out the different components to the game. Like, one of the things in general is I keep talking about how each of these ten qualities make the other qualities matter more. So, for example, the goal and the rules, strategy really makes you care about the goal and the rules.

Because if you want to get better, you really, really, I mean, study both in the goals and what are all the goals, and how are the different ways to approach it, and the rules, to really understand what the rules can do. Because if you want to exceed

and you want to get better, you need to understand all the components of how you win. And then what happens is, as you play, because you're going to map out different components as you play, the way strategy works is you can't pay attention to everything in any one moment. So what happens in game playing is you tend to focus on different aspects. Okay, this game, I'm going to focus on this element of the game. I'm going to focus on this component.

And I'm really going to go hard on this component. And the next time, I might focus on a different component. Like, one of the things that can make a game real fun is, and makes the game play

real differently, which is my point, is if your game has a lot of strategic depth, it allows your players to have a lot of exploration. I'm just using Magic Draft because I used that before, which is, you know, if your game has a lot of strategic depth, it allows your players to have a lot of different exploration. I'm just using magic drafts because I used that before, which is, you know, one of the things we try to do is make sure that you can draft a magic set many, many times. And the way to do that is give you a lot of different strategies you can explore.

Like, we particularly will build archetypes out of decks, meaning we will say, okay, if you're playing these two colors, this is the kind of strategy you can do. And we'll map out, you know out ten different strategies that you can do. So the idea is you can focus on one strategy and get good at it, but then you can focus on another strategy and get good at that. And as you play different times, the reason you can play the game again and again is there's lots of different strategic pockets to explore. And that's something Magic very specifically does because we want to make sure when you play

that once you've tapped out one area, you have other areas to explore that there's lots of just general game time. That strategy not only doesn't make you want to replay the game, but also just adds on the amount of hours in which it's interesting for you. Okay.

The next thing it does is it also, because any one player is going to focus on different things, it makes the game different for the other players. So, for example, if my opponent is focusing on one facet and I'm just responding to them, where they focus will dictate and make a different game for me. So it adds variety not just for the person playing, but for

everybody around them. Because as they pick positions, it changes what's going on. Okay, last time I played a game, I played against a person who was doing this particular thing. But now this other person's doing something different. I have to react completely differently. Like, in Magic, for example, I have a deck. My deck doesn't change. But if I play somebody playing one style of deck

versus playing a different style of deck, what I'm doing changes radically. Certain spells in my deck might go from being really important to being insignificant, depending on who I'm playing. And so having my opponent have different strategies to explore means me getting to react changes the variety of play that I have. So it both makes the game different for you as you explore and makes it different for you as you react.

So it has lots of variety in a lot of different ways. Game design, building and strategy gives you a lot of future design space. That's another really important thing, which is one of the reasons that Magic can make expansion after expansion after expansion is it's a deep game with lots of strategic abilities to explore. So we can take a whole set. We can say, hmm, artifacts are interesting. We'll do a whole block about artifacts.

You know, land's interesting. We do a block focused on land. Enchantments, you know, we can take any component of the game and look at it. We can take different mechanical aspects and we can go, wow, we've never really explored this before, but now we can. And what happens when this thing matters? Like, one of the things that Magic does really well is that a different set, a different thing will matter, and that different thing mattering will just create a whole new set of gameplay.

So another thing that strategy does for you is it really opens up future design space. Now, it depends on what kind of game you're making. Magic, we're making a game with a repeatable sales model, meaning it's evolving, keeps changing, and we keep selling more things to it. Well, for our game, it's super important we have future design space. Some games might be one and done,

and you're never making an add-on or an extra component to it. I mean, you still need strategy for other reasons, but the future design space is less important. But having it does leave it open for you. And the key is, any game that's successful enough, there is some at least desire to maybe want to make for that game. Okay, so the other thing that strategy does,

strategy does lots of things, is strategy does a very good job of allowing a sense of mastery. I talked about this earlier, about how it makes you feel. But it also allows the game itself to have component pieces to it, to have different aspects. And sometimes that skill can be hidden, and sometimes you can bring it up and make it a component of the game. So one of the things that strategy can do for you is, today a lot of them are talking about what's hidden underneath, but it also can come to the surface.

It can give your game structure. You can say, like, part of sometimes, of some games is, part of playing this game is mastering these different things. Like, video games do this all the time, where it, like, part of sometimes, in some games is, part of playing this game is mastering these different things. Like, video games do this all the time, where it's like, okay, you know, there's badges, whatever you get. Or maybe even there's different adventures you do with different weapons, or whatever. But the idea is that you can structure your game through walking through different strategies. That that can become a guideline for what you're doing, a guideline for the game itself, that it's not just a component to make people want to play on a subtle level.

It might be blatantly like, in order to advance to the next level, you must do thing X, and it can be a framework. So strategy, like I said, strategy on some level can be this invisible thing that slowly adds layers to the game. And it can also be used as a very blunt framework to connect how your player is doing the thing they're doing. Okay. Next. I talked a lot about how creating a sense of mastery can make people feel good about themselves.

I want to connect with a little bit about how also it just can make things fun. Fun's coming up. Fun's one of the 10 things. As we get into the fun podcast, fun is a fuzzy thing, and fun can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people.

But one of the things that strategy does is that there is the sense, and this plays a lot into the spike psychographic, but the idea of achieving something, of wanting it, of figuring out how to do it, and then doing it, and then achieving it, is very powerful. That is a very powerful, compelling sequence of events. And I would argue, like I said, I've talked before about my trip to the GDC and Aaron Hoffman

and how there's a big belief that fun has to do with overcoming adversity of having a state that you're unhappy with, using a mastery loop, figuring out how to use it, and then getting yourself

from that state to a state in which you're happy. And a lot of her arguments, that is what fun is. Well, strategy lets you do that. According to Aaron Hoffman, the mastery loop, the thing that gets you from the thing you do not want to the thing you do want is a mastery loop. And a mastery loop ties to strategy. It means I need to identify my problem, figure out the solutions to my problem, figure out

how to use the solutions, use the solutions, and get myself extricated from the problem. So I would argue that strategy is a very clean component or very important component for a lot of fun for players. That the act of a lot of fun is through the act of figuring out the strategy. That's very important. That strategy will make games more fun. That if you have strategy. Now, once. That's very important. That strategy will make games more fun. That if you have strategy... Now, once again, it's important... One of the things to remember about your strategy is

you want to make sure that there are tools within your game to help the player understand things and get better at them. Meaning, strategy should not be in a vacuum. Strategy needs to be layered in so there are tools to help the player. Now, some games, the strategy is built into the game. Some, it's external.

The act of playing chess doesn't tell you tons about chess. I mean, you'll get better through playing. A lot of chess comes from external, you know, reading books and things about chess. But most games aren't chess. You know, most games, you want the strategy kind of built into the game. But, and here's another thing, strategy also builds community. Because once there is strategy strategy you have a joined thing to talk about

in fact if you look at most articles written about magic the majority of articles about magic are about strategy is here's how to get better here's how this deck can play here's how you play this deck here's how you play against this deck here are cards that are good

here are combos that are good. Here are combos that are good. You know, that strategy creates a community and creates content. And content is key to making a community. One of these days I will do a podcast all about community. It's a very important aspect of games. But strategy allows a lot of content, produces a lot of content, and through that content, there's a shared thing that helps build community.

So strategy builds content and builds community. And both of those are really crucial things for a game, especially the bigger the game is, the more this is important. But like I said, the shared experience is very, very important, and that one of the things that's neatest is

when you sit down with someone that plays the game you played one of the funnest things to do is to sort of even when you're playing with somebody

or in fact when you finish playing there's a great moment one of the ways you can tell that you've done something well with the game

is after the players finish the game they spend some time analyzing the game itself meaning that the game is over and then they opt in to look and think about what happened in the game. Meaning there's a post game. And that's a really important idea that your game is compelling enough that your players, when the game is over, want to go back and look at the game and understand what they learned from the game.

And that is strategy. That's a lot of what strategy does, is it gives context to the game to allow you after the game to figure out what happened. And that context, that post-game, that analysis, builds community, creates content, and allows you to bond with other players. It allows you to have intrapersonal connections through the game itself.

Also, another thing to remember is that I talk a lot about winning and what winning does. Winning is great. Winning is fun. Losing is also very important. So let me talk a second about losing. But strategy also allows people to lose. One of the things about losing is, I talk about this in my Mistakes podcast,

about how mistakes are great teachers because losing is a great educator. Winning teaches you, do the thing you've done before. Winning is like, this is what made you win, do that thing again. And you can learn strategies from winning.

I'm not saying you can't learn from winning. But losing, there's even more motivation in losing. Because you're like, that, I did not have fun losing. I do not want to do that again. What do I need to do to not lose in the future? You know, what caused me to lose? You know, when you win, you analyze it a little bit less than when you win. I'm sorry, than when you lose.

When you lose, you are forced into analysis. You're like, that's not the outcome I wanted. I need to figure out what I need to do to make sure that outcome doesn't happen. And strategy allows that learning opportunity. And once again, it is not bad for your players to lose. In fact, if there's one winner in your game, and not all games have one winner, but if there's one winner in your game, most of your audience is going to lose. So that's another important thing is make sure losing is fun.

Because if losing isn't fun, then your players are eventually going to get frustrated. And remember, the majority of your players lose. Now, strategy is a big part of why losing can be fun. Because if you walk away going, oh, I learned something. I lost, but I learned something. Which means next time, I can apply what

I've learned. And that's a big thing that strategy does for your game is when somebody loses, someone wins your game, they have this euphoria. They're like, I won the game, yay! They probably want to play again because there's this strong emotional connection. Like, I played the game, you know, and I got my little reward. Well, ooh, that was fun.

You know, rewards will get you to come back. So winning the game encourages people to play again because it was fun winning the game. But losing, and that's important. Remember, the majority of the time your game player will lose, and you want them to come back even when they lose, right? I mean, when they win, you want them to come back, but winning is pretty good. Winning gives you a little euphoria. Euphoria will bring you back.

You have an emotional high that tends to encourage people to do something again. How do you bring back your players when they lose? The majority of players lose, And the answer is strategy. Because if they lose, but they feel they learned something, then they feel compelled to come back because they're like, oh, well, I lost, but I figured out why. I think I know why I lost.

So next time, I won't do that same thing again, and I won't lose. Next time, I'll win. And that is a very, very important thing that strategy does is it makes losing have value and drives your player to want to play the game again. And once again, I talked about this in the original 10 things. When your game is over,

you want your game player to want to play your game again. If the game ends and your game player doesn't want to play your game again, you are in deep, deep trouble. The only way they will play that game again is external circumstances, meaning friends or other people that kind of force them there. But up to their own,

if they end the game and they weren't happy about the game and didn't enjoy the game, I'd say they're not going to play the game again. I mean, they might. I mean, there are people who want to learn something, who understand that they have bad experiences. And I'm not saying a bad experience will forever doom you, but it's not good.

And you want the player walking away with a feeling of, I want to play that game again. And like I said, winning is easy. There's a euphoria with winning. Usually they'll want to play the game. But losing, losing, losing, losing, where strategy comes in. One of the most valuable things for strategy is it makes losing the game not a walk-away experience. And that, like I said, if you're a game designer, you don't want your players when the majority have to lose

and I'm talking more face-to-face games and video games is a little different because it's an individual thing. But if the majority of your players are going to lose, you've got to make sure the act of losing is something that compels them to want to play again. Okay. So I'm almost to work. So let me recap. lose, you've got to make sure the act of losing is something that compels them to want to play again. Okay, whew!

So I'm almost to work, so let me recap. I had a lot to say today, it looked like we had some traffic. Okay, so once again, let me recap here. Why do you want strategy in your game? It creates replayability. It allows your players to play the game many, many times and have it be fun. It gives your game depth. It allows you to explore play the game many, many times and have it be fun. It gives your game depth. It allows you to explore and look at different things.

It gives your game a narrative. It gives your player a narrative that the player gets to think of themselves as leveling up over time. It turns the time playing into a resource as players walk away having learned something and feel that there's education through the time. It allows your game to adapt to the player so as the player learns, the game becomes a different game. It makes it play differently so that each game is

not the same thing. It makes sure a player focuses. They focus on the goal and the rules. It makes them want to pay attention and in turn helps them get a better understanding of what the game is so that they're playing correctly. It allows your game

to adapt to players over time. It creates future design space so you have more space to build into it. It allows your player to master skills and to feel about themselves in a way that is a positive experience. It allows you to create

content. It allows you to build community. It allows you to create content. It allows you to build community. It allows you to have players bond between each other. It creates the post-game experience I was talking about where it allows your players to create a larger context to your game. It makes your players feel good about themselves because winning is fun. And winning when you had a hand in what you're doing

is extra fun. It definitely creates a sense of fun. It, you know, it compels the players. I didn't even talk about this. It compels, it can create inertia. If your game is built correctly, the strategy, as the players are trying to figure out how to win, can help compel the game to the conclusion if the strategy is built correctly. tell the game to the conclusion if the strategy is built correctly.

And, finally, it makes losing a positive experience that draws the player to want to play again. That's a lot of things. Strategy does a ton, ton, ton of things. Now, the funny thing is, of all the things

I have to tell you to put in your game, strategy is usually not the thing that, like, I don't play a lot of games where I go, wow, there was no strategy in that game. Game designers like putting strategy in. Interestingly, it's not, of the things I will list, you know, game players will often not put inertia in.

There's a lot of things that beginning game designers will not do. Usually there's some strategy put in, because I think the average person gets kind of the fun of gaining a strategy. My goal today is not really to say put strategy in, because I think most people will put strategy in, but to understand why your strategy is there and what your strategy is doing.

Because strategy used correctly is a very, very potent tool. And I wanted to make sure you understood today the different ways that it had value. Whew! Okay. So, yes, I had a little traffic today I don't have to say that

a convenient traffic day but anyway I'm in my parking space so we all know what that means it means it's the end of my drive to work instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic see you guys next time