Episode 137 AP Table Talk: Mega Topic: End Game

AP Table Talk: Mega Topic: End Game

Episode Summary

In this special End Game Mega Episode of AP Table Talk, hosts Brian and Dave Eng break down six key mechanics that define how board games conclude. They explore Elapsed Real-Time Ending, where a timer dictates the game's duration; Sudden Death Ending, where a triggering event abruptly ends play; and Finale Ending, where a mini game determines the winner. They also cover End Game Bonuses, where players earn additional points based on specific conditions, Hidden Victory Points, where scores remain secret until the end, and Highest-Lowest Scoring, where a player’s lowest category determines their final score.

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 I'm here with my co-host, Dave Eng. Changing up the tone here from our normal intro, we have a more serious announcement. This episode is the end…. the End Game mega episode!

Dave Eng:

That's the twist, Brian. Because we're covering those six different mechanics this episode, all about the end game or generally how the game is played.

Brian Eng:                                                            

This is our second mega episode, right?

Dave Eng:

Mm-hmm, and it has a lot of stuff in it, a lot.

Brian Eng:

You want to just run through the six sub mechanics we're going over?

Dave Eng:

Yeah. For this episode, Brian and I decided to group all six of these mechanics together because we thought that they were worth talking about since there's a lot of overlap between games and just a lot of thematic considerations. For this mega topic episode, we're going to cover the following six board game mechanics, number one is Elapsed Real Time Ending, number two is Sudden Death Ending, number three is Finale Ending, and then we're going to talk about-

Brian Eng:

Sorry, just to interrupt in there, even grouping them a little more, I grouped those first three into another subgroup that I'm just calling end game timing mechanics because they all have to do with how the end game closes.

Dave Eng:

Right. And then the last three-

Brian Eng:

And then the next three I grouped into end game scoring because they have to do a scoring, and you can go over those three.

Dave Eng:

And then for end game scoring, like Brian said, we are covering End Game Bonuses, then Hidden Victory Points, and the last one is Highest-Lowest Scoring. Those are the six mechanics we'll cover in this episode.

Brian Eng:

We got a lot of material to go over here.

Dave Eng:

So much.

Brian Eng:

I know we usually do our defining our mechanics here, but I was thinking because we've got so many topics, maybe we will define each one individually and go through the examples for that topic so that we don't forget what our definitions are when we're going over our examples.

Dave Eng:

Sure. Sounds good.

Brian Eng:

You want to do that?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, sounds good.

Brian Eng:

The first one, Elapsed Real Time Ending. My definition for that is when a game is played with an actual clock or a timer and it has a set duration and it ends after that time ends.

Dave Eng:

Pretty close there, Brian, I'm going to read the official definition of a Board Game Geek. And according to the website, it says, "The game ends after a set amount of actual time has elapsed. During the game, individual players may have separate turns or play may be simultaneous in which all players play at the same time." Like you said, Bri, there's an actual set amount of time that has to elapse, but sometimes there's turns and sometimes there's simultaneous actions.

Brian Eng:

Should we go over... Let's go over our examples for Elapsed Real Time Ending then?

Dave Eng:

Should we roll the die for... I forgot.

Brian Eng:

Sure. For initiative?

Dave Eng:

Initiative. If you're listening for the first time, Bri and I have both D20s in our hands. We're going to roll them wherever Rolls highest gets initiative to begin the discussion. I'm ready when you are, Brian.

Brian Eng:

Go ahead.

Dave Eng:

Three, two, one, roll.

Brian Eng:

I got eight.

Dave Eng:

I have 18. I'll lead.

Brian Eng:

You can lead us off.

Dave Eng:

Bri, for this one I'm talking about first game for elapsed real time.

Brian Eng:

Your first game that you played that had an Elapsed Real Time Ending.

Dave Eng:

This one I was like, "Real-time games. I'm thinking about this." I went through the whole list on BGG and actually this game is the first time I ever played this game, Bri, was with your mom and it was Boggle. Because Boggle's got that timer, right?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I forgot about Boggle.

Dave Eng:

Also, your mom is crazy.

Brian Eng:

I did not go through the list. She's good at word games.

Dave Eng:

I guess Jenny's also really good at word games. Your mom is crazy good at Boggle, but I think for me, the very first elapsed real-time game I played was Boggle.

Brian Eng:

You know what? I did not go through the whole list. I just tried to go through memory.

Dave Eng:

It was a lot.

Brian Eng:

But I do think that this would've been my first one. This one is all the way back from 1991. Actually, I think Boggle's older. I'm not even sure what year that is.

Dave Eng:

I'll look it up closely. I think it's older than 1991. Says 1972.

Brian Eng:

I was going to say, I'm pretty sure Boggle's pretty old. This one's not quite that old, but it's definitely pre the Catan era of gaming and it's called Nightmare. Do you remember that game?

Dave Eng:

Did we play it at PAX East, Nightmare?

Brian Eng:

No, I've never played it with you.

Dave Eng:

I have to look this up. I don't remember.

Brian Eng:

It was a big game at the time. There's a lot of commercials for it. It is one where you played within an accompanying VHS tape playing in the background and it had 60 minutes and it was a Halloween-y, scary movie theme thing. It was a basic roll and move game. We have a lot of examples, I'm not going to go over all the rules of each game, but essentially you're racing to collect some keys and then get to the middle. And during that time, in that 60 minutes, there was a game master that would come up on the TV and interrupt you called the Gatekeeper and he would interrupt you and make you do stupid things and stuff like that. And it was basically the first one to get their six keys, get to the middle would win. But if the 60 minutes ends and nobody gets there, then the Gatekeeper wins. And you were supposed to play with the lights off and the volume at the loudest according to the instruction manual and it would scream.

And I actually played it. A friend of mine had that game and they brought it and we played it at school on one of the Halloween days.

Dave Eng:

Oh wow.

Brian Eng:

That was my first Elapsed Real Time Ending game.

Dave Eng:

I feel like this is like... What is this? Nineties maybe late eighties?

Brian Eng:

91.

Dave Eng:

This is like nineties version of high interactivity, digital interactivity game.

Brian Eng:

This is the equivalent of I guess phone app games now.

Dave Eng:

Oh yeah.

Brian Eng:

It was VHS and hopefully our listeners, some of them will know what VHS is still, I guess.

Dave Eng:

VHS is what came before DVDs and when you had to have a physical item in order to watch something. I'll let that sit there.

Brian Eng:

That was my first Elapsed Real-Time Ending game. We'll move on to your favorite one.

Dave Eng:

My favorite elapsed real-time game would have to be, actually, I was thinking about this I went through the entire list. It's a game I owned, have traded away. But I did use this in training when I was still working in student affairs at the college. It's called Magic Maze. Have you heard about this game, Bri?

Brian Eng:

Nope. I don't know that one.

Dave Eng:

Magic Maze, again, elapsed real-time game. There's a timer, it's a cooperative game and you are trying to move characters through a space. It's a mall, but each player in the game can only move a character in a set direction. Like north, south, east, west or diagonal or take the stairs or go down the stairs.

In order to move these characters around, you need to have the player that can only move characters north, move the character that needs to move north when they need to move north at a certain time, and then have other players move a character east when it comes time for that. You're really relying on people, you can't talk, to know where you're supposed to go next and who's supposed to do something. And I thought it was a great team builder at the time. I don't know if I actually played the game actually for recreation. It was only for training. For me, it was just really fun. I did make a gigantic version of it, I scan all the cards and I made each card a two by three foot on my card stock. I would say Magic Maze, I got the most memories of it.

Brian Eng:

I bent the rules a little bit here with my favorite one and I did this with a number of mechanics here because sometimes I had some trouble fitting ones in. The game that I picked is Galaxy Trucker.

Dave Eng:

Oh yeah, I remember that.

Brian Eng:

It is a real-time game. There is a timer, but I don't think it strictly falls under Elapsed Real-Time Ending. The way this one works is essentially, there's two portions. There's the building your ship portion, and then you fly and run into all these obstacles and things destroy your ship and whoever ship can make it through the most is will get further along the track. I think the Elapsed Real Time Ending is strictly like a timer for the whole game.

This one is, the building part has a timer, and as you're building, anyone can flip the timer and you do that I think two or three times, and then the building portion ends. You're putting pressure on people by choosing when to flip the timer. And you don't want to wait too long because you don't want to give people too long to build their ship and stuff like that. But you want to be able to make sure you have enough shields and weapons and things like that. It is a real-time game, not strictly elapsed real-time, but I thought it best fit for my favorite real-time game at least.

Dave Eng:

I feel like you could bend the rules here, Brian, say like, "It is in elapsed real-time because the timer starts when the sand timer gets flipped," using that part of the game.

Brian Eng:

It doesn't trigger the end game.

Dave Eng:

I guess so.

Brian Eng:

The end of that segment, the end of that phase of the round. But that's the best one I came up with anyway.

Dave Eng:

I'm reading the definition again. I'm like, "You're right." The game ends after a set amount of time has passed.

Brian Eng:

We'll move on to the most noteworthy or biggest game in your opinion for this mechanic.

Dave Eng:

For an elapsed real-time, again, most noteworthy, and unfortunately I didn't play this game, but I did ask around other players what they thought, and the consensus was a Space Alert. I've never played this one. Have you played it, Brian?

Brian Eng:

I have not. And I think it's on my list of want to play it at some point, but I have not played it either.

Dave Eng:

Space Alert, it's a real-time cooperative game. Actually, now that you talk about Nightmare, it sounds like that because there's a real-time soundtrack, so you're supposed to play a soundtrack.

Brian Eng:

Got you.

Dave Eng:

You're cooperating with other players and you're basically trying to send your ship into hyperspace. But people need to cooperate to accomplish tasks together. I haven't played it before, but when I asked around, people indicated this when I did talk about elapsed real-time games.

Brian Eng:

The one that came to mind for me is it's a category of games and it's relatively modern, is the escape room games.

Specifically the Unlock series I think uses an app and the app has a timer. I know there's also The Exit, the game series or whatever. I don't think that one specifically uses a timer, but the rulebook suggests that you can use a timer to increase the tension and urgency feeling. But I think that is one that's more popular now, that's big in the space especially, I think they got bigger during the pandemic.

Dave Eng:

I feel like if you want to recreate this escape room feeling, then you should really use a timer, because most-

Brian Eng:

I'm pretty sure all the Unlock ones use the timer. I haven't actually played any of those. I have the Unlock for kids that I play with my kids that one does not use a timer. But I guess there's nothing stopping you from just adding a timer to it.

Dave Eng:

What's the constraint then? Do you just work through the puzzle until you solve it? There's no timeline.

Brian Eng:

The kids one?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, the kids one.

Brian Eng:

The kids one, when you make choices, you're going for score. You can find hidden things and they give you stars. And if you make incorrect decisions, they give you X's, which cancel out stars. Honestly, they're really well done. After playing the kids one, I'm interested in trying one of normal, the mainstream series ones, but I think Violet would like those as well. She likes that stuff.

Dave Eng:

Nice.

Brian Eng:

That is our examples for Elapsed Real Time Ending. We'll move on to... What's our next one here?

Dave Eng:

Next one looks like it is Sudden Death Ending.

Brian Eng:

Yes. Sudden Death Ending.

Dave Eng:

You want to go ahead with what you define Sudden Death Ending as?

Brian Eng:

I'd find it as where there's some specific trigger that ends a game immediately prior to the normal ending of the game and it interrupts any current round or any other game element that's going on.

Dave Eng:

So close there Bri, I'm going to read the official definition from Board Game Geek. According to the website it says quote, "There are two distinct types of sudden death endings. One, in the case of a tie at the end of regular play, sudden death is triggered where play continues until the game ends immediately after a player achieves a certain condition like scoring a point.” And then the second type of Sudden Death Ending is “…special victory conditions, which when met trigger an early and immediate end to gameplay, perhaps completing the current round prior to the normal ending conditions for the game." I think Bri, according to your definition, you're talking about number two.

Brian Eng:

I think mine fits number two. Number one is more like a tied sports, sudden death overtime.

Dave Eng:

I would say so. In our research, or at least in my research for this, most of the Sudden Death Ending games I found was number two. I didn't find anything under number one. I guess we'll talk about it when we get there.

Brian Eng:

Sure. You want to keep doing initiative? Or do you just want to keep going with our order?

Dave Eng:

I want to roll this die.

Brian Eng:

Let's do it.

Dave Eng:

I got a four.

Brian Eng:

Got eight again.

Dave Eng:

Got four. You got to lead.

Brian Eng:

I'll lead off on Sudden Death Endings. The first Sudden Death Ending game played, I've talked about this game prior in our worker placement episode and that is Bus. In Bus, the normal endings are either when all of the construction sites are occupied, which where you're building the workplace and whatnot to go to, or when only one player has action markers left because that's where you do your bidding or your worker placement. Every player starts with 20 for the whole game, which I thought was an interesting way to use worker placement in that game. The Sudden Death Ending is that one of the actions you can take is taking that time stone to not advance time. However, if the last time stone is ever taken, the game ends immediately and you do not complete the round or anything and you score immediately. That to me is the Sudden Death Ending.

Dave Eng:

Man, I really want to play Bus now. I know they're reprinting it.

Brian Eng:

I have it now.

Dave Eng:

You got the reprint?

Brian Eng:

Yes, I got it.

Dave Eng:

Nice.

Brian Eng:

I'm ready to play it next time you're visiting.

Dave Eng:

We got to play that next time.

Brian Eng:

Absolutely.

Dave Eng:

It's on me for first sudden death game?

Brian Eng:

The first sudden death game you played.

Dave Eng:

For me, Brian, this is the one that we, prior to playing a lot of games on BGA, we played this a lot. It's Twilight Struggle.

Brian Eng:

Very nice.

Dave Eng:

Remember all of our plays on Twilight Struggle.

Brian Eng:

Yes, nuclear war. Sorry, I'm spoiling your game here.

Dave Eng:

Thermal nuclear war. It's a pretty popular game, but if you've not heard of it before, Twilight Struggle, it's a two-player game, replicates the tug of war of the Cold War between the United States and Russia. And I would say there's many different ways the game can end, but one of the ways that's considered sudden death here is the DEFCON track. Those who are not familiar, DEFCON stands for defense condition. And there are certain things that both the Russians and the Americans can do in the game, which reduce the DEFCON track. And you start at five, which is peace, and it ever reaches one, then that's considered nuclear war and then everyone loses.

Brian Eng:

The side that causes it to reduce to DEFCON one loses.

Dave Eng:

If you cause DEFCON one-

Brian Eng:

You want to maneuver it into a position where the other person plays and causes it to go to DEFCON one. If you're the player that causes it to go to DEFCON one, you lose.

Dave Eng:

That sounds very realistic.

Brian Eng:

Actually, that game has a couple sudden death mechanics.

Dave Eng:

I'm trying to think about the other ways.

Brian Eng:

If you hit 20 victory points, it ends immediately as well. I believe, when the scoring card, in that game there are scoring cards, and when that comes up is when you score regions, when the scoring card for Europe comes up and you control Europe, which means you control more countries in that region and/or all the battleground countries, you immediately win the game as well because I used contrasting the normal endings to the sudden death endings to qualify games as a Sudden Death Ending game because the normal ending is the highest score after 10 rounds. Anything that ends prior to that to me is a Sudden Death Ending.

Dave Eng:

I agree with that.

Brian Eng:

At least that one had a bunch of sudden death endings, and actually my choice for favorite also has a bunch of sudden death endings. It's two games, it's the same game. It's 7 Wonders Duel, and I think although I need to play it, but based on what I've seen, it will take over as my favorite is the Lord of the Rings Duel for Middle Earth, which is essentially a retheming of 7 Wonders Duel, but adding some area control to it as well.

In that game, the normal ending is most points wins. So specifically in 7 Wonders Duel, there is a military track, which is a tug-of-war track, and if either side reaches the opponent at any point they immediately win by pushing the military tracker one way or the other. Also, there's the scientific victory, which is if at any point you get one of each of the six science symbols, you win immediately as well.

Dave Eng:

Immediately win.

Brian Eng:

And in the Lord of the Rings version, they have, I think they replaced the military track with the... Because one side is Sam and Frodo or the Fellowship, and the other side is the Nazgul. Sam and Frodo are trying to get the ring to Mount Doom. If they make it to Mount Doom, they win. Or if the Nazgul catch Sam and Frodo, the Nazgul win. But it's essentially just a fancier skin on the military track. And because they now have area control, there are seven zones, I guess, or regions on the map of Middle-earth. Instead of most points wins, it's the control of the most regions at the end of the game is the normal ending. And I believe if you ever control all seven, you immediately win as well.

Dave Eng:

I see. Again, many different ways.

Brian Eng:

They have a bunch of sudden death and things in that one. But yeah, that was one where I never bought 7 Wonders Duel, because I have the original 7 Wonders. But those games are nothing alike.

Dave Eng:

They're pretty different.

Brian Eng:

I just felt like, "I shouldn't buy 7 Wonders Duel." But now that they have Lord of the Rings Duel for Middle Earth, which is a different theme now I feel like I can buy it.

Dave Eng:

You've set yourself up where you've justified it, why you need another game.

Brian Eng:

Exactly.

Dave Eng:

What are we doing, favorite game now? You won the roll.

Brian Eng:

I did Bus, which was my first, and that was my favorite.

Dave Eng:

My favorite, we never ended up playing this one, Brian, because I had it, but I traded away. It's called Naga Raja, had you heard about this game?

Brian Eng:

It sounds familiar, but I've never played it.

Dave Eng:

It's a two-player specific game. I guess in the similar vein as 7 Wonders Duel, with the Lord of the Rings retheme, but this one is exploring an unexplored temple. It is, you want to win at 25 points, at least at the end of the game and not have any curses, or you could lose if you ever have three curses. Anytime one player accumulates three curses, they just automatically lose. That's a pretty bland explanation of the Sudden Death Ending. But what I thought was really cool about it was that instead of dice, you roll chance sticks. It's basically, it looks like a really long, almost like a chopstick, but when you roll it, there's only four results.

Brian Eng:

Got you.

Dave Eng:

One of the sticks has just dots, another one has snakes and the results indicate what happens to your explorer inside the temple. That is the reason I bought the game, and that is the reason I traded away. Once I played it, I was like, "I got my fill out of this. It takes a lot of shelf space, I got to trade it."

Brian Eng:

Nice. I never played that one with you, so we'll have to track it down at a PAX one day.

Dave Eng:

It's in the library, we should play it. It's a good two-player game.

Brian Eng:

Moving on to most noteworthy. For my most noteworthy, I actually had Twilight Struggle. I think that Twilight Struggle sat on the BGG number one spot for it had a record for a while until I think Gloomhaven came along and took over. That's why I put it into my... I would say it would probably have been maybe in my favorite as well, but I do think that that one was probably the most noteworthy sudden death game.

Dave Eng:

I'm really glad that we did not overlap so far. I feel like it's six mechanics overlapping.

Brian Eng:

I figured there's going to be some.

Dave Eng:

For me this is most noteworthy, right?

Brian Eng:

Most noteworthy, yes.

Dave Eng:

For sudden death only played it once and it was with you, Bri, at a Pax, I want to say Root. For those of you that are not familiar with Root, it is a highly acclaimed, very contentious game, it's like a war game with asymmetric factions. Basically each player is playing a different game compared to everyone else. And again, I've only played it once, but there's certain ways where you can end the game early. One of them is controlling specific clearings and the Vagabonds coalition. If the vagabond can ally with a low-scoring player, they abandon their score, and if their partner wins, then they win. At least that's how I remember reading it and playing it. Do you remember any of the rules, Brian? Because it's been a long time for me.

Brian Eng:

The rules are different depending on which group you get, which faction you get. But yeah, that's definitely a good choice for most noteworthy. I think that one, the previous game in that vein was Vast, which is one...

Dave Eng:

I remember. We played that once I think.

Brian Eng:

Oh yeah, we did play it once, right.

Dave Eng:

Once. And that's exactly once.

Brian Eng:

That's the same idea where it's very asymmetrical. But I don't think it had the same legs. Root, a lot of people still enjoy Root a lot. I own most of Root. But because of the complexity of learning to play it, it doesn't hit the table. I actually picked up Cole Wherle’s most recent one from this recording and finally got to play Arcs recently.

Dave Eng:

Oh, you got to play Arcs.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And I enjoy that one. A little bit of a tangent here, but I think for my gaming group and the time that I play, that fits better. So I'm trying to get one of my friends to buy all my Root stuff.

Dave Eng:

Oh, okay. So Arcs is your Root replacement then?

Brian Eng:

I don't know if it's... It's not asymmetrical like Root, but I think that when that World Order game comes out, that might be my replacement.

Dave Eng:

Oh, okay. Oh yeah, World Order, that's the other game we tried to play last summer.

Brian Eng:

Hegemony was the-

Dave Eng:

Predecessor.

Brian Eng:

... previous game from... Yeah. And that one, I think that's actually probably closer to Root in the sense that each faction plays very different and has different objectives, whereas World Order you follow the same Root rules, but the teams are very asymmetrical and the way they created the powers makes it so that you play differently even though you follow the same rules. So from a teach standpoint, you're still learning one set of rules as opposed to learning three or four different sets of rules.

Dave Eng:

That's the hardest part I feel about it, because especially if you're hosting it, you're like, okay, well, I got to learn all these rules and then teach people.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, or if you play and you're only going to play one time, so now everyone's going to learn four different games to play one time.

Dave Eng:

That's my nightmare.

Brian Eng:

It's a tough sell. If you have a dedicated group though, and I think that's why people like it, because it adds so much variety if you have a group that's going to play it a bunch. And they just keep adding more factions to it, so just adds more and more variety. But yeah, that was a good choice. Okay. So that is Sudden Death Ending. So we move on to Finale Ending.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, you want to give us your personal definition?

Brian Eng:

So I have an asterisk here because I didn't know what Finale Ending was, so I went ahead and just looked it up. And basically, in my own words, you can give the official, is basically when the main game ends, you play a mini-game to determine the winner.

Dave Eng:

That is very close to the actual definition is “…when a main game ends, a special mini-game is played to determine the victor.”

Brian Eng:

And I will also say that I had trouble with this one too. I thought that in my mind I'm like, oh, when I read that, I'm like, oh, okay, I can come up with that. And then I tried to think of games. So as we go through it, we'll see. But you can do our roll for initiative here.

Dave Eng:

Sure. I'm ready to roll when you are.

Brian Eng:

Yep. 3, 2, 1. Oh.

Dave Eng:

Oh my God.

Brian Eng:

Three.

Dave Eng:

I had a one.

Brian Eng:

Critical fail.

Dave Eng:

Critical fail.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So the first Finale Ending game that I played is The Resistance: Avalon, specifically Avalon, because... And I'll go back to The Resistance. So The Resistance was a social deduction game. You've got two teams and you're sending out, I think you have a rotating captain and the captain chooses teams of two other players, and you're essentially doing pass/fail on each mission. And one team is trying to pass missions, and then... I forget the names of the teams. It's The saboteurs or something are trying to fail the missions.

Dave Eng:

It's red team, blue team basically.

Brian Eng:

Right. The traitors know who each other are, and you're just essentially trying to get passing teams through. In The Resistance: Avalon, they threw on the Camelot theme, the Arthurian Legend theme. So you have King Arthur and the Knights of the Round versus, who is it?

Dave Eng:

Mordred?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And one of the mechanics. And it added some roles, some different roles. So one of the roles is that the good guys have Merlin and the bad guys have an assassin. So the little twist there is that when... The way the game works is at the beginning, the game needs moderation in that everyone closes their eyes, the bad guys then open their eyes to see who the other bad guys are. That would be the normal resistance way. And then everyone closes their eyes again, bad guys put their thumbs up, and then Merlin opens his eyes and now Merlin can see who the bad guys are. And then everyone closes their eyes again, and then the game proceeds the same way.

Now the twist is that if the good guys win and get, I think it was the team to get three passing missions or whatever, the assassin then has one chance to guess who Merlin is. If the assassin can guess who Merlin is, they lose. And I guess that's the mini-game, which I think adds some interest. And then there's a whole bunch of other roles they've added for variants too. But basically that's the part that adds that Finale Ending.

Dave Eng:

Right. So I hate to break it to you Brian.

Brian Eng:

Did you also pick the same one?

Dave Eng:

I also wrote The Resistance: Avalon. I'm going to say though that you talked about The Resistance. I never actually played The Resistance. I jumped right into Avalon.

Brian Eng:

Right to Avalon?

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Because-

Brian Eng:

I think I played The Resistance once.

Dave Eng:

Before. Oh, okay. Because when I was getting into board games, people were like, don't get Avalon, just get The Resistance: Avalon with Merlin.

Brian Eng:                                                                                

Yeah. I think essentially when Avalon came around, The Resistance... But The Resistance is much older. I think Avalon came along the same time around COUP, and I think you introduced me to COUP and I liked COUP better because it wasn't team based.

Dave Eng:

It has card play to it and there's the brinkmanship.

Brian Eng:

But yeah, they're different. But I know that Avalon has had a big following as well. Yeah, go ahead.

Dave Eng:

So I'm not going to recap because you had a really good explanation for The Resistance: Avalon. But what I was thinking before is the Finale Ending to Avalon basically is like getting the redemption shot for beer pong. It's like when you're about to lose... Or Beirut or whatever you called it. When I went to college, we called it beer pong. But it's basically like, okay, you're about to lose. You get one shot to sink it, and if you do, then you win. And I was like, okay, that sounds a lot like the Merlin guess at the end of The Resistance: Avalon. There's other ways you can do Finale Ending, but at the end of Avalon, it feels like the redemption shot for beer pong.

Brian Eng:

And I just found it an interesting mechanic in the sense that having a player know who the bad guys are and be able to make decisions, but have to make them in such a way that they don't-

Dave Eng:

Out themselves.

Brian Eng:

... that they don't know, that they can't give themselves away. And then it also added that element of now people can also lie or pretend to be Merlin. More deception.

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Like the lady in the lake, or no, that wasn't a role. That was a power that could get passed around. There was one of the characters that-

Dave Eng:

They know who Merlin is I think.

Brian Eng:

No, there was one who didn't show themselves as a bad guy to Merlin. So there was one bad guy who Merlin didn't know was a bad guy then. And then I think there was... Oh yes, it's a one good guy who knows who Merlin is. I think it's Percival.

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah, Percival.

Brian Eng:

So they know who Merlin is so that they can try and take the heat off of Merlin. It is very interesting when you have...

Dave Eng:

"Kill me.... Percival."

Brian Eng:

I think it's like Werewolf too though. When you have all these roles, in order to make use of them, you have to have more and more people playing. You can't play all the roles and only have five people playing.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah. It has the scale based.

Brian Eng:

But yeah, that was early in the social deduction when a lot of social deduction games were coming out more and things like that. Okay, so we'll move on to favorite.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, favorite.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So this is one of the mechanics where I didn't have too many options here that I found. So my favorite Finale Ending game was The Resistance: Avalon.

Dave Eng:

Overlap.

Brian Eng:

Yes.

Dave Eng:

And why is it your favorite? Let's not rehash how you played a game.

Brian Eng:

Again, I fell more into the COUP line at the time, but then I did eventually play it. And again, I just like, as you were talking about, that feeling of just that redemption shot at the end. Being able to just take that Hail Mary. I will say the downside to that is when you play a whole bunch and you never get to be either Merlin or the assassin, because it's random.

Dave Eng:

You want to.

Brian Eng:

Yeah it's like you feel like you're missing out because you never get to be the one who gets to do those things. But when you do, it's fun. It's really fun. I liked being the assassin. I want to be able to-

Dave Eng:

It's like Werewolf when you play a bunch of games and like, I just want to be the werewolf one time. Just once.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, exactly. Or I'm always, in Battlestar Galactica I always pick the Cylons. That game is gone now, but it's re-themed as Unfathomable. But when it was Battlestar Galactica, there was Gaius Baltar, and his asymmetry is that he picks two loyalty cards. Because I wanted to be a Cylon and I would get Gaius and never get the Cylon cards.

Dave Eng:

It'd be two human cards or something.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I'd always get two human cards. But yeah, so that's why it was my favorite.

Dave Eng:

Nice. All right, my turn for Finale Ending favorite.

Brian Eng:

Yep.

Dave Eng:

Okay, so for this one, this is the one where I said I really stretched myself from playing a lot of games for this episode. This is a game that has been on my want and trade list and want to buy list, want to play this for a while because it was rated within circles of auction games is pretty highly rated. It's called Kuhhandel. Have you heard of this game before?

Brian Eng:

I have never heard of it.

Dave Eng:

Okay, apparently Kuhhandel is Dutch for you're bluffing or something. That's the English translation. But anyway, as of this recording, I went to Taiwan on a trip. I went to a few board game stores in Taiwan because I can't help myself. And I found this game there and I was like, oh, I've been looking for this game for a while. And it was actually competitively priced, so I bought it. It's a small box card game. It's an auction game where you are trying to collect sets of animals. There's cows and pigs and goats and ducks and dogs and such and whatnot. There's only four of each animal. So in order to score for the set, you need all four animals. So when you play the game, it goes over a course of auctioning, you'll turn over a top card from the pile, and then it's a live auction. People just yell out numbers until the auctioneer decides the auction's over and then the winner completes the auction.

But this happens actually during the game and also at the end of the game, which counts as Finale Ending, instead of doing a regular auction, you can do what's called an animal trade. So Bri, if you have three horses and I have one horse, you need to complete your set. So you would say, okay, instead of an auction, I'm going to offer you an animal trade. Dave, do you want my one horse? So this is when you offer me a set of money cards face down, you offer them to me. And then my option is I can accept that bid and give you the horse, or I can counter-bid with some of my own cards. And then we reveal the cards to each other. Whoever bid the most gets the whole set. So if you under offer me for one horse and I over offer you for the other three horses, I could get all three of your horses over to my side and I would complete the set.

Brian Eng:

Nice, nice, nice.

Dave Eng:

But the reason this Finale Ending happens is at the very end of the game, you basically do animal trades in turn order until all the sets are complete.

Brian Eng:

Okay.

Dave Eng:

And it's interesting because it's a closed economy auction game, meaning that if you end the game with not a lot of money, people are just going to take your animals because you can't counter-offer against them.

Brian Eng:

Right. Gotcha.

Dave Eng:

And I played this and I was like, oh, actually I thought that was great. But my group, The Banditos did not like that part. They were like, I just put together this set. Once the set is made, it can't be broken, but you're fighting tooth and nail to get two out of the four animals. And we just kept doing animal trades until they were all settled. That's mine. It's called Kuhhandel and it's an older game. I forget exactly what year, but it's been on my want to play list for a long time. Oh, 2009. It's not that old actually.

Brian Eng:

Okay. Okay. So we're moving on to most noteworthy.

Dave Eng:

Yep.

Brian Eng:

All right, so I'm going to say, you're not going to like this, Dave.

Dave Eng:

Oh, no.

Brian Eng:

But my most noteworthy is The Resistance: Avalon. I really had trouble with this Finale Ending. But I will say I do think that it was a pretty significant game. The Resistance, the original was big. Avalon I think was bigger, and that came out in 2012-ish. And then it was still popular enough that a couple years ago they did a big box for Avalon. I think that was two or three years ago. So I think it's still considered to be a very popular game. And when you start adding all these different roles, just like One Night Ultimate Werewolf, you have so much variation that you can play. It's a quick game. It's easy to learn. So that's also my most noteworthy Finale Ending game.

Dave Eng:

That was your triple threat-

Brian Eng:

Triple threat.

Dave Eng:

... of Avalon. All right, so we're going to me now for most noteworthy Finale Ending. So this one, Brian, we played this exactly... Well, we played it together once, I think, and it was at PAX East, it's Mysterium. Do you remember that one?

Brian Eng:

Mysterium. You know what, I do remember it, but I didn't remember it enough that I wanted to put it on my thing because I didn't feel like it fit any of the categories more than The Resistance: Avalon. But yes, I think... You go ahead and talk about it.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I think, at least according to BGG, it fits within Finale Ending. But this one is another cooperative game. At the very end, and again, it's been years since we've played this, so this is just a summary. There's one player that's trying to communicate a vision to the rest of the other players, and then the rest of the players can vote on that vision. And if it's correct, then they win, otherwise they would lose and the game ends. So this is, I would say, the final ending mini-game that fulfills the definition for Finale Ending. At least at the time, we weren't that into cooperative game, so I was like, okay, that was an interesting play, but it's not something I'd really play again. But I would say that at least from a cooperative social deduction realm, Mysterium is up there for being pretty noteworthy that also has a Finale Ending.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, it definitely had some hype when it came out, I remember. A lot of people were talking about that game a lot. And that group of your friends that we go to PAX with always seem to know the current hotness.

Dave Eng:

Oh yeah, of course.

Brian Eng:

All right. So that was our endgame timing mechanics. So we'll move on to our endgame scoring mechanics. The first one is End Game Bonuses. So my definition is basically players can fulfill special conditions throughout the game and earn extra points at the end of the game as End Game Bonuses.

Dave Eng:

So pretty close. The official definition off a Board Game Geek is "Players earn or lose bonus victory points at the end of the game based on meeting victory conditions." So you could end up losing points at the end of the game.

Brian Eng:

That's true. And so I think I had... This was the opposite of Finale Endings for me, whereas I had a hard time finding games for Finale Endings. There is a ton of games with End Game Bonuses.

Dave Eng:

Oh yeah. And I feel like this is the one that we've experienced the most of.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, absolutely.

Dave Eng:

In the games that we play.

Brian Eng:

I think it's a much more common mechanic. Even to the fact where I think a lot of my choices, for example, can fit in multiple categories here. So my first board game, so I tried to pick ones that are still modern games and at least used the mechanic interestingly in order to narrow it down a little bit. So the first one I put was Ticket to Ride. So your normal points in that game come from as you place your trains, your complete routes, and depending on the length of that route, you get a certain number of points for it. There are two sets of bonuses in that game when the game is done. One is the player with the longest continuous path of trains gets, I don't remember how many points, it's like 15 bonus points or something like that. But also you can draft tickets during that game that give you specific cities that you need to create a continuous path between. And if you're able to complete that, they are worth a certain number of victory points as well. And talking about the negative points as well is that any tickets that you draft and keep that you don't fulfill, you get them as negative points.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Yeah. That's one of our standbys for the Banditos group. Play a lot of Ticket to Ride. We're playing online right now.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, that's a very... It used to be the gateway game.

Dave Eng:

Like that in Carcassonne, I think, as the gateway games.

Brian Eng:

I think Ticket to Ride is a better gateway game.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I think so. Because with Carcassonne, with scoring at least, I feel like it can be onerous.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And Ticket to Ride just moves so fast too.

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So for me, first game-

Brian Eng:

Oh, we didn't even roll for initiative. That's fine. We'll do it on the next one.

Dave Eng:

That's fine. We'll just consider I had a critical fail again.

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

So first game End Game Bonus. Bri, I again dug real deep here trying to find the very first End Game Bonus game I played. And the answer is Scrabble.

Brian Eng:

Oh, okay.

Dave Eng:

Because I play a lot of Words With Friends with my mom. We have a game going. We play every day, at least one move. But for Scrabble, if you are not familiar with the end game scoring condition is that one, you get a bonus if you play all of your tiles and you end the game that way. And then-

Brian Eng:

Oh, okay. I was trying to think of the end game bonus. I know that you get the bonus for playing all your tiles.

Dave Eng:

Right. But you also-

Brian Eng:

I didn't realize you get a specific one for playing all your tiles and ending the game that way.

Dave Eng:

At least from the rule book I read. But the tiles that your opponent has, they get penalized for them, the value of those tiles.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yes. The leftover tiles.

Dave Eng:

Then you get those points. So it's basically like a multiple points swing. Because if you lose 12 points, I gain 12 points. And that's the reason why you would want to end the game early when your opponent has a bunch of tiles. So for me, it would be Scrabble. I don't think I ever played your mom in Scrabble, but I have played Jennie and I have lost horribly.

Brian Eng:

I don't know how good my mom is anymore. I know Scrabble wasn't... Board games were not my thing. But my brother would play against my mom a lot. And my mom, that was one of the games where my mom would win until my brother stopped playing it the way-

Dave Eng:

As a word game.

Brian Eng:

... children play Scrabble, which is just try to make your words. And he started playing it with strategy and just closed the board up so much that nobody could play any words. And he learned the strategy side of Scrabble as opposed to the word side.

Dave Eng:

The two-letter words.

Brian Eng:

I think that's how he eventually beat Jennie as well. He could beat by vocabulary.

Dave Eng:

Jennie is Brian's sister-in-law, my cousin that we're talking about that plays a lot of word games.

Brian Eng:

She's writer by trade as well.

Dave Eng:

So many word games.

Brian Eng:

I probably did play Scrabble before Ticket to Ride, I'm sure I did. But I did try to stick with designer games because I had so many to choose from. But yeah, that's definitely a good example. So moving on to our favorite End Game Bonuses. So this is one where I thought that it might be an overlap, but then I also thought there are so many endgame bonus games that maybe we won't overlap.

Dave Eng:

We'll see.

Brian Eng:

So I chose both of our favorite games, which is Scythe. And I really like the way they did the End Game Bonuses in this. So the endgame victory points in that game is money, is your coins. And then you also get coins for other things that you've done in the game. So whatever coins you have leftover, plus you get coins for the stars that you get, which are basically completing tasks, the number of territories you control, and your leftover resources. But the interesting thing that I thought was you also have a popularity rank, and depending on where that falls at the end of the game, it's not a multiplier, but if it's higher, you get more coins for those previous three things.

So if you have a high popularity, you'll get, I don't remember, six coins per star as opposed to four coins if your popularity is lower. So I thought that was interesting way-

Dave Eng:

Kind of like a multiplier.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, kind of like a multiplier. So I thought that was an interesting way of doing the End Game Bonuses.

Dave Eng:

Nice. I'm really glad we didn't overlap here. When you were saying that, I was like, oh, he's going to say it. He's going to say it. He's going to say my game. He's going to say it. But Scythe is a really great game. We haven't played it in a while. I kind of wish... It is on Board Game Arena, but I don't think it's a really good adaptation.

Brian Eng:

That's what I want to play in real time, I think.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. But for me, my Endgame Bonus, and I would say that this is, if I had to pick the sacred cow of modern board games that I think is universally loved, it would be this one. It would be favorite game that has End Game Bonuses...

... loved, it would be this one. It would be favorite game that has end game bonuses. I'm playing it right now. It's Castles of Burgundy.

Brian Eng:

Yes, I've played a lot of that.

Dave Eng:

A lot of COB. End game bonus comes from those yellow tiles that give you bonuses based on other tiles that you've placed and there's other actions that you've taken throughout the game. For me at least, the one I am usually going for because I'm trying to gain initiative, is I like the one for every good that you've shipped, you get a bonus point. Or just goods or different types of goods overall, because I'm usually fighting for those spots where I can put the ships down.

Brian Eng:

Right.

Dave Eng:

But a little bit of an aside, I prefer playing Castles of Tuscany over Castles of Burgundy. Because Castle of Burgundy is very dice driven, whereas Castles of Tuscany is all card driven. Small consideration, but it's not a popular opinion. Most people like the Castles of Burgundy. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Right. I know I played it with Chris a bunch. I think we were playing it a bunch at one point too, on Board Game Arena, right?

Dave Eng:

Yep, yep.

Brian Eng:

It is one where we played so much that I did fall into the point where I felt like my skill was getting capped by luck in the games. But once I started to... There was, I guess, an unofficial tournament rule where you have the same map as the opponent or the same board as the opponent, because different boards with the layout or the colors are slightly different. The unofficial tournament rule is that you and your opponent have the same board, that fix that for me. Because yes, the dice rolls are random, but there is some variance mathematically in which board you have. So I think we had played it so much that I was noticing that, and saying, "Oh, he got the better one, so I'm not going to win this one."

Dave Eng:

Right, right. Yeah. And also, I think there's a banned board for Castles of Burgundy-

Brian Eng:

Right. Yes, yes.

Dave Eng:

... at least with tournament play.

Brian Eng:

Right. Okay. So yeah, that was a good one. Is this the most noteworthy we're on?

Dave Eng:

Yeah. We're on most noteworthy for end game bonuses.

Brian Eng:

Okay. Okay. So my most noteworthy, this is another big game in the board game universe here, and I chose Azul, which is where you score points for laying out your tiles in rows and columns and things like that. I guess it depends on the board you use in that one as well. The standard one is you get points for rows and columns, you get points for completing sets of colors, and then you get negative points for your wasted tiles that you are unable to place or you don't place on your mosaic.

Dave Eng:

Any fault with them. Yep.

Brian Eng:

Right. I think that's going to be an evergreen game for a long time too.

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah. I've been playing a lot of Azul, that and Splendor basically.

Brian Eng:

That's where my brother still at now. I got him Crystal Mosaic for Christmas.

Dave Eng:

Oh, nice. I have that too, but I haven't opened it yet.

Brian Eng:

I figured he's played so much, just those couple extra boards might be just a little bit of variation that he would like.

Dave Eng:

Nice. All right. So onto me now, for most noteworthy for end game bonuses.

Brian Eng:

Yes. On to you.

Dave Eng:

For me, it's going to be Terraforming Mars, which I know you and Violet have played a lot of. Right?

Brian Eng:

Yes. I like that game a lot.

Dave Eng:

Because there's just a ton of end game bonuses, right? There's cards, resources, other VP values, trophies, right?

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

A hodge podge of things-

Brian Eng:

They're all over the place in that game.

Dave Eng:

... to score.

Brian Eng:

Even all the expansion in the ad where you randomly pick ones that replace the ones on the board and all kinds of stuff like that. Yeah, that one is almost like a point salad of bonus points.

Dave Eng:

So many things to choose from.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. What did I have as my... Oh yeah, you know what? I had that in as a runner-up in my favorite game here, but Scythe took it for me.

Dave Eng:

Nice.

Brian Eng:

All right. So that is end game bonuses. So we will move on to hidden victory points. So hidden victory points is where a player's victory points are basically hidden from other players, so that you don't have all the information of a player's score, whether it's their total score or a portion of their score.

Dave Eng:

Right, right. And that's really close to the BGG definition, which is “A number of victory points held by each player is private information.” I don't know if this is a completely inclusive definition because there are some games where all of the victory points are hidden, some of the victory points are hidden, and then none of the victory points are hidden. So I feel like it could be a spectrum. Right?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Because I mean, sometimes it's like, yes, all the victory points are hidden, but at the end of the game, some resource converts into victory points, but they weren't hidden, but they technically are victory points. Right? So yeah, as long as there was some type of hiding of some type of victory resource or something, I consider it hidden victory points.

Dave Eng:

You want to roll again for this one?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, let's roll.

Dave Eng:

All right. So three, two, one.

Brian Eng:

All right. I got 10.

Dave Eng:

Four.

Brian Eng:

Oh man. All right.

Dave Eng:

We're rolling low.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So, hidden victory points. For my first game that I played with hidden victory points, I put Jaipur, which is a card driven trading game where you sell good, or you basically trade and sell goods for tokens. And those tokens have a range of victory points, depending on the order that they get sold in. And then I think if you sell a certain quantity at once, there's also some bonus tokens. And then once you take them, you keep those hidden, so you'd know what they are at the time. Except for the bonus ones, I think you don't. The bonus ones are random.

Dave Eng:

Yep, yep.

Brian Eng:

But the other ones, it goes in order. But unless you're keeping track... I think that's how a lot of them go, is like, "Yeah, you get the victory points, but if you're not keeping track of everyone, you only have an idea of where they are."

Dave Eng:

Right, right.

Brian Eng:

I put that as my first hidden victory point game.

Dave Eng:

Well, Brian, we overlapped because that was also my very first-

Brian Eng:

Oh, Nice, nice.

Dave Eng:

... in the victory point game. I like this game a lot and I really like playing it on Board Game Arena. And we played it a bunch of times too. I like playing it on Board Game Arena though, because I really hate having to reshuffle and reset everything at the end.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. That was one of the early games that I got Chris into big time, and that was his big complaint, was the reset, because it is a quick game.

Dave Eng:

It is. I just don't like resetting things.

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

That's the onerous part of it.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So we have a little overlap there, but again, that's okay. We're going over more than enough games here.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Eng:

Okay. What's the next one here?

Dave Eng:

Favorite game.

Brian Eng:

Favorite. Okay. Favorite game, hidden victory points. Okay. I put another old one, but I think it came out before Jaipur, but I didn't play it until later. It was Incan Gold, which I think was originally called Diamant. Was that Bruno Faidutti, right?

Dave Eng:

I believe so. I'm playing this online right now.

Brian Eng:

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's actually a good one to play online. So this is a push-your-luck game. Good with a lot of people. You're essentially deciding whether you want to continue exploring this temple where there's randomly gems that show up. And then at any point, you can choose to turn around and leave. And whoever leaves, everyone who's leaving takes whatever gems up to that point and splits them, I believe is what it is. And you want to leave before there's some hazards, before two of the same hazards show up. Otherwise, you get nothing. And that's the push your luck. But as you take these gems, you keep them behind your player shield or whatever. So you don't really know how many gems everybody has.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I think that is actually, I think, key to the game, not knowing how many gems other people have.

Brian Eng:

The exact amount. Again, you have an idea, but especially that game is better with more people. So it's really hard to keep track when you have six people playing that game or whatever.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. I'm playing it online with four other people, so it's a five-player game. But yeah, I think that if you didn't have that, it would just slow down the game a lot.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, because you would just-

Dave Eng:

Meet your goal.

Brian Eng:

It would become mathy because it'd be like, "Well, I have to keep going because if I don't get this, then..."

Dave Eng:

I'm going to lose.

Brian Eng:

And then this guy is going to win or whatever. Yeah. But that's a fun, just casual social game.

Dave Eng:

Fast game. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

All right. Onto me for favorite hidden victory point. So for me, Brian, this is the one I recommended you play before. I played it a few times in person. I really like it. It's called Zoo Vadis. You remember this game or-

Brian Eng:

Oh, is that where you're making the animals?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, the animals are anthropomorphic and they live in a zoo.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, you told me about that and I went and looked it up and it sounded like something I really want to try. Definitely, I put it highly rated in my, I want to play games.

Dave Eng:

Right, right.

Brian Eng:

I think they recently had a re-release, like all new art and stuff.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I think that was the last. It's a Reiner Knizia game, which we'll talk a little bit about later, but for those of you who haven't played Zoo Vadis, it's a game about animals in the zoo and they're trying to escape out of the zoo. And the game is a lot about negotiation. And you can basically do things in the game if you get other people to agree with you, but that also means that you got to negotiate often for coins. But I think what makes the game flow along is that the coins are victory points, but they're hidden. And to your point, Brian, about Incan Gold, if it were available, then you could map out the expected value, like a trade or something. So I'd like that they're hidden because otherwise again, Incan Gold, that game would grind to a halt if you could sum up all of everyone's victory points.

Brian Eng:

Okay. Yeah, just the whole theme of that one just interested me.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, you'd really like it, I think, because the negotiation part is like, that's all of the game. You need to negotiate.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I think my only hesitance with negotiation games as far as of getting them, is that they generally don't work good with two players.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. You need at least three.

Brian Eng:

I want most of my games to work with two players, but if it's good enough, sometimes I just say, "I'm buying it anyways." Alrighty. So we are on to most noteworthy.

Dave Eng:

Most noteworthy for hidden victory points.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So I put another classic on here, Puerto Rico.

Dave Eng:

Oh yeah, yeah. I played a lot of it.

Brian Eng:

In that one, the victory points, there are public victory points which you get from the buildings that you build, but the hidden victory points are when you deliver goods, when you choose the captain role, those victory points are hidden. So there's a little bit of a combination of both there in that one.

Dave Eng:

Right. I won't rehash Puerto Rico because I know we talked about it before, but at least for the hidden victory points, that's useful because otherwise, I would just feel so despondent because I'm so far behind in our last Puerto Rico game.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I think it is a significant source of victory points. You can focus on that. I know when you explain it, it sounds like, "Oh, well, who cares? You can see all the buildings." But I think it can be a very significant amount of victory points from the captain.

Dave Eng:

Right, right. For me, for most noteworthy, I'm going to go with Ra. Have you played that auction game, Brian?

Brian Eng:

I think I've only played it once, but I know that's up there in games that you like. And I want to play it again, because I like auction games.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah. And listen, I would say-

Brian Eng:

I think that one time I played it, I didn't really get everything that was going on. I think it was at PAX, and it was a real quick learn and it just didn't click right away. But now that I've seen a video of it and thought about it some more, I was like, "Oh yeah, I think I want to try this game again."

Dave Eng:

It's a solid auction game. I think you might have played the older version before they made some user interface tweaks, because it was hard to tabulate the end game score.

Brian Eng:

Right.

Dave Eng:

But at least the current version that I think is put up by 25th Century Games, has made a lot of updates there in how you tabulate it and just makes it easier. But for this one, there's victory points and tablet tokens, and those are all kept hidden until the end of the game. So you know a little bit about the score, but not everyone's total score.

Brian Eng:

Just not the full picture kind of thing.

Dave Eng:

Correct. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Interesting. Okay.

Dave Eng:

Now we're going to...

Brian Eng:

Now we move on to highest-lowest scoring.

Dave Eng:

Okay.

Brian Eng:

Okay. I almost looked this one up, and then I just thought about it some more. And then I think I got it, which is what? Essentially, in a game where players earn points in various categories, but then at the end of the game, only your lowest category counts. It can work in reverse, but generally, if you're going for the highest victory points, it's only the highest victory points in your lowest of those categories.

Dave Eng:

Yep. Correct. The highest-lowest scoring definition off a Board Game Geek is, "Each player's score is equal to the lowest value of several categories. Whoever has the highest-lowest value is the winner." It sounds weird to say it, but that's essentially what it is.

Brian Eng:

Yes. But then when I think about the highest-lowest, and I actually think about it, I was like, "Okay, yeah, I guess that is how you would title it."

Dave Eng:

I wish there was an easy way to say it, but that's actually I think, the best way to say it.

Brian Eng:

So this is a mechanic that in a lot of the games that me and my brother modified, we would implement this mechanic, but I actually had a lot of trouble finding a bunch of games, but I did come up with some here.

Dave Eng:

Okay.

Brian Eng:

So I think the first one that I can remember playing is Between Two Cities. So in that game, every player has a city or a city token or whatever, and you are simultaneously drafting tiles and building a four by four city, both between your neighbor to your left and your neighbor to your right. Thus, the title, Between Two Cities. And then at the end, so everybody's building these four by four cities and you're discussing with your neighbors on where you want to place those tiles. Because I think you draft two tiles at a time and one has to go on your left city and one has to go on your right city. And so you're discussing with your neighbors on which tile is going to go where and whatnot. And then there's scoring for different combos and things like that. But at the end of the game, once all the cities are complete, your score is the lowest scoring city of those two cities that you have.

Dave Eng:

Yep, yep.

Brian Eng:

And then it does tie-break with your other city. But I thought that was interesting because you don't want to make your city too good, or you have to balance it. That's the whole idea, is that it forces you to balance out your things where your points are distributed.

Dave Eng:

Right, right. Yeah. I think that's basic, because that doesn't make sense as a mechanic. Right? It's like, balance out your things as the mechanic. No, just highest-lowest scoring, that's the most succinct way to describe it.

Brian Eng:

Right, right. It makes a lot of sense once you have experienced it for a bit. Explaining it is a little bit tough abstractly to understand. So yeah, that was my first.

Dave Eng:

So that was your first game. All right. So my first game for highest-lowest scoring is a Reiner Knizia game, which we'll talk about later, more about this designer later, but mine is going to be High Society. Have you played that one, Brian? Have you played High Society before?

Brian Eng:

No. No, I have not.

Dave Eng:

Well, High Society is an auction game.

Brian Eng:

What is High Society?

Dave Eng:

It's a card game, a small box game.

Brian Eng:

Oh no, I'm thinking about a different game. No, I have not played it.

Dave Eng:

Okay. It's an auction game. So you're bidding for cards like people in society, to come join your party. It's kind of like the Great Gatsby era. And I don't know. No, this wouldn't count as finale ending, but at the end of the game, you're going to add up victory points from the cards that you won in auction. But before you do that, you total up the amount of money you still have left over and the player that has the least amount of money is automatically eliminated.

Brian Eng:

Oh, okay.

Dave Eng:

You want to spend money to win victory point cards, but you can't spend too much. Because if you do, you won't even be considered to win the end of the game.

Brian Eng:

Got you.

Dave Eng:

That's my highest. At least on BGG, it counts as highest-lowest scoring. Because if you are the lowest in money, then you are out. Then whoever's remaining the highest, well, I guess the highest number in category. It doesn't make sense, now that I explained it, but that's how they categorized it.

Brian Eng:

You know what it reminds me of? That quantitative easement game that you introduced to me.

Dave Eng:

Oh, QE. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, which I really enjoyed where that's just quickly, since this is a tangent to what we're talking about, but it's an auction game where you can write any value you want down. But at the end of the game, whoever spent the most, immediately loses.

Dave Eng:

Yep.

Brian Eng:

Because you're playing countries, right? So you print your own money basically. So you can spend anything you want, but you've destroyed your dollar if you basically spent the most. I really like that game.

Dave Eng:

It was hard to wrap my head around because you're like, "Okay, well, I bid $11 trillion."

Brian Eng:

I bid 11 trillion in one.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. All right.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, that was a fun game. I enjoyed that one. Okay. So that was-

Dave Eng:

We're on favorite game now.

Brian Eng:

Oh yeah, we're onto favorite. Okay. So my favorite is one we actually played in research for this. I will say, it might not be my favorite, but I bumped my favorite into another category, so we'll talk about that after. We recently played Beer & Bread-

Dave Eng:

Oh yeah, I remember playing that.

Brian Eng:

... On BGA.

Dave Eng:

Scott Almes' game. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Scott Almes' game. Yeah. And so essentially, you are drafting cards. Are you drafting them?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, you're drafting them.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. It's like a Seven Wonders draft kind of thing, collecting resources to brew beer and bake bread. Each of those different kinds of beers and breads give you points, and you want to get both those high because your lowest of either your points in the bread that you've baked or the beer that you've brewed is your score.

Dave Eng:

Yep.

Brian Eng:

And yeah, same idea. So that it forces you, you need to do both. You can't just focus on one. Otherwise, you will get a very low score.

Dave Eng:

Yep. I learned that in the last game we played. So my favorite game for highest-lowest scoring... And Brian, I definitely know you didn't say this one because you've never actually played it before because there's only one copy in existence. My favorite highest-lowest scoring game is Estate Sale. And I know, because it's the game I designed. So Estate Sale, I was inspired to design it because I actually went to an estate sale right off the street. And if you're not familiar, an estate sale is a sale where they're trying to liquidate the contents of a house. So I designed this game where you're in an estate sale, but you're trying to gather equal numbers of different things in the house, like furniture, books, silverware, clothes, et cetera. And I was really inspired by other games I had played with this kind of scoring. And I thought it was really interesting and I threw it into this prototype. So not to toot my own horn, but my favorite high low-scoring game is my own game, Estate Sale.

Brian Eng:

I know you've had that prototype, but I have not played that prototype yet?

Dave Eng:

You have not played that one.

Brian Eng:

Okay. That'll be on the list with Bus on the next time we get together.

Dave Eng:

Next time. Yep.

Brian Eng:

All right. So moving on to most noteworthy, highest lowest. I would actually say that this is probably my favorite, but I do think it is most noteworthy. There are three different renditions of this game. The one that I've played is Yellow & Yangtze, which is a re-implementation of Tigris & Euphrates, which is actually, I think my only Reiner Knizia game on all these examples that we have, which is amazing.

Dave Eng:

Oh really? Wow.

Brian Eng:

Anyways. Yeah, it might be. So yeah, it's tile laying, a Reiner Knizia tile laying area control game. And there are five different color tiles and they earn you different types of victory points. I think it's scrolls, weapons, crops, goods, and gold. And we're representing military and agriculture and these different things for your... I think it's different clans that you're playing. But the interesting thing is that one of, I believe gold, is actually a wild. So at the end of the game, you can add your gold into your other categories so you can bump up your really low ones. So it does give you a little bit of flexibility in having to diversify so much, which I enjoyed. But yeah, we played that at PAX and I ended up... I have the latest rendition, which is now called HUANG, I think now.

Dave Eng:

There's a third version of it? That's the one?

Brian Eng:

It is a re-implement. It is Yellow & Yangtze. They have a couple expansion modules.

Dave Eng:

Oh, that's right. You told me about this. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, it's Yellow & Yangtze. The difference between Yellow & Yangtze and Tigris & Euphrates, Tigris & Euphrates used a square grid, and then they moved to hex grid in Yellow & Yangtze. I'm sure there's other changes, but I know that one's an old classic favorite too.

Dave Eng:

Right.

Brian Eng:

That's my most noteworthy.

Dave Eng:

Well, Bri, we overlapped because I wrote Tigers & Euphrates.

Brian Eng:

There you go. Well, it's not an exact overlap.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, not an exact overlap, but I would say, I do remember playing this originally-

Brian Eng:

Overlap in spirit.

Dave Eng:

... at PAX Unplugged, I think, the first year we went there. If I had to find a quintessential example, it's probably these three, Yellow & Yangtze, Tigers & Euphrates, and HUANG right now, because it's the high-low scoring. You have those multiple different categories, but you got to build them up evenly throughout the course of the game.

Brian Eng:

Yep, yep. Yeah, I think that again, that's probably why we both put it in most noteworthy. I can't think of one that exemplifies it more.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, that would be the one I would have to go to.

Brian Eng:

So that wraps up our mechanics.

Dave Eng:

That was a long one, but we have a lot of mechanics.

Brian Eng:

Now, we can move on to beyond the basics.

Dave Eng:

Yep.

Brian Eng:

So here, we're going to just do our usual categories and I guess more generally, talk about all the different mechanics. I don't think we need to talk specifically about each one. We can just openly discuss them in each category. So shall we do a roll?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, let's do a roll for initiative.

Brian Eng:

Okay.

Dave Eng:

So three, two, one, roll.

Brian Eng:

All right. Oh, I got two.

Dave Eng:

All right. I got 14.

Brian Eng:

All right.

Dave Eng:

All right. No critical failure for me. All right. So the first one we want to talk about is integration with themes. So here, we're talking about, is the mechanic flexible enough to fit different themes, game worlds and stories, and can it help to create a cohesive and immersive experience? So I'll talk about them. I won't talk about each individual mechanic, but I'll say it like this. I think that the most flexible ones of the ones who discussed so far, Bri, are end game bonuses and hidden victory points. Because you could basically use those for any type of game at any-

Brian Eng:

Yeah. As far as theme is concerned, they can be molded to whatever your theme is.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I would say though, that the most immersive of the mechanics would be an elapsed real-time. Because I think that if you're looking for tension in a game, that's probably the best way to add tension in the game. That, and I would say the second, the runner-up would be sudden death. But I think that sudden death needs to have a better thematic integration. You can't just throw sudden death into any game theme.

Brian Eng:

Right. Actually, I have almost the same points in mind. I have that elapsed real time ending, the examples we had earlier where it's great for these...

The examples we had earlier was it's great for the escape room-type games because it matches that. It's great at creating that urgency and tension. I guess the downside is that for some people that can be stressful in a bad way. The Sudden Death Ending is good. I think it's specifically good for historical war games which is right up your alley.

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah.

Brian Eng:

It does the same thing in creating that urgency or tension because you don't know exactly when that end is going to happen, right?

Dave Eng:

Right, right, right. What is it? The last point I have is I think that the most theme dependent mechanic would be Highest-Lowest Scoring and Finale Endings, specifically, because I think that they require the right fit in order for it to not feel forced. I feel like Finale Endings is definitely something that it needs to work really well with the theme otherwise it'll feel tacked on.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I agree. And with the Highest-Lowest Scoring, I agree with you there too. It fits with a civ building game which is essentially what Tigris & Euphrates and Yellow & Yangtze are is because it symbolizes the, the different categories can represent the points of your society so the lowest scoring one is the weakest part of your society kind of thing. So yeah, it is thematic as long as, again, it's designed for the right theme.

Dave Eng:

Right, right. All right, that's all I had for-

Brian Eng:

Same goal.

Dave Eng:

Integration with Theme.

Brian Eng:

Depth and strategic options?

Dave Eng:

Okay. You want me to lead on this one or you want to go?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, sure, go ahead.

Dave Eng:

Okay. So for depth and strategic options, the things we're considering is, does the mechanic offer meaningful choices and decisions with players? Does it create interesting decisions and trade-offs? Is there room for different strategies to merge and compete? And if it's too simple, the mechanic can become repetitive, and if it's overly too complex, it might be daunting for newcomers.

So here's my great overview. The depth-heavy mechanics, I think are End Game Bonuses and Highest-Lowest Scoring because they provide both long-term planning and layered strategies because I feel like those two really complement well, and we see it in a lot of the different strategy games that we played before. Do you agree?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. So specifically the Highest-Lowest Scoring, it forces you down a certain path. It doesn't force you to a certain strategy, but it does force you to diversify.

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

You cannot focus on one category. But what it does add is that you can target a weak category of your opponent.

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Brian Eng:

So if they're doing good, but you can see their one red category is they're really low. You can now target that and deny them those points, which it doesn't matter how high their other points get then, because if they can't bring up that red category, it doesn't matter anymore.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. They're going to score for that lowest category.

Brian Eng:

So again, it forces you down one route, but also opens up a different interesting option there. The other one you mentioned was End Game Bonuses. And again, from a strategy standpoint, I'm thinking of something like Terraforming Mars is like yeah, you want to go and try to monopolize those End Game Bonuses. Because a lot of times they can give you a very significant chunk of your victory points from End Game Bonuses.

Dave Eng:

Right. Right.

Brian Eng:

Actually, one that we didn't talk about, it's not an End Game Bonus, but was it River of Gold that we played?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, we played out on BGA. That has End Game Bonuses too.

Brian Eng:

Oh, actually it was the End Game Bonuses. And I remember in that first game I saw some of them, which was do the three different delivery categories or whatever, and it was like, okay, I'm just going to rush and get all of those as quickly as I can. And I was able to get a pretty significant lead by grabbing those.

Dave Eng:

I had a couple others for-

Brian Eng:

Yeah, go ahead.

Dave Eng:

I think for, when we're talking about depth and strategy, I think in order to make sure that the game still feels tense and at least close. I like the Sudden Death and Hidden Victory Points because they keep players engaged through that uncertainty because they're not 100% sure.

Brian Eng:

I was just going to say, I think with the Sudden Death Ending, one of the things that can almost give you that same feeling as a push your luck type game, because you have to make the guess of when you're going to, sometimes you have to switch your strategy when you're at the end game. So if it's Sudden Death, you don't exactly know when that's going to happen.

With the Hidden Victory Points, it introduces that element of bluffing in some games too, where because you don't have an exact, you have to make a guess based on how other players are playing, to determine where their points stand. So it adds some of those elements in which wouldn't normally be there.

Dave Eng:

Right. And then the last part here I had was fast pace mechanics. So again, we're talking about depth and strategy. I feel like Elapsed Real Time and Finale Endings, they increase the intensity. Definitely feels intense when you're playing with those mechanics. But I often feel like if you can't think quickly within the Elapsed Real Time game, it hinders your strategy. So some people like Elapsed Real Time games, some people don't. But some people really feel like it ramps up the intensity if you have to strategize and do it according to a time limit.

Brian Eng:

Again, there's that element of stress, which some people like that and some people don't. I think what I like about it, so I'm thinking of one of my examples, which was Galaxy Trucker. It's that risk management of time versus points. When do I want to flip that timer? Do I think that I can flip it now and still make the structure, the points that I'm still missing on my ship in the remaining time that I have left?

And I like that decision-making and especially you have to make it then with that added pressure of still doing stuff at the same time and the timer going. So for me, I like it, but I can see why. Well, again, you have to be in the mood for that too. If you want a relaxing game, I wouldn't compare playing Galaxy Trucker to playing Cascadia, for example.

Dave Eng:

No, no. Completely different. Completely different. Should we go into balance and fairness?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, so we can move on to balance and fairness. Sure.

Dave Eng:

All right, so for balance and fairness, we're considering if the mechanics give all players a fair chance to succeed regardless of position or luck, if there's opportunities for players to catch up for player interaction, and an unbalanced mechanic can lead to frustrating experiences and discourage players.

So I've got four points here. I feel like the games that are most balanced and fair are the ones that include both a mix of hidden and also public objectives. So my go-to games that I'm referring to here are Cascadia and Wingspan. The ones that I feel like are most interactive that we talked about already, Zoo Vadis with the Hidden Victory Points, Resistance Avalon.

And another game, a real-time game called Two Rooms and a Boom, which I think, I don't think that I've played it with you. But I played it a bunch of times with my students. And I think that's interactive because there's negotiation and there's also that social deduction aspect related to it.

The third point is I think the most strategic are again, The sacred cow, The Castles of Burgundy, Wingspan, and definitely Twilight Struggle. I feel like there's people that only play Twilight Struggle. But the most stressful and thrilling games, I would say are the ones that have the real-time mechanics, like Magic Maze we talked about before. And there's also 5-Minute Dungeon, which is literally a 5-minute timer where you're going through a dungeon cooperatively. So I feel like balance and fairness strikes these mechanics in different ways, but those are the examples of games that I would use for this.

Brian Eng:

So we touched on some of those ideas there. And then I would also say with something like Sudden Death Endings, I think the fairness comes in with what the general length of the game is. With a very short game, a Sudden Death Ending can feel much less fair, I think, because it doesn't give you any time to adapt to the game situation.

Of course, that's a general statement obviously, if the game is designed in a certain way. And something like the Finale Ending I think can be used as almost like a catch-up mechanic. So we talked about Resistance Avalon, my only example in that category. And so if the bad guys get blown out of the water, well, you still have that chance to make that Hail Mary shot and still win the game.

Dave Eng:

Right. Yeah, yeah. The redemption shot.

Brian Eng:

That's almost like you're rubber banding in your Mario Kart there. All right. Shall we go on to player engagement and fun?

Dave Eng:

Do you want to lead off on this one, Brian?

Brian Eng:

Why don't you just keep going the way we're going here and I'll comment.

Dave Eng:

All right, so for player engagement and fun, we're asking the questions, do the mechanics create interesting and engaging moments for players? Does it lead to exciting turns and dramatic reveals with satisfying payoffs? Is it enjoyable to interact with and learn? And even the most strategic mechanic can fall flat if it's not fun to play.

So I've got a few points here I wanted to talk about. The ones that I thought that were most engaging and fun are the ones that offer end-game scoring that keeps players engaged. So my go-to examples here are Wingspan, which we didn't talk about in depth, but has a lot of end-game scoring. And Cascadia, which Brian brought up before.

The ones that I think are most exciting and have a dramatic reveal, Resistance Avalon, Twilight Struggle, Zoo Vadis, because I feel like in all of those games there could be a lot of last-minute twists and with social deduction and hidden information.

The games that I thought that had a satisfying payoff again, is Castles of Burgundy. When you really lean into getting those end-game scoring opportunities. And also Beer & Bread because of the layered strategies. I know that that first game we played, I was like, "Oh, that game was a lot closer than I thought." Because I was like, I know I'm supposed to balance the beer and bread, but I don't know where I'm supposed to look. So I'm like, I'm going to assume I'm pretty close here. But I thought it was pretty satisfying overall with those payoffs.

Brian Eng:

I was just going to say the tough thing with the fun part of this category is the stress, fun stress, or un-fun stress. So it is very subjective. But with mechanics, like the Hidden Victory Points, I think that it does keep you, or it keeps me engaged, because it forces you to pay attention, have that idea of where each player falls in the ranking. Or with Highest-Lowest Scoring, it forces you to pay attention to everything because you can't leave that weak category. You have to be paying attention to all the things. Otherwise that one area, that weakness, is going to be your downfall in that game. So it does help with that engagement in the game state.

Dave Eng:

Right. And then the last item here, and we talked about this before, with making the games just accessible and enjoyable to learn. Ticket to Ride and Azul because I feel like they're very simple, yet very engaging. Ticket to Ride has the Hidden Victory Points with tickets. Azul though, has end-game scoring that is public. Because at least if you're playing on the standard board, you can see if someone's going to complete a column or row or all the colors.

Brian Eng:

And then go for that block or piece denial.

Dave Eng:

Right. Sounds like something you would do, Brian.

Brian Eng:

That is how you play that game.

Dave Eng:

All right. Anything else, Brian, for player engagement and fun?

Brian Eng:

Let's move on to variety and replayability.

Dave Eng:

All right, so for variety and replayability, we're looking at if the mechanic offers enough depth and variability to keep players coming back for more. And then we also consider if the mechanic scales with different player counts and experience levels. So I've only three points here. I think that the most replayable games are going to be the ones again, that have public and private goals, introduce it in information, or force adaptive strategies. And that goes across all of the different mechanics. And always use the same strategy.

Brian Eng:

Most of these I didn't feel directly impacted by replayability, with the exception of the End Game Bonuses. We talked about Terraforming Mars is point solid of End Game Bonuses. So with all that different variety and what you could be going for, it really helps to give you that replayability of changing up your strategy, changing what you're going for in the game.

Dave Eng:

The one criticism I have here is for both Sudden Death and Finale Endings. I think they're really exciting like we talked about, but I think that you need to have a strong implementation of them to avoid it feeling frustrating. Because like you said before, if it's a short game and there's Sudden Death, it could feel really anti-climactic. You know what I mean?

Brian Eng:

Right. And I think as you said, the same with the Finale Ending. If you have a really complex game, and it boils down to one simple Finale Ending decision, just negating everything you work for. It works in Resistance Avalon because it's a short game. There's not a huge investment prior to that. You won your three right away and your team worked really good together, but the other team guessed and you lost anyways. That's not the same as you just played a three-hour war game, but then at the end-

Dave Eng:

You play Tic-Tac-Toe to determine-

Brian Eng:

... Hitler was able to throw a rock into a hole and blow you up at the Death Star. Again, I think it's where it's appropriate matters for that to work.

Dave Eng:

Then the last point here I had was about Elapsed Real Time games, I think thrive on cooperative games, like what we talked about in Magic Maze. And I played another cooperative game called Quicksand. But I feel like if it's not properly randomized, because Magic Maze has some randomization into it, Quicksand also has randomization into it. It can feel very samey if it's not properly randomized. That's really my only criticism there when it comes to Elapsed Time games.

Brian Eng:

I agree with you on that. Okay, so we'll move on to innovation and originality.

Dave Eng:

So that's the last one for this section. So innovation and originality, we're asking the questions, does the mechanic offer something new and interesting, or is it just a rehash of existing ideas? And while the innovation is valuable, familiar mechanics can still be well-executed and enjoyable. So I feel like most of these mechanics are refinements more than revolutions.

There's one that I feel like is a revolution, and I'll get to it in a moment. And that's High Low Scoring. Most innovative because I think it forces a different kind of strategic thinking. Because a lot of other games it's like just an extreme. You want the most points or you want the least points? But Highest Low Scoring is just even yourself out. You agree?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, and I do think there are innovative ways that they have implemented it that feel different, even if the mechanic is the same. I really like the way that Between Two Cities plays, and that it forces you to negotiate with your neighbors and things like that. Even though I would say that mechanic is, a lot of these, actually, the mechanic is, none of these are new, they're all classic old mechanics that have been around, with maybe the exception of Finale Ending. So I think that the fact they're still used, that they're either so embedded that they're just like textbook. Or they have to come up with interesting ways to implement them. So End Game Bonuses, I don't think there's really, the originality is coming up with new ones, but there's not really new ways of implementing End Game Bonuses because by definition it's an End Game Bonus.

Dave Eng:

You get to decide when it-

Brian Eng:

Right.

Dave Eng:

To that point, I think that Hidden VPs and End Game Bonuses, there's many different ways you can implement them despite them being common because they're so flexible and work with a lot of themes. I think that's the reason why we see them in a lot of games. But on the flip side, Real Time and Sudden Death Endings, I think they need to be there to serve a specific gameplay need. If I'm going to use Real Time, it's probably going to be the first decision I make in that design. I'm like, okay, how do I build this game around this Elapsed Real Time mechanic?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I agree. Definitely. That would be interesting pivoting that mid-game design and suddenly say like-

Dave Eng:

So none of those are a Real Time game, then.

Brian Eng:

... "What? Let's put a clock in this game."

Dave Eng:

There's a super-strategic game that takes 20-minute turns, let's put a clock in it. But ultimately, I think from a design standpoint, Brian, it's more about how the execution than originality here. If you can take one of these older mechanics and use it in a new innovative way, then I would consider that innovative. So it all comes down to context for me.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I guess that situation on, is it the highlight of your game design? If it's just a piece of the puzzle, again, something like End Game Bonuses, I don't necessarily feel like it has to be some fancy new way to implement it, unless that is the whole centerpiece of your game, right? Is End Game Bonuses. Well then, I think you have to have something new, then. If your whole game is focused on these End Game Bonuses, then you got to have something new with it. But generally I think you're correct. Okay. Well that wraps up our beyond the basics, right? Do you have anything else you want to touch on?

Dave Eng:

No, I mean, I guess for bonus round, I just had a quick summary of my thoughts on these six mechanics.

Brian Eng:

Okay, go ahead.

Dave Eng:

Did I go lead with that?

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

All right. So I think the mechanics like End Game Bonuses and Hidden Victory Points are, I think those are my favorite out of the ones we've covered because they balance strategy and unpredictability. Sudden Death and Finale Endings, I think I could live without it. I did play a few games in each of those categories, but I feel like it's super-dramatic at that point. Something could just change suddenly at the very end of the game. The only time I think I would agree to it is if it is a very short game.

Elapsed Time and High-Low Scoring, I think offer a really unique tension, at least with Elapsed Time because there's a literal timer going. And I like High-Low Scoring because it forces you to diversify.

But basically in any of these, the way to avoid frustration is how you implement them. So going back to what you said, Brian, about it being contextual. These are some of these mechanics that have been around for a while, but it's going to be about how designers are going to integrate these into existing designs, or new designs, and eventually how these would connect with an overall theme.

Brian Eng:

Just going back to your point about Sudden Death Endings, I actually don't know if I agree with it fitting more with short games, if that's what you meant? Avoiding them in longer games. Some of our examples, like for example, Twilight Struggle, I would consider that not a short game.

Dave Eng:

No.

Brian Eng:

But I think because of the theme and because it's not, when we say Sudden Death, we mean it in the sense that it is not the normal way that the game ends, but it doesn't happen suddenly. You can see that coming and you can use it in your strategy. And the same goes with the various Sudden Deaths in 7 Wonders Duel. There's many different ways. Now that is a little bit of a shorter game too, but because all of them you can see it happening. It's Sudden Death, but it's not fast. It's not sudden in the sense that it came out of nowhere.

Dave Eng:

It's Sudden Death in that the game ends, but you can see it-

Brian Eng:

The game ends in a, and it's not through the normal ending. It doesn't run the full course of the game. It ends prior to the full course of the game. So again, I think it's implemented well in those games and it fits thematically, and because it's not sudden in the sense that it just happened immediately, it doesn't feel like it came out of nowhere and blindsided you. I think you would see those things happening.

Dave Eng:

Right.

Brian Eng:

And you're just powerless to stop. If you lose to it, it's because you were powerless to stop it. Which to me is a good point to the game, is that the player who won that way had to strategize to get there. So, I don't know if I agree with it fitting better in shorter games. I think it's, again, it does come down to how it's implemented for your specific game.

All right. Okay. Well, I guess that wraps up our end game 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 also love it if you took some time to rate the show. We live to lift others with learning. So if you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could benefit. Until next time. Game On!

References:

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Scoring

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Cite this Episode :

Eng, D. & Eng, B. (Hosts). (2025, May 4). AP Table Talk: Mega Topic: End Game. (No. 137) [Audio podcast episode]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/podcast/137

Internal Ref: UXPTPPG64RS5