While playing games I’ve always enjoyed having interesting options to choose from and being able to shape how I would deal with challenges. Maybe that’s the reason online RPGs were always my favorite type of game, where you can customize your character not only visually but also its powers. There’s such a big range of combat styles you can craft on those kinds of games, something I’m trying to replicate in Ambal Tournament.

The way I found to do that was with deck construction and building, where all of your choices are skills and the combination of those will determine how you play the game. Player customization is a core element of my game, but even in games where customization isn’t the central element, it is good to give players options to express themselves.

Projecting yourself

In first person games you (or an imaginary perception of yourself) are the avatar and exploring what this fantastic version of yourself can do can be really immersive, it is a representation of how you would do something on that context. In comparison, the immersion on a third person game rises with the empathy you feel for the characters you are controlling, and how you think or wish they would behave.

Many contemporary games provide players with the ability to not simply play with a pre-constructed character as a child might play with a toy, but instead to create characters that allow monadic interaction with the game environment (Lin, 2013). Monadic interaction, in this context, refers to players experiencing more intimate levels of identification or relatedness with the avatar they use to interact with the digital environment.

Getting Into the Game: An Examination of Player Personality Projection in Videogame Avatars by Casey Hart

While the above article explores videogames we can assume that personality projection works in a similar way for boardgames, in both players have avatars that interact with the game. When you are given a set of predefined objects that can’t be changed and dictates how you play it feels less satisfying than being able to choose how you want to play. Most games today allow some sort of customization by acquiring skills, upgrades or objects to use on the set up and/or during the game.

People are not the same, so offering different choices for tackling the game (with different predefined characters or customization) can make players feel more connected. When the choice is more than just a red or blue pawn color you are giving players a chance to express their individuality.

Making better choices

Having interesting choices available give players more freedom on what they can do and a greater sense of power, while with less they can feel powerless and restricted. Both of these situations can be explored in a game so players experience different levels of power, giving more choices as a reward and less choices as a punishment. Too many choices can be a negative thing though, taking much longer to reach a decision and potentially overwhelming the player, which is far from ideal during a game. That’s why there are restrictions like number of cards you can use, resources, and other factors that create a limit the player have to work around. These restrictions, when planned well, induce players to be creative with their strategy.

For a choice to be meaningful it needs clear possible outcomes, different rewards and risks. To give even more meaning a choice should have a sense of permanence, something the player can’t redo (at least not easily) and have to deal with for the rest of the game, reminding them that each choice has a consequence.  If you are given two different choices but the outcome is the same, was that choice meaningful? Having different choices, but not knowing their outcome makes them less meaningful as well because of the lack of control over the situation.

Offering a big amount of customization is a lot of work when dealing with balance and making sure each choice is unique enough. However by using restrictions you can limit the amount of possible choices which can be fun for the player to work around and makes balancing more manageable. For example, in Ambal there is a deck construction rule that only up to two Schools of Knowledge are allowed, this way I have a better control of possible combos players can use and create skills accordingly.

Indeed it is not precisely the choice that most satisfies the player, but the freedom to choose. The inherent joy is not in the actual act of burning or saving the village, but that the player has the freedom to take either course.

Interactive Storytelling: Meaningful Player Choice by Steve Breslin

If a game is already complex enough or if allowing heavy customization would shift the attention to unwanted places, there are easy ways to offer interesting choices. For example, many games offer a couple of options to choose from in the initial set up, giving the sense that the player is deciding how they will start the game, therefore influencing the rest of the game. If the player is forced into a set up, they might blame that if they lose, while if it was their choice they might want to try again exploring different options.

Giving players meaningful choices and ways to express themselves, even if very limited, can help them feel like their actions matter and that they are in control of their path.

I tried to apply these concepts and give more individuality by removing characters and monsters as card options in Ambal, making each card a unique skill instead. My intention was to push the core design into just skills, not only allowing great customization but shifting the experience from “My creatures are doing this” (third person perspective) to “I am doing this” (first person perspective).