We always work backward through Telestrations, from the wackiest end result and always asking “why on earth did they draw that?” And then the big reveal of the previous page, then “why on earth would someone write that?” And then revealing the picture. That’s always been more fun than starting from the “known” and seeing the incremental screw-ups.
I like how in Pax Viking, players can choose their own victory conditions from a deck of cards with varying difficulty. Different players can even choose different card altering the difficulty depending on how experienced they are at the game. This is a competitive example but I love the openness of it.
Sleeping Gods is still the game I want to keep getting to the table right now. Lauket did a fantastic job combining an immense open world while also giving us some direction and clues through those quest cards and hints on the map illustrations that lead to a sense of accomplishment.
Very excited about Mythwind. I am a big fan of that style of video game and am hoping it translates well to the board game world. In addition to Subnautica and Stardew Valley, I would add Animal Crossing, My Time at Portia, and Deiland as great games without a defined win condition. Also, the early games in the Harvest Moon series, which inspired most of the above games, were amazing.
Jamey, I think when you design an open world and/or no win condition game, what you really designed is an engine in precisely the same way as certain coding frameworks are referred to as engines (e.g. Unreal Engine 5). It's an engine because it can support multiple games, sort of the same way that the possible story arcs in a D&D style game are infinite. But that's kind of my point, each individual story arc has its own climax and resolution. If you're like me, you want a game to have those story arcs so you get to those climaxes and resolutions in a reasonable amount of time (this is part of the reason I hesitate to play legacy or campaign games, although for the latter cost is a big factor) and having built an engine allows you to superimpose those story arcs over what you already made. In other words, you could provide those individual story arcs as self contained products. Just my two cents, but something tells me your open world game is going to be right up my alley. I'm looking forward to it.
Really interesting that this list is a mix of narrative and party games. Makes me wonder how we could transcend that experience into a blend of the two genres.
I think The Great Dalmuti fits this. It's still one of our favorites. You play for as long as you want because it has no win condition. Each hand, every individual likely has their own goal based on the cards dealt: I no longer want to be a peon, I don't want to become a peon, I want to move up at least one spot, I want to become The Great Dalmuti. The challenge is making it happen.
I see Earthborne as a game where the sessions just consist of a series of pass and fail conditions, both of which have consequences. Passing doesn't inherently mean it's always positive for you. Earthborne is essentially just a Pen and Paper RPG with cards, and I'm here for it.
Very interested to learn more about your open world cooperative game! I was extremely excited around the buildup to Mythwind (after seeing so many ads months before it went live on KS), but the gameplay seemed a little too "relax" if that makes sense. I like a little tension in games, and the idea of just aimlessly leveling up the town or your character when it doesn't really matter one way or the other seemed kind of boring. Anyway, I can't wait to hear more about your new design! Building an open world in the limited space of a board game is a daunting feat!
Cashflow - especially with the 202 expansion is one I've always played where I go in and define some condition I wanted to achieve and see if I could. This comes into play more when I have new players to the game.
I've long been frustrated with the term "sandbox game" especially with regard to board games because, largely, I just haven't seen it. I think between this, and from what I hear, Sleeping Gods, it's becoming closer and closer to being an actual thing instead of a weird throwaway meaningless term. When the playing is the point (not goals) then it becomes a Sandbox Game. I think, you got a great selection of quotes there and I hope this starts an interesting conversation. I think we'll see more games like this, though I think they will continue to be pretty niche (for the time being). I'm not sure doing a 'board game' (not party game) that is a true sandbox game with no goals and no incentive and no direction or microgoals to go after will be a hard thing to pull off. But then I think of how many folks I've seen just have fun making stacks out of meeples in Carcassonne and I think, you know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the next big thing will just be really pretty games that have no goals but instead just give you pieces to putz around with and enjoy playing. It will have rules of how things can interact, if you want them to, but you can also just make a cool stack of meeples or just make a pretty configuration of tiles. I really didn't get the appeal of this until a few years ago, when I tried Cities Skylines and Surviving Mars. Now, those do have goals (don't go bankrupt), BUT, once you're past the beginning of those, if you played the game at all well, you're going to find yourself pretty much done really fast. A goal is only really a goal when, as you said, there's stakes. If I'm not concerned about being bankrupt (or whatever goal you choose), is it really a goal? At a certain point, you go from not Sandbox into 'Sandbox' game, and I think finding that line will be difficult with board games, but immensely rewarding if designers can figure it out. Also, I hadn't heard the term Fail Forward before. Perfect term. I'm sure it's been said plenty and I just missed it, been a bit out of the game design loop the last few years, but dang, great concept, great term. It's what I love about some of the best games out there. I've been wanting to write an article/blog (for fun) on this topic for a bit, thank you for the inspirational thoughts. Glad to hear you mention party style games, been trying to figure out how to best phrase that for the blog I want to write. I feel I frequently just ignore all winning elements of party games and just play for fun. Who wants to 'win' apples to apples?
Very curious discussion at the beginning. I'm struggling a bit though thinking about what is the experience Mythwind or your own game wants to provide. I think it is great to have a game where the journey is more important than the ending or particular objectives, but essentially this is what a RPG is, imho. How would you achieve a true open world experience without having to add an infinite amount of elements to your game and make it huge?
Great questions! I think part of the open world is aided by these open-ended plays and goals--if a game says, "You must do this or you lose," that doesn't seem quite as open. I think that's one ingredient. As for your question, I think the key is to give players open choices. The real world isn't infinite, but you still have a ton of different choices you can make every day. As for size, I think an open-world game benefits from being quite big as long as there's plenty to do in it.
Love this list and largely just cos of the sheer mention of a Sherlock Holmes game. Hardly ever do I see a SH or Crime/Mystery game ever mentioned. They are usually the blow-up, fight, kill, destroy type of games which for my age being in my mid-50s bores the crap out of me. Much rather have a nice relaxing, decent game where there is adventure and/or a need to use my brains and has logic behind it.
Apparently, I am drawn to this style of game. I have all these games from 1 to 8 other than telestrations & we just play that on scrap paper making up our own topics. I also just started Dune: House Secrets yesterday. Because I have so many games like this though, I'm starting to buy / back fewer of them (even though they intrigue me - I love the sense of adventure & exploration).
@@jameystegmaier I'm anxious to play Chapter 1 because the Prologue seemed a bit narrow (probably by design since it is supposed to help you learn the game). After I've played more I will post a review. Not sure if it will be a short spotlight after chapter 1 or a more thorough review after playing all 3 chapters. I don't want to give spoilers in a review, so I'll make the call after we've played chapter 1 (hopefully we'll play today).
Jamey, very interesting and informative as always. There was an interesting (and somewhat rabid) debate on BGG over the question: if a game has no ending and/or no win condition, is it still a game? This was something I had to figure out in the game I was working on (hopefully some day it will graduate from scissors and glue sticks 😅), since it's hard to define ending and winning in a non-linear open world game. I chose to go with unassigned objective cards because I also wanted players to be able to decide what mattered to them.
"I also wanted players to be able to decide what mattered to them." I like the way you phrased that--I'm looking for the same thing when I play this style of game.
I dont know if it would be an evolution in board gaming to focus on games with no end goal, end trigger, winner or whatever. Even open world and sandbox games in most cases define either things you get points for or end triggers. Not having that would really increase the risk of the game just feeling like a pastime.....and in that case it might be more satisfactory just to watch a movie or even better a series. E.g. I love the theme and mechanisms and setting about 7th continent....BUT after having played like 12-16hrs to finally solve a curse I really thought about how many other games I could have played in a shorter time (e.g. play through half a cycle of Arkham Horror LCG)....and that left me with such a bitter taste that even though I rated it an 8.0 I'm not sure if I'm gonna play that game again...maybe buying a curse pack which just need about 6hrs to play.
I wouldnt have added any party games to that list, because even though in a quiz game someone will have more correct answers you just play the game to do something while sitting together.
Basically most (if not all) sandbox based game do fit in that category. In the video game industry I think Minecraft is currently one of the best example
You can't spell "Mythwind" without "win" - ironically. It's interesting that there are a lot of party games that have point systems that most people ignore. I'll bet the designers know this. "We could just leave it without a point system, but people will complain, even though they'll ignore it." If you remember the old TV show "Whose line is it anyway?" that was based on theater improvs, they made fun of this by having a judge award who "won" each improv with meaningless points.
So what game that is an open world with player defined win conditions, is able to have the best feel of a true STORY ARC when you have stopped playing?
That's a great question. I haven't actually played Mythwind or Earthborne Rangers yet, but it's possible the answer may end up being one of them. For now, I would say either Sleeping Gods (for which I've completed one campaign) or Legacy of Dragonholt (which I didn't complete). For me, I don't need the game's story to be complete for me to have a complete story or even a story arc, though. I have another video about emergent narrative that delves into that topic. :)
I think if you dive deap enough into choose your own adventure games or twine games, etc, you'll find something along the lines of an actual story arc and open world, somewhere. BUT. It is very uncommon as the two concepts are frequently at odds with one another, though not inherently, just a byproduct of the elements that enforce them. It was easier, in video games, before voice acting, so if you look at games that came out before voice acting was common, you'll be more likely to find it. On the non-video game side of things, I think I'm just not knowledgable enough, but I'd probably say 'some choose your own adventure book that must be a tome' or you know, just a good TTRPG campaign.
So this was my first video from Jamey Stegmaier that had an advertisement. Is this something new for the channel or have I just been inadvertently avoiding supporting this channel by not having advertisements?
I've never enabled advertisements for this channel. I've heard that sometimes when you watch videos on your phone, CZcams posts ads anyway, but it's never something I've enabled, nor do I ever plan to. I've never seen one on this channel either.
Unfortunately CZcams will put adds on popular videos, even if the channel itself cannot or does not turn on ads. If I understand correctly the ads during a video can be turned on or off by the channel itself but the ones before cannot.
This genre just screams dungeons and dragons to me. What do these open world games do that dungeons and dragons can't? They seem like a toned down pre-written campaign in D&D so no single person has the burden of storytelling; that responsibility is on the game itself.
D&D/TTRPGS is the peak of 'open world' and 'sandbox' and few things can ever touch the levels of either that it reaches. On the other hand, some folks like myself just can't get into it, so I'm glad there's other options that try to get there, even if they never get as far.
Wait a minute…open world game by Jamey Stegmaier??!! Sign me up!
I'd happily throw money at that!
Agreed! And a fully cooperative game at that! Interested and excited to see what comes!
We always work backward through Telestrations, from the wackiest end result and always asking “why on earth did they draw that?” And then the big reveal of the previous page, then “why on earth would someone write that?” And then revealing the picture. That’s always been more fun than starting from the “known” and seeing the incremental screw-ups.
We've never played that way, but now I need to try it! :)
I like how in Pax Viking, players can choose their own victory conditions from a deck of cards with varying difficulty. Different players can even choose different card altering the difficulty depending on how experienced they are at the game. This is a competitive example but I love the openness of it.
A true open world board game is such a difficult feat to pull off. Thanks for highlighting some of the best that you have found.
Sleeping Gods is still the game I want to keep getting to the table right now. Lauket did a fantastic job combining an immense open world while also giving us some direction and clues through those quest cards and hints on the map illustrations that lead to a sense of accomplishment.
Very excited about Mythwind. I am a big fan of that style of video game and am hoping it translates well to the board game world. In addition to Subnautica and Stardew Valley, I would add Animal Crossing, My Time at Portia, and Deiland as great games without a defined win condition. Also, the early games in the Harvest Moon series, which inspired most of the above games, were amazing.
Jamey,
I think when you design an open world and/or no win condition game, what you really designed is an engine in precisely the same way as certain coding frameworks are referred to as engines (e.g. Unreal Engine 5). It's an engine because it can support multiple games, sort of the same way that the possible story arcs in a D&D style game are infinite. But that's kind of my point, each individual story arc has its own climax and resolution. If you're like me, you want a game to have those story arcs so you get to those climaxes and resolutions in a reasonable amount of time (this is part of the reason I hesitate to play legacy or campaign games, although for the latter cost is a big factor) and having built an engine allows you to superimpose those story arcs over what you already made. In other words, you could provide those individual story arcs as self contained products.
Just my two cents, but something tells me your open world game is going to be right up my alley. I'm looking forward to it.
I would love an open world game based off of the many adventures of Hunter S. Thompson. I wonder how hard that IP is
I feel like you’ve been teasing me with this co-op game forever!! As a co-op or solo only player I need a Stonemaeir co-op in my life!
Really interesting that this list is a mix of narrative and party games. Makes me wonder how we could transcend that experience into a blend of the two genres.
I think The Great Dalmuti fits this. It's still one of our favorites. You play for as long as you want because it has no win condition. Each hand, every individual likely has their own goal based on the cards dealt: I no longer want to be a peon, I don't want to become a peon, I want to move up at least one spot, I want to become The Great Dalmuti. The challenge is making it happen.
I see Earthborne as a game where the sessions just consist of a series of pass and fail conditions, both of which have consequences. Passing doesn't inherently mean it's always positive for you. Earthborne is essentially just a Pen and Paper RPG with cards, and I'm here for it.
I'm really looking forward to it!
Great introduction to a topic I had little contact with. Also great to hear your thoughts as to how this connects to your open world game! Thank you!
Very interested to learn more about your open world cooperative game! I was extremely excited around the buildup to Mythwind (after seeing so many ads months before it went live on KS), but the gameplay seemed a little too "relax" if that makes sense. I like a little tension in games, and the idea of just aimlessly leveling up the town or your character when it doesn't really matter one way or the other seemed kind of boring.
Anyway, I can't wait to hear more about your new design! Building an open world in the limited space of a board game is a daunting feat!
Cashflow - especially with the 202 expansion is one I've always played where I go in and define some condition I wanted to achieve and see if I could. This comes into play more when I have new players to the game.
I've long been frustrated with the term "sandbox game" especially with regard to board games because, largely, I just haven't seen it. I think between this, and from what I hear, Sleeping Gods, it's becoming closer and closer to being an actual thing instead of a weird throwaway meaningless term. When the playing is the point (not goals) then it becomes a Sandbox Game. I think, you got a great selection of quotes there and I hope this starts an interesting conversation. I think we'll see more games like this, though I think they will continue to be pretty niche (for the time being).
I'm not sure doing a 'board game' (not party game) that is a true sandbox game with no goals and no incentive and no direction or microgoals to go after will be a hard thing to pull off. But then I think of how many folks I've seen just have fun making stacks out of meeples in Carcassonne and I think, you know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the next big thing will just be really pretty games that have no goals but instead just give you pieces to putz around with and enjoy playing. It will have rules of how things can interact, if you want them to, but you can also just make a cool stack of meeples or just make a pretty configuration of tiles.
I really didn't get the appeal of this until a few years ago, when I tried Cities Skylines and Surviving Mars. Now, those do have goals (don't go bankrupt), BUT, once you're past the beginning of those, if you played the game at all well, you're going to find yourself pretty much done really fast. A goal is only really a goal when, as you said, there's stakes. If I'm not concerned about being bankrupt (or whatever goal you choose), is it really a goal? At a certain point, you go from not Sandbox into 'Sandbox' game, and I think finding that line will be difficult with board games, but immensely rewarding if designers can figure it out.
Also, I hadn't heard the term Fail Forward before. Perfect term. I'm sure it's been said plenty and I just missed it, been a bit out of the game design loop the last few years, but dang, great concept, great term. It's what I love about some of the best games out there.
I've been wanting to write an article/blog (for fun) on this topic for a bit, thank you for the inspirational thoughts. Glad to hear you mention party style games, been trying to figure out how to best phrase that for the blog I want to write. I feel I frequently just ignore all winning elements of party games and just play for fun. Who wants to 'win' apples to apples?
Very curious discussion at the beginning. I'm struggling a bit though thinking about what is the experience Mythwind or your own game wants to provide.
I think it is great to have a game where the journey is more important than the ending or particular objectives, but essentially this is what a RPG is, imho.
How would you achieve a true open world experience without having to add an infinite amount of elements to your game and make it huge?
Great questions! I think part of the open world is aided by these open-ended plays and goals--if a game says, "You must do this or you lose," that doesn't seem quite as open. I think that's one ingredient. As for your question, I think the key is to give players open choices. The real world isn't infinite, but you still have a ton of different choices you can make every day. As for size, I think an open-world game benefits from being quite big as long as there's plenty to do in it.
Love open world and variable objectives but I need a traditional winning moment for that sense of triumph and completion.
Love this list and largely just cos of the sheer mention of a Sherlock Holmes game. Hardly ever do I see a SH or Crime/Mystery game ever mentioned. They are usually the blow-up, fight, kill, destroy type of games which for my age being in my mid-50s bores the crap out of me. Much rather have a nice relaxing, decent game where there is adventure and/or a need to use my brains and has logic behind it.
I'm with you, Ernie! I don't mind games with the choice to attack, but I also want the choice to deduce, escape, outwit, or charm.
@@jameystegmaier Exactly 🙂
Apparently, I am drawn to this style of game. I have all these games from 1 to 8 other than telestrations & we just play that on scrap paper making up our own topics. I also just started Dune: House Secrets yesterday. Because I have so many games like this though, I'm starting to buy / back fewer of them (even though they intrigue me - I love the sense of adventure & exploration).
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Dune: House Secrets!
@@jameystegmaier I'm anxious to play Chapter 1 because the Prologue seemed a bit narrow (probably by design since it is supposed to help you learn the game). After I've played more I will post a review. Not sure if it will be a short spotlight after chapter 1 or a more thorough review after playing all 3 chapters. I don't want to give spoilers in a review, so I'll make the call after we've played chapter 1 (hopefully we'll play today).
Jamey, very interesting and informative as always. There was an interesting (and somewhat rabid) debate on BGG over the question: if a game has no ending and/or no win condition, is it still a game?
This was something I had to figure out in the game I was working on (hopefully some day it will graduate from scissors and glue sticks 😅), since it's hard to define ending and winning in a non-linear open world game. I chose to go with unassigned objective cards because I also wanted players to be able to decide what mattered to them.
"I also wanted players to be able to decide what mattered to them." I like the way you phrased that--I'm looking for the same thing when I play this style of game.
I dont know if it would be an evolution in board gaming to focus on games with no end goal, end trigger, winner or whatever.
Even open world and sandbox games in most cases define either things you get points for or end triggers.
Not having that would really increase the risk of the game just feeling like a pastime.....and in that case it might be more satisfactory just to watch a movie or even better a series.
E.g. I love the theme and mechanisms and setting about 7th continent....BUT after having played like 12-16hrs to finally solve a curse I really thought about how many other games I could have played in a shorter time (e.g. play through half a cycle of Arkham Horror LCG)....and that left me with such a bitter taste that even though I rated it an 8.0 I'm not sure if I'm gonna play that game again...maybe buying a curse pack which just need about 6hrs to play.
I wouldnt have added any party games to that list, because even though in a quiz game someone will have more correct answers you just play the game to do something while sitting together.
Basically most (if not all) sandbox based game do fit in that category. In the video game industry I think Minecraft is currently one of the best example
You can't spell "Mythwind" without "win" - ironically.
It's interesting that there are a lot of party games that have point systems that most people ignore. I'll bet the designers know this. "We could just leave it without a point system, but people will complain, even though they'll ignore it." If you remember the old TV show "Whose line is it anyway?" that was based on theater improvs, they made fun of this by having a judge award who "won" each improv with meaningless points.
So what game that is an open world with player defined win conditions, is able to have the best feel of a true STORY ARC when you have stopped playing?
That's a great question. I haven't actually played Mythwind or Earthborne Rangers yet, but it's possible the answer may end up being one of them. For now, I would say either Sleeping Gods (for which I've completed one campaign) or Legacy of Dragonholt (which I didn't complete). For me, I don't need the game's story to be complete for me to have a complete story or even a story arc, though. I have another video about emergent narrative that delves into that topic. :)
I think if you dive deap enough into choose your own adventure games or twine games, etc, you'll find something along the lines of an actual story arc and open world, somewhere. BUT. It is very uncommon as the two concepts are frequently at odds with one another, though not inherently, just a byproduct of the elements that enforce them. It was easier, in video games, before voice acting, so if you look at games that came out before voice acting was common, you'll be more likely to find it. On the non-video game side of things, I think I'm just not knowledgable enough, but I'd probably say 'some choose your own adventure book that must be a tome' or you know, just a good TTRPG campaign.
So this was my first video from Jamey Stegmaier that had an advertisement. Is this something new for the channel or have I just been inadvertently avoiding supporting this channel by not having advertisements?
I've never enabled advertisements for this channel. I've heard that sometimes when you watch videos on your phone, CZcams posts ads anyway, but it's never something I've enabled, nor do I ever plan to. I've never seen one on this channel either.
Unfortunately CZcams will put adds on popular videos, even if the channel itself cannot or does not turn on ads. If I understand correctly the ads during a video can be turned on or off by the channel itself but the ones before cannot.
Fruitcake.... just barely edible for most
This genre just screams dungeons and dragons to me. What do these open world games do that dungeons and dragons can't? They seem like a toned down pre-written campaign in D&D so no single person has the burden of storytelling; that responsibility is on the game itself.
D&D/TTRPGS is the peak of 'open world' and 'sandbox' and few things can ever touch the levels of either that it reaches. On the other hand, some folks like myself just can't get into it, so I'm glad there's other options that try to get there, even if they never get as far.