Designing Within Constraints

Constraints are big-picture limitations or challenges, that you try to build your game inside. The most common constraint is a set number of components/cards. Others are playtime, amount of rules, and physical space. Various rules can also be constraints.

Not a bad place to start

I used to design within constraints regularly, when I wasn't as serious about board game design.

Constraints can force you to be very innovative inside that space. Also, they give you an objective other than creating a great game (which is hard.) If you're just designing for fun, constraints are a great place to go.

Do not hold on to constraints

If you're serious, you need to let go of constraints. It serves a purpose, but eventually it strangles the game.

My first modern game was a farming game with the constraint that it had no rules. You just picked up the first card, and it told you to play it. And then, the game unfolded from there. This forced a whole lot of rules, and repetition of those rules, onto the cards. Eventually, it was correct to just have a little rules card. The game still feels super-simple, even though the constraint is gone.
Radlands was an exercise in building a deep card game with very simple rules, and nothing but cards. However, I pushed the limits of this, and the publisher broke out of the constraints. They added tokens, as a memory aid, and added a playmat (in the Deluxe version), as it can be hard for players to visualise the correct arrangement of the cards without one. Despite these additions, the game still feels like a pure card game, and the constraints have made it super-elegant.

Drift

Your games are not going to be what you intended them to be. Create them within their constraints, and then see what's fun. Let them go in that direction. In fact, I just create my game, get the basics hammered out, and then let the game drift. The game ends up not being what I had intended, but it does become a great game. I can still try to achieve the dream another time.

Whatever your great idea was, it was only a means to an end — a great game. That's if you're serious, of course.

I wanted my pirate game to evoke the feeling of sailing free on the high seas, and going on an adventure. It ended up being a game about players chasing each other around on ships, and stealing each other's cargo. It wasn't what I intended, but it was good.

If your game is inspired by another game, which my games often are, drift is a good thing. Some of my games started out much closer to their inspirations, and drifted comfortably far.

My constraints

These days, I usually have these flexible, fairly strong constraints, though they vary a lot from game to game.

  1. Turn structure: Two steps.
  2. The entire game within two systems.
  3. 30 minute playtime.
  4. Rules: One reminder card plus an icon explainer. (Full rulebook will be one A4, not one card.)
  5. Setup: zero, other than putting the components on the table.

Some of these constraints end up getting loosened, but I don't do it lightly.

Choosing the constraints is now part of the genesis of my games.

In my adventure game, I wanted a game where you just used a movement ability, and then an action. That was your turn. At times, it expanded to three actions, but I always tried to get it back to two, and eventually succeeded.
In my farm game, I wanted the player's farm to all operate within two systems. One is a central board, where you get tokens, to put on your farm. The other is the end-of-round production step, where all your tokens do their effect. They all work that way, but each effect is different.

Come up with a simple mechanical framework, and ask "what can I build within this"? What about:

  • A game where there are resource tokens and a deck, and on your turn, you draw a card, and may spend your resource tokens to play a card?
  • A game where there are cards in the middle, and you can buy up to 5 coins worth of them per turn?