Systems engineering in your games? It’s more likely than you think
Systems engineering concepts in games - it’s more likely than you think!
7 minute read
I am a gamer. I have, to my knowledge, always been a gamer. When I was a kid, not only did I play games (shout out to Mixed Up Mother Goose and Pitfall), but I used to create my own games. There was: Don’t Step in the Oatmeal, Get the Cheese, and so, so many dungeon crawlers and choose your own adventures drawn on paper waiting for someone (usually my cousins) to explore. So many games, y’all.
Why am I telling you this on an engineering consulting website? What does this have to do with anything? Because I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of game mechanics are really just systems engineering concepts. This matters because if even a fairly simple game uses systems engineering concepts, think of the importance of strong systems engineering on complex systems.
I was at Pax East for a few days last week. If you don’t know what that is, it is a gaming convention here in Boston. This is the second week in a row where I found myself wandering around Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC) and, while Pax appeared to be a stark contrast to the previous week’s engineering conference (I didn’t see any cosplay at DeviceTalks) I’m pretty sure they are more similar than you may think. Hear me out.
Before we take a dive into systems engineering concepts and the beloved games that use them, I want to introduce some game mechanics seen in the board games I use in my example:
Worker placement: Players place tokens (often the beloved meeple) onto spaces on a game board. The spaces correspond to a specific action in the game. Typically, only one worker can go on a space therefore only one player can use that space until the worker is removed.
Resource Management: Obtaining resources through actions and then using the resources to achieve beneficial outcomes such as scoring points or unlocking upgrades.
Tableau Building: Each player builds a collection of game components that are visible to other players. The collection that the player amasses generally has components that interact with each other.
Card Drafting: Starting with a hand of cards, selecting a card to play, and then passing the rest of the hand to the next player. This usually repeats for a set number of cards played/cards remaining in the hand.
If you play mostly US-style games these may be unfamiliar to you as these mechanics are typical of Euro-style games. What's the difference? Many US-style games depend more on luck - dice-rolling, card draws, etc. Examples include Uno, Monopoly, Candy Land, and Risk. They are often very theme-heavy and include direct player conflict. Euro-style games, generally don't include direct player conflict, are more strategy than luck, and many use the mechanics mentioned above. Well known examples include Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and Wingspan.
Let’s take a closer look at how systems engineering concepts are baked into games. I’ve chosen a few of my favorites and/or popular games to help illustrate.
Requirements: This is the one that I think is most obvious. Let's start with Lords of Waterdeep. This is a worker placement and resource management game where you endeavor to place your workers on spots that get you the cube colors that you need to complete quests. You can't all go to the same space on the board so get to where you need to be before your friends! Ever completed quests in Lords of Waterdeep? The quests tell you what the requirements are - you have to get enough cubes in the correct colors (and sometimes enough money) to complete your quests. You are pretty much looking at requirements and fulfilling them. (And, if your friend group double-checks that you have the correct cubes, they’re basically making you do verification.) Another example is World of Warcraft. Sure, it’s not a board game but it was super popular. If you have ever played then you know you spend a lot of time killing the thing to bring the right items the thing dropped to the right guy so you can get the better armor to go kill a bigger thing to get the better armor…you get it. Ever returned to the quest giver with 9 crispy spider legs instead of 10? You didn’t fulfill the requirements and you’re totally NOT getting your quest reward.
Risk Management: I feel like all games require risk management to some extent (I’m having trouble thinking of one that doesn’t). An easy example is any game that uses scarcity to drive player decisions. Let’s look at Power Grid (a classic that I'm always willing to play even if others aren't). In Power Grid you bid on power plants. These power plants use different fuel types to generate their power (think oil, nuclear, wind, etc.) and generate different amounts of power. Some plants are more efficient than others - in other words they require less resources to produce more power. The catch is that the resource market has fluctuating prices. You cannot produce power without resources (except for wind - it's free!). Where's the risk management? You probably don't want to buy plants that use all the same resource type – what if there's an oil shortage? Maybe you want to buy a cheaper plant, use it a few turns and then trash it to get a better one – but how long do you keep it? What if a better plant comes out and you can’t afford it or someone else takes it first? All of these decisions make you do risk management right there at the game table.
System Tradeoffs/Tradespace: Worker placement games where you cannot do everything you would ideally like to do due to a fixed number of workers (options) available to you forces you to make trade off decisions. Let’s use Caverna as an example. Caverna is another worker placement and resource management game. In Caverna, you are a farmer. Your player board is a fairly simple system – it has interconnected components designed to help you score points (and have fun!) Do you try to plant a bunch of vegetables or do you focus on raising livestock or even just building out your cave? Having vegetables is going to get you points but having unfilled spaces for rooms on your board is going to lose you points. Maybe you try to balance the approach with a little of each. Maybe you optimize for one tactic and take a hit on the others. Congratulations, you are making basic system tradeoff decisions.
Interface Management: Let’s talk about the Overcooked franchise. Overcooked and Overcooked 2 (admittedly not board games, but good examples here) are games where you chop ingredients, mix them together, and cook your way into successfully saving the onion kingdom. In this game, player characters directly interact with each other to pass ingredients, cooking implements, and dishes to each other. This means that you must manage your interfaces between your characters. If the player cooking the burgers needs a burger but you keep passing them lettuce, they are not going to be pleased. This is generally not a game where you can deviate from having effective communication between players and still complete harder levels successfully (although it IS funny to watch people try). Managing the items passed between which characters and when is interface management. An example of a tabletop game with interface management is 7 Wonders. 7 Wonders is a card drafting, tableau building game in which you select cards and pass them to your neighbours in three rounds. The cards that you select go into your tableau. The cards in your tableau play off of each other by providing “coupons” to play certain cards for free in later rounds. Some cards provide a synergy that provides more points the more of that card type that you have. In this game you have to manage the interfaces between the cards in your tableau and the cards that you can draft from. You also have to manage the interfaces between you and the players to your left and right. You can buy resources from your neighbours so it is important to know what they have available. Also, you may not want to pass your neighbour certain cards if you know they have “coupons” for them.
System of Systems: Let’s talk about Sid Meier’s Civilization games. In all iterations of these games you build cities to advance your civilization. Each city could technically stand alone but possibilities open up when cities build trade routes with each other. You could technically go through the game having all of your cities be insular, but it would probably not be super productive or compelling gameplay. As you unlock technology and policies during the game, trading within your own cities and with city-states or other civilizations becomes a great way to advance your own civilization. Each of your cities is its own system. By implementing trade between any other city in the game, gameplay becomes more complex and becomes a system of systems game.
These are just a few examples, and when it comes down to it, most games have a handful of mechanics that get repackaged and combined in different ways to make new games. This might be why I like games so much, because it is basically picking from a toolbox, much like the systems engineering process is. I think that spending the last decade and a half in systems engineering has made me a better gamer, and I also think that gaming has made me a better systems-thinker.
So why did I just tell you all of this? These games probably appear to be complex to a casual non-gamer observer. To someone with years of experience in systems engineering it is not hard to pick up on where systems thinking is going to be beneficial in game play. Even though these games are fairly simple in the grand scheme of system complexity it still takes considerable skill to become very good at them. Think of how simple games are compared to something like a surgical robot or ventilator. This shows how important it is to have good systems engineering support on projects especially as systems become more complex and operate with other systems.
Best regards,
Amber Marie
P.S. You may be asking, “But what about hate-drafting games though? What kind of systems engineering is that?” I actually don’t think it is related to systems engineering - I think that is you just messing with your friends.