science of board games

After months of playing Race for the Galaxy, I still reach for that mat meant to explain each of the many symbols that show up throughout the deck. I'm the only one in our gaming group with that problem, but from talking to people outside of our group, I don't think I'm the only one.

With the push for language independent games from many publishers — and finances are almost certainly the reason behind the trend — I've been thinking about the mechanics behind such games. For many games, the question of language is only an issue when you're learning the game. Our gaming group plays a German version of Acquire more often than an English language version — and only one of our group speaks German. But there are also more than a few games that aren't so easy to play in any language you aren't very familiar with. Agricola, in particular comes to mind. With the many different options when it comes to cards, there's no way to hold each card in your mind.

Where does that leave us? Language is just as important a part of the mechanics as any other facet of game play. The decision to create a language independent game requires extensive play testing and tweaking in order to make sure that players aren't left grabbing for the rules every other minute. It can be a good option, but any decisions relating to language can't be purely financial.