Analysing a Boardgame #1

The second year of game design has started, and with it a new task to analyze board games.
The task consists of first playing the game and then deciding the objectively worst and best sides of the game. After that we are to decide the core game system, meaning the system that the entire game revolves around, and then defining the objects, functions and the properties, behavior and relationships that is this game.
And then we choose the subjectively most interesting system and describe its objects and functions, giving a rough idea of how these work with the other systems and mechanics to create this interesting system.
Then we do a target audience interpretation, basically we check the box for what it says the age limit is and then try to derive from this a target audience, using the games systems and intricacies to give an idea of what their possible target audiences are.
Finally we are to do a summary of how all this correlates to create this board game.

My group chose the game Dust, a strategy game where the goal is world domination. The game is played by two to six players in rounds with five different phases, with a setup-phase at the start of every game. The game is won by controlling capitals, power sources and by controlling the majority of land/sea areas or production centers which all give one victory point. When a player reaches the set amount of victory points needed (50 points if there are two players, 40 if 3-4 and 30 if there are 5-6) that player wins and the game is over.

The setup

When the game starts every player is given six cards. These cards can be played during the various phases of the game depending on which type of card it is, but in the setup as well as the start of every round one card is chosen and placed face down on the table. When all the players have chosen their cards they are simultaneously flipped over and the order of play is determined based on the values of the card chosen. The player with the card that has the highest valued card goes first and places a tank unit on their desired capital. Then the player with the second highest card does the same until every player has claimed a capital.
Then, using the same order, the players place tanks on and claim any unclaimed land areas until every land area has been claimed. If a player claims a power source he can then use this to power one of his production centers, which gives more production points which I will explain further down.
After this they place production centers on their own land areas in the same order.
The final part of the setup is placing reinforcement units on friendly land areas that have production centers on them.
At the end of the setup or any other round the cards placed during it are discarded.

Before I go into the game round I should explain how the cards work.

Every card has the three values combat, movement and production along with a number of stars at the bottom.
The order of every turn is decided by the highest combat value. If players combat values are even, the movement value decides the order and in case of the values still being even the tie-breaker stars at the bottom of the card decides who goes first.
The cards also have a special usage based on the image on the card, but they can only be used from your hand and not from the table, meaning that the card you play at the start of the round cannot use its special move.

A Game Round

When the players have determined the playing order the same way as the setup, using the numerical values of the cards placed the round begins with the production phase.

In the production phase the player calculate how many production points he gets, these points are used as currency to purchase units and cards. How many points the player gets is calculated by the number of capitals, power sources and production centers that he owns as well as the number on the card he placed on the table. The player then purchases the units he wants and places them on any of his own land areas that has a production center on it. The player can also use the points to purchase more cards, this is the only way to replenish your hand. After the player is done with the production phase he moves on to the movement phase

The movement phase lets the player move his units around the board, the number of moves the player can do during this round is based on the number of movement points the card he placed has.
The player can choose to move any units from any area to any connected friendly area, connected meaning that no enemy or neutral area can be passed through in the movement. If the player moves through water then the shore-to-shore movement is considered one movement. When the movement phase is complete the player moves on to the attack phase.

While in the attack phase the player can choose to mount an attack to any adjacent land areas that are not controlled by him, the number of attacks a player may do in one round is determined by the combat value of the card he played. If a player attacks the two parts will first calculate who has a tactical supremacy which would allow him to attack first.
Tactical supremacy is given by certain advanced units that cost more than regular units.
Combat is done by first calculating the power of your tile, counting any units combat power as well as capitals giving 5 and production centers giving 3 “combat points”.
Then the player rolls as many dice as he has combat value, these dice are unique to this game and have 2 sides that are hits and the rest are blank. Every dice that rolls a hit is a killed unit for the opponent, meaning that the player that didn’t have tactical supremacy risks losing many of his forces before he even gets a chance to attack.
If two players are even in their tactical supremacy the defending tile has supremacy, and capitals always have supremacy.
When the player is done attacking the turn goes to the next player, when they are all done the round moves on to the victory point phase.

The final phase of every round is the victory point phase, here the players recieve victory points in the following ways:

• One point per capital owned.
• One point per power source owned.
• One point if you are the player with the most land areas owned.
• One point if you are the player with the most sea areas owned.
• One point if you are the player with the most production centers owned.

When a player reaches the amount of victory points needed to win as well as owning at least one capital the game is over. If more than one player reaches the goal at the same time then the one with the most points win. If this is tied then the player with the most capitals win. If this too is tied then the player with the most total land areas owned wins, and finally if that is tied then they share the victory.

And now for the objectively worst and best sides of this game.

The worst

The rules take a lot of time to learn, our first playthrough took almost six hours because we had to refer to the rulebook every time we did anything, not knowing how many units you can place where, not knowing how the power sources work and thus not having the correct number of production points.
The many different edge cases that this game creates, there are so many different small details that are not included or very unclear in the rulebook. For example if one player uses a card that forces another player to empty a tile of units on the capital and then attacks it, will it defend itself? Or will it now require a movement which cannot be done in the attack phase to claim? Another example of this is when creating submarines, do they spawn on the land tile with the production center or the adjacent sea tile? And what if the tile is already occupied, do they automatically engage in combat and skip the movementphase for this?

The best

The game is not over until it’s over, with the cards that every player has that are incredibly useful, some of them prohibit a player from attacking, some forces a player to retreat or drops every single mech that you own into enemy territory, wreaking havoc. Every round that we played were even with one straggler at least one obvious victor, but it was only an obvious victor in the final round when we all realized that he owned half the worlds power sources and will be getting enough points to win no matter what.
The strategical side of this game with the actual players makes it even more openended, for example some players teaming up on an apparent victor, taking him down before he wins as well as forming alliances to be able to focus on other sides of the map without having to worry about a two-front war.

The Core System

I would argue that the cards are the core system of this game, they are what decides the order of play, how many units you can build, how much you can move and how many times you are allowed to attack each round.
The cards also have a unique move that they can use during the various parts of the game, some cards grant free units during production, some are special moves that you can use during your combat phase to relocate or surprise attack someone. The most valued card would be the one that has the ability to clear out any adjacent tile of units, including capitals. This means that if you have a tile next to an enemy capital then you can basically get a free extra capital.

The Most Interesting System

What I think is the most interesting system is the victory points, in that it changes the game from domination to grabbing as many points as you possibly can, and seeing as you only get one point for owning the most land while taking over a single power source tile gives one as well the priorites shift to a more strategic war over the victory points. The players also get a clear view of the standing of the game, and they can easily check if one player is on the verge of winning and thus can take action and stop this from happening.

The Target Audience

The box says 12 plus to play this game, and that age suggestion is understandable as it is a very complicated game that you have to understand to stand a chance at winning at. The image on the box works in this 12-plus suggestion in that it has some soldiers standing and a tank in the background which could entise potential players to check the game out and potentially purchase it.

Summary

To summarize this game and its systems, it is a very complicated game that takes a long time to learn but when you do and you get into it then it becomes a very fun game to play with friends, scheming and backstabbing as you go towards victory. The cards add an interesting dynamic to the standard war game, with cards that allow you to retreat unharmed or reroll your dice. If the rules had been more clearly stated and every scenario covered by the 25 page rulebook then it would have been even better, the only things that drag this game down is just that, the rules are a bit iffy in some of the most important parts (my example above about the capital being cleared).