On the other hand, like books, paintings, and movies, we can expect that at least some of the followup games see something interesting about the original game and incorporate the new mechanics, like new technology, in an attempt to explore a newly discovered territory opened by the original. This may be true in the vast majority of cases. Video games follow the same pattern.Ĭrassly speaking, we may look at later games as simple attempts to capitalize and monetize on the success of the previous game.

And, on a smaller scale, dozens of worker placement games have followed Caylus.

Hundreds of trivia games followed Trivial Pursuit. After Monopoly, we saw not only clones of Monopoly games with different themes but different economic games with similar goals and mechanics. Morality games followed one after another in earlier centuries. You can see the working of game design periods/movements throughout the twentieth century and into this one. We call games that seem to incorporate about 50% of their design each from two different movements 'hybrid games', but many games fall in between movements, more or less. A particular game might straddle several design movements: Eurogame, war game, trivia game, and so on, taking elements of each to create a specific game meant to target those who enjoy one or more of these movements. Its roots run back to the 1960s, it began flourishing in the 1980s, and it spread worldwide in the 1990s.Ī particular game might be from one branch of the Eurogame period. There exists in the world today a game design movement called Eurogame design. This didn't satisfy him he was looking for something concrete insofar as classification.Īs he walked away, I immediately realized that Eurogames are not a class of games - such as race games and capture games - but a period of games, or an art movement. I cited a number of different qualities, all of which taken together would lead to calling a game a Eurogame. 'What, exactly, makes a Eurogame different from any other game?' After my presentation on Eurogames, one conference attendee told me that he was still confused.

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