Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design (Engelstein & Shalev)

In any mature industry, there is a shared language: terminology, categories, and other things that have developed over the years to give participants a way to explain their designs, ideas, and thoughts. The tabletop game industry, though, lacks this language. There are informal terms in pockets, but nothing universal. 

In Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design, authors Geoffrey Engelstein and Isaac Shalev aim to provide both "a stepping-stone to building a common vocabulary [and body of knowledge] among game designers" and "a compendium of game mechanisms, grouped together thematically, that map the territory of modern gaming." This is not a 'how to' on game design; rather, they've "chosen to look at the building blocks of games themselves: the mechanisms [or mechanics]." So think of this "not [as] a recipe book but rather a catalog of ingredients and how they can enrich a dish." 

Across 13 major sections, they look at 203 different mechanisms, attributes, or facets of game design. (In a given section, the different mechanisms might be variations of each other.) Each mechanism has a description, discussion (including the possibilities and potential pitfalls), and sample games. This list, as the authors state, is not comprehensive: they recognize that they cannot hit on every single thing out there, but try to focus on some basic elements to help both beginner and designer alike. In addition, it can be hard to cleanly delineate between some mechanisms—some things could fall into multiple categories—so they do their best and mention related or alternative groupings.

The sections:

- Game Structure

- Turn Order and Structure

- Actions

- Resolution

- Game End and Victory

- Uncertainty

- Economics

- Auctions

- Worker Placement

- Movement

- Area Control

- Set Collection

- Card Mechanisms

They reference a whopping 838 sample games total, giving readers plenty of ideas for games to try or examine to learn more about a given mechanic. 

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I got this book to help my goal of designing a board game one day. I intended to use it as a reference only, but was unexpectedly engrossed and ended up reading it straight through. (Well, I read each section introduction and mechanism description, and read or skimmed the mechanism discussions as suited my fancy.) 

This is a wonderful book; I really enjoyed it. It covered mechanics I knew, ones/variations I didn't, and gave me plenty of ideas for both mechanics to think about and games to try. I will say, though, that my enjoyment is due in part to having played and reviewed a lot of games. Of the 838 games the authors mention, I've played ~80 of them (and, to date, I've reviewed 188 games on this blog). So if you are already familiar with tabletop games, I think this is a fantastic resource. If you are brand new, you will likely be overwhelmed.

Rating: A