Quality Over Quantity - Short Games

charlest wrote: For Sale
Skull
No Thanks!

Sounds like one of those super short stories.

For Sale: Skull
No thanks!

Shellhead wrote:

charlest wrote: There are not many strong thematic games in this category. I'd say it starts and begins with Space Hulk: Death Angel.

I though about Death Angel, but it only clocks in under 30 minutes if you lose badly. It's one of my all-time favorite games, but usually runs closer to an hour.

You can....WIN Death Angel????

Short games are the extent of my non-solo gaming these days. By the time our boys fall asleep, my wife only has an hour of wakefulness and attention left herself. Fortunately we have plenty of good ones. Jaipur, Lost Cities, The Mind, Hanabi and Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age are favorites, and I’m hoping to get Hive and Santorini into the rotation.

I agree with the suggestions of For Sale and No Thanks. I would also add Arboretum here as well - although it normally takes longer than the 30 mins on the box as people really don't want to put down a card that they know will be picked up by an opponent with glee.

Just jumping to offer...

WIZ-WAR!

Among three other experienced players, we rarely see a romp in the dungeon lasting more than 30. Sometimes, 45.

Less meaty / silly / "narrative," but I've never played a game of Unmatched that's been over 30 either. 2 player or 4 player.

DarthJoJo wrote: Short games are the extent of my non-solo gaming these days. By the time our boys fall asleep, my wife only has an hour of wakefulness and attention left herself. Fortunately we have plenty of good ones. Jaipur, Lost Cities, The Mind, Hanabi and Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age are favorites, and I’m hoping to get Hive and Santorini into the rotation.

Lost Cities is the game that I've done the biggest 180 on in the whole hobby. I spent years hating it, just because the way you assess risk and investment in the game totally eluded me. Now I've kind of "seen the Matrix" with the game and it's one of my favorite two-player titles. Not that it was ever a very complex game to figure out, I just needed to understand some things differently.

Hanabi îs the ultimate game that I admire and don't particularly enjoy. What a design, but man, it just has never felt very fun to me at all.

There are many excellent two player games that can be played in 30 minutes. Abstract games also often offer a number of good choices in a short window, but are usually two player. In addition to abstracts, card games like Pinochle, Euchre, and Rummy can all be played in a relatively short amount of time, though they can take up to an hour.

However, short multiplayer games have a number of hurdles to overcome to give the kind of strategically satisfying experience longer games can give.

For a four player game to come in under 30 minutes, each player will need to spend no more than 7 minutes on all of her turns. In something like Love Letter, each turn can go quickly because there is a choice between 2 cards. If the game is offering more options per turn, then an individual turn can take up to 1 minute. That leaves somewhere between 7 and 14 turns per player. (A game like Axis and Allies has relatively few turns per player, but each turn has a large number of choices regarding production and movement.)

There are only so many decisions that can be packed into such a short time frame. It is difficult to build in non-obvious choices, tension, and choices between long and short term objectives. Our brains only work so fast,.

Also, our emotional connection also takes time to build. When we play a longer game, we are investing our time into our decisions, giving our decisions more value. Without that investment, it becomes easy to just make any decision with the idea "we can just play the game again if it doesn't work out". That reduces the tension in the game.

Most of the good, short multiplayer games are party games like Codenames and Wits & Wagers or are games that limit the amount of choices a player has, like Love Letter and Welcome to the Dungeon. These can be fun, but they lack elements that I enjoy in games like Catan (building up over time, managing my position, more interaction with other players).

There are a couple of games that haven't been mentioned yet that I want to highlight, though both are abstracts. Blokus is an excellent game that can be played quickly, even by new players. There are a lot of choices throughout the game. Yavalath is fun with three players, but it doesn't have the wide appeal (or variety) of Blokus. I think that Blokus may be the best game that both "serious gamers" and "casual gamers" can sit down to and enjoy together in a short amount of time.

Whoshim, I wish you would post in this forum more often.

When my friend Dave and I were working on a game for White Wolf in the early '00s, they gave us a lot of feedback on our original 2-hour game. Here is a direct quote that summarized their new design parameters for our game:

1. Low component cost, more like cheap-ass game than German board game
2. Playtime MUST BE 30 minutes or less from start to finish.
3. Quick to learn, simply rules and set-up with as much strategy and deal-making and breaking as you can fit in 30 minutes.

We struggled mightily, and finally sent them back a heavily-revised game with a tight, efficient design, a four-page rule book, and a playtime of 60 minutes. The final, published game was about half our design and half final edits by White Wolf, and still clocked in at about 60 minutes.

Shellhead wrote: Whoshim, I wish you would post in this forum more often.

I very much agree.

People play games that are fun for them and people enjoy different things for fun - if you're a light/family/party gamer you probably enjoy 30-60min playtimes, if you're a light/medium euro-gamer you will probably enjoy the 1-2 hour playtime, and if you're a Ameri-trasher or heavy euro connoisseur you will probably think nothing of a 2 hours plus minimum for your fun (please note I used the word probably).

Being an AT and thematic gamer a short filler/finisher game for us would be something like one of the Legendary Encounters for a 60-90 min play.
But when I visit my euro-centric group games could be anything from under 60 min light euro to something quite heavy that does 3 hours, just this week I took Disney Villainous along for them and we played two games in just under three hours including teaching. And we will play short games to finish off, they have a few faves which I find fun - Pickomino, No Thanks!, and NMBR 9 from the top of my head - while I provide Bang The Dice Game and Loveletter Batman that we all have great fun in (Bang always producing shrieks and backstabs and fun).

The Duke clocks in around 30min as I recall. One of the better abstracts I've played.

If everybody knows the rules, Room 25 can be played in 30 minutes. Works well as either co-op or traitor game.

I'd plus one a lot of suggestions already mentioned but my favourite short game that hasn't been mentioned has to be Greed. It's a drafting game by Donald Vaccarino (of Dominion fame). The game itself is incredible and plays in a breezy 20-30 minutes. I used to knock out games of this during my lunch breaks at the office. The game is surprisingly undermentioned and can be found for around £10. I suspect leaning into its seedy mobster theme may have put off a lot of people.

Greed is excellent, great recommendation.

Greed is, for lack of a better term, great. It’s probably my favorite pure drafting game, and I agree that it’s criminally under appreciated. I kind of agree that its theme holds it back but for different reasons. On the one hand, the art seems to be playing the 50’s gangster theme straight, and you’re clearly running prostitution rings as one of your business types. On the other hand, there are so many jokes. You kill the clown for money? “Nothing Beats” Rock Johnson? “Generous” Jenny takes back her money with interest? It needed to lean into the humor and go with Kovalic art, or play it straight all the way through, maybe with real mob references. Straddling the line doesn’t work great.

Second, you can’t play well until your third or fourth game. Where most drafts use basic concepts like set collection or majorities for points, Greed relies on the unique interactions between its cards, and you need to see them to know what are cornerstones for engines and what you need just to get started. It’s not hard or complex. It just needs a little experience.