by Finn, Grade 7
Due to the pandemic and the gradual rise of popularity in the past 20 years, board games have been doing better than ever, as a fun alternative to hang out with your friends or family while distracting yourself in the process. But, due to limitations on who you can see in person and other responsibilities, these times have been getting less frequent, and digital board games are what’s filling the gap. Whether it's a digital adaptation of beloved games or completely original ones that use technology to create technology not easy to be replicated in real life, these things are popping up quickly and growing fast. So, let’s take a deep dive into these digital distractions and break them down.
Genre Identification
Digital board games or just board games in general are defined as a game involving pieces and/or counters on a pre-marked surface or board with a predetermined set of rules. Simple, right? Wrong. Board games can often get confused with party games, games meant to be played at social gatherings to encourage interaction related to the game. To help clarify this, board games and party games can be broken down into 2 distinctly different categories with one large subgenre in each of them, and a game can be in more than one category. So, let’s get into that:
Board Games
Board games are usually the simplest category to get into, often just needing you, some friends, and the actual game and rules itself. These are games like Monopoly, Sorry, Trouble, The Game of Life and more. They usually have rules that almost everyone above the recommended age can understand and are usually easy and quick to set up and get through, with a few exceptions. But, there’s also a huge subgenre of these games, being:
Card Games
While card games can take many forms through a deck everyone draws from and tries to get rid of or gain cards or to avoid certain cards and pass that onto someone else, there’s also competitive games, which are somewhat easy to learn but hard to master, involving things like deck building, deep metas, set rotation, and of course, strategy. For the fun family time ones you have stuff like Exploding Kittens or Muffin Time and for the competitive ones you have stuff like the Pokémon Trading Card Game, Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic the Gathering. These games are often more compact and are easier to play on a moment’s notice, but might take longer than a usual game to complete.
Party Games
Party games can often get confused with board games, and rightfully so. Some board games can be party games and some party games can’t. In this category, you’ve got stuff like Jenga or Twister, often requiring a little more strategy than board games to twist or pull your way around an objective. Like board games though these games are usually pre-packaged and are simple to learn. But, not all party games are like that, with some requiring external resources, with those mainly being:
Social Deduction Games
These are a less popular form of party games, often the winner being based on who can detect lies and find the truth. There’s usually a team aspect to this with everyone going up against one to a few people blending in as one of the good guys. This is clearly seen in games like Mafia and Spyfall and another popular game I’ll get to in a little bit, where you take social clues like their face, tone/voice and various other previous knowledge you might have to find if they’re really who they say they are. These are usually the games that take the longest out of the genres and subgenres I’m talking about today, but often involve collaboration and strategy.
Why are Digital Board Games Important?
Board/party games are often made to be played close to whoever you’re playing, but due to various reasons like the pandemic or not being able to be close due to space reasons, these games are basically worthless. But, with a digital board game, it provides close to the same experience locally while being able to play with friends or family around the world seamlessly. Because of these advantages, games like Monopoly, The Game of Life, and Pokémon have created digital versions of their games to help fill the gap of space and connect people. But it doesn’t stop at digital ports, current digital technology allows for more unique takes on beloved games whether it’s new mechanics or just putting Rabbids on Uno cards or completely new ones that couldn’t work in real life. Take Hearthstone, a game with special animations and unique cards using variables nearly impossible to track in one in person card game made possible through technology. And these don’t become small, nothing games 5 people at most are playing at a time, these games can seriously kick start tournaments or leagues with prizes possibly as large as their physical counterparts and push board/party games to genre defining limits. So, let’s take a look at 3 of these games.
Jackbox Party Packs
These are a relatively new one to a lot of you, but they’ve been around since 2014. For those who don’t know, Jackbox Party Packs are a series with a yearly release by Jackbox Games featuring different party or social deduction games. Whether it’s finding false fingers in Fakin’ It or trying to make the funniest t-shirt possible in Tee KO, these Party Packs dive into a lot of different part/social deduction games involving drawing, words and resource management. Their real claim to fame online though was with the addition of the audience in some games, allowing for up to 10,000 people to affect the game by voting on participants' responses while not submitting the responses themselves. This is especially used on Twitch, with special add-ons making voting accessible or just as a way to have a fun game night with your friends and chat. This game has set a standard for digital games to come, despite only being 7.
Among Us
You knew this one was coming, but Among Us recently blew up due to its entertaining clips, detections, and how many IQ they can fit in a thumbnail play. This hype has calmed down a lot but recently regained some momentum with the addition of a new Henry Stickmin themed map, The Airship. For those who somehow don’t know, Among Us is a game where you and 3-9 of your friends are a part of a crew, doing various tasks to help wherever you’re at properly function. But, there are 1-3 alien Impostors, hindering progress through sabotages and various other ways while having high mobility through vents and certain sabotages to make a quick and stealthy escape. If one of these “hindered” crewmates are found or a button is pressed, a meeting is called where everyone can talk about what they saw throughout that round and try to determine who is the Impostor and vote them out. The crew wins by finishing all of their tasks or voting out all of the Impostors and the Impostors win by hindering all of the crewmates or having the crew be unable to fix a sabotage. This has created an interesting mix of social deduction through behaviors in game and during meetings and board game aspects that could help provide evidence while keeping the crew busy. With that out of the way, we now need to talk about one you saw coming, the digital board/party game that started it all:
Mario Party
Mario Party is an inevitability from Nintendo despite its downfall since NDcube started developing the games. It’s taking place on a board where you run around, collect coins and items to try to get as many Stars as you can while preventing others from getting Stars. But, there’s also special minigames between each turn or on special spaces to provide/steal coins or Stars in some cases. These minigames can range from collecting coins on a flower to racing in a bobsled, so while at the surface Mario Party is just a board game, the minigames make Mario Party every genre of video game, party game, or board game at once, creating the ultimate board game only made possible due to technology.
Due to ever changing times in technology, trends or worldwide events, media needs to adapt, and board/party games have done it the best. Whether it’s porting old or new classics or using technology to create experiences unable to be replicated in real life, digital board games have evolved the media form of board/party games and have set a standard for future games to follow. So, with the future of these games brighter than ever, you might want to gather your friends and enjoy the classics of today, as those could change very quickly.