Archiving Random Thoughts

Hello everyone, I have returned from a small vacation and wanted to share some fun facts. I know that I have been focusing on things associated with my job in these past few posts. Since the focus of the blog is surrounding archives, today I want to share something that I do for fun.

Fan Conventions.

That word brings to mind many images. People may have seen these images themselves or heard about them from others. Some of these others enjoy dressing up in cosplay and telling stories. I am not going to go into a deep rabbit hole here. Fan conventions can actually learn from librarians. This is my attempt to tackle one of these problems.

Fan conventions can vary in their organization. Some have formal management. Others feel like small kingdoms with their own rules. Some might say one is better than the other. I could explain this in detail, but that’s a topic for another day.

For the sake of this post, all you need to know is that when you sign up for a staff convention, you select a department. These departments cover everything from logistics to creating a fun space for attendees. Events vary in how they divide things, but for our purposes, we are entering the world of tabletop. Yes, library skills appear in organizing games; here is how I attempted to do so.

For those who know me, welcome back. If you are new here, thanks for stopping by. My name is Patrick Burden; I am currently the Digital Collections Archivist for WVU. I have over 17 years of experience in the IT field before making the jump to archiving.

Setting the table

Tabletop is a kind of game played face-to-face in a small area. It involves handling physical pieces. This could be as simple as dice for a role-playing game, cards for Magic: The Gathering, or tokens in a board game. I am going to focus on the traditional board game category.

When I was younger, I built a collection of board games. The idea is that we would use them at conventions. They aimed to attract people who had never played board games before. At this event, I have brought the entire collection for people to play with, all 335 games. The question then becomes, how do I get you to play one of these games that you are going to enjoy knowing nothing about?

Welcome to the art of the board game library.

A haphazard method

The one an only time the library would look this organized

Let’s talk about convention board game libraries. Before I go into a long, detailed explanation, how do you think people have organized this? Think about the fact that you are going to have a diverse audience of people attending these events. Some seasoned pros want to try games to see if they will buy them. To a family looking to try something new or play a game that they are familiar with together as part of the event. To people who are new to the hobby and are not sure what they are going to want to play.

If you answered in alphabetical order, congratulations, you are correct. This is also the worst possible thing that you can do. On the surface, it makes sense; the person is looking for a game and knows the name of it. Arranging it in alphabetical order will assist them in locating the game to play. The issue is that most of the audience doesn't know what the name of the game is.

When people see a sea of board games, they often pick one with good artwork. They choose it because of its cute appearance. Tip for board game designers: always add a cute animal to the cover. It doesn't matter if the animal is in the game. One way people do this is to substitute human characters for anthropomorphic ones. Others theme around an aspect of the animals. Or have a thematic element be an animal that looks cute.

Whether a game is “good” to the person playing is irrelevant to the suggestion. Sure, it's generally a good idea to have a list of games that someone considers “classics” at the ready. The best way to suggest something is to have a reference interview. This helps narrow down what they like and don’t like. Training someone to do this is tough unless you already know how.

Attempting to solve the problem

My goal was simple: to come up with something that would improve the situation and test it at the event. I had about a month to come up with this, and here is the first iteration of how this works.

The first place I looked at was Board Game Geek. Considered to be the de facto source when it comes to all things board games. Using something organized by others is a good start. It's familiar for some but not too foreign for newcomers.

The problem is that the people who organize games on the website do not do a good job at it. With 117 categories, you must grasp a language that requires a long explanation. Some examples include Ancient, Enviromental, Modern Warefare and Pirates. Also don't forget there are subcategories that exist as well.

Besides, games were not placed in their correct categories. An example I like to give is that one year Splendor won the Party Game of the year. Parties often bring to mind fun and celebration. Not set collection and inventory management. Redoing games to fit into a better definition is the opposite of what I would like to do.

Ruling that out, the next step is to turn towards libraries and what they have been using to organize games. The options were much less appealing. Public libraries usually have 0 to 20 games. They sort these games by age range: kids, teens, and adults. After that, they arrange them by title. You'd think someone would create a useful controlled vocabulary for this, but it doesn’t exist.

I then pivoted to board game cafés. They often have a library of a few hundred titles, so sorting by category would make sense. Their clients include both experienced and casual players. That is when I remembered Snakes and Lattes.

Borrowing from the best

For those who are unfamiliar, Snakes and Lattes is a chain of board game cafés that began in Canada. It has expanded to a franchise model around North America. The goal is to both have a board game collection that people want to play with their friends. As well as serve food and beverages to have alongside while you are enjoying the games. This idea isn’t new. Smaller independent places do this too, each with their own twist. The Board and Brew is another example.

Their website is helpful. It organizes board games into 20 categories. You can search a database to see which places have the games you want. It was time to get to work. I would search their list for my game. If I found it, I’d identify the genre and place it into that group. This wasn’t a perfect solution. Most of my titles were either Light Strategy or Strategy. I pressed on and got two-thirds of the collected sorted and needed to fill in the gaps.

Board Game Geek joined in because they had a range of genres. This helped me understand the game's style, along with user comments. From there, I filled out the list one at a time and realized that I needed to adjust it.

The snakes and lattes system was a good start; there were some categories that did not make sense. An example is a TV/Movie category for games based on that Intellectual Property. While that helps, it doesn't say what kind of game it is or if they'd enjoy it.

I made some changes and built the experimental system using Snakes and Lattes' setup. I kept 20 as the number of groups, renamed some of them, dropped a few others, and added new categories that made sense. Here was the result:

Zenkaikon's Experimental Board Game Categories (Version 1)

Abstract – This style of game relies on skill and planning. Usually devoid of a theme, the information that determines your next move shows itself to you. A pure test of skill.

Examples: Go, Chess, Checkers, Backgammon, The Royal game of UR

Appetizers – These games are simple to play before the main game. Easy to set up and fast enough to finish while the rest of the gaming table is finishing up their game.

Examples – Love Letter, 6 Nimmit, Skull, Deep Sea Adventure, Cockroach Poker

Co-op – These games involve you working together as a team to complete the goal. Usually, you compete against the game, not against a player. Yet, some games feature one person who opposes the team.

Examples – Hanabi, Pandemic, Arkham Horror, Forbidden Island, Just One

Deck Builder – Your task is to create a deck of cards. Combine each card's ability to score more points than your opponents. Removing bad cards while balancing the endgame is critical for success.

Examples – Dominion, Clank!, Mystic Vale, Trains, Quest for El Dorado

Dexterity – These games test your physical abilities to complete a task. These are also sports in itself.

Examples – Jenga, Pitch Car, Tac Tac Jack, Coconuts, Klask, Jungle Speed

Duo Games – These games are best for two players.

Examples – Battle Line, Lost Cities, 7 Wonders Duel, Summoner Wars, Aton

Family Games – These games allow the whole family to play together.

Examples – Labyrinth, Loopin’ Louie, Chicken Cha Cha Cha

Greatest Hits – Many players enjoy these games. People call them “classics,” and they are still great for new players.

Examples – Catan, Puerto Rico, Carcassonne, Power Grid, Ticket to Ride

Light Strategy – These games need some cunning, and you can complete them in less than 90 minutes.

Examples – Azul, Bohnanza, Diamonds, Formula D, London, Machi Koro

Strategy – These games need more thought than light strategy.

Examples – Wingspan, Terraforming Mars, Small World, Root, Ora & Labora

Nostalgia – What many people played when they were younger and had simple rules.

Examples – Monopoly, Clue, Sorry, Rummikub, Life, Guess Who

Party – These games tend to break the ice and encourage many people to play together.

Examples – Channel A, Apples to Apples, Wits and Wagers, Happy Salmon

Trivia – These are games that test your knowledge and see if you are able to come up with the correct answers.

Examples – Trivial Pursuit, America, Timeline, Outburst, Um Actually

Word – These games allow you to flex your vocabulary skills against one another.

Examples – Scrabble, S’Math, Word on the Street, Quiddler, Boggle, Bananagrams

As the weekend went on, people used the system to help find which areas of games related to their interest. I met some people who suggested where the game should go. They also talked about breaking categories into subcomponents. This would help us work better within a time limit. I'm letting that simmer a bit while I am writing this post. I’ll prepare a part two to include additional feedback and make it easier to adapt. Until next time, take care.