Aside from the hard statistics of a #boardgame like player count and playtime, what will cause you to choose one game over another? Art, theme, mechanisms, something else?
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Hard to make the distinction between games I play because of what I do for a living versus the games I shop for personally. But the number one criteria for me is word of mouth. If the game is fun, the theme and graphics are secondary. I don't actually think I would like watching a real camel race 😄
I find that graphic design embedded into more complicated games can be a real differentiators. Being able to get new players connected with enhanced visuals can tear down a lot of walls for a teacher of the game.
Honestly, the thing that drives me most to purchase a game is how easy it will be to convince my group to play it. Sometimes this can be as simple as it's attached to an IP they know.
Our new strategy is my husband and I each pick two we're in the mood for, which generally is by mechanic and co-op v. competitive. Then we assign each a number and roll a d4. We play them in order, then repeat once we've played them all. We're using this to cull our shelves this year.
I would say mechanics is the next cause of choosing a game.
Theme, art and replayability are all great selling points too but if it's a choice between a deck-building vs an I-pick-you-choose that's what will make it a hard choice in my book.
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But yeah, we’ve struggled to pick up a game before if we don’t like the look of it.
Theme, art and replayability are all great selling points too but if it's a choice between a deck-building vs an I-pick-you-choose that's what will make it a hard choice in my book.