15 Ways to Increase a Game's Replayability

I watched a teach the other day that was 50 minutes. It was over before it started for me. No one wants to sit through a long teach before even getting to the playthrough. So a teach that's quick and simple will add to replayability.

Wonderland's War is also a good example of Global Setup. You pick a card before the game starts that assigns the abilities to the chips you're gaining and using throughout the entire game.

Really enjoyed this topic! I love it when games achieve replayability without making setup too daunting.

Too many people associate variability with replayability. Chess is arguably the most replayed and thus replayable game ever created, but it is exactly the same game with no randomness whatsoever. To me what makes a game replayable is whether the player's choices matter and the game is challenging and fun. If a game depends on the variability methods you mention to be replayable then the game itself is lacking. That is not to say variability is bad, but a truly replayable game is one where player's choices and control dictate the outcome. So players make different choices to create different outcomes.

I'm not sure if you would bundle this under another category, but I think multi-use cards provide for a lot of replayabiltiy. Especially if combined with one or more of the other categories mentioned in the video. Great video, thanks!

Great list with a lot of great insights

A great example for the use of dice is Castles of Burgundy (combinded with the abilities on the tiles).

Great video. This is a cool topic. Replayability is something I find important for games and is a category I include in my video reviews. It was great to hear your input on various ways games can add variability. Surprised you didn't really go into maps being created as you go when it comes to variable maps. Clank Catacombs and Betrayal House on the Hill are great examples of those.

Replayability is important, and I especially enjoy the replayability through variability of game components (cards, tiles, maps/boards, goals/objectives, powers/abilities, ...). I prefer well-made variability and replayability over overly ensuring the first game is enjoyable and overly streamlining the getting-the-game-to-the-table (extra quick setup, short play time, reduced complexity).

I played Outer Rim for the first time recently and my wife and I went down completely different paths with her narrowly snatching victory from me. It really makes you want to play more and do different things! One thing I think worth mentioning is expansions. Although it’s something else entirely they can really breathe new life and variety into a game.

Another great video! Our first game (which we are balancing) has re-playability as a core feature. It's a 1v1 fantasy arena fighter. Player's draft their hero every game and with the combination of Species+ Primary + Secondary magic classes result in over . Player's then have variance in how they build their deck. What we've found so far, is that competitive players love/hate the variance. They love how fresh each game feels, but they also feel as if they can't predict what is coming. Between that and the rock, paper, scissor style aiming & dodging, the game is landing somewhere near MTG in terms of frustration to reward. Your channel has been a great resource as we develop.

3:04 Lacrimosa suffers from this problem a little bit. I like this game a super bunch, but the river of cards have two different types divided into the five rounds, and you take some out of each substack based on player count, you randomly choose a card to set up some restricted spaces on the Requiem track, there's two different types of city tiles, you select two composers from a set of four and lay out the tiles by movement number, etc. The result is a considerable variety in the initial board state, but it's a lot of setup for a comparatively small amount of change. But at the same time you kind of need all of it because it's only a mid weight game and the players all have identical boards and decks.

Another great topic. Still have skull king on my shelf of shame really have to table it sometime. I think the aspect you talked about where the first play has to be really successful is something that party games do really well. I just played so Clover for the first time the other day and not only was it super easy to explain the rules but the first game was also really fun and led to some interesting discussions. Once we play that first game and Bre wanted to play again immediately and so we play 3 rounds.

10:30 StarCraft is to this day my favorite strategy board game, and the variable player powers is a big part of that. I'm also looking forward very much to Hegemony, which is highly asymmetric not only in powers, but also in the actions players take and their methods for scoring points.

For my replayability, I include LOTS of cards. That's the best way to assure no two games would be the same

My own opinion is that the core GOAL of replayability is that the player has to make different decisions and strategies between one game and the next. A bad example is that I've actually stopped playing the game Splendor after I realized there is a verifiable "best strategy" where you can get the requisite victory points in half the time as any other option. (i'll explain if asked). the good example is that most (well designed) card trick taking games fall into this category of "you can win with what you have, if you figure out how to play your cards."

I love the list! The big category i'd say is missing would be strong social components. There's a lot of different ways to encourage this- allowing for interpretation like pictionary or Mysterium/Dixit style games; encouraging bluffing or social deduction like many low stakes games of poker or variations of werewolf; encouraging politicing and alliance forming like in Risk or Diplomacy. I think it's telling that a lot of the more general audience "classics" tend to have this built in. If youre not going to own many games, you want the ones that you do have to be evegreen titles and leveraging the natural unpredictability of other humans is a really rules-economical way to build that in without adding too much complexity.

Thinking back to my own most replayed games, the most replayed are often the 1st of their type that I encountered. So while they probably wouldn't rank among my favourites now, catan and dominion both got replayed a lot back when I 1st encountered them! That's not something that designers can really control though - one thing that might be controllable is convenience - i.e. I've played a lot of liars dice, in part because it's so easy to get to the table... in fact you don't even need a table - I took it on a road trip with some friends and we could play from our seats while driving (except for the driver of course :) ). In the same way, an engaging light game gets a lot more replay than a similarly engaging heavy game... i.e. sushi go gets a lot more replay than fury of dracula, just because it's so quick & easy to get to the table/introduce to new people.

Totally agree about the first play experience - it is the most important play of your game, and will determine if it is played again. I'm working on a game where everything is printed on the board for ease of setup and/or new players, but advanced players can add tiles to the board to change its layout and include more advanced rules. This way you get the best of both worlds - Aquatica does this with the Goal tokens.

Thanks for posting this video, there's lots of food for thought here. I think your point about first plays is an important one, and that it is a good lens through which to think about replayability. It makes sense to look at what makes the arc of the play experience enjoyable in order to find ways to vary it that support that kind of fun. Does it make sense to give players a new strategic puzzle to solve, such as with the different scoring goals in Cascadia, or the different game functions in Quacks of Quedlinberg? Or does it make more sense that the overall strategy remains the same but the players are incentivized to vary their tactics along the way, such as with the cards in Hallertau, or by providing map variability? If the fun is about having different things you can try to accomplish, how can you encourage and reward that so players really want to explore the game space? In particular, I appreciate when designers provide "First Game" setups, particularly when the variability comes from player choice that influences their strategy. If the game features something like "At the start of the game, draw six cards. Choose two that will give you end-game scoring goals, two to determine your starting resources, and discard the other two" I really want the designer to provide set starting configurations that are good for players just learning the game. In games with player asymmetry, I want the designer to let me know which factions are good for new players, to steer me away from ones that might lead to a bad play experience because I didn't have a good grasp of what that faction wants to do and how to go about it. It's all too easy for a new player to hamstring themselves and wind up feeling like they were never really in the game.