Is Your Game able to Withstand a Board Gamer?

My friend broke Elvenar.
I don’t know if it’s been changed since – I don’t play Elvenar myself – but if you do, and don’t want any spoilers, skip this post.
But enough with the disclaimers, on with the show.
My friend is a gamer, more specifically a board gamer. More specifically, my friend is a very, very good board gamer. And what differentiates board games from computer games (except for the whole “board” thing) is that in a board game the entire game system is always exposed.
Think about it – in a board game you see all the cogs and wheels all the time. You don’t get any graphics between you and the rules. You don’t have any unknown variables (ok, a draw deck of cards can be an unknown but you know that it’s there – you’ll never be in a position where variable X is secretly controlled by variable Y). What you see is what you get, and you get all the rules up front. Read More