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Comment by TheGRS | Hacker News Reader

Yep, I can't think of a competitive video game that does any of these things well. Maybe this is an untapped market?

Twitch controls and player elimination are still huge with video games. Battle royale modes and MOBAs are very in, but any multiplayer game I remember playing a lot of was usually centered around this. FPS games, RTS games, fighting games, they are all about your reaction speed. A lot of modes will at least let you play the whole match of a game, but still require a heavy amount of confrontation and twitch gameplay. Turn-based games are a slog to play multiplayer though, so I can understand why that's the case.

There are a lot of people who enjoy twitch board games though, games like nerts or slamwich (both of which I'm not a huge fan of), so maybe the opposite is true of board games: that there's an untapped market out there for this style. I do really enjoy Spot-It for some reason however :)

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Overwatch is a good example of the progression of the FPS genre.

I'm 31 now, and my twitch reaction is nowhere near what it was in highschool, yet Overwatch offers a whole bunch of characters (around half) who don't require (or don't have) twitch / reaction gameplay. There are characters who heal the other characters just by being in their vicinity, characters with beam weapons which automatically lock on to opponents, etc.

If you die, you are out of the game for 6-10 seconds as a penalty, but not "player elimination" in the board game sense.)

I wonder if there's an interesting dynamic there in a board game, where if the pace of complexity is high enough, being out of the game could become a tactical advantage. Maybe that cant work without omniscient or perfect information for those out.

Small World kind of sort of does that.

The game simulates the rise and fall of civilisations, and a key part of the game is knowing when to call it quits with your current civilization and start playing with a new one. You skip a turn whenever you do that, so you can easily shoot yourself in the foot if your timing is off.

It's more a regression. Removed all the skilled mechanics and now playing is like a spectator. It's easier for everyone, a tad like watching TV.

M.U.L.E. is the closest thing I can think of, and I don't know that it's had anything even resembling a worthy successor. There were a few attempts, but as far as I know none of them were very well-received.

Settlers of Catan is practically M.U.L.E. refined. You start by buying land, then the land bears resources. When you sell to other players, you can ask any price you want. You build up by laying down roads, towns and cities, tech up with random development cards. The most common dice result - 7 - is the Thief, which lets the current player rob any other for half of their resources rounded down.

If you liked M.U.L.E., you will love Settlers of Catan.

Just as a point of accuracy, the Robber only lets you steal one card.

But anyone with 8 or more cards has to discard half rounded down.

Just a small correction. The Robber(or Thief) in Catan doesn't allow you to steal half another player's resources, you just steal one card. However, if any player has 8 or more resource cards in their hands when '7' is rolled, they need to discard half rounded down.

I loved M.U.L.E. an unhealthy amount as a kid.

Take a look at Uwe Rosenberg’s games, particularly Caverna or Agricola.

I agree with the recommendations. I love caverna.

Patchwork is great two player game, by that same designer, that I can even play with my mother. She's not particularly into games either.

My game of the year so far is Yokohama. If you like worker placement, I imagine you would like this.

I haven't played it, but they turned M.U.L.E. into a board game recently :)

It's a bit complex to pick up, but it's very true to the original game. If you have experience with the original the mechanics will make sense right away. It's also a lot of fun! Great theme.

I would say that the elimination mechanic is quite rare in conpetitive video games. Battle royale games are recently hot, and pretty much have elimination by definition, but I can’t think of any other popular video games that do this.

Counter-Strike does, but each round is very short. What MOBA features player elimination? All the MOBAs I can think of have fairly short respawn times.

I suppose that RTS games with >2 players have this, but they are mostly know for 1v1 modes.

Friday the 13th: The Game and Dead by Daylight maybe? Left 4 Dead.

Oh..one great example is Bomberman, although some games have dead Bombers fling bombs from the side.

It's interesting to look back at just how well designed Super Bomberman was. It is fast-paced but my dad could play it with us and even win some rounds. The mix of skill and luck seems just right. There are many interesting and funny paths a game can take. All this comes from just a seemingly simple premise.

Left 4 Dead doesn't have strict player elimitation.

It's a team game, always 4 v 4. You can still see the game and talk to your teammates when you are dead. Everyone die within a minute usually. A death has not much impact -except a severe sudden disadvantage- since the entire team win or loose, there is no individual play.

World of Tanks has been my favorite game for years. It strikes a nice balance between reaction speed and strategy.

Due to the game mechanics of 'aim time' this somewhat eliminates the huge advantages of ping time and those with super human reaction times.

Doing well requires good team strategy as well as deep understandings of tank mechanics such as armor weak spots, tank positioning to increase chances of bounces etc and also map strategy.

Therefore, the great players aren't those who have developed better reaction times, they are the ones who have developed deep knowledge and skill around the games many maps and 300+ tanks

>>> Therefore, the great players aren't those who have developed better reaction times, they are the ones who have developed deep knowledge and skill around the games many maps and 300+ tanks

It's the same for FPS at high level. Learn the map and the probably position for anytime at anytime.

They don't spend a lot of time aiming and moving when already knowing where the enemy will show up. Just have to click.

To give a good illustration, top players could almost play blindfolded.

That really doesn't describe the meta game of World of Tanks.

Yes, there are tactical positions, but you can't just camp for most of them. They maps are large enough that your team must be dynamic enough to adapt.

You also can't just click without aiming. Damaging a tank always requires aiming, even if you know where they may show up. Many tanks can only be damaged effectively in small weak areas, depending on the gun of your own tank. This can require that you actually focus for several seconds on the spot you are trying to hit to get a good enough aim to actually hit it.

I know, I just wanted to illustrate that FPS are very similar strategically. FPS at good level has a high tactical component. People think it's all point and click but it's only half the game.

> Twitch controls and player elimination are still huge with video games. Battle royale modes and MOBAs are very in, but any multiplayer game I remember playing a lot of was usually centered around this.

Twitch control yes, but elimination not really, in multiplayer video games it's timeout rather than elimination e.g. in CS you wait for the round's end (2~3mn usually), in MOBAs you have a time-out of variable length (caps out at ~2mn in DOTA).

And when there's an elimination system (e.g. Hearthstone Arena) you're not stuck waiting around for other people to finish, you can just go do something else (in-game).

Actual old-board-game-style player elimination is very rare in video games, otherwise it wouldn't be a defining feature of pubg.

even pubg, you're not obligated to stick around to the end - you just start a new game with new people.

I've found Offworld Trading Company to be basically the eurogame of video games. There is some player elimination, but only in the endgame.

Yes, I am a big fan of that game! It comes fairly close to that eurostyle board game and once I figured out how to play it I was having a great time. Its still fairly confrontational, as in you need to be raiding fellow player's bases to gain an advantage, but otherwise its pretty good.

Making a good n-way game is really difficult. Even for 3 players, either the player in last place can affect which of the other two wins, or they can't; either answer is bad. Videogames these days seem to mostly be one team versus another team, which avoids that problem - there's no such thing as player elimination if there are only two "players" (the teams).

The usual solution for player elimination in online games is the ability to leave the game you've been eliminated from and start another game right away, which is embodied by matchmaking systems and solo queuing.

Doesn't help when you want to stick with a group of players (e.g. friends, team) and brings its own kind if issues.

Just as a side observation about a possible blind spot: arguably the biggest multiplayer game today is Clash of Clans, which is multiplayer and not "classically turn-based" but definitely not real time multiplayer like Starcraft and FPSs (your opponent doesn't need to be online at the same time you are).

Battle Royales work in the video game world because I can just queue up immediately after elimination.

Can't do that when I'm with my friends for the evening.

What about questing with a group on a mmorpg?

That seems more co-operative than competitive though.

Raid boss games where one person plays the monster and the rest play the heroes are pretty viable I find. The problem is getting the mechanics complicated enough to have some strategy but clear enough to not have to lawyer.

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