Engine Builder games. A factory for fun

Photo by Markus Spiske

So.

What is an Engine Builder, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of this play format?

An Engine Builder is a game where the player collects play elements that can connect or interact with each other in ways that build up momentum toward achieving their goal. Think of it as building a rube goldberg machine.

The goal of these games is usually pretty simple, but the means of getting there is complex, requiring the player to figure out how all of the individual elements of the game interact, and what it will take to direct those interactions towards the goal.

This complexity is by design, as the comprehension of how items work and figuring out how they can work together to achieve various effects is at the core of this kind of game's engagement. From a design standpoint one of the challenges you'll have to face is designing the elements to be somewhat monolithic when looked at individually, but also progressively more and more readable when combined with other elements that they can be connected to.

Essentially, you want emergent strategies to be abundant in the game, where players are configuring an engine that doesn't initially look like it can work into something surprisingly efficient.

Consider the game Gizmos where players spend marbles to build gizmos that gain them more marbles to build more gizmos. The goal of the game is get points, either by building high value gizmos or generating points from certain gizmos that you build. Each individual gizmo has one thing that they do that has a basic strategic value on its own but an exponential value when combined with other gizmos that can trigger their effects. This leads to trigger cascades that result in the player gaining tons of marbles and points in scenarios where they would normally only get one or two. Depending on how familiar players are with the different gizmos that appear in the game, this can lead to some very fancy play.

In essence an engine builder game is an open ended puzzle for the players to solve, with the player who solves the puzzle correctly first gaining a competitive edge. With a suitable amount of randomization of the pieces that can appear, enough variance in effect and approach can be created such that a new puzzle has to be solved with each new play of the game, keeping things fresh and interesting for the involved players.

So how about you dear reader? Have you played an engine builder game before? If so what was your impressions of it? Did you enjoy the experience? Comment below, inquiring minds want to know!