Thursday, March 24, 2016

Rules Discussion: The BINGO Mechanic

Thinking about mechanics as I drove to work this morning (though my car could use a healthy dose of mechanical attention), I pondered Rise of Augustus, which is basically a BINGO game, but with some agency over what you do. In Rise of Augustus, you draw four (or five?) objective cards; each card has three to six symbols on them, such as a chariot, a catapult, short swords, and so on. One person reaches into a bag and put out a pog (a large round chit) with a symbol on it and then declares what he or she drew. If you have that symbol on one of your objectives, you can deploy one of seven legions to that card by placing a meeple on the corresponding space. If the symbol is one more than one objective card, you have to choose to which card you deploy your meeple. This process repeats until the herald (the one who is pulling pogs out of the bag) pulls a wild card symbol. Then, he or she places all drawn pogs back in the bag. However, at any time when a person completes an objective by deploying enough meeples to cover all symbols space, that person shouts, "Ave, Caesar!" and removes all meeples from it, having completed the objective. Gameplay ends when one person finishes seven (I think) objectives.

Okay, I haven't played this game in a while, but the BINGO mechanic of drawing a tile or chit from a bag and declaring the number or symbol on the item is a mechanic that has a bad rap... How many of us have attended BINGO game nights and realized that there is NO strategy involved and you have NO choices to make? How many of us have played some kind of BINGO-inspired educational game and found that the game was more about, say, recognizing words or colors than actually "playing a game?" Yet, this bad rap is a bit unfair because BINGO is not a game, but a social activity that does involve letter or number recognition, tactile manipulation of cards and stamps (or pieces to cover the called spots), and you can even win prizes, depending on the event. If seen with the right perspective, BINGO does very well what it sets out to do: it engenders a fun atmosphere where people can relax, listen to an enthusiastic caller yell out numbers and letters on Ping-Pong balls pulled from a spinning wire-mesh ball, and get a little excited about winning an alarm clock... or it's an excuse to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa (which is extremely important).

The BINGO mechanic is difficult to implement in a board game because there is no inherent free will to it; you just pull tiles and hope for the best. Rise of Augustus, though, uses the BINGO mechanic, but does provide some room for players to choose to which card they deploy their legions. Also, when an objective card is completed, players can draft the objective they want from the central area (the time-honored drafting mechanic). Moreover, you only have seven legions at the start of the game, so if you have already placed your legions, you face the difficult decision of whether to shift a legion to another card or not. Admittedly, Rise of Augustus is a lightweight filler game, but it's one of the few games that adopts and adapts the BINGO mechanic and then provides players with decisions after each pog pull. If anything, the BINGO mechanic is a good randomizer besides dice and cards.