Engine builders are possibly my favorite type of games. I own plenty, play plenty, and think about them often. There’s some particular parts about them I felt like discussing without an overarching concept, so I will do that (apologies to those who prefer more focused articles).

What’s an Engine Builder

The exact definition of an engine builder, like all genres, is a little vague. What is most commonly agreed upon, though is that it’s about upgrades. If you do something on turn one, then when you do it on turn 5 you’ll be doing it much better. That could mean improving speed, efficiency, cost, output, or any number of things. The reason it’s called an engine specifically is because those upgrades often factor into each other. Doing one action leads to another and another, turning one small thing into many things.

Synergy

When designing an engine-builder, a major thing to look for is synergy. If every upgrade does the same thing or one of a subset of things, that doesn’t mean much. Many games allow for upgrades, but if you want to let players build engines, they need to be able to do things better by being better at things. Some games purposefully curb this in order to prevent runaway leaders. You’ll often see a rule that says you can’t spend 0 money on something, or you can only activate one bonus ability. That helps balance the game, sure, but it also makes the game less fun and focused. If I have a bonus when I take a red card, then I want to pick up every upgrade I can to make that bonus even bigger. The worry shouldn’t be “should I pick up something other than a red card” it should be “how can I make sure I’m always able to pick up a red card.” Slow down inputs, not outputs.

Anti-synergy

However, it can also be very useful to force players to do something differently within the act of doing something similar. For example, the example I used before: a bonus for picking up red cards. If a player has a bunch of red cards because they keep taking them because they get bonuses for it, then they are also encouraged to take upgrades that can spend red cards. In Gizmos, a very straightforward engine builder, you can pick up converters that ask for a specific color. That’s great! now you can turn those red cards into whatever you want. Which means that you’re lkess likely to use them as red cards, since they are usable as anything. All the sudden you are now discouraged from getting upgrades to red effects, because you’re less likely to use them as red. By giving you two conflicting uses for the same resource that you have become plentiful on, you have to make more choices, even though the main choice has more or less been decided for you (what color card you’re taking).

Chaining

A little different than synergy is chaining. That’s the slang term for one thing leading to another, different thing. Often it’s an action that leads to another action. This can be very dangerous for two main reasons. First, if a player has a choice between actions but doing one gets you another for free, then you’re never going to use that second action without using the first. This isn’t inherently bad, but it can snowball more strongly than some other synergies. It is best to put some sort of limit or requirement on the first action to allow it to chain into the second. The other issue is going infinite, which is to say chaining something into itself, usually not directly. This can be really messy to deal with, since it’s sometimes completely unnoticeable until you do a LOT of playtesting. Again, restrictions help, but with enough upgrades they may be avoidable. My personal dream is to make an engine builder where the player who can go infinite wins, but I have yet to realize it.

Deckbuilders

Decks are not engines, but many deck builders are also engine builders. Deck builders can use the randomization of the shuffle to minimize the opportunity for going infinite or otherwise breaking the game. This is also why drawing cards is often so incredibly powerful in these games: it removes that restriction. They also usually have a mechanic in place to remove less powerful cards, which is something not common in engine builders, but occasionally you can completely overwrite something, thereby “removing” the old version.

Conclusion

Like I said, I didn’t have any grand concept this week, just felt like chatting about engine builders a bit. Thanks for reading it, though!