No Pun Included just did a video about the Terraria board game that ended with a great line of "it wanted to be video game: the board game but it ended up as merch."
And i think that's a nice way of summarizing some issues i have with ttrpgs and board games and such. For some, the IP is more important than the game itself.
And this is true for me too at times! I love the pokemon master trainer game, but it is not that great as a board game! It has many clunky rules and kind of juat plods along until someone gets lucky on the dice rolls and the game is over. But as a pokemon enjoyer, with friends who also enjoy pokemon, we have a fun time playing and shooting the shit.
But it really is just pokemon merch. It's a neat pokemon game to own and play when we feel like doing something Pokemon and only kind of feel like playing a board game.
It reminds me of that Collabs without Permission video about the ROOT ttrpg and how it is just making a product without trying to really get into how you could ROOT the board game but ttrpg. It is merch for fans of ROOT.
All that's to say it is interesting to see the tension between product/commercialization of an art form (like board games and ttrpgs) that can be so design focused but loses the script when the focus isnt on the translation into a different medium but instead focused on creating a minimum viable product to replicate/imitate the original.
But then ALSO
Games like that are fun design experiments for "well, how would i do it?"
I think about how i could change and augment the pokemon game to make it more interesting as a game, instead if as a proxy of the video games. What rules and adjustments can be done so that i feel the same spark i get from playing Eclipse 2e or root the board game (which i like a lot) or even smaller games like No Thanks or 6z Nimmt? Those games all have interesting design spaces and interactions despite being different levels of "complexity." Pokemon Master Trainer isnt there, but could be.
I've played a lot of Terraria. I love that style of game a lot, and so now, if i was asked to make Terraria the board game, what would i do? Well, that's a fun thought experiment to play with.
(Ive had similar fun thinking about how i would do a super mario movie or a minecraft movie)
