Week 12 - Reflection

After going through Watch It Played, I’ve chosen to write about the Unmatched Jurassic Park board game. Named after the billion-dollar franchise, Unmatched Jurassic Park sees players navigating the overrun dinosaur park trying to escape alive. The player will come across instances where they’ll be forced to avoid or engage with hungry velociraptors. Depending on which card is drawn, players can use certain abilities to give them the upper hand in engagements. Regarding adhering to Soren Johnson’s How Board Games Matter, I believe Unmatched Jurassic Park fits perfectly under the transparency of board game design.

Johnson indicates that transparency should remain consistent in which the rules of the game run in the player’s head, thus, creating engagement. Immediately looking at the board, I could tell exactly the positioning of the board game pieces. The arrows help indicate a sense of flow eliminating the need to constantly check the rules of the game. Furthermore, each card uses the same consistent grammar to keep the player under the same umbrella of game design. Transparency, in the context of managing workers in Jurassic Park, also serves as a way for the player to manage their cards and tokens comfortably.

Johnson also indicates a sense of pre-luck and post-luck when referring to all types of games. Unmatched Jurassic Park holds a sense of pre-luck when looking at the cards and their abilities. At some point, players will come across the velociraptors and the abilities from the card can help even the odds. While drawing the cards might tend to be post-luck, but how the player chooses to use the card dealt is pre-luck. Depending on the ability, they now have the chance to go into a battle or encounter to win the situation. As Johnson would describe it, “pre-luck is a transparent way to present interesting decisions”.

At its core, Unmatched Jurassic Park inner game has players focused on defending their workers and engaging in battle because of a player’s movement. The transparency of the game further helps players visualize their actions per turn and make educated decisions based on the information provided. This is all in due course to not only the transparency of the game, but the grammar of the game helping pave the way for players.

Overall, Unmatched Jurassic Park is an excellent example of transparency working in-game to help a player’s decision-making skill as well as improve the legibility of the game.