Five Themes for Set Collection in Board Game Design
I often rely on set collection for my early prototypes. It's such a simple, satisfying framework to motivate players and give clear goals. The problem is how often set collection becomes a rote, emotionless task list to complete. The theme of the set collection is what set makes it more appealing to new players. An evocative theme suggests secondary mechanisms that help fill out the rest of the game. Here are a few themes I've used or seen over the years. Recipes and Shopping Lists Welcome to Stabbed! Impress the chefs, follow the recipes, and you won't be stabbed! This is by far the most common usage of set collection. Players are tasked with collecting certain amounts or combinations of resources. Then they're rewarded with a certain number of points. That straightforward transactional structure is certainly useful when the rest of the game is rather complex, but it doesn't necessarily suggest fun secondary mechanisms. I got around this in Junk Orbit by making th...
