I’ll start: the solo system in A Feast for Odin. You just have to control two hands/colors that block each other’s worker placement. No automa, no special rules.

  • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.netEnglish
    4·
    7 hours ago

    This isn’t mechanical really, but I really like the glass tokens in viticulture, because they allow you to see through them to see the value of the grape beneath the token. They’re also satisfying to use.

    Relatedly, I also like the way that the Dark souls board game has you track health and stamina: your character card is a thickish board that has square cutouts that represent your stamina and health bars, and then you put little cubes in the slots as you take damage or use stamina. I mostly like this because it feels satisfying. The board game itself isn’t too great mechanically imo (when managing the enemy “AI”, we would often joke about how it would be cool if there was some way to automate this clunky way of managing the enemies. Some computerised system perhaps…). When I played Gloomhaven a while later, I remember thinking that it felt mechanically similar to the Dark Souls board game, but far better executed.

    I feel like I surely have better answers for your question, OP, but I can’t think of them right now. But thanks for such an awesome question; I’m looking forward to reading other answers. I am also likely to try playing some solo Feast for Odin because of you; I’ve played it once, with friends, but I also have it as a mod on tabletop simulator, so I can try it there.

    • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.worksMEnglish
      2·
      57 minutes ago

      your character card is a thickish board that has square cutouts that represent your stamina and health bars, and then you put little cubes in the slots as you take damage or use stamina

      That’s actually a fairly common physical feature! And a lot more common if you take 3rd party component upgrades into account. It’s called dual layer boards, and is one of the best upgrades a designer can implement imo.

      • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.netEnglish
        2·
        4 hours ago

        I gave the term a Google, and it is a thing I’ve seen before (in Terraforming Mars, for example), so it’s nice to put a name to the feature.

        However, I don’t think that’s what you’d call what the Dark Souls Board game has, because the holes go right through the board, which only has one layer. You can see what I mean in this image. I suppose one could consider this as a crude implementation of what dual layer boards are implementing, but I think that part of why this is so satisfying is because it is a proper hole.