American-style gameīroadly speaking, a style of game that favors a richer theme and/or player conflict over clever mechanics. American-style games often have direct player conflict (e.g. Admin / admin timeĪ game phase involving cleanup or resetting elements of the game for the next phase or round. This usually means they’re orthogonally adjacent (to the north, south, east, or west of each other), not on the diagonals, but that will vary by game. When two things are next to each other, they have adjacency (are adjacent to each other). Some games are ‘Simultaneous Action Selection’, meaning players choose their actions at the same time. The player has to choose which actions to take, and in what order. Action SelectionĪ mechanic where each player is allowed to take a certain number of actions on their turn. Chess, Backgammon, Checkers, and modern games like Qwirkle are all abstract games. AbstractĪ term for when a game doesn’t have a theme. This style is used in video games (such as Civilization and Sim City) and tabletop games ( Dominant Species, Tiny Epic Galaxies, Eclipse). For board game mechanics, is the authority.Ī category of games that follow a distinct pattern: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate.The internet has a wonderful tendency to argue endlessly over the exact meanings of words, whether this thing is this term or not… I’d prefer to avoid those types of debates here in favor of a simple, easy-to-read definition of those terms so you know what’s happening at the table.Note this is written to the new gamer, and is not meant to be an exhaustive list - if something’s missing that you think is important, let me know.Some of it is specific to individual games, but lots of terms or phrases have a common meaning.

Qwirkle rules pdf