Ideal Ideals - Board Game Benchmarks and Expectations

As we probably all have experienced for ourselves, getting a...

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This is an interesting one. For benchmarks, I think we can all agree on some basic requirements for a game. A. it fits back into its box, B. it uses fonts and script size legible from 3 feet away, C. it has enough components for the stated player count to play most games without supplementing with M&Ms or whatever, and D. the rulebook is complete, free from significant grammatical errors, and has at least basic player aids (component list, set-up image, turn order summary, index, card effect explanations, etc as appropriate). I'd think any game failing these would and should get called out for it. Obviously there is a lot of room for improvement in these areas and that is where game design experience shines through.

My expectations for a game, however, can range pretty widely. I appreciate that Friedmann Friese and his US publisher(s?) have maintained a very consistent art and design aesthetic across a very broad spectrum of games, but they all "feel" like like they were made by the same person, which adds a lot in my book. Old FFG games felt the same way in a lot of cases, you know you were getting reams of cardboard punchouts, those little decks of cards, and often those spinner dials they must have gotten at wholesale because they included them in EVERYTHING! I'd hate to be the company putting out faithful repros of AH games with paper maps, half-punched chits on little more than heavyweight paper that blew away in a faint breeze/sneeze, and the old 1.23.445.678 style rulebook reference system because component quality expectations have DEFINITELY seen some inflation since the 70's!

I don't do much kickstarter anymore but I imagine there must be fans of specific designers or publishers that have a built in audience (you can certainly see it whenever GMT puts up P500 games from Volke) regardless of the theme or mechanics they pick (or perhaps because they stick closely to well tested popular themes and mechanics?).

In addition, I think some folks just want comfort food gaming. They don't want to be challenged by new concepts and mechanics, they just want something new and shiny that gives them the same warm fuzzies they had with an older, now somewhat duller and more clunky, game. So as long as a game ticks off the right boxes it's all good.

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