Enjoying Board Games

Mr. Shimada, how did you come to be involved in board game design?

When I was a university student in Professor Fumitoshi Kato's lab at SFC, I thought that creating "play" was interesting, so after graduation, I joined the game maker Namco (now Bandai Namco Entertainment).

There, I created digital games such as the racing game "Ridge Racer" and family-oriented ski and sports games for the Nintendo "Wii."

However, I also felt an attraction to play that allows for face-to-face communication, so while working, I started units called "JOYPOD" and "daitai" with friends from the same lab, where we began making board games and holding workshops.

While doing that on a small scale, I encountered Game Market, and since around 2010, I have continued activities such as releasing the things we've made.

I graduated in the same year as Mr. Shimada at Keio, but during my university days, I belonged to the Magic Society. There were interesting board games left by alumni in the club room at Hiyoshi, and we all played them during our free time.

What kind of games were they?

A game called "Scotland Yard." Of course that was interesting too, but just around that time, "Catan" was released by Capcom and became a huge hit all over Japan. There were large advertisements in Shibuya, and events with hundreds of people were held at the Shinjuku Koma Theater. There were even people playing it in the courtyard at Mita. I got hooked on it then as well.

And so you decided to open a board game cafe.

It wasn't immediate (laughs). After graduation, I got a job and moved around various regions, but around 2014, when I returned to Tokyo and met an old friend, we talked about going to a board game cafe since they existed, and I learned that recent board games are really interesting.

Originally, I was thinking of starting a business in a different industry, but due to various circumstances, I had to give that up. Deciding to start a business in a different sector, I chose to enter the rapidly growing board game industry. I found a good property in Tamachi, so I started operations in 2019.

For me, games became linked to my research when I went to graduate school at Nagoya University. My mentor, Professor Yukio Hirose, was teaching social psychology classes using educational games.

There was a game called the Virtual World Game, which about 40 people would play over a whole day, and there was also a version of the card game "Doubt" (Cheat) modified into a game for understanding the mechanisms of illegal dumping. Cards were treated as waste, and you would do things like decide whether to secretly dump hazardous waste or be honest and pay to dispose of it.

In 2000, triggered by participation in environment-related civic activities, I created my own game called the "Persuasion/Agreement Game," and from there, I researched communication games.

Around 2004, Professor Toshiko Kikkawa from the Faculty of Business and Commerce invited me to go to the International Simulation and Gaming Association conference held in Munich, Germany. At that time, when she took me to a toy store in Munich, the entire wall was filled with board games. I was astonished by this.

After that, every time I went to Germany for research, I would go to the toy department and buy up games, thinking, "This looks like it could be used for something."

So the encounter with German board games was significant.

That's right. German games first of all look wonderful, and the rules are also wonderful. At first, I was thinking about whether I could modify the rules in my own way to create new games, but I realized that playing the games themselves is actually a tremendous learning experience.

I found that by having students think about what world or structure the game represents and what lies behind it, they can acquire a new perspective for looking at society through board games.

My shop has over 500 types of games, mostly from Germany and America. However, France also releases many games, and recently Taiwan is increasing as well. Unfortunately, Japan is very much a developing country in this regard.

Even if we just say "board games," it's extremely broad, or rather, there are so many different types. It's not just games that use a board; there are card games and things you do using writing utensils. I feel like it has become more of a conceptual term.

That's true. If we think again about what a board game is, one definition I think is that there is a part that all players can see—this would be the "board." It's the shared part. Including the pile of face-down cards, such things are the board.

Therefore, even if there isn't an actual board, it might be fine as long as there is a place where the people playing share, such as the area where cards are played. It could be played on a table, or there could be something like Sugoroku that goes along a wall. In that sense, I think various kinds of boards can be considered.

There is also a game themed around a Western duel where you throw burritos. In that one, there isn't even a desk; when you flip a card, there's an instruction like "Throw it!" (laughs).

There's no board at all. It's like a pillow fight, isn't it?

So I don't think we need to be obsessed with the definition. But when you say "analog games," it feels a bit different. You don't say "analog game shop," do you?

When you say analog games, it feels like a strange disconnect, as if they are different from digital. It's fine to use digital elements in board games, isn't it? In fact, such things exist.

Recently, there are even games that link with smartphones.

I feel a certain breadth in the expression "board game."

The "Catan" I mentioned earlier is the third best-selling board game in the world. First is "Monopoly," second is "The Game of Life," and third is "Catan."

Many people think "The Game of Life" is a Japanese game, but it was originally a foreign game called "The Game of Life." However, Japan has created various spin-offs.

The Japanese version of "Catan" came out around 2000, but according to one YouTuber, "Catan" is the next trend after "Monopoly"—where you roll two dice to move pieces and exchange money—that finally appeared after 50 or 60 years. It broke into the market where "Monopoly" and "The Game of Life" had monopolized it for decades. It was that overwhelmingly popular.

There are world championships for "Catan," and Japanese players are active in them, aren't they?

Japanese people are strong at these kinds of games. "Catan" won the "Spiel des Jahres" (German Game of the Year) in '95. The following year, it won awards in America, and from '99 to 2000, it was number one in the "Japan Tabletop Game Grand Prix." It has also won awards in the Czech Republic and Poland.

What's a bit frustrating is that there are few Japanese-made games that are world-class. Especially in the field of star games called "heavyweights" that take over 90 minutes to play, there are almost no Japanese creators. I haven't heard anything about them breaking into the top ranks of famous overseas awards at all.

Why are such creators not being born in Japan?

I've spoken with creators from Taiwan, and it seems that in Taiwan, the community of people making games is well-established, and they devise strategies on the premise of winning the Game of the Year in Germany. In Japan, there are still many people with the mindset of "it's fine as long as it sells enough to not go into the red, just as a memento."

I wonder why it turns out that way.

The high production cost in Japan is likely a major reason. I make games too, but for heavyweight games, the budget becomes enormous for amateurs, including transportation costs.

As for whether major Japanese toy manufacturers will make them, the distribution volume of board games in Japan is at a level of 1/20th or 1/30th compared to European countries. Because mass production is difficult, they are avoided because manufacturing costs become high or profit margins become thin.

Therefore, the current situation in Japan is that there are inevitably many small-box sized games containing about 50 to 100 cards that can be produced at low cost.

I've heard that other countries are working on creating board game markets as a national effort. Also, they are investing heavily in digital. It's a shame that Japan is now even falling behind in digital games.

However, from what I know, there is an interesting game called "Deep Sea Adventure" made by a Japanese manufacturer called Oink Games. You dive to the bottom of the sea to get treasures, but since the oxygen tank is shared among players, if one person consumes a lot of oxygen, others won't be able to return—it's a game of shared fate, so to speak.

The fact that the power itself is shared with others is interesting, and thinking it could be useful, I used it in my seminar, and there was even a student who wrote their graduation thesis on it.

That's amazing.

Also, although it is currently out of print, a German-made game called "Keep Cool" that deals with environmental issues is interesting. It's an international negotiation game themed on global warming, with a world map board where you build factories around the world.

There is a meter representing the world's carbon dioxide concentration, and if you take actions that prioritize private interest according to the given goals, the world's temperature is designed to rise. Due to that temperature rise, the risk of disasters increases. I've been using it in classes for over 15 years.

Digital games are all like a correspondence between input and output. On the other hand, board games have various boards, cards, and pieces, and you proceed through trial and error while touching them with your hands, wondering "What does this do?" and sometimes you even proceed with a wrong understanding of the rules.

Regarding the rules as well, when you realize, "Oh, I see. These are the rules," you can feel a certain kind of game's brilliance. In other words, I think there is fun that includes the process of acquiring the rules yourselves.

That may certainly be true.

For example, in a situation where you are saved if you roll a 6 on a die, if a 6 comes up, everyone rejoices with a "Whoo!" It's not like the person who rolled the die is responsible, right? But the fact that that person rolled it and got that result has meaning for the people there.

In psychology, this is called having a sense of control. The person rolling the die can feel as if they can control the situation. If it's just rolling a die, I think you could let a machine do it, but why do we roll the die? That aspect of luck and misfortune is intriguing.

It's an experience that can be gained precisely because you use an item like a die.

In today's world, when unexpected things happen due to various unpredictable factors like COVID, disasters, or wars, what should we do? I often think lately that board games might be providing opportunities for simulation of such situations.

I also thought that games have suggestions and value for living in a world with high uncertainty, so I can really empathize with what you just said.

The moment I entered university, I declared, "I'm not going to study anymore" (laughs), but in reality, I learned so many things while making games.

I had to research various things, and since I had to work in a team, I had to communicate there. I feel that doing that has been very useful in my life since then.

I think making a game is like making a set of rules, making a world. Recently, when I interact with children, I encourage them to think for themselves as much as possible, make their own rules, and create their own place for play. If I say, "Let's try making a game with this wooden stick and board" and we do it together, that experience might lead to "managing things on one's own."

I believe there is value in the act of "making" a game itself.

Since around when have board game cafes existed?

I think JERRY JELLY CAFE is probably the one that spread them in Japan. They opened their first store in Shibuya in 2011, but at the time of opening, it seems it was opened as a co-working space where you could play board games during free time. Eventually, the demand for board games increased, and they have increased the number of stores through franchise expansion and other means.

About how many board game cafes are there in Tokyo?

Roughly about 100 stores. It seems they started increasing around 2016.

The customer base is roughly divided into two: those who come in groups, and those who come as one or two people wishing to share a table. Most group users are people on their way home from work or school. In many cases, they are having a great time together while eating snacks and drinking juice. I also often introduce things that can be enjoyed casually in a short time while chatting.

It's like a club room after school.

Yes. I often match customers who come in small numbers and wish to share a table, and I try to identify and introduce games that each person might like, and explain the rules in a fun atmosphere so that the whole table gets excited.

Now, because of COVID, customers have decreased by about 70%, and there are many customers in small numbers wishing to share a table. It's probably hard to invite people from the same workplace on the way home. Customers who love board games to death are gathering.

Does that mean for those people, unlike video games played at home, it has to be something like a board game?

There are very many people among our customers who love "Pokémon" (laughs). I've even been told, "Sorry Manager, I'm busy with Pokémon so I can't come for a while," so I think they like both. They even recommend "Pokémon" to me, which is a problem (laughs).

There are also many people who become repeaters because the memories of playing board games at our shop were so fun. There are customers who make appointments with other regulars, or give me their contact information and say, "Contact me if someone wanting to share a table comes. I'll come right away."

It's like an adult salon atmosphere. In that case, we'd want people with good manners to come.

Tamachi is a great area, and we are blessed with customers who have good manners.

In Professor Sugiura's seminar, are there occasions where students spontaneously play board games after it ends?

We haven't been able to do it much lately, but about five or six years ago, we often held what we called 'sub-seminars.' We would reserve an empty classroom, and I would bring a selection of games from my office for them to play and then write reports on.

We also play them during the seminar itself. For example, a cake-cutting game called "Aber Bitte mit Sahne" (Piece o' Cake) gets very exciting, and we use it to discuss individual gain and fairness. Even during open seminars for recruiting new members, we have them participate in board games to experience the atmosphere of the seminar.

There is a children's game called "Viva Topo!" (The Big Cheese Race), but even adults can gain a lot from playing it.

Depending on the roll of the dice, you manipulate four mice to try and get the largest possible pieces of cheese. You have to decide which mouse to advance and which to give up on to avoid being caught by the cat. We face similar situations in our lives; resources, time, and opportunities are finite, and this game allows us to learn from failures in choice.

It seems there is much to learn from the progression and rules of the games.

Currently, in a game called "Diamant" (also known as "Incan Gold"), which is themed around underground exploration, players compete to see how much treasure they can acquire. The deeper you go, the more shares you can get, but the risk of having all the treasure you've collected so far confiscated also increases.

It is a simple decision-making game of "go forward or go back," but it is influenced by predictions of how others will decide and their actual decisions. Despite being a simple game, some students have used it as a subject for their graduation theses or created their own applied versions for research.

I also often play German games about waste sorting. Germany turns various topics like traffic safety, the environment, and health into games.

Germany really does have a diverse range of games. In Japan, games with academic content don't seem to become hits very easily.

I was in Germany for just under a year until last September on a university-endorsed study abroad program. I happened to be living there during the lockdown, and while only shops selling daily necessities like supermarkets and drugstores were open, even the drugstores sold board games.

So they are treated as necessities.

In that way, board games are naturally integrated into daily life. You often see people playing card games in cafes and restaurants. That might be why there's no need to specifically create game cafes there.

It seems Europe has had that kind of culture originally.

There is a game called Backgammon, which is like a race game, and I've seen people playing it on the street while drinking coffee.

That's like how people used to play Shogi on the streets in old Japan.

I was once interviewed about board games for a Shogakukan magazine called "Sho-gaku 8-nensei," which targets all elementary school grades. Nowadays, those kinds of magazines even include card games as supplements.

Media exposure has increased significantly over the past few years.

They appear in fashion magazines as something stylish. They are also being featured on television.

I hear that because TV production budgets are being cut, board games are easy to use because they are inexpensive and exciting. The providers are also cooperative because it leads to promotion and the spread of board games.

The game "Word Basket" by Mobius Games became an instant hit after Arashi introduced it on TV.

Then there's the game "Ciao Ciao." It sold out immediately at our shop. After that, the price skyrocketed to double on Mercari.

You can learn about them if they are featured on TV, but usually, there aren't many places to encounter them. Although recently they've started being sold at electronics retailers and such.

Just looking at the boxes, it's hard to know which one to buy. When I first started playing board games, I wanted to buy something because we were going on a hot spring trip together, but there were so many types I didn't know what to get. I asked the shop staff, and the "Incan Gold" they recommended was a huge hit.

So, it's fastest to ask the staff. If it's a staff member at a specialty shop, they will definitely know.

There is a board game specialty shop called "Sugorokuya," and the manager, Mr. Maruta, was originally a digital game creator who worked on titles like "MOTHER 2" (EarthBound). I was very impressed by his comment that for board games, it is especially important to use videos to explain simple games for beginners in an easy-to-understand way.

The shop Pineapple Games in Tamachi is also good. The manager claims to be the best at explaining games in Japan (laughs).

Shimada-san, what kind of things are you looking to create?

I like games where a person's individuality or some creative aspect comes out.

There is a game called "Dixit" where you look at cards with illustrations and give them a title you thought of. For example, suppose you give it the title "Sad Tears." Based on that title, the other players choose one card from their hand that they think is most related and put it out, and the storyteller shuffles and lines them up.

Players other than the storyteller vote for the card they think is the "card chosen by the storyteller," and the part where you test each other's expressions is very interesting.

Are the ones you are working on that kind of game?

Yes. There is a game I made with friends called "Jarebon." It's a game based on the relay novels people often do in elementary school.

First, a team of about four people is formed, and the first person gives a mysterious title like "A Rechargeable Octopus" and writes the beginning of a novel before passing it to the next person. Then, the next person writes while looking at the sentence the previous person wrote. However, they turn the page before passing it so that the person after them cannot see the part the first person wrote.

You write by imagining what the story might be based only on the content of the person immediately before you. You can try to connect it smoothly, or you can make it a forced development.

It's like a game of telephone.

Exactly. Only the common title can be recognized. When you read it back after the story is completed after about two rounds, it's usually hilarious. When we do this, people really enjoy it and start grinning. I really like things that get exciting naturally like this. I think it would be easy to play in a board game cafe too.

I also create board games, and the four conditions for a hit by Yoshiki Okamoto—who created "Monster Strike" and "Street Fighter"—are very helpful. First, it's "interesting to hear about." Like it's interesting to hear the pitch or interesting to hear rumors. Second is "interesting to look at." That's the visuals. Then "interesting to actually play." Finally, "interesting to play repeatedly."

I thought "Jarebon" met all four of those conditions. I have the impression that many games surprisingly do not follow these four conditions. I believe the current situation is that this kind of know-how hasn't permeated because domestic games are often created by amateurs individually.

The game "Asterisk (now MARIMBA)" that Shimada-san introduced to me before. It's a great game, but I'm disappointed to hear it can't be mass-produced.

That one ended as a prototype. It's something where you fit wooden hexahedral cubes and things like measuring boxes into a board.

What I wanted to do was see if the act of creating a board game itself could be made into play. You talk about what kind of rules could be made within these objects while you create them. So there are no fixed rules; it's like there's a rule to "create the rules on the spot."

It's a very good game. The cubes and board are made of wood, and it's a pleasure just to hold them.

That sounds fun. Can it be bought now?

It costs about 50,000 yen each (laughs). I had a woodworking shop make a one-of-a-kind piece for an art exhibition a long time ago, so it was very expensive. I looked into it quite a bit to distribute it, but it's difficult for now, so it ended as a prototype. However, the concept is interesting, so I'm thinking about what the next step might be.

Running a shop, we occasionally get very gentlemanly people at shared tables. They are good at explaining games, clean, considerate of beginners, and use polite language. When people like that are playing board games, you want to play again.

But unfortunately, there are occasionally players who are the opposite. People who start clicking their tongues when they start losing, grumbling and sulking, or suddenly quitting the game when defeat is imminent...

There are surprisingly few players who have been playing board games for a long time who have bad manners. I feel like those kinds of people are occasionally found among players who entered board games from video games or online games.

Is it that they bring the habit of being able to easily reset in online digital games into the real world?

Even things like clothing aren't known to the other person online, right? In the past, someone came after eating garlic ramen, and I had to ask them to leave (laughs).

That's a very real-world feeling (laughs).

It's about how to create pleasant communication in public spaces, isn't it?

I think this is a matter of training. Among small children, there are those who get frustrated and throw tantrums when they lose, right?

Conversely, it's very important to be able to experience losing in a real game. Not just in games, but also in outdoor play—how to interact well with people within that.

It's a place where you can learn rules and manners.

With COVID, classes and meetings moved online, but in a video conference, for example, what you see is only a cropped scene or audio. In other words, we can focus only on that purpose without sensing much other information.

This has its good points, but when you are meeting face-to-face, you are sensing various things as information other than the original purpose, such as clothing, facial expressions, or tongue-clicking.

When playing board games in person, we must be sensing something beyond just interacting according to the rules at a level we aren't consciously aware of. Even in a game where you write a novel in a relay, what kind of expression did that person have when they handed it over? What were other people doing next to you while you were writing? That kind of information is constantly coming in. I think this is a very important thing.

That's a part that's hard to feel with digital. You might say something slightly different while playing, or try to bluff.

Psychological maneuvering like, "You just smirked a bit when you handed over that card," or "This is definitely a weird card," is what makes it interesting.

That's all part of the play. Games with negotiation and dialogue become even more interesting when you are face-to-face.

The online version of "Catan" and such are almost like competitive games, and there are parts where negotiation has become systematic.

There was a game that really shocked me. There was a trick in the rules, and just when I thought I had won, it turned out I had actually lost. Also, conversation was prohibited, so we couldn't coordinate on the rules. I was amazed that this kind of play existed.

Realizing that something you took for granted was actually different is like an encounter with a different culture.

I am very glad that I have worked in game creation. Currently, my work mainly focuses on workshop design, and the experience of creating rules and emotional ups and downs while making games has been extremely helpful there.

Enjoying the games you like, learning how those games are made, and trying to create them yourself might be one way to enrich your life.