Editor's note: Rob makes some interesting points about the things video game designers can learn from board games. A lot of developers do play board games -- they're gamers all around by nature. Wonder if they ever take any clues from them like Rob would like them to? -Shoe

It’s official -- the board game Space Hulk is being re-released to the public.

I’ve previously written about my affection for one video game adaptation, Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels, but this revelation got me thinking about what makes a board game so compelling and what their digital counterparts can learn from them.

Lesson 1: Narrative

Video games love narrative, particularly as graphical capabilities increased with more powerful 3D engines. In this way, games are trying to emulate film but at the detriment of their roots -- that of being a game.

Board games have no such confusion about narrative. While a narrative may overlay the game and its mechanics, the narrative is not a mechanic itself.

In Space Hulk, the narrative is a story of massive hulks formed from dozens of floating space rocks, wrecked spacecraft, and other space debris. They come from the Warp, a dangerous place in the universe that exists in the Immaterium but a necessary place to go because it makes quick space travel to distant stars possible.

These hulks are often infested with dangerous alien life but also may hold lost technology that is both rare and ancient.

Investigating space hulks for these treasures is of the utmost importance for the Imperium, the feudal, space-faring civilization humankind has become in the 41st millennium.

But such investigations are not without peril, as the Space Marine Terminators must face off with deadly alien creatures known as Genestealers.

And so, the stage is set. This is the extent of the narrative -- it informs the players of who their soldiers are, why they are fighting, and what they aim to achieve. Clear conflict is woven into the narrative to provide a justification for that conflict. But that’s all. There are no characters in the same sense as they are used films. There’s no plot, no story twists, no narrative devices that would make the experience linear.

Too many video games, I feel, fall into the trappings of a linear narrative. They play more like a novel would read or a film would project than an actual game. The game mechanics are a device used to further the narrative, not necessarily to create compelling game play.

This linearity begets another trapping of video games -- that of little-or-no replay value.

Lesson 2: Replay value

Board games inherently have high replay value if the game mechanics are entertaining and compelling enough to warrant another go. This might also be due to the fact that board games’ universes usually take place on a static board, thus necessitating the ability to play multiple times to continue to enjoy the game.

But some game boards are modular, meaning that the players redesign the field for another play, thus making the replay value increase. Space Hulk is a game in this sense -- the game board is composed of interlocking corridors, rooms, doors, and terrain features that can be reorganized for each play.

Again, too many video games have completely linear sets, which are usually derived from a linear narrative. Pretty much every first-person shooter comes with predesigned maps set in a predetermined order. Even multiplayer maps are predesigned, and players are usually not given the opportunity to create their own maps.

There are some exceptions to this, like StarCraft and X-Com: UFO Defense -- the former provided players with the ability to create their own maps through an editor, and the latter provided randomly generated tactical maps.

But these exceptions are few and far between -- most video games are static in their environments, and those environments are set in a specific order by the narrative which cannot be altered.

This leads to little-or-no replay value, unless the player really enjoys replaying the narrative. It’s also why many first-person shooters’ longevity is judged by the multiplayer experience -- this is the only space within the game that offers an alternative to the narrative-driven experience.

Multiplayer is more like a static board game, such as Monopoly, where the set pieces are reset for each playthrough. So long as the game mechanics are compelling, players will continue to choose to replay the game.

Some games will offer side quests outside of the narrative, secret locations or items, or varying character values which can provide a slightly different narrative experience in a second run. Many open-world-type games offer these things as a way to increase replay value, yet all of these things are just extra icing on the narrative cake.

These extras are usually themselves linear, and once the player has seen and done them all, there’s little incentive to revisit the game.

Lesson 3: Creating worlds

You might say that a board game’s playing space is that game’s world. These game worlds are most often a sandbox of sorts...a playground.

The previous two lessons bring this fact to light: By having a narrative support gameplay rather than shape it and by creating a non-linear experience, board games create a playground for players to test the limits of play. Players can use house rules, create situations not envisioned by the designers -- or just mess about within that game’s world.

This is why games like The Sims, SimCity, and other sandbox-genre titles are so popular and compelling. The Sims creates a world with a set of rules and then hands over the reins to the player. The player now has a space in which he can create his own narrative by testing the limits of the game’s rules.

Many video games just don’t create worlds. Sure, they create background stories and narratives. They may even create a unique universe in which the narrative is set, but this is not how I’m describing the act of creating a world.

Space Hulk creates a world in which rules, not narrative, guide the direction of play, and players compete within that world to learn how to use the rules to develop winning battle tactics. This is not much different than playing The Sims and learning how to use the rules to achieve whatever end goal the player wishes, such as creating specific relationships between Sims or just figuring out how a Sim can be killed.

This quality may also be inherent in board games simply because of the medium, but there’s little reason that more video games can’t try to emulate that. In the end, that’s what a game is -- a space where rules are followed and learned from, or bent and broken (as in the case of house rules and video game mods.)

Conclusion

I’m not saying that all video games need to do these things -- just that I believe more of them should look to these compelling components of board games and learn from them.

For example, I love the Front Mission games, especially the recent Front Mission 1st port for the DS. But this title fell into the trappings I’ve described -- the linear narrative drives the game experience, and at the end of the campaign I have little reason to play a second time.

I would love to continue playing in the world of giant, customizable fighting mechas, but the thought of being forced to run through predesigned maps and predesigned setups gives me cause to put the DS down.

Another example I can provide is Dawn of War 2, a game which some may hold up as defense to my criticisms. Dawn of War 2 was such a slap in the face regarding the non-linear gameplay promised by Relic. The developer made claims of the campaign having different missions which would open up new paths to the same end, but the shipped product’s alternative missions were simply optional side-quests that did nothing to affect the overall development of the narrative.

There was nothing branching about Dawn of War 2’s campaign. What a disappointment!

StarCraft 2 claims to make good on this promise -- that of actual alternative missions which will change the path of the narrative. Though not exactly what I mean by increasing replay value, I feel this is a step in the right direction.

Still, the longevity of StarCraft 2 will be judged by its multiplayer offerings, not its single-player campaign, of which it can be said this mode of play will be much more like the board game qualities I’ve described.

We can still have our narrative-driven video games, but can we get some more in the way of board game-like game mechanics? Maybe I’m raising an alarm to a problem that doesn’t exist, but I continually get the impression that too many video games suffer from linear narratives and rail-like gameplay.

In other words, I’m tired of games that offer only one way (or even multiple ways) to get from point A to point B, etc. and that’s it.