Analyzing for Fun Factor: 9 Board Games That Will Spark a State of Flow

Play expert and game inventor Andrea Cuadra shares her favorite board games.
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Throughout my time inventing games, including FlappyNauta, Misión Alien, and Blob,

I learned about what makes a good game—so much that game elements creep into my work, like into my master’s project, Goodnight News, a playful, interactive children’s book I co-authored. ​

​​I’ve also attended New York Toy Fair three times, with the intention of playing as many games as I possibly could (including this giant bubble game!):

Toy fair!!!

A post shared by Andrea Cuadra (@andreapcuadra) on Feb 18, 2017 at 11:16am PST

I've also spent a disproportionate amount of time at board game cafes, which serve food AND games, and hosting game nights—all while actively observing the effects of games on people. 

​I’ve found that games have varying levels of chance, strategy, skill, and negotiation. The games that will get players into a state of flow—an important state of mind that generates happiness; in state, you’re 100% immersed in an activity and forget about everything else—have a balanced combination of all those components. Another key trait I look for: rules that are not a pain in the butt to remember, an important consideration when including new players. 

• Chance: being lucky makes you win
• Strategy: being smart makes you win
• Skill: being good at something that you can get better at with practice makes you win
• Negotiation: being able to understand and cater to the needs of others makes you win

Another key trait I look for: rules that are not a pain in the butt to remember, an important consideration when including new players. (Remember: "play," by definition, ensures mutual enjoyment of all players.)
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With these criteria in mind, here are some of my top recommendations:

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1. Munchkin.

Munchkin is a dedicated deck card game by Steve Jackson Games, written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Kovalic. It is a humorous take on role-playing games, based on the concept of munchkins (immature role-players, playing only to “win” by having the most powerful character possible). — description from Wikipedia

• Chance: Your chances of winning get harder the closer you’re to doing so, it’s usually a logarithmic win. You draw cards from a pile and roll a dice, but the effects of such rolls vary depending on context.
• Strategy: Players can strategize in many ways to optimize their chances of winning. Ways to strategize include which cards you use at different points, and who you partner up with.
• Skill: Being good at recalling rules and adapting them to the ever-changing context of the game gives you an advantage.
• Negotiation: Teams form and dissolve on-the-go, and your victory can depend on whose good side you’re on.

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2. Codenames.

Codenames is a 2015 board game for 2–8 players designed by Vlaada Chvátil and published by Czech Games. Two teams compete by each having a Spymaster give one-word clues which can point to multiple words on the board. The other players on the team attempt to guess their team’s words while avoiding the words of the other team. In the 2–3 player variant, one Spymaster gives clues to the other player or players. — description from Wikipedia

• Chance: The chance comes from which words you end up having to connect without messing up with the other side.
• Strategy: You need to think about the order in which you give out clues in order to optimize for success.
• Skill: With time you can get better at making connections.
• Negotiation: You need to be able to anticipate what other players are thinking.

3. Pictionary.

Pictionary is a charades-inspired guessing word game invented by Robert Angel with graphic design by Gary Everson and first published in 1985 by Angel Games Inc. Hasbro purchased the rights in 1994 after acquiring the games business of Western Publishing before eventually selling the rights to Mattel. The game is played with teams with players trying to identify specific words from their teammates. — description from Wikipedia

Note on Pictionary: I selected Pictionary, because it’s in my opinion the mother/father of drawing games, but there are many other drawing games that are great like Telestrations or Drawful (actually a video game, but has the feel of a board game).

• Chance: Will you know the word you have to draw? How hard will it be to draw it?
• Strategy: You can strategize by planning out how to draw something. Drawing a bottle of sunblock won’t be as effective and quick as drawing the sun and then a block.
• Skill: With time you can get better at communicating effectively through drawings.
• Negotiation: You need to be able to anticipate what other players will interpret from your drawings.

4. Settlers of Catan.

The Settlers of Catan, sometimes shortened to Catan or Settlers, is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber and first published in 1995 in Germany by Franckh-Kosmos Verlag (Kosmos) as Die Siedler von Catan. Players assume the roles of settlers, each attempting to build and develop holdings while trading and acquiring resources. Players are awarded points as their settlements grow; the first to reach a set number of points, typically 10, is the winner. — description from Wikipedia

• Chance: The roll of the dice determines which settlements produce resources. You can choose to purchase development cards, and it’s up to your luck which one you draw.
• Strategy: You choose where to invest in your settlements and cities, and that affects the probability of you getting the resources you made need. You can also strategize in how you trade your resources and how you play development cards.
• Skill: The more you play, the better you get at recognizing winning patterns of play.
• Negotiation: There is a lot of trading with other players, and persuasion or dissuasion regarding where to build or who to steal from.

5. Carcassonne.

​Carcassonne is a tile-based German-style board game for two to five players, designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published in 2000 by Hans im Glück in German and by Rio Grande Games (until 2012) and Z-Man Games (currently) in English. — description from Wikipedia

• Chance: Each time turn you must draw a tile, and it’s up to your luck how convenient it is.
• Strategy: You must be really smart about planning out where to place your tiles and farmers in order to maximize your points at the end of the game.
• Skill: The more you play, the better you get at paying attention to the different factors that may affect your chances of winning.
• Negotiation: You persuade other players to place tiles or farmers in locations that may also benefit you.

6. Clue.

​Clue — is a murder mystery game for three to six players, devised by Anthony E. Pratt from Birmingham, England. The game was first manufactured by Waddingtons in the UK in 1949. Since then, it has been relaunched and updated several times, and it is currently owned and published by the American game and toy company Hasbro. The object of the game is to determine who murdered the game’s victim, where the crime took place, and which weapon was used. Each player assumes the role of one of the six suspects, and attempts to deduce the correct answer by strategically moving around a game board representing the rooms of a mansion and collecting clues about the circumstances of the murder from the other players. — description from Wikipedia

• Chance: Will you happen to be close to the room where the murder happened? Will you guess something on the first try? Will you get high enough rolls of the dice?
• Strategy: You must be able to take good notes and make deductions from every clue shared during the game, and plan your guesses and room visits accordingly.
• Skill: You can sharpen your deduction and note-taking skills the more you play.
• Negotiation: You can build trust with certain players, influence each other's gameplay, and try to get information via deduction from one another’s questions.

7. Hannabi.

​Hanabi is a cooperative card game published in 2010 in which players, aware of other players’ cards but not their own, attempt to play a series of cards in a specific order to set off a simulated fireworks show. Players are limited in the types of information they may give to other players, and in the total amount of information that can be given during the game. In 2013, Hanabi won the Spiel des Jahres, a prestigious industry award for best board game of the year. — description from Wikipedia

• Chance: How likely is it that you’ll get the card you most want? There are many times when you need to take an educated guess, and just hope the player whose turn it is will pick the right card.
• Strategy: You need to be strategic about when to give information, play a card, or discard a card.
• Skill: The more you play the better you’ll get at working together to plan, remember, and deduce.
• Negotiation: There is constant negotiating because you make decisions as a group.

8. Avalon.

Avalon, a variant of The Resistance, was released in 2012. The game pits Arthurian Knights against the evil Mordred and his minions. Merlin, is a good player who is told at the beginning of the game who the evil players are. If the evil players lose the game, however, they have one last chance of redeeming themselves by correctly guessing Merlin’s identity. If they can do this, the evil players win. As well as the Loyal Servants of Arthur and the Minions of Mordred, there are character cards with special powers. — description adapted from Wikipedia

• Chance: What character did you draw? Who are your teammates? How lucky you get with your guesses?
• Strategy: You must make logical deductions and plan accordingly.
• Skill: The more you play the better you get a role playing, collaborating, and reading others.
• Negotiation: You must do your best to convince everyone you’re not one of the evil players.
  
  
  

9. Dixit.

Dixit is a card game created by Jean-Louis Roubira, and published by Libellud. Using a deck of cards illustrated with dreamlike images, players select cards that match a title suggested by the “storyteller”, and attempt to guess which card the “storyteller” selected. The game was introduced in 2008. Dixit won the 2010 Spiel des Jahres award —description from Wikipedia

• Chance: The type of game you play, and how creative you get depends on the hand you (and the other players) were given.
• Strategy: You can strategize by playing planning when to play certain cards, or by informing your voting decisions based on possible scoring outcomes.
• Skill: You get better at creating clues that are not too vague or too specific.
• Negotiation: Understanding the way the other players thing will let you send better hints or guess the active card more accurately.

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All in all, games make people happy (or very angry—play with care!), and the ones that do the best job at it incorporate and balance elements of chance, strategy, skill, and negotiation. Being in a state of flow with people you care about creates strong bonds, helps you empathize, and refreshes your mind. Games are an affordable ticket to this beautiful aspect of the human experience.

About the author:

​Andrea is a Nicaraguan devotee of creativity. She grew up swimming and hunting for stones in the fresh waters of Lake Nicaragua, and moved to the US to get her first engineering degree. Drawn by the tropical weather and her clan (exaggeratedly large family), she moved back to Nicaragua to invent toys and games and gave a TEDx talk about it. But the bottom line is that the mecca of creativity is in Silicon Valley, so she moved back to the US for another engineering degree. 

Sometimes she teaches, builds robots, or design empathizes—after all, she needs a way to fund her truest mission of embedding playfulness everywhere. If you have kids between 3 and 7 and think understanding what they feel is important, you should most definitely buy her book, Goodnight News. You can check out her LinkedIn for awards, achievements, and all that boring yada yada, or you can follow her on Instagram. A recent transport from the Bay Area, she is now pursuing a PhD in Information Science at Cornell Tech.

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