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Over the course of a player's experience with a game, a player goes through two phases of their "relationship" with that game.
The first phase, the "discovery" phase, occurs during the first several plays of the game. In that phase, players are discovering the rules, discovering many of the interesting interactions among game components, and discovering many of the basic game strategies. Each experience involves discovering something new and the game has the capacity to genuinely surprise you multiple times each play.
At some point, the experience shifts to the "mastery" phase. The game ceases to be as surprising and instead players focus on optimizing their strategies and their tactical choices.
Some players thrive on the "discovery" phase. Others thrive on the "mastery" phase. I think there's a spectrum between the two extremes and we all find ourselves at some point on that spectrum.
A few notes:
1. The "cult of the new" simply means "people who vastly prefer the discovery phase to the mastery phase." As soon as the discovery phase of a game begins to wear off, people in this group jump to the next game and enjoy a new discovery phase.
2. Game expansions often bring a new "discovery" phase to an old game. They change the rules and options enough so that the game is unfamiliar and full of surprises. Games with regular expansions, such as Magic: the Gathering, tend to have regular discovery phases that draw back in "cult of the new" type players.
3. For me, the true genius of Risk: Legacy is that it found a way to extend the "discovery" phase of a game over a rather large number of games.
Over the course of a player's experience with a game, a player goes through two phases of their "relationship" with that game.
The first phase, the "discovery" phase, occurs during the first several plays of the game. In that phase, players are discovering the rules, discovering many of the interesting interactions among game components, and discovering many of the basic game strategies. Each experience involves discovering something new and the game has the capacity to genuinely surprise you multiple times each play.
At some point, the experience shifts to the "mastery" phase. The game ceases to be as surprising and instead players focus on optimizing their strategies and their tactical choices.
Some players thrive on the "discovery" phase. Others thrive on the "mastery" phase. I think there's a spectrum between the two extremes and we all find ourselves at some point on that spectrum.
A few notes:
1. The "cult of the new" simply means "people who vastly prefer the discovery phase to the mastery phase." As soon as the discovery phase of a game begins to wear off, people in this group jump to the next game and enjoy a new discovery phase.
2. Game expansions often bring a new "discovery" phase to an old game. They change the rules and options enough so that the game is unfamiliar and full of surprises. Games with regular expansions, such as Magic: the Gathering, tend to have regular discovery phases that draw back in "cult of the new" type players.
3. For me, the true genius of Risk: Legacy is that it found a way to extend the "discovery" phase of a game over a rather large number of games.