Why Wait? Turning Sequential Turns Into Simultaneous Actions

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Today at Make It Big In Games, we will discuss some thoughts and considerations when you want to turn a sequential turn-based game into a simultaneous action game.

Most people are familiar with the classic sequential turn-based (we'll refer to it simply as "turn-based" from here on out) style of gameplay; for anyone who has played Monopoly (and who hasn't!?), it is a classic example of such.

The first player takes their turn, and all of their actions are resolved within that turn. The next player gets to take their turn knowing exactly what the previous player has done, etc.; round and round, it goes with no real complexity in who gets priority over what action as each turn is neatly wrapped in a bow.

Simultaneous action games are somewhat less common, and you may or may not have personally encountered examples of such, but a few of the more well known games that utilize this are 7 Wonders and Diplomacy where each player makes their choice/performs an action in turn, and they are all revealed and resolved at the same time.

In 7 Wonders, the players choose their card and place it face down in front of them. Once all players have placed a card in front of them, each player then resolves their action at the same time, then the turn has ended. With this approach, any given player is unaware of what the other players intend to do with their turn until it all occurs at the same time. You're not competing over a common pool of resources on any given turn in 7 Wonders, you're strictly limited to what is available in your own hand, which makes the action resolution quite simple.

In this post, we're posing the question "How can we transition from sequential turn-based to simultaneous action games, and what does that change?" and we'll be throwing out some thoughts and ideas on this that you can consider.

Limitations of Turn-Based Games

One of the major limitations of turn-based games is that you must wait for all other players preceding you to have taken and completed their turns before you can then take your turn.

This is not always a bad thing, but in many games, players can suffer from indecision, and turns become longer and longer, which can induce boredom in the remaining players when they have to wait increasingly longer amounts of time to get back around to their own turn.

Some games will include time limits on player turns to ensure a faster pace, a popular example of such is Hearthstone where turns are timed and a visual indicator (in the form of a burning rope) appears when there are only a handful of seconds remaining in the turn to increase urgency.

In games with timers, reaching your turn's time limit can result in forfeiting your turn or a random action made on your behalf in games that demand at least one action per turn.

Turn-based games are great when all players are available at the same time to ensure a game that doesn't need to span many hours/days to conclude -- this includes online games where people aren't necessarily situated in the same physical location to keep the flow going.

Why Transition to Simultaneous Actions?

With the main problems of traditional turn-based games being slower gameplay and extended downtime between turns, it should come as no surprise to you that simultaneous action games generally have faster gameplay and reduced downtime between turns (though not always eliminated as any given player can still make their decision quicker than the rest of the players in a turn).

An example of a game series that began as fully turn-based and moved to simultaneous actions is the Civilization Series where the first three games were turn-based and from the fourth game onwards, it was transition to simultaneous actions for multiplayer games.

This change in Civilization had the obvious benefit of increasing the overall speed of gameplay, but it also had the less obvious effect of forcing players to try to anticipate opponents' moves instead of being fully aware of what each player before them has just done on their turn, which leads to an increased depth in strategies.

Despite this change, the overall feeling of simultaneous action multiplayer games in Civilization remains largely the same as when they were wholly turn-based.

Key Considerations for Simultaneous Actions

Action Resolution

For many games, moving from traditional turn-based to simultaneous actions will introduce the issue of players taking actions that may conflict with another player's action in the same turn.

This can manifest itself in more than one player wanting to purchase the same resource, move to the same tile/location, or attack another player, and each of these may require its own type of resolution rules in order to successfully complete a turn.

For things like purchasing the same resource, you can potentially resolve this by having each player put in a bid for resources (with a minimum bid amount) where the highest bidder gets the resource at the price they bid for it with bidding ties ending with a coin flip.

When it comes to moving to the same tile or location, you might be able to rely on a "speed" or "agility" trait where those with the higher attribute have priority over the move, and those with the lower attributes are forced to remain in their original location. It's also possible to introduce conflict by forcing players that move to the same tile/location to engage in combat where the winner moves to the tile and the loser remains in their initial location.

Information Availability

One of the benefits of simultaneous actions is the ability to have some level of information asymmetry for each individual player, and it allows individual players the ability to somewhat hide or obscure their motives and makes it exciting for other players who then have to try and anticipate what each other player might be doing on any given turn and how it may affect what they intend to do for themselves.

In board games, this is usually seen with the board state (e.g. player positions, resource availability, etc.) being visible to all players but individual hands or personal resources being only available to the individual. Any given player may opt to tell others what they have and what they intend to do, but the nature of simultaneous actions allows them to say one thing and do another while the other players may be acting on the original discussion, assuming you were being honest with them about your own intentions.

This deceptiveness or ability to mask your ultimate intentions is sometimes difficult to achieve in turn-based games where you must complete your action within your turn, and the subsequent players can observe exactly what it is that you have done.

Challenges of Simultaneous Actions

Analysis Paralysis

While still also present in turn-based games, analysis paralysis can manifest itself in the need to antipicate all other players' actions in order to make the optimal choice for your own action instead of being able to observe the previous players' turns before making your own.

This can lead to a heightened level of anxiety in your players. However, this is not always a bad thing, as it can force unique and unexpected situations to occur where players become paranoid or overly defensive in anticipation of what they think other players may be doing.

Increased Complexity

Action resolution can be tough. Instead of things just happening and they're done with for a player's turn, you now have to make sure that all actions taking place are valid, and when there are conflicts, you have to deal with them.

In order to make the resolutions "fair," you can't be too reliant on randomized outcomes as players feel cheated when it's nothing more than the flip of a coin deciding if they're successful or not, so you may have to track other variables.

These can be player attributes, as mentioned earlier, or they could be pooled resources, individual player resources, or any other number of things. But the main thing is that you have to deal with them, or the game can end in an illegal/undesirable state.

Transitioning Existing Games: An Example

Let's use Monopoly as a sort of case study for the purposes of this discussion. The resulting changes may not be ideal, and they might not even be fun, but they do serve as food for thought of some potential changes you could make to an existing game.

The changes we're discussing today are primarily intended to speed up the gameplay of a typical game of Monopoly while attempting to maintain much of the same overall game feel.

First, here are a handful of initial changes that might help the transition (how they help explained in the following section):

  1. All players roll their dice at the same time at the beginning of a turn, but nothing is acted upon immediately.
  2. Allow some Chance and Community Chest cards to be retained by the player once picked up, e.g. an "Advance to Boardwalk" card might be allowed to stay in the player's hand to use at a later time.
  3. House Purchases becomes fully bid-based (even if you are the only one bidding).

Phase 1: Movement

Once player dice have been rolled, each player secretly submits their decision for movement based on their roll. With players being able to hold onto some Chance and Community Chest cards, this allows them to utilize one of these cards in place of the movement required by a die roll.

For example, if Player A rolled a 3 that would land them on the "Go to Jail" tile, they may opt to use an "Advance to Boardwalk" tile that they had retained from earlier in order to avoid their fate.

Once all decisions have been submitted, all moves are made at the same time.

Phase 2: Action Resolution

After the movement phase, all actions are resolved in the following order:

  1. Any Chance or Community Chest cards are picked up and immediately resolved or added to the player's hand where applicable.
  2. Any rent/fees due are set aside (but not immediately passed to the recipient).
    • This forces the player paying the fee to lose access to that money but doesn't make it available to the recipient immediately, so it doesn't give them an additional advantage for purchases in the current turn.
  3. Property purchases (as a result of landing on an unowned property) are handled.
    • Each player may opt to submit a single secret bid on the property (with the minimum being the property purchase price)
    • The highest bid wins the property; a tie for the winning bid potentially results in the property being left unsold

Phase 3: Property & Trading Decisions

Once the action resolution phase has concluded, players then secretly submit quantity and bids (per house cost) for house purchases.

Additionally, if a player is opting to sell houses from their property, they also secretly submit the number of houses they intend to sell (the sell price is, by default, the minimum house purchase cost)

The housing trading decisions are then resolved: 1. When the demand for houses outstrips the supply, then the highest bids have priority on the purchases and continue onward until the supply is exhausted. 2. If the supply has been exhausted and there are houses to be sold, if there is remaining demand (i.e. quantity/bids), the houses are sold to the other players at the bid prices (again, in priority order of highest bids first) 3. Any remaining houses to be sold are sold back to the bank at the standard sale price

These changes add an element of trying to predict what other players may do during the turn in order to maximize your own income. For example, if you were considering selling houses on a given property in order to free up some capital, you may decide to risk selling them on a turn when the overall house supply is low if you think several other players may want to make housing purchases on the same turn.

Once the above has been resolved, players have a short window to conduct standard property trades with one another.

Phase 4: Rent/Income Distribution

Any rent/fees/income that has been set aside for players in earlier phases is now distributed/made available to the target player.

This then gives the players access to the capital that they may have earned for use in the following turns.

Conclusion

Transitioning a game from a traditional turn-based model to one with simultaneous actions can wildly change the gameplay speed and strategies in a game. It will more than likely introduce complexities and edge cases that you would have to tackle, but it also ups the player's conflict and opens up more opportunities for a faster pace, more engagement, and unpredictable scenarios.

Players are forced to think ahead and try to anticipate others' moves in order to optimize their own gameplay, all while dealing with reduced information in any given turn.

As shown in the example above, even the classic game of Monopoly could arguably see some cool results from a move to simultaneous actions, all while (at least we think) preserving most of the feeling you would get from a traditional game of Monopoly without the wildly lengthy gameplay that you'd typically see with house rules.

We think that the key in these transitions is to preserve the core mechanics and feel of the game while trying to find creative ways to speed up gameplay, resolve conflicts, and ultimately make it a more enjoyable experience.

Whether you're designing a new game or modifying an old favorite, simultaneous actions can offer a refreshing alternative that keeps players on their toes and invested in every moment.

So, why wait? Pick up an old turn-based favorite and see what you can do with it or just get into making something brand new using simultaneous actions. Thanks for stopping by!

First published September 13, 2024

Tags: Game Design