The Most Underused Board Game Mechanism
Cogito Design is by Cogito Ergo Meeple who design and produce games! Check out our social media to explore more:
Instagram: / cogitoergomeeple and / cogito_design
Facebook: / cogitoergomeeple
Twitter: / cogito_games
Like our videos and want to explore more? Then we'd really appreciate if you check out our Patreon and perhaps consider supporting us if you can: / cogitoergomeeple
________
Contents of this video
0:00 - Board game mechanics on BGG
0:43 - The most underused board game mechanic
1:23 - This ancient mechanic
2:42 - Why is this mechanic so useful?
3:03 - Adding interesting decisions into your game design
4:32 - Different ways to approach this mechanic
6:45 - The disadvantage of being 'the cutter' and how to even this out
8:15 - How to utilize this mechanic with more than 2 people
10:23 - 'Flow' in tabletop games
11:09 - The rising popularity of this mechanic
________
Sources
How to Play Castles of Mad King Ludwig | Bezier Games, Inc. (ft. at 6:09-6:28)
• How to Play Castles of...
Source of specific pictures are labelled in the video.
________
Explore More
My Top 5 I-Cut-You-Choose Games | Jamey Stegmaier
• My Top 5 I-Cut-You-Cho...
I Cut, You Choose Board Game Mechanic | BoardGameGeek
boardgamegeek.com/boardgameme...
GameTek Classic 189 - I Cut, You Choose Podcast Episode | Ludology
ludology.libsyn.com/gametek-c...
I love this mechanism! I was watching this video out of interest in the mechanism, and so it was a fun surprise to hear that I was mentioned at the end--thank you. :) I still have yet to figure out how to get I-cut-you-choose in one of our games while retaining the flow, but I look forward to playing Philosophia to see how you did it!
Wow, thanks so much for commenting! You certainly deserved the mention and we're very happy to hear that you're interested in playing our game! Email us your address and we'd love to send you a copy once they have been printed. It's the least we could do as your blog and book have been an enormous help to us in publishing our games (not to mention your games themselves which have been a huge influence)! Our email address is in the 'about' section of this channel, thanks!
@@cogitodesign Thank you! I'm flattered by your offer, and I'll send you a note. :)
abraham was the first game designer 😲!!
Haha!
Abraham is a storybook character.
@@glowingunknown5625 wow you’re so edgy
I feel like the power plant bidding in Power Grid is effectively last diminisher. You select a desirable "piece" (power plant) at a price. The larger that price gets during the auction the more "diminished" it is. That said, I could see this being a useful mechanic for games. Like an alternative to drafting, perhaps.
Yes, very good point. It does work in a similar way. The only difference I can see is that (I think) there is a slight advantage to going last in the bidding in Power Plant, particularly as new cards continually enter the market if you go last and a good new card enters the market you end up with no competitors. Thanks for your comment!
There are several MTG cards use this mechanic, I've always enjoyed it
Fact or fiction is fun to play and play against
@@dashingsquid3725 it even inspired a whole game in the form of Animals in Espionage. Great simpler Hanamikoji alternative
exactly what i was thinking. fact or fiction, gifts ungiven, sauron's ransom all fit the bill
I see this same "I cut you choose" mechanic on board game arena for Santorini. At the start of the game, there are god powers that give each player of the two players a unique power, some really good, some terrible. The first player has to choose two god powers to face off against each other (out of a random draw of six) and the second player gets the option to pick which one they want to play out of the two. This makes a fun dynamic of the second player wanting to pick what they think is the better god power while the first player wants to make the matchup as fair as possible so that the leftover option is winnable.
That sounds interesting and a lot of fun! I'm a fan of juicy decision making in board games, I'll have to check it out! Thanks for commenting ☺
Sounds like drafting in a sense. There's "cube" drafting with Pokemon where you get a large collection of cards to build two decks, and each turn alternate between dividing the cards into stacks and picking who gets the stacks.
That does sound similar for sure! I haven't played Pokemon enough so will have to check it out!
"Particularly for his poor salty wife"
🤣
The mathematical term for this mechanic is “fair division”.
In one way this could also be seen as a very common rule used to balance abstract strategy games where there is a slight first-player advantage. I usually see it as "the pie rule" where one person makes the first move and the other decides either to claim that colour (and so the person who made the move takes the opposite colour from the move they made and has to play against it) or to make their first move with the opposing colour. On BGG if you look at the abstract game subdomain forums, you will see all sorts of games that use the pie rule.
I think this is a great point. These could certainly be seen as variations on this mechanism. Thanks for your comment!
I use this in one of my game designs! An expansion for Candy Land to turn it into an actual game, rather than an exercise in moving pieces. It's not fun yet, but I'm confident I can find the fun in it at some point.
Awesome! Keep at it and good luck 🙌 Would love to know more as your design progresses! Thanks for commenting ☺️
The cake part instantly got me thinking about how to put this into a game and especially how to put this mechanic into a game with more than 2 players. Video was done in a nice clear way so Ill be checking out other videos on your channel now :) good look with your gaming endeavors
Would love to hear your thoughts on how the cake part could work with more than 2 players! Thanks so much for your support, really pleased to hear you're enjoying our videos!
The cake part made me think about Thief's Market, give it a try 😉
Reminds me of a Brazilian card game named Nessos. It's a 3-6 player game and each player takes turns giving out cards to other players that they can accept or not because the card your firned gave you could be worth some points or could be the Charon card, which can take you out of the game.The game consists of cards numbered 1-10 (4 copies of each) and Charon cards (10 copies of it) And a round tipically go like this: P1 offers a card faced down, declaring it is a 5. He could either be telling the truth or lie and give a Charon (you can't lie and give another value). P2 then has to decide if they whether accept the card, give it back (which P1 has to take it) or if he passes it to the next person, adding their own card and declaring it's value. P3 then has the same choices P2 has, but now has to consider whether P1 AND P2 were lying. If they pass again, adding their own card, P4 can only accept or decline, as you can only have 3 cards be given to a player. Each numbered card is worth itself in points, and the winner is the one that gets 30 points. If you get 3 Charons, you're out. So it's kinda like I Cut You Choose. P1 gives a card, P2 decides if either one take it or if he should be the new Cutter.
That sounds really good! I’ve not heard of it but I’ll check it out. It actually sounds like cockroach poker I wonder if CP was inspired by Nessos?
@@cogitodesign You could replicate it with a common deck of cards. I could email the rules for you
@@PsychoMachadothat’d be great thank you! Our email is: info@cogitoergomeeple.com ☺️
Absolutely great mechanism. Hard to believe only 45 games use it but the 3+ player problem is clearly the reason why. The first game I remember using it was San Marco, about 25-30years ago. It worked well enough when it involved a 3 way cut, but I could see it wasn't perfect. Maybe it needs to be supplemented with a possible auction.
Yes I love it too! I really like the idea of combining it with an auction for higher player counts. Thanks for your comment 😊
I like the I cut you choose mechanic but I have some reservations. Fact or fiction is one of the most agonizing cards to have to deal with in magic because of the incomplete information you have. I think when you have sets of four or more cars it can create some analysis paralysis and slow the game down. Also if it's a main mechanic in the game there isn't an easy way of having it sort of ramp up as a game goes along. Players want to have that sense of progression over time. I think it's possible if you start where cars are being passed left around the table the player before you will take two cards put one face up and one face down and you choose which one you want. Later in the game maybe players could upgrade so that maybe three cards need to be passed instead of two maybe with the cards coming from a central display or a central deck. Maybe you could upgrade yourself so that your opponents had to put all the cars face up. Maybe you could upgrade so that when passing cards you get to choose one of the cards your opponent didn't take. I think there are lots of interesting ideas the only issue being I'm not sure how this could be used thematically. The other issue with the mechanic is that it's difficult for new players to accurately assess the value of cards or sets of cards especially if there's lots of text on them. By the time I was playing against fact or fiction I already had an encyclopedic knowledge of magic cards and had a pretty good idea of how to split piles and even that and sometimes it was very difficult. If the strategy is not yet clear or the card synergies are not clear it can create an issue where if you're being past cards from a newer player you can have a significant advantage even if the cards passing in the opposite direction alternative between rounds that could still create some issues. Either way going to continue watching the video Oh God I would die trying to set the prices for tiles and mad king Ludwig. The eye price you choose mechanic and I love sky it's interesting but I can't seem to find a way to get my hands on the game and don't know how it would fit into my collection anyways. Sorry my speech to text is giving some interesting spellings
These are really excellent points as always, I really like the idea of being able to upgrade your 'I cut you choose' powers so that you start small (like Tussie Mussie) and then can grow in your abilities. I agree, I don't have a theme that would work with off the top of my head but I'm sure there are several ways to include it thematically in a game. I think you raise a good point about it benefitting players who know the game well. I suppose it depends on the type of game you're trying to make. Some games are focused on rubber banding - to be accessible and close with players of all ability levels (e.g., Mario Kart) - whereas others are about building skill and reward the players who play the best nearly every time. I can see benefits of both but if you were going for the former, then a standard 'I cut, you choose' may not be the best option. That being said, you could use the Castles of Mad King Ludwig approach in a. 3+ player game which may mitigate these issues. Thanks for your answer! PS. I love Sky too 🤣
@@cogitodesign youre talking about the shares tableau between players to help mitigate the issues? Thanks for responding I thought there were some cool ideas I'd forgotten I'd written so I might come back to that idea.
Seems like Thief's Market mitigates the AP burden by dividing it among players(via Last Diminisher instead), and the lack of crescendo via engine building(plus some cards allow "cheating" the procedure) Animals in Espionage reduces the new player confusion via its simple gameplay, yet still allows high level reading & bluffing
Great video, thank you. I love the format and picked up a good few games to try too.
Thanks so much, I really appreciate your comment and am very pleased you liked the video! ☺️
I thought this channel had something like 100K subs when I was watching because of how informative the video was surprised with the 1.85K subs :/ you got a +1
Wow thank you so much 🙌 Glad you found the video informative. More coming soon!
Stockpile. Great use of mechanism.
Thanks for the tip I'll check it out!
One of the most popular card games, Munchkin, _kind of_ has an "I cut you choose" mechanic, it's just not hard-coded into the game. When a player helps you in combat, you usually have to work out some kind of repayment. Maybe that's a blind cut of the treasure, maybe that's a chosen cut of the treasure, maybe you keep all the treasure for that battle but give helper something from your hand or already in play in front of you. Players _can_ choose an "I cut you choose" arrangement, but nothing in the rules says they have to.
This does sound like I cut you choose. I haven’t played Munchkin myself but thanks for your example. It’s really helpful to have lots of examples of the mechanism in the comments as people can then use it for inspiration ☺️
Thanks a lot for the video :) it gave a ton of ideas for making game with this mecanism.
Really pleased you enjoyed the video and found it useful! Good luck with your game creation 🙌
Clearly I'm super late to this, but i think the math oriented channel, numberphile, did a video on the maths behind this very topic, especially when it comes to a cutting with more than 2 parties involved. Also, i really enjoy new york slice as a pretty great example of 'I cut you choose'
I haven’t seen that video I’ll have to check it out, thanks for the tip! I agree, New York Slice is a fantastic example of this mechanism 🙌 🍕
Great video. Thanks! Subscribed!
Thanks so much for subscribing and commenting! I'm really pleased to hear you enjoyed the video ☺️
Great video, kepp up the good work!
Thanks so much for your support and glad to hear you like the video. Next video coming soon!
Amazing video
Thanks so much, really appreciate your comment and very pleased you like the video!
I highly recommend Thief's market, my favorite I split you choose mechanic that solves the 3+ players issue elegantly.
Interesting! I haven't played Thief's Market so I'll have to give it a go!
I suspect it's because that game uses a tweaked Last Diminisher method, rather than the usual naive/straightforward ICYC(like Skyward and New York Slice, though Sundae Split at least mitigates the cutter's disadvantage by giving them an information advantage)
@@cogitodesign be prepared to sift back and forth through the rulebook though :p some effects are too complex for symbol-only cards(about as complex as the average Magic: the Gathering card). Also be wary of endless dice-stealing between players who bought the "don't reroll when stealing" cards
@@revimfadli4666 thanks for the heads up! We are no strangers to heavy games/ games with negative player interactions so I doubt this’ll put us off 👍
@@cogitodesign you're welcome! It makes sense given the weight of your games😁 My concern about the back and forth stealing wasn't about the negative interaction, but the possibility that the game might overstay its welcome(since the self-limiting "diminishing" part of the stealing could be gone by then, due to certain effects which should've been developed away IMO)
There are now (may 2024) 139 games with this mechanism
Wow- a big jump from 45 back in Jan 2021!
Great video. I was quite pleased with myself when I guessed it might be “I cut, you choose’. Fact or Fiction is a pretty iconic Magic The Gathering card that uses the same mechanic. Thanks for the new ideas.
Thanks, glad you liked the video! Thanks for your comment and nice one on guessing "I cut, you choose" 😆
Great news: there's already a game which uses a last diminisher variant! Thief's Market's dice drafting rule might count, since you must return/reroll a die to the center pool everytime you steal, thus 'diminishing' your 'slice'. It's even faster since players without a "slice" can directly advance to taking the next "slice" from the center, instead of waiting for the previous one to resolve You also draft the first player marker, which might mitigate the cutter's disadvantage(since first player in market-buying phase is also the first cutter in drafting phase)
Oh nice, this sounds really interesting! Thanks for letting me know about this, I'll have to check it out- this sounds right up my street!
@@cogitodesign you're welcome!
Wow! You've convinced me! it is important to include mechanics that are easy to balance like this one. Variable player powers would be the hardest to balance.
Like auctions, it's so easy to balance because it's a self-balancing mechanism itself(assuming players play optimally) I wonder if either or both(or last diminisher) could be used to balance variable powers
Thanks for the video! Your channel is so unique and underrated. Like, from every video, I get some interesting information about board game designing, history, etc. For me, as a beginner board game designer, this is very useful. Keep up great work)
Comments like these are exactly why we keep making these videos, thanks so much! We really appreciate your support and we're so pleased you're enjoying the videos! There should be another coming out very soon!
It's much more common then it's stat would let on as Their is an entire genre dedcated to it and an eniter segment where it is common... The genre is deck building card games and the segment Wargames mostly for objectives placement and getting and map building also revealing and placeing models on the map.
San Marco is a great game featuring this.
I’ll have to give that a go- I haven’t tried that one! Thanks for your comment ☺️
Mammut did this quite nicely. You should have a look at this game!
Will do! Thanks for your comment ☺️
I definitely wouldn't mind more games with this mechanism! However, to me, the most underused is the "fishing-cards-with-your-cards" type of gameplay in Koi-Koi and Scopa which has no mechanism category on BGG and is under "game type" as "Card Game: Fishing," but many of the games in that list are just about fishing and don't have that mechanism. So researching games that have this mechanism has been frustrating.... It's really an excellent mechanism.
Thanks for the heads up, I’ll check it out!
I had a pretty good idea which mechanic you were going to identify, before you mentioned it. There are multiple reasons for it not being more popular. For one, it isn't entirely appropriate when attempting to model a game after what happens in reality, or what is thematic to the game. (Yes, you could build a game around that mechanic, but such designs usually seem contrived.) For another, implementing it for more than two players is problematic. Third, it isn't enjoyed by most gamers, in my experience. Fourth, implementing it in a thoughtful way can be time-consuming in terms of game length - it's a decision point that can cause players to equivocate or suffer from AP.
I agree, I think these are all good reasons why we don't see a huge amount of this mechanism. Thanks for commenting!
A+ for the Bible refrance.
Thanks 👍
There is Destinies from Hand im Glück or the great Split.
Thanks for the video. It was very interesting and well thought out. Your game was already on my radar, and so I'm delighted to learn that it uses this game mechanic. I'm very much looking forward to its arrival.
No problem, really pleased to hear you enjoyed the video and are looking forward to the arrival of our game! Thank you so much for all your support - more interesting videos coming soon!
I like this idea, and I am choosing to employ it in my game, with a slight variation. Draw 5 cards without looking at them, choose an opponent, and the opponent sorts the 5 cards into 2 piles: one pile of cards with 2 cards, and another pile with 3 cards. The opponent (who sorted) then puts the 2 piles of cards in front of the player, with one pile face up, and the other face down. The player chooses one pile, and receives all cards in the chosen pile; the opponent (who sorted) then goes through the unchosen pile of cards and chooses one for the opponent themselves to receive. I liked the idea you put forth, but for balancing my game, I wanted the opponent to receive some benefit, but receiving multiple cards was too much of a benefit, and needed to be reserved for the person playing the card; giving the entire unchosen pile to an opponent as a penalty was too strong. I figured that having them choose the best card in the unchosen pile is still a decent bonus for the opponent (and penalty for the player to balance the powerful boon), without making it so that the bonus was equal to both the player and their opponent. I often find myself doing little tweaks on ideas I pick up from videos, and changing them to fit my game. That said, I really appreciate the inspiration and great video. This is my first video for this channel (gave it a like), but I think I will be watching many more, and possibly even subscribing, since this channel seems right up my alley. Best of luck, and thanks again for the inspiration. P.S. In case it was unclear, my board game is modular, where the board changes to accommodate 2-4 players, so there may be games with only one opponent, and other games with multiple opponents. Hence me clarifying about the opponent who was chosen to sort the piles.
I am shocked you didn't mention animals on board. As 1 it ties in with your Bible inspired intro and 2 it's a great functional multi player I cut you choose game. Where they also get around the issue of the cutter not getting potentially first dibs by using the rule any player that cuts gets a food token. Which are used for claiming a chosen group of animals.
Interesting! I haven’t played that one, I’ll have to check it out- thanks for sharing 🙌
Really Fantastic to see the new design Games,We are Board Game Manufacture,Good at produce printed nice box,board,rules,brochures,wooden pawns,dice...
Also if the objective to make for fair play where you are intened to cut evenly.... Then what is the point in having a machic? When you can have a rule where "you must divde it in two and have them pick their favoite"? Whould it make for better gameplay if they have to be tactical like "you take you deck and divide it in half picking whaat cards go it what pile and you must have a balance of card type and power in each pile. "Or forget the last bit and ensure both players only get bad/good cards? Might work best with more then 2 people and a tactily deep game.
it was very useful
Thanks so much, really pleased to hear you found the video useful! 👍
@@cogitodesign i am designing a trading card game.. can i get some tips from u?
@@tahiryaqubov3548 thanks for your question and apologies for my late reply! As for a trading card game, I think getting the artwork right is crucial. Find an artist you like as if it kicks off you’ll be working with them for a long time. On the same note, the design of the game should allow you to add new cards indefinitely so you can expand the game in the future. Other than that, if you can make a successful tcg then that’s awesome! It can be a tough market to break in to so lots of marketing would be needed. Are you planning to publish it yourself? Or are you going through a publishing company? We’d love to hear more about the game, it sounds interesting!
@@cogitodesign wow . I have artist skills too thx for your reply. Im working on i have a team from 2 artist 2 story developers.. in local photo area they let us to publish cards as invitation cards.. but template will be ours.. my country isnt a good one.. but i have marketing skills..
@@cogitodesign i m always here to see your answer
This mechanism is also used in chess we just call it a fork
That site you referenced with all the board game mechanics. Is there a videogame version?
There might be but I’m afraid I’m not aware of it. If you’re looking for videos like these that are based on video games, you’ll probably like GMTK. I’m sure you may have already seen their stuff but, if you haven’t, it’s excellent! We are very inspired by GMTK’s content ☺️
@@cogitodesign Game Maker's Toolkit. I watch them a lot, and they are awesome. Thank you though.
This video made me subscriber 266!
Thanks so much! I’ll be posting the next video in the next week so watch this space. In the meantime, if you enjoyed this video, you might also like our ‘roll and move’ video- enjoy!
A very good video about a highly interesting mechanic. 👍
Thanks so much, really pleased to hear you enjoyed it!
Bible shout out. Love it.
Ha, thanks!
So can someone explain exactly what’s”I cut you choose” mechanics mean?
Thanks for your question! I cut you choose (as it’s described in this video) is a game mechanism where one player takes a set of items, divides them into different groups and another player then decides which of these groups they’ll interact with in the game. An example would be one player dividing six cards into two piles of 3. The other player would choose one of these piles of cards and would therefore 'discard' the other. I hope this makes sense! Thanks again for your comment.
@@cogitodesign awesome, makes sense. Thank you for feeding my peanut brain! : D
Saw Hanamikoji in the thumbnail and am assuming the mechanic is I split, you choose. Edit - I was correct, but did mislabelled it as 'I split,' instead of 'I cut.'
In the end I pick you choose is a glorified way to play rock paper scissors
I love this video, but "the Last Diminisher" made no sense to me. I had to find a dumbed-down explanation.
Thanks so much and happy new year! Apologies for the convoluted explanation. I’ll try to make things clearer in the future, thanks for your feedback it’s really useful 👍
This game looks awesome!
Thanks so much!
I'm good at making creative board game I'm from Pakistan and has been making since I was in 2nd grade now I'm in doing PHD my IQ🗡️ has increased more as my talent is but in my country people and market is least interested in such stuff maybe I can be able to use it at some point in my life
i like how you reference the dummies I the bible and the dummies in the world government.
It immediatly come to mind the recent: its a wonderfull kingdom. Instead of drafting cards like its predecessor, now it use this mechanism with a nice gimmick. You can spend a token to hide a card and even create unbalanced pile of cards. This way you really have to read your opponent.
Thanks for your comment. That sounds really interesting, I'll have to check it out!
I think you mis-quoted Sid meier, "A game is a series of interesting choices" was the actual quote as far as I can tell. He didn't say that's all a game is, only that it's a way of defining a game.
Yes you are correct. The ‘just’ is a little misleading, my apologies. If you’re interested and you haven’t already watched it he has this whole talk on the topic: m.kzhead.info/sun/isugecisqaOdfp8/bejne.html It’s from the GDC in 2012 and he clarifies his thoughts on the quote since making it in the 80s.
…ABRAHAM STARTED IT ALL‼️… YES 👍🏻 ‼️ GONNA GO LOOK IT UP IN THE GOOD BOOK 📖 📕 NOW THANK YOU FOR MENTIONING THAT . BEAUTIFULLY DONE ✅ ✔️ ☑️
Ah the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the bibles secret fetish
I like your video, but wish you hadn't had to hide the topic behind a clickbait title.
this higly overused zoom in and zoom out effect makes it hard ro watch the video
It's mechanism, not mechanic