The Game Arc

A game is a journey.

A player should begin the game poor and weak, and through struggle, become wealthy and powerful. Then, the game should end.

Players love to get stronger and better. Progress pushes fundamental psychological buttons.

Poverty

The player should ideally begin with no starting resources (but still plenty of options). Poverty is elegant, and easy to understand. It makes each thing special and valuable, unlike a late-game pile of resources.

Initial abject poverty also makes the game arc bigger, and allows for more progress.

I usually find the starts of games to be the most fun. Keep the game there for a while.

In one of my prototypes, there were three phases to the game, which each ramped up. I liked the first and second ones, but in the third one, the player just overcame the game, and had huge amounts of resources. I simply removed the last stage of the game, and now there are only two stages.

Don't just make the player poor, make them worse than poor. Start the player with debts, or give the player obstructions or negative objects.

In my farm game, your player board has bandits and their giant fort on it. You also don't have much land. You'll need to acquire it.

Struggle

Struggle is fun. It sounds silly, but it's true. Struggle is the player solving a puzzle.

In my farm game, you eventually overcome the game's poverty and obstacles. Then, it suddenly becomes boring. I adjusted the game so that you get about one or two more turns, before the game ends.

You can also slow the arc down.

There's a natural progression in my farm game, that I can't really slow down. Even with stingy growth, the players will eventually overcome the game, and become all-powerful. To counteract this, I added bandits. These guys proliferate. They occupy more and more of your land, and demand to be fed more and more. They don't stop the players progressing (that would be unfun). I've calibrated the bandits carefully, and they hold the players in a pivotal and interesting "painful trade-off" struggle phase for most of the game.