explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3235: Types of Board Game

2026-04-21T15:01:26Z

147.161.136.114: typo

{{comic
| number = 3235
| date = April 20, 2026
| title = Types of Board Game
| image = types_of_board_game_2x.png
| imagesize = 501x1161px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I can't believe Candles of Vienna caved to commercial pressure and added the Goku expansion.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by the official candle-lighter of the Congress of Vienna in 1814. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

There are a lot of different types of board games in the world. Some are very simple, some are very complicated. This comic illustrates various types, with rather extreme examples.

{| class="wikitable"
| Boring || This is a very simplistic and boring board game style, where the players simply move around the board at the dictates of chance. The simplest examples (such as {{w|Snakes and Ladders}}, {{w|Mouse Trap (board game)|Mouse Trap}}, and {{w|Candy Land}}) involve no player choices at all, can get frustrating when dice rolls don't want to line up late in the game, and are thus viewed as boring, at least for adults. {{w|Pachisi}} variants (like {{w|Ludo}}) also fall into this structure while still needing some amount of skill and strategy, but it may feel frustratingly difficult to influence the outcome. It is unclear whether the described game has no end condition at all or whether it is so dull that the group involved are unable to complete it without getting bored and giving up.
|-
| Abstract || This board game has more abstract tones, involving the arrangement of geometric shapes for reasons that may not be immediately clear. Some people may find that this kind of game, without a relatable framing they can use as a starting point for understanding it, is quite hard to get to grips with. The content of the game makes it seem like a {{w|TTRPG}} or {{w|Wargame}}.
|-
| Hyperspecific Theme || This board game has a weirdly specific back-story, being centred around a very specific historical event, and a specific task within that. Lengthy back-stories that have to be explained before you get to the actual gameplay can feel contrived and be off-putting to some players. The {{w|Congress of Vienna}} was a gathering of diplomats from many different countries at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. There exists an [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/296578/congress-of-vienna actual board game] about the Congress of Vienna, but it has nothing to do with lighting candles.
|-
| Overcomplicated || {{w|Twilight Imperium}} is widely regarded as being an extremely complex board game (despite "only" having a weight rating of [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24/twilight-imperium 3.46] on [http://boardgamegeek.com Board Game Geek]). Cones of Dunshire is a joke board game (first shown on the TV show ''{{w|Parks and Recreation}}''), but was eventually turned into a real game where its extreme complexity is key to the joke. Combining them would likely be far more complex than either. {{w|Category theory}} is a branch of mathematics famous for its layers of abstractions, and is notoriously difficult to understand. The {{w|Monad (category theory)|monad}} is one concept from category theory, with the famous definition of "A monad is simply a monoid in the category of endofunctors".
|-
| Cooperative || Cooperative board games center around players attempting to reach a common goal, winning or losing together. Many feature impediments to communication that make this more difficult; for instance, players may be restricted from saying certain words, or have secret cards they are unable to reveal before playing. The game in this panel appears to forbid all communication between players except for hand gestures. The punchline likens it to a very mundane activity, sorting a junk drawer, made artificially more difficult due to silence, and suggests the game is just as boring. It also raises suspicions that [[Megan]] has organised or hijacked this games night to trick her friends into doing chores she can't be bothered with, similarly to the way that Cueball [[1566: Board Game|once did for his taxes]]. The game described in the comic makes it seem like a (rather pointless) extension of {{w|Charades}}, and is also reminiscent of cooperative game {{w|The Mind (card game)|The Mind}}.
|-
| Branded || Some board games are published and marketed as tie-ins to other forms of media, using settings, characters, or events from the source to appeal to its fans and get them to buy a game they might otherwise not have done. The theming often has little to nothing to do with the gameplay, as the many branded variants on Monopoly can attest. The game in this panel is themed after the sitcom {{w|Friends}}, with the unlikely addition of {{w|Goku|Son Goku}} from {{w|Dragon Ball}}. Dragon Ball's producer's seem to be trying to expand into various board games (see the title text below).
|-
| Party || It can be hard to determine what makes a party game, other than it generally doesn't have the kinds of gameplay and strategy in other kinds of board games. Such games (like {{w|Pictionary}} or {{w|30 Seconds (game)|30 Seconds}}) are often aimed at creating humorous or mildly embarrassing situations. However, party games marketed as "for adults" (such as the well known {{w|Cards Against Humanity}}) do tend to have one thing in common — swearing or references to sex. The content of the game described here (dealing cards and screaming whatever is on them) seems not to require a lot critical thinking, which may make it appealing in social situations where drink (or other substance) have been taken.
|-
| Social Deduction || {{w|Social deduction game|Social deduction games}}, such as variations upon {{w|Mafia (party game)|Mafia/Werewolf}} (like the derived computer game ''{{w|Among Us}}''), revolve around the players attempting to deduce the roles or allegiances of other players, based on both special abilities provided by the game and the players' native abilities to tell which of their fellow players are being dishonest. Commonly, they involve an 'uninformed majority,' who do not know the allegiances of other players, attempting to discover the 'informed minority,' who know the members of their team. The minority is often framed as 'evil,' with the ability to 'kill' other players and remove them from the game; their victory condition often revolves around killing most or all of the 'good' players. In a game such as {{w|Cluedo|Cluedo/Clue}}, all the players are unaware of identity of the guilty party and the exact circumstances of the crime (even if they play that character themselves), but use what they do know (and can deduce from what others apparently know) to try to successfully narrow down the hidden facts of the game before anybody else. The game in this panel revolves around finding a 'secret murderer', as per these kinds of game, but evidently has required clarification that discovering a ''real'' murderer does not count, implying that one or more of the participants has actually killed someone in real life (this would particularly make sense if [[Black Hat]] was at the table). This might be a reference to the case of Tiernan Darnton who admitted killing his step-grandmother during a game of Truth or Dare (though this was later revealed to be untrue).
|-
| Title text || "Candles of Vienna" is presumably the game described under "Hyperspecific Theme". An expansion pack is an additional set of playing equipment that can be combined with an existing game to add new gameplay possibilities. It appears that the rights holders for Goku have decided on a strategy of getting the character included in multiple board games. The character would arguably be even more out of place in Napoleonic Vienna than lounging on the sofas at Central Perk.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
Types of Board Game

[Under this header text, the comic contains 8 panels. Each of them is labeled at the top with a short description of the board game being played and features (from left to right) Cueball, Ponytail, Megan, and White Hat sitting on chairs around a table trying to play it.]

Boring

Megan: Each turn, roll a die and move your token. Turns proceed clockwise around the table until we get bored and go home.

Abstract

Cueball: Each turn, you can place any number of red triangles or blue squares on a hexagon, or move any hexagon to a...

Hyperspecific Theme

Ponytail: It's October 2, 1814. The Congress of Vienna convenes. You are each in charge of distributing and lighting candles for the opening ball, which was held at these three locations...

Overcomplicated

White Hat: It's a cross between *Twilight Imperium* and *Cones of Dunshire,* but implemented entirely in category theory. Every cone is a monad, and...

Cooperative

Megan: We're working together to sort these decks of cards using only hand gestures. After that, we'll silently organize my junk drawer.

Branded

Cueball: You can play as Phoebe, Chandler, Monica, Rachel, Ross, Joey, or, due to an ill-advised tie-in, Goku.

Party

Ponytail: Each of the cards in your hand has a bad word on it. On the count of three, yell the...

Social Deduction

Megan: Remember, per our *Find the Secret Murderer* house rules from last week, discovering that a player had committed a real-life murder does *not* count.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Board games]]
[[Category:Games]]

3235: Types of Board Game

2026-04-21T15:01:02Z

147.161.136.114: Pachisi is the genre, not everyone has even heard of Ludo. I am not a fierce fighter to include Monopoly here, but I think it should be re-included.

{{comic
| number = 3235
| date = April 20, 2026
| title = Types of Board Game
| image = types_of_board_game_2x.png
| imagesize = 501x1161px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I can't believe Candles of Vienna caved to commercial pressure and added the Goku expansion.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by the official candle-lighter of the Congress of Vienna in 1814. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

There are a lot of different types of board games in the world. Some are very simple, some are very complicated. This comic illustrates various types, with rather extreme examples.

{| class="wikitable"
| Boring || This is a very simplistic and boring board game style, where the players simply move around the board at the dictates of chance. The simplest examples (such as {{w|Snakes and Ladders}}, {{w|Mouse Trap (board game)|Mouse Trap}}, and {{w|Candy Land}}) involve no player choices at all, can get frustrating when dice rolls don't want to line up late in the game, and are thus viewed as boring, at least for adults. {{w|Pachisi}}) variants (like {{w|Ludo}}) also fall into this structure while still needing some amount of skill and strategy, but it may feel frustratingly difficult to influence the outcome. It is unclear whether the described game has no end condition at all or whether it is so dull that the group involved are unable to complete it without getting bored and giving up.
|-
| Abstract || This board game has more abstract tones, involving the arrangement of geometric shapes for reasons that may not be immediately clear. Some people may find that this kind of game, without a relatable framing they can use as a starting point for understanding it, is quite hard to get to grips with. The content of the game makes it seem like a {{w|TTRPG}} or {{w|Wargame}}.
|-
| Hyperspecific Theme || This board game has a weirdly specific back-story, being centred around a very specific historical event, and a specific task within that. Lengthy back-stories that have to be explained before you get to the actual gameplay can feel contrived and be off-putting to some players. The {{w|Congress of Vienna}} was a gathering of diplomats from many different countries at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. There exists an [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/296578/congress-of-vienna actual board game] about the Congress of Vienna, but it has nothing to do with lighting candles.
|-
| Overcomplicated || {{w|Twilight Imperium}} is widely regarded as being an extremely complex board game (despite "only" having a weight rating of [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24/twilight-imperium 3.46] on [http://boardgamegeek.com Board Game Geek]). Cones of Dunshire is a joke board game (first shown on the TV show ''{{w|Parks and Recreation}}''), but was eventually turned into a real game where its extreme complexity is key to the joke. Combining them would likely be far more complex than either. {{w|Category theory}} is a branch of mathematics famous for its layers of abstractions, and is notoriously difficult to understand. The {{w|Monad (category theory)|monad}} is one concept from category theory, with the famous definition of "A monad is simply a monoid in the category of endofunctors".
|-
| Cooperative || Cooperative board games center around players attempting to reach a common goal, winning or losing together. Many feature impediments to communication that make this more difficult; for instance, players may be restricted from saying certain words, or have secret cards they are unable to reveal before playing. The game in this panel appears to forbid all communication between players except for hand gestures. The punchline likens it to a very mundane activity, sorting a junk drawer, made artificially more difficult due to silence, and suggests the game is just as boring. It also raises suspicions that [[Megan]] has organised or hijacked this games night to trick her friends into doing chores she can't be bothered with, similarly to the way that Cueball [[1566: Board Game|once did for his taxes]]. The game described in the comic makes it seem like a (rather pointless) extension of {{w|Charades}}, and is also reminiscent of cooperative game {{w|The Mind (card game)|The Mind}}.
|-
| Branded || Some board games are published and marketed as tie-ins to other forms of media, using settings, characters, or events from the source to appeal to its fans and get them to buy a game they might otherwise not have done. The theming often has little to nothing to do with the gameplay, as the many branded variants on Monopoly can attest. The game in this panel is themed after the sitcom {{w|Friends}}, with the unlikely addition of {{w|Goku|Son Goku}} from {{w|Dragon Ball}}. Dragon Ball's producer's seem to be trying to expand into various board games (see the title text below).
|-
| Party || It can be hard to determine what makes a party game, other than it generally doesn't have the kinds of gameplay and strategy in other kinds of board games. Such games (like {{w|Pictionary}} or {{w|30 Seconds (game)|30 Seconds}}) are often aimed at creating humorous or mildly embarrassing situations. However, party games marketed as "for adults" (such as the well known {{w|Cards Against Humanity}}) do tend to have one thing in common — swearing or references to sex. The content of the game described here (dealing cards and screaming whatever is on them) seems not to require a lot critical thinking, which may make it appealing in social situations where drink (or other substance) have been taken.
|-
| Social Deduction || {{w|Social deduction game|Social deduction games}}, such as variations upon {{w|Mafia (party game)|Mafia/Werewolf}} (like the derived computer game ''{{w|Among Us}}''), revolve around the players attempting to deduce the roles or allegiances of other players, based on both special abilities provided by the game and the players' native abilities to tell which of their fellow players are being dishonest. Commonly, they involve an 'uninformed majority,' who do not know the allegiances of other players, attempting to discover the 'informed minority,' who know the members of their team. The minority is often framed as 'evil,' with the ability to 'kill' other players and remove them from the game; their victory condition often revolves around killing most or all of the 'good' players. In a game such as {{w|Cluedo|Cluedo/Clue}}, all the players are unaware of identity of the guilty party and the exact circumstances of the crime (even if they play that character themselves), but use what they do know (and can deduce from what others apparently know) to try to successfully narrow down the hidden facts of the game before anybody else. The game in this panel revolves around finding a 'secret murderer', as per these kinds of game, but evidently has required clarification that discovering a ''real'' murderer does not count, implying that one or more of the participants has actually killed someone in real life (this would particularly make sense if [[Black Hat]] was at the table). This might be a reference to the case of Tiernan Darnton who admitted killing his step-grandmother during a game of Truth or Dare (though this was later revealed to be untrue).
|-
| Title text || "Candles of Vienna" is presumably the game described under "Hyperspecific Theme". An expansion pack is an additional set of playing equipment that can be combined with an existing game to add new gameplay possibilities. It appears that the rights holders for Goku have decided on a strategy of getting the character included in multiple board games. The character would arguably be even more out of place in Napoleonic Vienna than lounging on the sofas at Central Perk.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
Types of Board Game

[Under this header text, the comic contains 8 panels. Each of them is labeled at the top with a short description of the board game being played and features (from left to right) Cueball, Ponytail, Megan, and White Hat sitting on chairs around a table trying to play it.]

Boring

Megan: Each turn, roll a die and move your token. Turns proceed clockwise around the table until we get bored and go home.

Abstract

Cueball: Each turn, you can place any number of red triangles or blue squares on a hexagon, or move any hexagon to a...

Hyperspecific Theme

Ponytail: It's October 2, 1814. The Congress of Vienna convenes. You are each in charge of distributing and lighting candles for the opening ball, which was held at these three locations...

Overcomplicated

White Hat: It's a cross between *Twilight Imperium* and *Cones of Dunshire,* but implemented entirely in category theory. Every cone is a monad, and...

Cooperative

Megan: We're working together to sort these decks of cards using only hand gestures. After that, we'll silently organize my junk drawer.

Branded

Cueball: You can play as Phoebe, Chandler, Monica, Rachel, Ross, Joey, or, due to an ill-advised tie-in, Goku.

Party

Ponytail: Each of the cards in your hand has a bad word on it. On the count of three, yell the...

Social Deduction

Megan: Remember, per our *Find the Secret Murderer* house rules from last week, discovering that a player had committed a real-life murder does *not* count.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Board games]]
[[Category:Games]]