3235: Types of Board Game

Types of Board Game

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Title text: I can't believe Candles of Vienna caved to commercial pressure and added the Goku expansion.

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Explanation

This is one of 67 incomplete explanations: This page was created by ROLLING A DOUBLE WHILE HOLDING THE 'LIGHT OF EXPLANATION' AND USING 'COLLABORATE' TO LINK THE GROUP. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

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.

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 Snakes and Ladders, Mouse Trap, and 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. Pachisi variants (like 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, perhaps similar to something like Hive or Tantrix. 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.

Hyperspecific Theme

This board game has a weirdly specific backstory, being centred around a very specific historical event, and a specific task within that. Lengthy backstories that have to be explained before you get to the actual gameplay can feel contrived and be off-putting to some players, but can be an attempt to contextualize gameplay that might otherwise fall into the Abstract category. The Congress of Vienna was a gathering of diplomats from many different countries at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. There exist multiple actual board games about the Congress of Vienna, but none that have to do with lighting candles (yet). The candles might be a reference to Cluedo (known in North America as Clue), in which one of the possible weapons is a candlestick.

Overcomplicated

Twilight Imperium is widely regarded as being an extremely complex board game (especially the later 3rd and 4th editions). Cones of Dunshire is a joke board game (first shown on the TV show Parks and Recreation), which was eventually turned into a real game where the aim is to accumulate cone tokens. Its extreme complexity is key to the joke. Combining them would likely result in a game that is far more complex than either. Category theory is a branch of mathematics famous for its layers of abstractions, and is notoriously difficult to understand. Cones are a concept from category theory (unrelated to those in the Cones of Dunshire game), as are monads, which have the famous definition of "a monad is simply a monoid in the category of endofunctors", which to many people may seem like exactly the kind of baffling thing they might encounter in the instructions to an overcomplicated board game.

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 challenging; 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 once did for his taxes. The game described in the comic makes it seem like a (rather pointless) extension of Charades, and is also reminiscent of cooperative 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 Friends, with the unlikely addition of Son Goku from Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball's producers seem to be trying to expand into various board games (see the title text below). Interestingly enough, while the characters of the game are mentioned, the gameplay itself is unmentioned. Indeed, the gameplay itself could be Simple, Overcomplicated, Cooperative, or any of the others.

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 Pictionary or 30 Seconds) are often aimed at creating humorous or mildly embarrassing situations. However, party games marketed as "for adults" (such as the well known 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 of critical thinking, which may make it appealing in social situations where drinks (or other substances) may have been taken. Ponytail's decision to start the game "on the count of three" will no doubt annoy Randall, judging by 3232: Countdown Standard.

Social Deduction

Social deduction games, such as variations upon Mafia/Werewolf (like the derived computer game 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 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 previous week's participants, possibly Black Hat, had actually killed someone in real life. Although Black Hat is not shown in this comic's game night, it stands to reason that after admitting to murder he would not be invited back the following week. This situation might be a reference to the case of Tiernan Darnton who admitted, during a game of Truth or Dare, to killing his step-grandmother.

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.

The setting, with the characters round a table playing games, is rather similar to that in the D&D comics.

Transcript

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.

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Discussion

I created a starter explanation, but I have no idea how to create tables. 47.146.30.92 04:08, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

It is rare that xkcd makes me laugh out loud, but this comic's title text really got me! XD 2601:241:8002:3E0:C95E:1939:2ED0:CD78 04:22, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I wonder if blackhat is the one who committed the murder in the last game, and was expunged from the current round with the social deduction game RG (talk) 04:35, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Also, I "fixed" panel 6: https://www.pasteboard.co/hxBFDL497SLH.png RG (talk) 04:54, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Whoever it was didn't necessarily commit the murder in the game - all we know is that it was discovered during the game. 82.13.184.33 09:39, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

The reference to Monopoly seems ultra-specific given the plethora of games that have this structure, including Candyland, Snakes and Ladders, Sorry, and if one allows for multiple tokens, Parchisi and even Backgammon. Despite the amount of hate for Monopoly, it seems more likely that the editor has something against Monopoly than Randal. Mneme (talk) 05:14, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Also, Monopoly, played by the correct rules, is not that boring. It's just, that too many people skip the bidding rule. With 4 Players, after one turn around the table for all four game pieces (which required 10-12 dice rolls per player), statistically 75% of all properties should be snatched up. 195.65.24.115

Probably not worth debating how boring/bad Monopoly is or isn't. Suffice it to say that there are a large number of people who despise it, rightly or wrongly. Mneme (talk) 06:13, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

No, there are a large number of people who aware of the fact that Monopoly is supposed to be despised, and so espouse that view – like people who say they hate the word "moist" or believe that "We Built This City" is the worst song ever, because they've been told to say that. The number of people who have actually played Monopoly (using the actual rules) and who actually hate it is much, much smaller. People widely advertise hatred for a badly designed game based on a misinterpretation of Monopoly. That's not hating Monopoly – that's just not getting it and blaming someone else. Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 11:15, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Even if you play Monopoly by the proper rules, it means that players get eliminated and leave the game. That's not a good thing for a social activity. It's less fun to finish a game if the majority of players (supposing you started off with 5 or 6 players) have already left the room to watch TV before the game ends. --208.59.176.206 13:42, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

That's assuming you don't reincorporate the bankrupt/departing players by having them 'employed' by the remaining ones, in some interesting manner (even without being represented by pieces that can move). Evolving into some kind of Cooperative, Party and/or Social Deduction team-game, by the time it's one-on-one by playing pieces alone.

Or allow it to become suitably entertaining to spectate, such as everyone not now in the game being allowed to make entirely separate side-bets using real-world cash (or other deals/promises... "Strip Monopoly" need not bother the players directly, except for having a reason (or not) to try to keep playing well).

Clearly, none of this is stipulated directly in the boxed rules, but none of it need change the rules that are provided, which can be adhered to as strictly as you like. 82.132.238.188 15:44, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Monopoli? Is that the Italian version?--2A00:23CC:D248:8901:8046:B94B:F152:34FA 07:51, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

It's possible that 2A02:8071:5C20:40:84FB:9239:8AB8:1729 (who made both this edit and the Pachisi edit), coming from Germany, doesn't realize that in America, Parcheesi and Monopoly are the more accepted spellings (Pachesi is probably more appropriate for the historical game Parcheesi is based on, but this is about table games not historical games). Mneme (talk) 08:02, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I misread the tie-in as being Grogu, which would have made it even weirder. 82.13.184.33 08:52, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Me too. Maybe because I'm not a board gamer and have never heard of Goku before. Barmar (talk) 15:19, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I think a clearer example of a "boring" game is Ludo, where the goal is simply to move all the pawns around the board once. Redmess (talk) 09:57, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Ludo is Pachisi/Pachesi/Parcheesi, apparently (can't say I've ever heard of any of those names - always knew it as Ludo - but Ludo is a later name). There is a minimal amount of strategy involved in Ludo, in that you get to choose which pawn to move on any given go - unlike, say, Snakes & Ladders, which is entirely down to chance. 82.13.184.33 10:57, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Where does the 3.75 for Twilight Imperium come from? First and second editions have 3.46, 3rd edition has 4.26 and 4th is even at 4.35. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 10:03, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I miss the board game extention pack to Calvinball. 2A02:2455:1960:4000:1888:3B86:68A0:FA0F 11:47, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Remember: If you don't touch the 30-yard base wicket with the flag, you have to hop on one foot! --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 13:26, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Went with a base game rating for Twilight Imperium, maybe one of the expansions is higher, but base game seems like most appropriate to reference. --Trimutius (talk) 11:58, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

What did the comment mean about the truth or dare murder reveal being untrue?

I’m confused about this as well. I looked it up and it looks like he was convicted on some pretty compelling evidence. I’m not seeing anything about him being found not guilty on appeal. Salsmachev (talk) 14:01, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I assumed it meant that it turned out that the bit about admitting it in a game of Truth or Dare turned out to be embellishment, but I can't find any evidence of that either. 82.13.184.33 15:58, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I REALLY want "Candles of Vienna" to exist. Fephisto (talk) 14:31, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Maybe add some real hyperspecipic games? Like "castles of mad king Ludwig" or "Whitechapel". 2A02:BA0:10A8:4CB6:C1DE:6320:68C1:1C95 16:06, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure Hive is a good example for an abstract game; as it has a clear theme based on real things (bugs) even if some of the mechanics seem a little arbitrary. The other one given seems to fit; although the example in the comic feels to me like a parody of the Gipf games specifically. And trying to see how many others I could think of made me wish I had friends to play Otto Game Over with. -- Angel (talk) 17:14, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Do replace it if you have better examples - I just put in the first couple that came to mind to replace the previously quoted games that didn't seem to fit the theme at all. 82.13.184.33 08:13, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Are there actual rules for cones of dunshire available somewhere, or is it purely fantasy? New editor (talk) 18:35, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Being Category Theory, it's complete fantasy. Fephisto (talk) 19:25, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't think the (fictional, then defictionalised) Cones Of Dunshire game is actually based on Category Theory. It's the comic's 'overcomplicated' game (also with Cones Of Dunshire elements, merged with something else) that ultimately has the Category Theory basis. 81.179.199.253 21:27, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

The newest version of Twilight Imperium has a complexity of 4.35. The 3.46 mentioned in the explanation is for the 1st edition, from the 90s, which nobody plays nowadays. I think the explanation is therefore wrong. 2A02:BA0:10A8:4CB6:7B66:7B00:5558:336C 20:52, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Factcheck: It's not wrong, but it may be misleading. 82.13.184.33 08:17, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

And these are ALL of the types of board game? I guess Randall's never played Settlers Of Catan, or Betrayal At The House On The Hill. (Though, I guess you could always just default to calling them "boring," since that has no real criteria.) 69.5.140.194 23:20, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Oh dear, the party game is using the deprecated standard identified in XKCD 3232.--108.175.232.134 05:48, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

"Wait - how do we know which one of us is the Count of Three?" 82.13.184.33 08:17, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree that it stands to reason that Black Hat wouldn't be invited back after admitting to murder. I mean, you wouldn't want to annoy him, would you? 82.13.184.33 14:17, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

The games that are Abstract and Themed are two sides of the same coin (which could also have further 'sides' from the list, of course). If you have to make a game around a given theme, you have the option of starting off with an established ruleset (e.g. "it's Monopoly, reskinned for Star Wars!") or you have to take canon features and invent some canon-logical gameplay mechanism to how they interact. But, having obtained your theme-game, you can strip the theme away and you still have the playable mechanism. Even if it seems arbitrary and inexplicable (e.g. "you sit Chandler and Phoebe together on a table at Central Perks" now becomes something about putting triangles and squares on a movable hexagon). Even with a 'pre-Theme' to the Themed game, like Monopoly, that can be reduced to the simplicity of mere tokens and it might seem nonsensical that the big red tokens on a given landing zone on the perimiter of a square board (or around a circular one, or it could be any kind of twisty, looping path, even) make it so that other players occasionally have to surrender other tokens to you. Or that other tiles may take counting tokens off/give counting tokens to anyone who lands there (or passes them), another sends you to another tile with further rules for when you can move again. You could play the 'framework monopoly' easy enough, without ever imagining Hotels, Mortgages, Taxes, etc as 'reasons' behind the rules provided.
Compare and contrast: Something like Uno is very simple and self-describingly abstract (itself is based upon a standard 52-cards (+jokers?) game which seemingly arbitrarily assigns some card-values/faces to non-obvious functions - such as 8="change direction of play"). But Uno (or the standard playing-card game) can be reskinned into a canon-conversion. Say you want (out of thin air, this, no idea if it's been done like this at all!) Babylon 5... Kosh (or Kosh, of course) is shown on the 'change direction' card, maybe, and Mr Morden on the 'skip next player' one, with Zathrus (or Zathrus, or Zathrus... but maybe not Zathrus!) as the wildcard. The 'suits' of the relevent cards could be Human Minbari, Centauri and Narn, any values being the number (or scale) of the fighters/warships concerned. Alternatively, you construct a game around the theme (moving through Brown Sector, Blue Sector, etc, encounter cards featuring the main characters (and more generic appropriate 'monster of the week'-like cameos) buff or penalise your progress on the way to some winning/losing condition in whatever Cooperative/Competitive/hybrid manner the designer wished to implement. But you can pluck the framework of the game away from the theme and the gameplay would work the same in the abstract sense. Or perhaps even shoehorn it into an (apparently) Hyperspecific game, totally unrelated to the Theme it was designed for (essentially a Themed game, but one or other of Themed or Hyperspecific might be considered a case of the Tail Wagging The Dog, if directly compared to the 'logical' other, with the Abstract being just the wagging with no dog and maybe no obvious tail - a kind of Cheshire Cat thing, buf the other way round).
...if you see what I mean. For those wanting a TL;DR;: I'm saying that these aren't distinct game-types, but end-(or mid-?)points on a multidimensional spectrum. Being one type of game does not preclude something from possibly being another type. If not simultaneously (want to play a Cooperative Party Social-Deduction game, anyone?) then after merely superficial details are changed. You can de-Theme/re-Theme chess all kinds of ways... a computer chess-player doesn't need to know about how mediæval knights are abstracted to pieces that can leap others, or by mystified as to how fortified buildings are apparently mobile in a certain manner, yet can in the right circumstances be utterly defeated by a single footsoldier or even an otherwise useless head-of-state, etc. (You can play a game where your 'classical West-style turrets' are playing against the Elephants-with-Howdahs version of the opposing piece. This doesn't change your gameplay. It's not Games Workshop figures with "that figure doesn't have a Power Fist, so he can't use the Power Fist". You can move your Castle the same whether it's a building or an armoured pachyderm or Laurel And Hardy Stuck In A Chimney Pot.) ...umm, that was supposed to be a TL;DR;, of course, but please excuse the additional philosophising details that got added anyway. 82.132.238.188 15:44, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Wanted to put in a completely unrelated comment on how the table is portrayed. It is rare to have a table with solid panels rather than either legs at the corners or more centralized pillars, particularly at a group gathering for tabletop gaming. Mentally we don't clock this portrayal as an abnormality because we almost never have an orthographic view of the table and players - the panel blocking out the view of the players sitting on the far side of the table fits our experience with the tabletop blocking our view of their legs and the seat of the chairs. 57.140.32.1 17:15, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

The text of the Transcript initially described it as a "counter", by the way, which more describes a 'block-not-leg(s)'-supported table. It was changed from that because of the more typical use of "counter" in a gaming context.

But I also find it interesting. Probably rather than a typical dining (or living room) table, it's a countertop in an 'island kitchen' that's being used. Or a 'gaming room' with its main table/'2742: Island Storage' being of a type chosen to hold some or all of the various gaming options the owner possesses. 82.132.238.56 22:19, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

If anyone actually designs Candles of Vienna, let me know so I can design the Goku expansion. GreatWyrmGold (talk) 17:37, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

I am not particularly familiar with either Friends or Dragon Ball, but…why is the Goku tie-in "ill-advised"? JohnHawkinson (talk) 01:18, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Pretty sure it's because Goku doesn't really have anything to do with the existing characters the board game is based on. A Mario and Sonic cross over makes sense, but a Mario and Doom Guy crossover? Might be cool, but doesn't really make sense, and the mix of target audience is weird. 110.145.224.178 04:04, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

A tie-in that "doesn't really make sense" does not, for me, sound "ill-advised." I'd reserve ill-advised for unexpected consequences of a tie-in, like hypothetical award-winning bakers Hansel Adams and Gretel Garbo join forces in a new pastry company called Hansel and Gretel that brings to mind the dark fairy tale when it was unintended. Maybe I'm being too strict about it. JohnHawkinson (talk) 18:13, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

I think it's problematic because there is no tangible or easily conceptualised overlap between the two (or more!) respective canons. Whatever the premiee is for the core game, we can presume that shoehorning Goku into it is going to be... Strange. Either suddenly Goku is more likely to be sitting on a sofa saying how things are "soooooo <something-or-other>" (or whatever it is that a Friends-themed game tries to convey... but I'm not a games designer, and it's also been far too long since I've seen the show!), or the player-character Ross has to deal with situations that Goku brings into the conjoined scenario.

It is also quite possible that some reasonably 'unforced' intersection could be made to allow such a crossover situation to work very well. However, it seems clear that that this idealist result has not happened. It has perhaps preditably failed to be done well. More than that, it seems that it may have been meshed together very badly. The only real information we have is Randall's 'in-universe critic' lambasting the effort. At the very least it failed to satisfy the voice-of-the-titletext, for whatever reason. The basis of this is more NoodleIncident than actually justified in any way, but there's no great reason to presume this isn't truly as ill-advised as we are informed it is. 82.132.238.56 22:19, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

It is difficult to identify why a tie-in to a board game that does not exist might be "ill-advised". But any situation which suits the Friends friends would be entirely foreign to Son Goku, the alien martial arts hermit. They are from very different genres! Friends is about silly situations arising from (relatively) mundane and relatable circumstances, with each episode being more or less interchangeable. Dragon Ball is a more plot-driven series, with high-stakes battles against demons and aliens and whatever Chiaotzu is, with Goku and his allies honing their skills and cultivating their power levels from chapter to chapter and arc to arc. They simply don't have any common ground which a board game could be built on. You could put Goku into a board game about whatever the Friends friends do, but he would fit about as well as Robert Baratheon would in the new Precure series. (For future readers: the detective one.) GreatWyrmGold (talk) 23:39, 22 April 2026 (UTC)
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