10 Things I've Learned From Clank

In today’s video I’m sharing the various design lessons I’ve learned from Clank and its various iterations: Clank in Space, Clank Legacy, and expansions.

You can just include the word(s) to the left of the colon in the captions.

00:00 - Introduction
01:00 - Art and Theme
04:40 - Setup
07:01 - Deckbuilding
10:15 - Clank in Space
12:49 - Adventuring Party
15:46 - Collective bag building
18:00 - Clank Legacy
22:07 - Strategic paths
24:00 - Map expansions
27:00 - Tension

[ismount]

The pop culture references and theme of Clank! In Space really helped my dad "get" the game. He is a huge fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek, and scifi in general.

Personally, I enjoy the longer game time of In Space because I feel like I get to better enjoy the deck I built.

[xxMattDankyxx]

Jamey I don't have any Stonemaier game but I love how you talk about other people's games! I love your content you put out and it's just that much better with you being a designer/ publisher

[ClockworkWyrm]

I bought Clank! purely on the basis of your enthusiasm for the game and I love it. Sadly my partner doesn't care for it so it doesn't hit the table very much.

Here's a little Clank! story: when my son and I played our first game we (I) had apparently misread the rules. We thought that monster card that trigger dragon attacks first appeared they triggered, but also that they continued to trigger EVERY turn if they remained in the market row. Every turn was a dread that some attack trigger would flip and a prayer whispered that we'd draw enough swords to kill the monster causing the continuous attacks. Suffice to say this made for a very frantic and tense first game that we both handily lost to Nicki the dragon. We figured out the correct way to play by our second game and it was a lot more fun.

However one thing I noticed from our first play through was that having attack cards trigger as long as they remained in the market effectively forced us to buy cards that were suboptimal or to spend turns fighting monsters, and I kind of liked that added pressure to be honest. It only needs to be tuned a bit so you're not being obliterated too quickly.

[nikhilparasher]

Jamey, thanks as always.

I haven't yet fleshed out the asymmetry chapter of my book but here's my initial answer to your question on when asymmetry enhances vs diminishes a game experience:

How asymmetry enhances a game experience:
- Provides a helpful heuristic
- Fun to try out different factions (appeals to the "Exploration/Suspense" element of why we play games), adding to replayability
- Fun to master different factions (appeals to the "Mastery" element of why we play games), adding to replayability
- Fun to feel powerful/special (appeals to the "Wish Fulfillment" element of why we play games)
- Symmetric games can often have scripted openings; asymmetric factions (especially with modular setups) are less likely to suffer from this
- There may be a thematic reason for asymmetry

How asymmetry diminishes a game experience:
- Asymmetry may not fit a game genre in which it's a norm to have an equal starting position, like a deck builder, action retrieval game (e.g. Concordia), or abstract strategy game (unless asymmetry "becomes the game", like in Santorini or a Tafl game). In these cases, the benefit of "Wish Fulfillment" (feeling special from an asymmetric power) is outweighed by the cost of violating the implicit norm of equal footing. In these sorts of games, emergent asymmetry (which evolves over the course of the game) is the expected norm, as opposed to designed asymmetry (from the outset)
- If the designer's not careful, asymmetry can turn from helpful heuristic into a heavy-handed force that pushes the player down a particular path
- Asymmetry adds complexity without necessarily adding depth, harming the complexity : depth ratio if the designer's not careful. If the depth of the game doesn't come from trying/mastering different factions but rather from the core gameplay experience, then asymmetry can detract from the core experience.
- Asymmetry can make it difficult to understand how to stop other players since you need to know how they play, not just how you play
- Asymmetric games may require a particular balance from the other players - if a specific role isn't being played or if it's being played by an inexperienced player, this can throw off the balance the designer intended

[IIIWITHOUTaNAMEIII]

Great list.

Another great thing about Clank! I’d say is accessibility. I’m no game designer, but I think this can be applied.

I play Clank! With my 4 year old son that I introduced to my games early on because I didn’t want to play small kids games during lockdowns. He might be a little further when it comes to games.

That being said he can absolutely play this game without lots of help. He counts the movement, talent and fight icons. We printed boards to keep track of them from bgg.
The art helps him remember what the cards do once I read them to him and the iconography is really on point. Sure, I don’t play overly competitive against him, but it’s fun to just go on this adventure and tell stories around what might have happened during the run.

It’s hard to find a game that is this much fun for adults and kids at the same time.

[rafiweiss]

Only a few minutes in and I already know I like this video - hopefully it can be part of a series? Like expanded versions of your favourite mechanism videos where you go beyond a single mechanism and talk about good things the game achieved in all parts of its design, marketing and publishing.

[greglevy]

I love your observations and lessons from Clank. I share some of them and hadn't thought of some of the others until you talked about them. My own experience with Clank started with the Clank: In Space series and I have all the expansions. A group of friends and I have also played through Clank Legacy Acquisitions Inc and we had a real blast with it. I've never played any of the fantasy based Clank editions (aside from Legacy), but would be open to them. When you talked about the map expansions with the original game series, I think it's worth mentioning the map expansions and the modular nature of all of the Clank: In Space series. Each expansion adds some additional modules, all double-sided to vary the construction of the ship on the way to the objectives in the command module.

[valiantvalryn]

The simplicity of this game has helped me introduce heavier games to my gaming group.

The design of sharing a bag and pushing your luck is perhaps my favorite aspect of this game as well I like how some seemingly powerful cards like the magic carpet can be powerful but mostly depending on situation. Great video! I appreciate these break downs

[tbahr]

This is a very minor thing, but in Clank every time a new card is flipped into the market the players hold their breath. This is unlike any other game where revealing new cards for a market isn’t something you pay much attention to.

[jiritsu]

I feel you almost said it yourself on the asymetry question what I would say. Terra Mystica is a good example to contrast with Clank's deck building. There is inherently high variety of decks people can construct normally so the starting state does not contribute as much on the overall building. I've seen and heard many people being conflicted with this type of asymmetry too, because deviating from the characters inherent strengths feels like you are playing suboptimaly or the characters skills don't matter when the market doesn't have cards for your characters strengths.
On the other side, TMs factions have much more strict playspace, mostly because in Clank everything comes from the market randomly. And in TM most of the decisions and strategy come from the player board and how it interacts with rest of the game.

I hope this makes some sense as I'm non native english speaker and having a good fever 😅

[LizGamerGirl]

I love clank! It's also one of Jerome's favorite games of all time. Glad you enjoy it so much too! 😀

[ThCoffinDancer]

I never really got the "heist" theme very strongly (but I've only played the base version of Clank, maybe t's more pronounced in Acquisitions?), but I do love how it makes you feel like you're physically inside the dungeon; I totally agree with you that it feels like a dungeon crawler in that aspect, more so than some of the more recent ones which are more about tactical combat than about the joy of exploring a dungeon and finding its secrets. I think Clank is one of the most immersive games I own, where you truly feel like you're roleplaying more than just executing mechanisms. I wonder what aspect of Clank you think makes it achieve that feeling (other than the "arrive" keyword, which is quite cool). I think for me it's the bag of clank cubes (so thematic! So nerve-racking!), but more importantly the fact there's just one main board where all players are at all times, which really draws you in. Kind of like in Teotihuacan, where having everything on one giant board (instead of 74 separate sideboards like some games do) somehow makes it feel more immersive for me. On top of that, the state of the board in Clank is constantly changing, so you're always scanning it for new (and lost) opportunities. So yeah, the main thing I learned from Clank from a design perspective is that you can achieve immersive gameplay from simple art and basic components that are integrated perfectly with the theme.

Anyways, great concept for a video series, looking forward to seeing more!

[lysscole]

Loved the video! Also I love the Thinker Themer shirt.
Would love to see a SM game inspired by all of these things that makes clank so great

[carlrobinson]

Jamey, thanks so much for your videos! Each one is engaging, inspiring and packed full of insights.

One of the things I've learned from Clank (Legacy) is the way the Vault cards work. It's a simple idea, which I don't know if they've expanded on in other versions, but that the Vault card is added to your discard pile at the start of the game and then gets shuffled in after that first reshuffle is a cool little boost and adds some neat asymmetry. I wish that more deckbuilders and even Clank could explore that idea further, that there is some extra bonus which happens every time you shuffle. Of course, there is the innate bonus of getting access to the cards you've recently purchased but there is some more design space there I feel. I'm working on a mini expansion for the game that I'm developing which tries to explore this space further, so kudos to Clank for the inspiration!

[marcosseven]

Love this new series of videos! Really a lot take away. Thanks!!!

[BassWakil]

I’ve not played adventuring party but the asymmetry problem sounds like the issue Richard Garfield described with designing asymmetrical characters for King of Tokyo: when you have a game like KoT or a deckbuilding game like Clank, a lot of the fun is in adapting to and opting in to strategies as they appear. Asymmetrical player boards put you on rails so you play them the same way every time, undermining that appeal. This is why the power ups in KoT only appear randomly. You can try to actively roll into an evolve strategy to get the bonuses, or you can just go with the flow of the dice.

[dylanarruda]

I've been playing a lot more Clank! In Space lately and I have to say as cool as the factions are in theory, I feel like the balance is negatively impacted because of how much better the decks can be that choose to synergize highly with one color (particularly purple or orange (green is kind of weak imo)). It's like when you flip an amazing card for the next player to purchase, except the factions amplify just how good those cards can be. I find that the point total differences are much more drastic at the end of a Clank! In Space game compared to the original.

[Cotick]

5. Bag building.
Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island has the similar mechanism, only with cards. Players gain a bonus now, but they have a chance that a bad card will appear in future.

[StevenStJohn-kjeb]

I would have added "humor" to the list. I think there are few games that do this well - put in humor without spoiling the immersion of the game. I'm mostly familiar with Clank in Space, and I think the humor on the cards is really nicely done.

I totally agree with you that better balance doesn't necessarily make a better game. It can make it blander. I think deck building games tend to attract players though who really like to craft their decks to pure efficiency, which creates almost a tournament mindset, where balance is highly sought after. Interesting that after making this point you went on to say that there was too much asymmetry in that one expansion and that you like starting off from an equal point in deck building. I have not played that Adventuring Party expansion, but I have played the Expedition Leaders expansion to Lost Ruins of Arnak, and I thought it was a fantastic expansion. Maybe because the deck building in that game is more minor (your deck goes from 6 cards to maybe 12, rather than the constant buying of cards you see in Clank).

[nib]

Your videos are great, to tighten them up slightly, pick out your examples before you start filming (though with cats in the room pre-planning sometimes is thwarted). Just played Clank with some friends after Geekway, because they knew how to play it! Didnt love the player elimination aspect, but it did feel like a dungeon crawl.

When monsters show up in the card line, it does make it semi-cooperative, as the longer the monsters are in line, the more Clank tokens get removed 😬. Im trying to sell my friends on the legacy version 😁