I just want to compliment Roy on the amazing iconography. The "variable player powers" is my personal favourite!

I very much appreciate these videos. Always fun to be a part of. I would really enjoy seeing the bracket mid game. It would be nice to see what has moved on and what was eliminated in one picture without needing to completely paying attention to the whole video and tracking who wins and loses.

"You've got Carcassonne versus Fun Games" from Mike was my favorite quote. Also Roy's icons are great.

I wish I could be more like Tom. “I don’t hate Player Judge, but it’s got a lot of problems.” Tom just genuinely loves games.

Roy! The graphic design here is absolutely amazing, adds to the video sooo much

Mike has done such a great job of becoming a main character here at dice tower, he is a delight!

Do a video about underused mechanisms, and mechanisms you want to see more of

Regardless of the outcomes, I learned a lot about certain mechanisms because of the discussions. Thank you all!

It would be cool if the seeding was determined by the draft. Also if we could see the bracket

Worker Placement is one of my favorites! Fun to watch! Thank you Dice Tower workers!

The more generalized and vague a mechanism was, the further it went. 99% of the time, deckbuilding/bagbuilding/worker placement/trackers are ALL engine building...But action points/variable player powers/leveling up was interesting because that is usually associated with controlling a single character. This partly ended up being whether you prefer playing as a character or efficiently managing a system, and there's a clear a winner.

Great job on the icons Roy!

Very thematic of Mike to forget whether or not he chose Memory at beginning!😊

When did Camilla start going by "Milla"?

Roy's icons were impressively perfect. Well done Roy!

Fun video, great job guys. I think variable player powers should have won. I feel like everybody is always happy to have a power that let's them do something in a game that nobody else can do, regardless of the game.

both dune(Imperium?) and scythe has a hidden component to combat(the card play) so it's not deterministic. Deterministic means you're able to know the outcome when the fight is initiated, often those games have a secondary mechanic that lets retreat units or they have an unknown trigger for when combat will start.

How did I miss this? Excited to watch

Action Points beating Set Collection is the closest thing to a surprise in a very predictable first round where the more widespread mechanics won out every time. That makes sense but I'm hoping for some kind of shake up in the ensuing rounds. Chaos mechanic initiated!

Did anyone keep track of the order the mechanisms were drafted? It'd be pretty interesting to compare the draft order with how they ultimately ended up in the tournament.

Years from now, international board game mechanism experts will marvel that PICK UP AND DELIVER was injudiciously left out of these otherwise austere comparisons. A million railroad gamers let out a silent weeping.

Press your Luck got Vasseled

1:27:30 I'm sad to see hand management go. I know it's just one particular example of a broad category, but Race for the Galaxy encompasses one of my favorite uses of the mechanism, having a single card that can serve multiple purposes, and the tension of trying to decide the best use for each card.

The DT crew draft of mechanics and getting points based on how long they last worked much better than the bracket predictions you did last time :) We didn't have to hear Mike say "Bracket buster" like 10 times haha

14:07 Bingo also kind of covers any flip and write game. Mechanically speaking there's not much difference between pulling a symbol from a bag and marking down something on your grid to fill a pattern versus flipping a card and marking something on your grid to make a pattern.

Where is card crafting and multi-use cards? Some of my favourites 😞

Two co-ops without variable player powers: Menara and Shipwreck Arcana. I'm pretty sure none of the Oniverse games have vpp in their co-op modes, too.

Can I find somewhere the icons for the different game mechanisms you have? They look great

I’m suddenly seeing Facebook banner ads from Zee asking me to Press My Luck 🍀… hmmm 🤔 😂

I really love pick up and deliver 😢

I'll just point out to no one in particular that Catacombs is both an all-versus-one AND a flicking game.

This could be so informative with good examples of every mechanics! Is there such video?

Great icons Roy!

I kept wanting to say that Arkham LCG matches like half these categories

Simultanious Action Selection I love, as far its a mindgame and still everbody normally gets something, but maybe in a different order ('Libertalia' was my favorite game for a long time and 'Turn to Tide' are in my Top 100). What I hate is, when two players pick the same action it cancels out or only one player gets something (because of this I hatet Histrio and Pirates Cove).

I agree with Mike, cube tower is more of a component than a mechanism imo.

Alchemists is my favorite board game, so deduction was an easy pick for me

Zee mentioned a limited communication game- it sounds like he said NAVI but I can't find that. Anyone know how to spell that game's title?

Spirit Island is Variable player power and Leveling up in one

Trading/exchanging, and mancala a couple good ones missed.

i'm having a hard time differentiate between engine building and tech tree. my wish is one day dice tower can do top 10 best game for those 2 mechanics

I was interested in the subject and put your 64 plus dice drafting and pickup and deliver in Pub Meeple to do a ranking. I ended up with a top ten of: 10 Engine Building, 9 Bag/Pool Building, 8 Card Drafting, 7 Worker Placement, 6 Variable Player Powers, 5 Dice Placement, 4 Rondel, 3 Tech Tree, 2 Dice Drafting, and 1 Tracks. Bottom five were 66 Player Judge, 65 Take That, 64 Memory, and 63 Polyominos.

Is exploding dice considered a game mechanism? If so, might be my favorite underused mechanism.

I’m confused why is once around auction great for thinking, but blind auction isn’t?

There are great stroytelling games like Dialect and The Quiet Year. Or would you consider these RPG-adajacent?

Cube tower games immediately made me think of Loop

Isn't deck building essentially leveling up? You are in effect leveling up your deck to get better.

What part of Concordia is simultaneous selection? I've played a few times but can't recall.

Chaining was robbed.

You should put a dollar in a jar every time somebody doesnt pay attention and asks "who won?"

Pickup and deliver vs action selection.

I wonder when Zee is running for Mayor. I swear he's determined to win purely off persuasion. 😭

Not understanding melding = not playing card games. Example : Pinochle Involves bidding (auction) determine a trump and hand victory points Melding (scoring sets affected by trump) scored prior to Trick Taking Trick Taking (affected by trump)

Push your lu k is my favorite!!!

It’s amazing to me that almost 50,000 people watched this video but only 850 could be bothered to hit the like button…. Wow

No one makes me laugh harder than Mike. Mike, our humor is on a different plane… also, we both have horrible luck!

I can't rest until I know how many points Chris had

I want to see Roy's icons on box covers and somehow used on BGG. Also engine building shouldn't be a mechanism, it's too all encompassing. Split it into tableau building, and deck/pool building. Also chaining is included in tableau and deck/pool building. How many games have chaining without this?

It seemed more fun to have everyone do a full bracket and see how we stack up at the end with everyone. Also after watching for 2 hours we don't even get to hear who won.

I use "One Way Street" as the mechanism name for what you guys call "Ratchet". I find it much more intuitive for others to understand.

Where is Tableau building!? *SHocked*

How did nobody point out that D&D (and by extension all tabletop RPs) are fundamentally "acting" games? I think that connection would have flipped the vote. Too many people associate acting with "party games" or even social anxiety and bad experiences being put on the spot, and a lot of gamers look down on party games for whatever reason, but in reality acting is one of the fundamental pillars of table top culture. Maybe they should have called it "role playing" to avoid people thinking of Quelf and other "do the silly thing" games, which many gamers (myself included) do not care for.

I think someone messed up on the scoring along the way. 32 games got 1 point 16 games got 2 8 games got 4 4 games got 8 2 games got 16 1 game got 32.

Everyone knows the best ladder climbing game is phase 10 😁

Trick taking took back over my number 1 this year.

I really want to see one of these for best designers. Knizia ftw!

Pick up and deliver is the best mechanic. Period.

Is there a "worst mechanism" version of this coming up?

Pickup and deliver not being included invalidates this when some of these other mechanisms were included 👎

It was a fun video. I very much appreciate the effort into making these bracket videos. But. It could've been an amazingly interesting Video with some more research beforehand by the Panel and their vast vast board game experience. Looking up games to have in mind as examples beforehand and not wondering on camera what is that... Considering beforehand about the relationships between the mechanisms (for example, where something is a specific implementation of another general concept ans why should they exist separately) and mapping all those connections before the show. It would've woven such an amazing history of board gaming into this video, and I really hoped it will be here. There were too mamy moments I really wanted you guys to speak about interesting connections... How Worker placement is actually the epidemy of choice, and no wonder it won after years of sheer luck with roll and move etc. How when Mike spoke about how he feels sometimes real time is used just as a fake boost and you guys didn't say 'hell yeah... in fact, unless used interestingly, 'speed' is the tool of the lazy designer that takes an activity and lazily turns it into a game. not just a boost. And many kids games are such. That's the 'tell' for recognizing the bad ones.' Or how you had *roll* to combat vs *roll* to move, and hardly touched on how interesting it is that both exist and what really sets them apart from each other. And more such moments... I don't know... It was a lot of fun and I'm sure it was a lot of work. I do thank you for that. But it could've also been amazing, and shown off the level you guys are when it comes to knowledge and experience regarding board games.

Is "Melding" just Rummy and Gin Rummy? How is that different than "Set Collection"?

Blokus is a worker placement polyomino

13:30 Isn't Bingo just a type of pattern building anyway? Feel like some of these categories could have been combined or differentiated more clearly.

Zee got incensed and was asking for examples of Logic/Deduction games. Wouldn't Deception: Murder in Hong Kong and most Escape Room games be, at least in part, included in this category? Also, I was surprised to see Melding on here. What is the difference between Melding and Set Collection?

I am honestly shocked that there was so little support for the traitor mechanic. It is one of my favourites.

Press Your Luck clearly won, this whole thing is screwy.

Press Your Luck got robbed!

worker plaxement + polyominoes = Witchstone

Do the best (or worst) Kickstarter campaign or Kickstarter intro video.

So no comparisons that made sense to pit against each other, most of these have so much vote gap that shows there is no common grounds between them to duel in the first place, at first at least! anyway keep up :)

Shout out to Rajas of the Ganges for dice placement

I prefer all mechanics to these mechanisms. 😆

I hope that you don’t do the draft in future bracket videos. The only benefit is the interest of you guys only having specific picks, but then you shouted down someone trying to justify their pick in the draft as ‘effecting the vote’. Also, then only one person can pick the eventual winner, and no surprise it was the first person to pick… and the second person picks the second place… this draft system made it so not interesting and the audience couldn’t take part. The publisher bracket worked so much better when everyone did the whole bracket, and then the audience could also take part/compete with you guys.

Acting doing poorly when D&D is booming surprised me.

Most overrated mechanic... Deck building! You just have to figure out what to buy and hope you draw the right cards, and you have to shuffle for the entire game. I haven't found a deck builder that excites me.

Hmm. I guess to each their own. I honestly despise worker placement games. I find them incredibly boring and tedious. I'm also really not a fan of engine building.