class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide # Board Games ## There are more of them than you’d think! ### Gamesonyourphone?
Grace Acton, Finn Conway, and Jackson Donahue ### Bates College ### 2022-04-19 --- --- class: center, top ## Goals and Questions - How does playing time impact the popularity of board games? -- - What categories do games fit into, and how do they overlap? -- - How do game mechanics influence how games are perceived? -- - How does our class data align with the broader board game dataset? --- class: inverse, center, middle # Our Data --- class: top, center ## Where did we find this? -- <img src="https://github.com/rfordatascience/tidytuesday/raw/master/static/tt_logo.png" title="TidyTuesday logo" alt="TidyTuesday logo" width="60%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" /> --- class: top, center ## What's in this set? -- ``` ## Rows: 10,532 ## Columns: 22 ## $ game_id <dbl> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, … ## $ description <chr> "Die Macher is a game about seven sequential political … ## $ image <chr> "//cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic159509.jpg", "//cf.ge… ## $ max_players <dbl> 5, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 2, 5, 4, 6, 7, 5, 4, 4, 6, 4, 2, 8, 4… ## $ max_playtime <dbl> 240, 30, 60, 60, 90, 240, 20, 120, 90, 60, 45, 60, 120,… ## $ min_age <dbl> 14, 12, 10, 12, 12, 12, 8, 12, 13, 10, 13, 12, 10, 10, … ## $ min_players <dbl> 3, 3, 2, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2… ## $ min_playtime <dbl> 240, 30, 30, 60, 90, 240, 20, 120, 90, 60, 45, 45, 60, … ## $ name <chr> "Die Macher", "Dragonmaster", "Samurai", "Tal der König… ## $ playing_time <dbl> 240, 30, 60, 60, 90, 240, 20, 120, 90, 60, 45, 60, 120,… ## $ thumbnail <chr> "//cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic159509_t.jpg", "//cf.… ## $ year_published <dbl> 1986, 1981, 1998, 1992, 1964, 1989, 1978, 1993, 1998, 1… ## $ artist <chr> "Marcus Gschwendtner", "Bob Pepper", "Franz Vohwinkel",… ## $ category <chr> "Economic,Negotiation,Political", "Card Game,Fantasy", … ## $ compilation <chr> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, "CATAN … ## $ designer <chr> "Karl-Heinz Schmiel", "G. W. \"Jerry\" D'Arcey", "Reine… ## $ expansion <chr> NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, "Elfengold,Elfenlan… ## $ family <chr> "Country: Germany,Valley Games Classic Line", "Animals:… ## $ mechanic <chr> "Area Control / Area Influence,Auction/Bidding,Dice Rol… ## $ publisher <chr> "Hans im Glück Verlags-GmbH,Moskito Spiele,Valley Games… ## $ average_rating <dbl> 7.66508, 6.60815, 7.44119, 6.60675, 7.35830, 6.52534, 6… ## $ users_rated <dbl> 4498, 478, 12019, 314, 15195, 73, 2751, 186, 1263, 6729… ``` --- class: top, center ## What's in this set? -- ### A lot. -- .pull-left[ - Name - Description - Image - Designer - Family - Publisher - Game mechanic - Category ] -- .pull-right[ - Minimum/maximum playtime - Minimum age - Minimum/maximum players - Year published - Number of ratings - **Average rating** ] --- class: inverse, center, middle # Playing Time --- class: top, center, middle ## How long do games take?
--- class: top, center, inverse ## Rating of Games by Playtime <img src="presentation_files/figure-html/violin-plot-1.png" title="Violin plot of playing times. The average of each group is represented as the widest part of the violin, while the tails represent the spread of the data. It seems that longer playing games tend to have higher ratings and shorter spreads, so most people enjoyed these games, while shorter playtimes had more variety." alt="Violin plot of playing times. The average of each group is represented as the widest part of the violin, while the tails represent the spread of the data. It seems that longer playing games tend to have higher ratings and shorter spreads, so most people enjoyed these games, while shorter playtimes had more variety." width="70%" height="70%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" /> --- class: top, center ## Number of Ratings vs Average Rating ### Colored by Play Time <img src="presentation_files/figure-html/best-boardgame-1.png" title="Scatterplot of games under 100 minutes, plotting average rating versus users rated, and colored by game length. We found that most points are generally higher rated and the more users rating the game, generally means it will have a higher average rating." alt="Scatterplot of games under 100 minutes, plotting average rating versus users rated, and colored by game length. We found that most points are generally higher rated and the more users rating the game, generally means it will have a higher average rating." width="70%" height="70%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" /> --- class: top, center ## Number of Ratings vs Average Rating ### Colored by Play Time <img src="presentation_files/figure-html/boardgame-lin-reg-1.png" title="Previous scatterplot with an added trendline, showing that the number of ratings a game receives increases with average rating." alt="Previous scatterplot with an added trendline, showing that the number of ratings a game receives increases with average rating." width="70%" height="70%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" /> --- class: top, center ## A Linear Model of Popularity How does popularity (number of ratings) vary with playing time, average rating, and year published? -- ``` ## ## Call: ## lm(formula = users_rated ~ year_published + playing_time + average_rating, ## data = board_games) ## ## Residuals: ## Min 1Q Median 3Q Max ## -2730 -896 -427 78 66023 ## ## Coefficients: ## Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|) ## (Intercept) 7603.77922 4635.29614 1.640 0.1010 ## year_published -5.90552 2.34529 -2.518 0.0118 * ## playing_time -0.08287 0.04159 -1.993 0.0463 * ## average_rating 800.99846 33.87257 23.647 <2e-16 *** ## --- ## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1 ## ## Residual standard error: 2804 on 10528 degrees of freedom ## Multiple R-squared: 0.05269, Adjusted R-squared: 0.05242 ## F-statistic: 195.2 on 3 and 10528 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16 ``` --- class: top, center ## A Linear Model of Popularity `$$\widehat{users.rated} = 7603.78 - 5.91(year.published) - 0.083(playing.time) + 801.00(average.rating)$$` -- According to this model, .pull-left[ More recent games and longer games tend to have fewer ratings. ] .pull-right[ More highly-rated games have more ratings. ] -- .center[ ### However, note the adjusted R-squared of 0.05242 -- There isn't a strong linear relationship between number of ratings and these other variables! ] --- class: inverse, center, middle # Categories --- class: top, center ## What categories are used? -- .pull-left[ ### Primary Categories ``` ## # A tibble: 84 × 2 ## # Groups: category1 [84] ## category1 n ## <chr> <int> ## 1 Card Game 2143 ## 2 Abstract Strategy 710 ## 3 Wargame 543 ## 4 Economic 542 ## 5 Adventure 527 ## 6 Bluffing 514 ## 7 Action / Dexterity 492 ## 8 Animals 436 ## 9 Dice 394 ## 10 Ancient 374 ## # … with 74 more rows ``` ] -- .pull-right[ ### Secondary Categories ``` ## # A tibble: 83 × 2 ## # Groups: category2 [83] ## category2 n ## <chr> <int> ## 1 <NA> 2007 ## 2 Wargame 803 ## 3 Card Game 738 ## 4 Fantasy 531 ## 5 World War II 465 ## 6 Children's Game 335 ## 7 Dice 294 ## 8 Fighting 282 ## 9 Economic 238 ## 10 Science Fiction 237 ## # … with 73 more rows ``` ] --- class: top, center ## How do they overlap? <img src="presentation_files/figure-html/heatmap-1.png" title="Heatmap of overlapping game categories, which shows that the most common two-category game descriptions are Fantasy Card Games and Bluffing Card Games." alt="Heatmap of overlapping game categories, which shows that the most common two-category game descriptions are Fantasy Card Games and Bluffing Card Games." width="80%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" /> --- class: center, top ## What categories do we enjoy? <img src="presentation_files/figure-html/cat-pie-chart-1.png" title="Pie chart showing the distrobution of game mechanics preferred by DCS 210, broken down by proportion. The most preferred game mechanic was Area Control makig up 33.3 percent of responses. Dice rolling and card drafting were the next more popular, with 20 percent of the class preferred those mechanics." alt="Pie chart showing the distrobution of game mechanics preferred by DCS 210, broken down by proportion. The most preferred game mechanic was Area Control makig up 33.3 percent of responses. Dice rolling and card drafting were the next more popular, with 20 percent of the class preferred those mechanics." width="80%" /> --- class: inverse, center, middle # Game Mechanics --- class: top, center ## What is a game mechanic? - A specific element of play within a game that forms the structure which the game can be played around. -- - For Example -- - Hand management is central to Apples to Apples. -- - Variable Player Powers are important in Scythe. -- -Area Control is a mechanic in Risk. --- class: top, center ## What are the highest rated game mechnics? <img src="presentation_files/figure-html/game_mechanic_pop_bar-1.png" title="A bar chart showing how the median rating of board game by game mechanic. On average the most well rated game mechanic was area control scoring a median rating of 6.83/10. Variable player powers was next highest rated at 6.82/10. Set collection and tile placement came last, both averaging a score of 6.5." alt="A bar chart showing how the median rating of board game by game mechanic. On average the most well rated game mechanic was area control scoring a median rating of 6.83/10. Variable player powers was next highest rated at 6.82/10. Set collection and tile placement came last, both averaging a score of 6.5." width="80%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" /> --- class: top, center # What are the most common game mechanics? ``` ## # A tibble: 52 × 2 ## mechanic count ## <chr> <int> ## 1 Dice Rolling 2438 ## 2 Hand Management 2176 ## 3 Set Collection 1347 ## 4 Hex-and-Counter 1244 ## 5 Variable Player Powers 1223 ## 6 <NA> 950 ## 7 Tile Placement 907 ## 8 Modular Board 858 ## 9 Card Drafting 844 ## 10 Area Control / Area Influence 803 ## # … with 42 more rows ``` --- class: top, center # What mechanics do we enjoy? <img src="presentation_files/figure-html/game_mechanic_pie-1.png" width="80%" /> --- class: inverse, center, top ## In Summary, -- - Longer playing time makes tends to make games less popular. -- - Games can fit in many categories, and card games tend to overlap with more secondary categories. -- - Although Dice Rolling games are most prevalent, Area Control is the highest rated game mechanic. -- - As a class, we agree with the popularity of Area Control games as the best mechanic, and enjoy games in the Card and Dice categories. --- class: inverse, center, middle # What was this classes favorite board game? -- ``` ## # A tibble: 9 × 2 ## # Groups: fav_game [9] ## fav_game n ## <chr> <int> ## 1 Settlers of Catan 6 ## 2 Monopoly 2 ## 3 Risk 2 ## 4 Scrabble 2 ## 5 Chess 1 ## 6 Clue 1 ## 7 Code Names 1 ## 8 Evolution 1 ## 9 Othello 1 ``` --- class: inverse, center, middle # Thank you! ## Questions, Comments, Concerns?