Naming Games After Cities: Learning from Modern Board Game Design for Game-Based Planning Approaches

Abstract

City-building games are very popular, on both digital and analog platforms. However, analog games named after cities are a tradition in modern board games. These games, resulting from the game design innovations of the last decades, are engaging a growing number of players worldwide. We wanted to understand what drives players and game designers to develop games that have a direct connection with cities or urban matters. We intend to explore them and identify their design patterns in order to support game-based planning support tools, mostly for participatory and collaborative planning. Planners have been using game-based processes, and analog games seem to be the easier solution. We analyzed the top-ranking city-building games (CBGs) and games named after cities (GNACs) from Board Game Geek (BGG) and then ran a survey with BGG users (n = 102). The results show that GNACs do not deeply portray cities but tend to focus on a specific dimension. CBGs are better at mimicking an urban planning process but with many simplifications. Despite this, mastering the design of these two types of games is useful for planners who wish to use game-based planning processes. However, the engagement level might depend on the target audience.

1. Introduction

There seems to exist a crisis in citizen participation in urban planning [1]. Citizens, stakeholders, and all concerned with the future of cities and places are interested in participating. This crisis is related to time, motivation, and having too many activities competing for time and attention, something transversal to capitalist Western societies [2], and, in a way, to the Global North. There is a perception that participation efforts sometimes produce ineffective or unexpected outcomes [3,4,5,6]. These failures led to the development and application of new methods to engage participants that have been tested in planning processes. Game-based approaches are one of these possibilities because games are interactive systems that provide outcomes resulting from players’ interactions [7]. Offering playable ways for citizens to interact with the urban system and other users, explore, test, and debate results to deal with urban problems is considered by different authors as a promising approach [8,9,10,11].

Besides the pragmatic problem-solving justification for urban planning participation, where engaged participants try to enforce their claims and solve their problems [12], cities seem to fascinate people [13]. There are several games about building cities and exploring urban realities. Games of the Sim City series and Cities: Skylines are among the most popular video games. Researchers found that these games are adequate for educative and participation purposes but hard to implement when simulating specific real urban contexts and when users have low game habits [14,15]. Finding alternative game solutions can solve this limitation. Are modern analog games a possibility? Since modern board games are becoming increasingly popular, and many are city-building games and others that use names of cities, exploring this phenomenon can help find alternative ways of game-based planning. We aimed to explore why people enjoy games about cities, especially board games named after real cities. This way, we intend to find design patterns and other traits that might help planners use game-based approaches as planning support tools, aiming for participatory approaches. Although there is some research about city-building games, there is none about games named after cities.

Using games developed for entertainment purposes has evident limitations. Adapting and changing these games to deliver tools fitted to the realities planners wish to explore is an effort worth exploring. However, these digital games cannot be modified easily due to intellectual property rights and the need to master game programming and deal with the “black boxes” of the algorithms [16]. Developing games from zero is not a simple endeavor. Complex video games comparable to those done by big companies involve budgets of millions of dollars. It demands considerable resources, time, and human knowledge that requires teams of experts [17,18]. This game development is even more demanding when these games are more than entertainment products. Delivering the game-based planning tools (i.e., serious games for planning) that generate experiences beyond entertainment is an even higher challenge. Serious games must engage users and still deliver compelling experiences related to the goals of a project [19]. There are already good examples in the literature: helping users to decide how to define a transport system [20,21,22], generate an urban development plan [23], or approach energy efficiency in a territory [24].

One of the limitations of using serious games for planning is the development cost and the lack of training and preparation from planners to use game-based approaches [25,26]. Finding easier ways for planners to use game-based tools is a clear usability gap. Analog games are easier and cheaper to create than digital ones [7,17], and there is an ongoing board game revolution happening [27,28]. Modern board gaming as a hobby is becoming increasingly popular among the general public, and their distinctive design features are starting to influence analog serious games [29,30]. The mechanisms, physical components, and other game elements from modern board games (MBGs) can engage users and simulate complex processes [31,32].

We argue that exploring these city-focused MBGs may reveal some design traits applicable to analog serious game design that may be useful in developing new planning support systems (PSSs) [33] for urban planning. Many of these MBGs are city-building games, while others adopt the names of existing cities, going beyond city material development and management. In this paper, we explore the MBG international movement, the most popular games being created that relate to cities, and how players perceive these games.

Our exploration of this phenomenon brought new insights into how planners can engage participants and what game elements to use efficiently in game-based planning. This awareness is expected to help planners identify what game elements and dimensions to use in possible new game-based PSSs. We departed from the players’ perspectives (using a sample of hobby gamers) as users (generally speaking, participants who could be citizens) are who planners need to engage with in common participatory planning processes. Considering players’ perspectives is core for user-centered design approaches [34]. Understanding what motivates them to play games related to cities is expected to shed light on the design and use of board games in participatory and collaborative planning approaches.

The paper is organized into the following subsections. The following section addresses the human fascination with cities as an introduction to exploring how the MBG phenomenon approaches cities. The next one addresses the phenomenon of people preferring MBGs about cities. The methodology presents the survey development, dissemination, and data processing. Discussion and conclusions summarize the findings and future research recommendations. Players relate to places (i.e., cities) and designers also. The urban themes provide rich and engaging playable worlds for players to interact with each other. Acknowledging how this happens can be replicated for game-based planning approaches.

2. Defining Cities and Our Fascination Toward Them

Asking people how they define a city leads to very different answers, depending on the context (e.g., personal experiences, the type of conversation, the disciplinary approach, etc.). A city can mean or represent many things to even more persons ([35], p. 4). The European Commission defined cities by concentration levels of inhabitants, arguing that “A city is much more than a physical imprint on a map. It is an organic entity with its own identity and capacity to respond to the demands and needs of its inhabitants, as well as influence its surrounding territory.” [36]. These institutional definitions tend to set quantitative limits and thresholds that are not enough to define what a city is. Looking for other descriptions helps to show the diversity and richness of cities. The following statement is one of the best-known definitions of a city.

“The essential physical means of a city’s existence are the fixed site, the durable shelter, the permanent facilities for assembly interchange, and storage; the essential social means are the social division of labor, which serves nor merely the economic life but the cultural process. The city in its complete sense, then, is a geographic plexus, an economic organization, an institutional process, a theater of social action, and an aesthetic symbol of collective unity.”.

([37], p. 39)

As Pile ([35], p. 16) highlighted, Munford defined a city as a geographic plexus, the overlayed and connected networks of flows and activities. Cities generate clusters by the dimension and complexity of these dynamic networks and concentrations, affected by spatial locations ([38], p. 38). Kostof ([38], pp. 37–39) also invokes Munford, remembering that the cities are “The points of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a community” when saying that cities can hold energizing crowds and accumulate wealth, materialized in the urban construction and monumentality that symbolizes the dominance over a region.

The previous definition from Munford refers directly to the specific form of the city, which can be represented graphically, and to the social, economic, and cultural dimensions (material and immaterial dimensions). A city can be defined by its size, scale, and location. However, a group of human-made constructions only became a city by combining different human, material, and immaterial features. The flows and the spatial relations matter as the entities, institutions, and associations that fuel the city’s life.

Therefore, considering that all of these cities promise many opportunities and surprises, it is not surprising that they fascinate us. Besides delivering our most basic needs like shelter and access to resources, cities held much more than this. Lévy ([13], p. 33) argues that cities are the places where the surprise of discoveries and encounters have the most potential, both related to the built environment and human activities. When we visit or live in a city, there are some elements we can predict, but many others are surprising due to the multiple urban activities. If we travel through human history, we cannot escape the influence of cities. Paul Bairoch ([39], p. 1) says this directly when describing the connection between cities and human history: “It is all the more fascinating because there can be little question that the birth of cities and thus the emergence of the historical context that either favored the or actively gave rise to cities constitute between them one of the major turning points in the history of humanity. […] Without cities there could be no real civilization.” Although civilization is a concept charged with ideological influences related to cultural dominance, imperialism, and colonialism [40], inhabited cities are where human culture has been concentrated and maintained the most, preserved and shifting through continuous adaptation. Living cities present layers of history combined with contemporary dynamics in a physical and spatial form, a lens for the present and the past. Cities are where complex cultural and economic relationships have developed [41], which are associated with complex societies and civilizations. Cities result from collective human interactions throughout history, each settlement with its specific traits [42]. Although most of humanity is settled permanently in a territory, exploring new places fascinates us. Many touristic activities result from this desire. Cities have an undeniable relationship to their locations and the physical and morphological spatial dimensions; with all the activities they allow, cities have always been technology hubs and places where innovation has bloomed. Innovation, technology, and sustainability issues are among the topics we relate to cities [43]. It is expected that games about cities will represent these dimensions throughout history.

In the following sections, we will explore how MBGs represent the cities’ complexity, richness, and importance, delivering engaging analog game experiences.

3. Modern Boardgames and Cities

Despite the dominance of digital games, apparently, we are living in a golden age of board games [28,44], and there has been a revolution in designing board games [45]. The number of people seeking board games is growing and so is the economic value of the board game industry [46]. Statistica [47] reports that the board game industry in 2022 represented USD 3.12 billion. Board Game Geek (BGG), the most important website regarding hobby board gaming, surpassed 3 million users in 2022, and the Essen Spiel 2024 fair received 209,000 visitors to see the newest novelties of the industry. This is the population we are aiming for in the survey. Arguably, we are dealing with something relevant from a cultural and economic perspective.

The current interest in board games is not a revivalism because the growing number of players are not seeking older board games [27]. They are looking for new types of games, those known as hobby games [48]. These are updated (modern) board games with new design elements that provide strategic and interactive experiences, with distinctive artwork and high-quality components [49,50,51]. Hobby gamers tend to classify MBGs as Eurogames and Americangames, the first focusing on the mechanical system and the second more on narrative and interaction. Despite this distinction, recent games have mixed the two design approaches. The available demographic studies for MBGs reveal that most hardcore hobby gamers are adult men with high education and a comfortable social and economic situation [52,53]. Although some criticize the denominated Eurogames (a class of modern board games responsible for part of the expansion of the hobby board game market in the last 20 years) for being abstract, these games adopt themes and narratives that fit adult preferences, like economic and historical simulation [54].

The material fascination of these games and the meaningful playable experiences they provide are some of the reasons to explain MBGs’ success [44,45]. From a game design analysis, these games demand higher agency from the players to function. Without previous knowledge and players’ activations, games would not work [55,56]. Likewise, playing a board game in a multiplayer format demands a social contract between the players, the agreement to play by the rules, or change them unanimously. Even in competitive wargames, there is a significant level of collaboration between the players for the game to function [57].

Among the MBG movement, a curious phenomenon does not appear in other game formats. Many MBGs, mostly Eurogames, use names as real cities (Figure 1). The BGG top board games show this phenomenon. In the top 400 games, according to users’ preferences, 22 are Eurogames with names of cities (5.5% of the total). This trend of using real city names does not manifest in video games. Remembering that popular board games, defined as Eurogames, are appreciated by adults and families, they can deliver engaging adult activities [48]. Exploring MBGs’ design characteristics might be helpful for urban and city planning. Analog games are easier and cheaper to develop/adapt [17,58], and some practitioners are starting to experiment with game-based analog approaches [8,11,30].

4. City-Building Games and Games About Cities

When searching for games related to cities, there are at least two different types. Games that let the player generate generic cities and those that try to simulate urban elements of real cities. In video games, the most popular games tend to be about building generic cities, called city-building games (CBG). Games like Sim City and Cities: Skylines have been very popular. The board game industry also produces similar games. BGG describes city-building games as a type (family) of games (www.boardgamegeek.com, accessed on 1 September 2023): “City Building games compel players to construct and manage a city in a way that is efficient, powerful, and/or lucrative”.

The top 400 most appreciated BGG games reveal 43 city-building games (10.75%), showing that building and managing cities are popular among gamers. When analyzing some of these games in detail, for example, only the ten better-classified games, the relationship to city management and planning is tenuous. For example, 7 Wonders Duel [59] is an abstract simulation of an ancient civilization’s cultural and material development, symbolized by accumulating cards and scores. In Everdell [60], players acquire cards representing animal fantasy inhabitants, and some buildings are displayed in an orthogonal grid. Puerto Rico [61] is about colonial farming exploration and exporting, introducing some urban buildings. The game Underwater Cities [62] represents the utopian futuristic expansion of cities deep in the oceans, focusing on resource management and network flows. The On Mars [63] game mimics the early colonization of planet Mars by adding modules that can accommodate human life. Lisboa [64] addresses the rebuilding process of the Portuguese capital after the 1755 earthquake with a graphical representation of the new urban plan, buildings, and public facilities. Le Havre [65] is a game about building factories, warehouses, port facilities, and boats to transform and transport material resources. Lords of Waterdeep [66] represents the urban dynamics of a fantasy city where players can hire adventures for quests. 7 Wonders [67] is similar to 7 Wonders Duel, allowing more than two players to play the game. The game Architects of The West Kingdom (Phillips & Macdonald, 2018) represents a medieval settlement where resources are explored to build a cathedral and its urban surroundings.

The previous games did not seem very detailed when simulating all the complexities and dimensions of cities. Many games are simplifications and abstractions of the production and development of cities in general or just a specific urban dimension. Arguably, using them directly for planning would not be easy. Attempts have been made to use commercially available games; some researchers used games like Lords of Waterdeep, combined with role-play elements, to approach the human capital a city can offer [68].

Exploring other popular MBGs related to cities can provide more information. One such game type is what we describe in the current paper as Games Named as Cities (GNAC), which is a particular type of board game. These games are not as easy to find at BGG as the city-building ones because some are not classified as a “family of games” (like a category) by BGG. However, they must have some features in common. They also represent the social, historical, and architectural dimensions of cities. GNACs seem different from CBGs. To understand the characteristics of these MBGs, we proposed a method to find why users like playing these games and if they can relate the game experiences to urban dimensions.

5. Materials and Methods

To find out what drives gamers to play GNACs, we developed a survey in which they could express their preferences and comment on the relationships between the games and urban dimensions. Although the reasons to play CBGs might be more direct, enjoying games named after specific cities raises new doubts because some GNACs seem out of scope for urban topics. The following method sheds some light on this topic, aiming to find the design elements supporting game-based planning approaches.

The survey followed European legal and ethical requirements for personal data protection. The data collected referred only to gaming habits and perceptions about a selection of GNACs. No personally identifiable information (PII) nor data on personal habits that could expose or warm the participants were collected. The survey was created using the LimeSurvey tool (GDPR compatible), and all the participants signed an informed consent form explaining the purposes of the research and identifying the researchers involved. The survey questions are available in Supplementary Materials.

We deployed the survey on social media known to be used by MBG players (WhatsApp, Facebook, Discord, Reddit) as well as directly through BGG guilds (thematic forums) related to research and as a trend in the forums associated with the selected games.

First, we analyzed all the general BGG ranks, identifying 22 GNACs in the top 400. The survey was online from 1 June 2022 to 1 January 2023, and the analysis date was January 2023. This process facilitated the dissemination process because the survey was posted in the BGG page forums for all 22 games.

The questionnaire is divided into five parts:

• Part 1—Personal information (generic and non-identifiable).
• Part 2—Board game habits.
• Part 3—City builders and board games about cities.
• Part 4—About the game at stake (users selected one of the 22 games to analyze).
• Part 5—Comments and suggestions about the questionnaire.

Parts 1 and 2 collected information about users’ gaming habits and perceptions, their relation to urban planning, and MBG preferences. Part 3 explored how urban MBGs address the following dimensions: built fabric and infrastructure, economy, historical context, nature and environment, social and cultural, and transport system. We expected participants to relate these generic dimensions of urban places to CBGs and GANCs. To complete this information, in Part 4, we asked what game elements and traits participants think are relevant for CBGs: cultural information (names of the places, events, etc.); maps (space representation 2D/3D, multiple scales, relationships, etc.); miniatures and dioramas (buildings, nature, vehicles, heritage, etc.); quantitative information and indicators (population, wealth, pollution, etc.). Also, in Part 4, regarding selecting 22 GNACs, participants chose one of these games to classify according to generic urban dimensions and gameplay. In Part 4, there were two open-ended questions. The first question requested the identification of the best CBG and why. The second one asked the participant why the proliferation of GNACs was so prevalent and why gamers liked to play them. In Part 5, participants could freely comment about the survey and the aim of the research.

Parts 1 to 4 of the survey generated direct quantitative data (multiple choice questions and Likert scales of 1 to 10), allowing simple statistical analyses and a correlation test between the BGG rank and the games that participants suggested as better ones to represent cities. The open questions (Part 4 and 5) delivered indirect qualitative results analyses based on the grounded theory principles [69], clustering the answers per stated issue type.

6. Results

We present the demographics of the sample. Later, the data analysis and interpretation regarding CBGs and the selection of GNACs, identifying the common and different dimensions and design characteristics according to players, are presented.

6.1. Participants’ Demographics

We collected 102 valid participations (n = 102). Figure 2 reveals the participants’ demographics, age group, gender, education, and board game habits.

Male players dominate the sample (84%), like those with higher education (67%). Age groups vary, although younger active cohorts from 25 to 46 are the majority (68%). They are experienced gamers because 62% play at least once per week, and 11% play daily. Forty-six participants prefer high-complexity games, 56 medium-complexity games, and only one low-complexity games. This summary allows us to portray the sample, composed of highly educated young and middle-aged men with strong playing habits, tending toward medium to heavy games. We also asked the users if their professional or academic interests were related to urban planning. Only eight confirmed this relationship (7.84% of the sample), revealing that the preference to play GNACs and CBGs depends on other reasons.

6.2. City-Building Games (CBG)

To find more information about the types of games users enjoyed the most, we asked them to define their preferences according to generic game types, those categories defined by BGG (categories) relatable to generic and urban games (

Table 1. Users’ game types and themes preferences.

Game Types and Themes	$\overline{\mathit{x}}$	$\tilde{\mathit{x}}$	σ
Abstract	5.75	6	2.40
Adventure	6.20	6	2.03
City builder	7.41	7	1.66
Deduction/Mystery	5.65	6	2.26
Economic	7.96	8	1.82
Humor/Party	4.78	5	2.42
Narrative/Storytelling	5.48	6	2.48
Sports	4.10	4	2.25
Wargame/Combat	5.92	6	2.50

). We started to focus on CBGs since they are a common digital game type and seem more suited to direct urban planning processes.

Table 2. Users’ simulation dimension preferences in CBGs.

Dimensions Present in a City-Building Game	$\overline{\mathit{x}}$	$\tilde{\mathit{x}}$	σ
Built fabric and infrastructure	7.57	8	1.92
Economy	7.88	8	1.62
Historical context	7.09	7	2.24
Nature and environment	6.71	7	1.95
Social and culture	6.97	7	1.84
Transport system	7.33	8	1.95

reveals more details about what simulation dimensions participants valued the most in CBGs. When compared with Table 1, participants prefer economic games and games that simulate building cities. The dimensions in Table 2 do not present the same variation as in Table 1. The score for MBGs related to sports in Table 1 was 4.10, while the lowest value in Table 2 was 6.71 for the nature and environment dimension.

We were concerned about addressing the practical implementation of the games. In the survey, participants classified the game elements CBG should have to better address cities in a general way.

Table 3. Traits and game elements of CBGs.

Traits of City-Building Games	$\overline{\mathit{x}}$	$\tilde{\mathit{x}}$	σ
Built fabric and infrastructure	7.57	8	1.92
Cultural information (names of the places, events, …)	7.05	7	2.24
Maps (space representation 2D/3D, multiple scales, relationships, …)	7.22	8	2.02
Miniatures and dioramas (buildings, nature, vehicles, heritage, …)	5.53	6	2.53
Quantitative information/indicators (population, wealth, pollution, …)	6.40	7	2.13
Cultural information (names of the places, events, …)	7.05	7	2.24

shows these results, considering the cultural and identity dimensions, maps, urban morphology representations, and other physical and living existences that populate cities. Table 3 also shows how the users consider the importance of quantitative information and indicators in CBG. Maps and graphical representation were the most valued dimensions (7.22), although all had similar preferences.

Participants suggested 33 different games when answering the open question about the best CBGs. However, 24 participants were not able or did not wish to identify one game. Of the 78 participants who answered suggesting a game, 64 did not justify why that was the best CBG. Only a minority of 14 participants described choice, revealing that users might not be aware of the urban dimensions in the selected games. These answers were analyzed, grouped by cluster, and presented in

Table 4. Identified city-building games and their characteristics by participants.

Dimensions Present in a City-Building Game	Number of Citations	Spatial Dynamic	Landscape and Buildings	Environment	Social	Economy	History	None
Suburbia	19	2	2	0	0	0	0	15
Lisboa	10	3	1	0	0	0	5	4
Carcassonne	8	1	2	0	0	0	1	4
Praga Caput Regni	7	1	0	0	0	0	3	4
Antiquity	2	0	0	1	1	1	0	1
Kingdomino	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
London 2nd ed	2	1	0	0	1	1	0	0
Quadropolis	2	1	0	0	0	1	0	1
Small City	2	0	0	1	0	0	0	1
Alhambra	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
Anno 1800	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
Attika	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	0
Between Two Cities	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Brass	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Bruges	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Citadels	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
Era: Medieval Age	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	0
Everdell	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
Foundations of Rome	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0
Kingdom Builder	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Le Havre	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
Macao	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Machi Koro	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
My City	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Puerto Rico	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
Terraforming Mars	1	1	0	1	0	1	0	0
The Capitals	1	0	1	0	0	1	0	0
Through the ages	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Underwater Cities	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Urban Sprawl	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Warsaw: City of Ruins	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
7 Wonders Duel	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Total	102	16	7	4	3	9	11	64

. Suburbia [70], Lisboa, Carcassonne, and Praga Caput Regni [71] are among the top games, all with tile placement game mechanisms [72] that represent spatial dynamics. In Table 4, we can see some overlap. Participants considered that some GNACs could be classified as CBGs.

6.3. Games Named as Cities (GNACs)

The selection of the top 22 GNACs allowed the participants to choose a game to classify according to generic urban dimensions. This classification allowed us to analyze what traits related to urban traits the users considered relevant since the overlapping between CBGs and GNACs was a fact (Table 4).

Table 5. Evaluation of the generic urban dimensions of the top 22 GNACs ($\tilde{x}$).

Game	BGG Rank	N Participants	Economic Context and Dynamics	Environment and Natural Context and Dynamics	Flows and Spatial Relationships	Land Uses and Densities	Social and Cultural Context and Dynamics	The Historic Period Portrayed	Transport System	Urban Amenities and Public Facilities	Urban Morphology	$\mathbf{Sum}\mathbf{of}\mathbf{the}(\tilde{\mathit{x}}$) Evaluations
Carcassonne	201	23	4	5	7	6	4	5	3	3	4	41
Lisboa	57	13	8	9	8	7	8	9	4	7	8	68
Praga Caput Regni	140	10	6	8	7	6	7.5	9	3	5.5	8	47
Orléans	30	7	7	7	8	6	8	8	6	5	5	60
Istanbul	148	5	8	3	6	3	7	7	4	4	3	45
Tikal	299	5	3	3	3	3	3	7	5	2	3	32
Troyes	99	5	5	6	5	3	7	8	2	5	4	45
Le Havre	61	4	8	5	2.5	2.5	3.5	5	3	8	2	31
London 2nd ed	383	4	8.5	5.5	4	5	7	8	3.5	7	0	31
Yokohama	121	4	7	5	6	5.5	3.5	7	2.5	4	0	29
Bruges	300	3	5	5	4	3	3	8	3	3	3	37
Caylus	93	3	6	5	5	5	7	8	5	5	5	51
Coimbra	196	3	6	5	6	4	7	8	3	1	4	44
Nusfjord	325	3	8	7	5	4	5	4	3	6	3	45
St. Petersburg	369	3	7	5	4	3	5	6	1	2	2	35
Jaipur	158	2	4.50	2	1	1	3.5	4	1	1	1	11
Maracaibo	50	2	5	6	7.5	4.5	7.5	8	6	4.5	4	29
The Great Zimbabwe	340	2	9	7.5	7.5	8.5	6	5.5	10	6.5	2	27
Mombasa	95	1	4	5	5	5	5	6	4	5	3	43
Bruxelles 1893	377	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Goa	228	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
San Juan	350	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Sum of the ($\tilde{\mathit{x}}$) evaluations			106	91	84	64	82	125	66	68	65

shows that the distribution was not equitable and that the BGG rank had no statistical correlation (R = −0.267) with the number of selected games participants chose to classify. Analyzing the sum of the median value (Table 5), “The historic period portraited” (125), “The economic context and dynamics” (106), “Flows and spatial relationships” (84), and “Social and cultural context and dynamics” (82) got the higher scores. Table 5 shows the sum of median ($\tilde{x}$) evaluations per game (column) and per generic urban dimension (line) to compare the games and dimensions that scored higher according to participants.

According to the participants, the game that deals better with all the dimensions is Lisboa (68), followed by Orléans (60) [73], Caylus (51) [74], and Praga Caput Regni (47). From all of these, Lisboa is the one with the better score in “urban morphology” (7) and “land uses and densities” (7). The Lisboa game board (Figure 3) represents the urban renewal plan in detail, allowing players to build it as part of their actions. All the other graphical representations of the cities portrayed in Caylus and Praga Caput Regni are schematic only. In Orléans, there is no meaningful representation of the form of the city (it is just an indistinctive zone in a regional map of medieval France). Lisboa and Praga Caput Regni appear in the CBGs and GNACs list of games.

The analysis of the free answers regarding the question “Why do you think there are games with the name of cities and gamers play them?” generated some extended answers, while others were blank (6 in 102). The available data allowed us to organize the answers by main clusters and cluster subdimensions, following the grounded theory method of qualitative analyses and iterative classification and grouping (

Table 6. Analysis of the participants’ answers to “Why do you think there are games with the name of cities and gamers play them?”.

Main Cluster	Cluster Subdimension	Quantity of References in the Answers
Simulation	Building, development, and management	15
	Maps and spatial representations	9
	Architecture and historical and cultural background	30
Personal experiences	Sense of belonging and relatable	21
	Travel and discover another reality	20
	Liking/fascination with a place	32
	Author hometown/personal relation	3
Design practices	Seriousness and grandiosity of the theme	2
	Perceptible/relatable entity	30
	Game mechanisms overlay theme	35
	Easier to implement	19
	Marketing	25
Nothing/Do not know		6

). The simulation cluster refers to what is represented in the game, the personal experiences to the emotional attachment of the players and designers to the game representations, and the design practices refer to the processes of designing, developing, and marketing the game as a product.

From the 102 participants (noted generically as P#), we collected six comments about the survey. P14 wrote, “I can’t imagine what useful value you’re possibly getting out of this survey. Seems like a typical survey by a non-gamer. Better to actually play these games and learn by doing.” P14 assumes its hobby culture as a movement apart from casual gamers and people who talk about games without playing them. Generic texts published online in newspapers and websites speak about the success and growth of board games, but they might distinguish between hobby games and mass-market games. All games in the sample were analyzed; rules and game mechanisms were checked for references to cities and MBG features. This reinforces the systemic analysis of MBGs to deliver serious game approaches [20]. P17 said, “Some of the games you have chosen have nothing to do with city building, for example, Jaipur. And you have missed games that seem a much better fit, such as Suburbia.” This highlights that because the game uses the name of a city, it does not mean it would simulate the urban dimensions of a city. According to P17, CBGs do this better. P17 states that some games assume the names of cities in a very abstract representation and simulation. “I believe games usually do not concern the actual cities they portray. I was disappointed with Coimbra because there isn’t any City feeling, but it is a very good game with an interesting use of dice,” argued P27. P27 revealed the frustration because some games do not detail the relationship with the portraited city (Coimbra in this case). Game designers seem more concerned with the mechanical aspect of the gameplay. Table 6 shows this as a design practice when 35 participants stated that in GNACs, the game mechanisms overlayed the themes, meaning that the games could be adapted to approach any theme besides that particular city. P53 complements this perception by saying, “There are plenty of non-Euro games named after cities and games that don’t involve building a city which is named after cities.” The answers that generated the Table 6 clusters referred to the mechanical dominance over a theme (narrative) as something typical of the Eurogames. Arguably, the game theme is a generic hook that engages players, giving the game a serious and adult dimension. Despite this, the thematic relationship with a specific urban context inspires some representations of the urban dimensions but tends only to support the game mechanisms. P92’s comment reinforces this idea: “Note that this trend of using city names occurs more in abstract or euro games and not so much in thematic ones.”

7. Discussion

There is a clear distinction between CBGs and GNACs, although some games can be classified as both by players. One reason for this is that our sample was non-urban experts. This acknowledgment seems to fragilize the research, but if we are aiming to use game-based approaches for public participation, we should consider the non-expert views and interpretations. GANCs tend to be Eurogames, described as elegant [75], with innovative and puzzling game mechanisms that use a theme in a very abstract way [48,54]. Nevertheless, these are popular games and show how the names of cities inspire the building of a narrative context that helps to explore our human fascination with cities. According to the participants’ perspectives, the selected games seem adequate to simulate historical processes and how human societies grow and prosper regarding the economy and land development (Table 6). We should remember that these are not experts.

MBGs that are GNACs also have high scores in the economy and historical dimensions (Table 5). The difference is that CBGs are better at representing spatial dynamics, having pieces players can manipulate and change maps and other graphical representations. MBGs such as Lisboa, Suburbia, and Carcassonne all have tile placement mechanisms representing land uses, buildings, natural spaces, and infrastructures. This means that some games can simultaneously have urban morphology, spatial planning dimensions, and economic, social, and historical context. In the case of complex games like Lisboa and Suburbia, the tile-laying mechanisms are combined with other mechanisms such as tracking bars where urban indicators like population and economic activities are quantifiable. Players can play with these tiles (flat cardboard pieces with graphical printed information) to change space representations, relationships, activities, and interconnections. Using tiles components combined with tiling mechanisms provides tangible and graphical meaningful play experiences. Due to the tiles with different urban densities and roads, Carcassonne was adapted and used for geography teaching and introduced concepts like gravitational models [76]. Despite these direct relationships in games like Lisboa, Suburbia, and Carcassonne, we must observe that only 13.72% of the participants identified urban dimensions in the games they proposed as the best city-building games. Apparently, the participants’ perceptions are more emotional than those based on a systematic analysis of urbanism and cities. Only 7.84% had a relationship to urbanism and cities as working or academic activities (in general terms), revealing that urban themes engage participants. These values can mean that the planning community might be unaware of the potential and that games related to cities engage users with no professional or academic relationship to the subject.

The participants highlighted dimensions regarding design practices and marketing of the games. For them, having a perceptible entity like a city helps designers frame a game (Table 6), even if they are more concerned with the mechanical side of the game. GANCs tend to represent the material manifestations of growth and development well, making economic cycles more tangible. The cultural, social, and environmental dimensions are part of these representations. City landmarks and distinctive urban morphologies or cultural/artistic activities can evoke aesthetic, architectural, and art manifestations. All these combinations can engage users. Some users look for economic and strategic puzzles that result from managing urban activities, while others are drawn by the fascination of cities as places to visit and explore (Table 6). There is a clear relationship between different player profiles and motivations to play games in general, seeking problem-solving, exploration, and social interactions [77]. The collected data reinforce this. Some players enjoy mathematical problem-solving to manage the city, while others see themselves travelling to the depicted city in the game (Table 6). Designers and publishers know this and use it as a marketing strategy. They decided to name the game to support the narrative building and playable context, avoiding abstraction and trying to highlight the game’s seriousness (not for children).

We argue that urban planning practitioners looking for game-based approaches for their PSSs can learn from these games. Users say that maps and graphical representation matter for CBGs (Table 3); technical expertise planners are trained masters and can easily explore. Planners interested in using serious board games as PSSs could find what games are available and play them while exploring the types of simulations and experiences those games provide, following a similar process of learning game usage by playing, discussing, and adapting them for serious purposes [20]. After this introduction, which explored what board games are available to use directly, developing new games might be necessary. It is recommended that planners comprehend game mechanisms and perceive what experiences they may provide to users (citizens) when designing games for serious purposes [20,78,79]. As stated before, developing games is challenging, and it is even more so for planners or anyone else who does not design games regularly [8,25]. Alternatively, MBG trends show that people like games related to cities, even when they are abstract constructions of urban realities. When gamers dive deep into playing MBGs, they can become game designers and create their own games more easily [22,44,80]. Learning to design by playing can contribute to increasing engagement in participatory planning. Planners who play more can probably be more prepared to use the games for serious purposes. Moreover, analog games are easier to develop, replicate, and adapt than video games. Planning practitioners can use game mechanisms to complement their planning approaches and PSSs without the need to master and build deep and complex games [81].

Considering the sample demographics, it fits the other more generic demographic studies conducted recently about board gamers [82]. There is a gender imbalance and a high percentage of highly educated participants. However, this seems to be a biased sample, as highly educated males tend to be a significant cohort in common participatory processes [83]. These characteristics reveal that MBGs might be more appreciated by specific social groups, although authors like Paul Booth [44] highlight that more and more women are playing MBGs, and general inclusivity is increasing. Planners must consider these limitations when developing inclusive game-based approaches. Planners might adapt the type and depth of the approaches according to the public they wish to engage with. Our sample identifies a social group more influenced by complex analog play.

8. Conclusions

Our research shed light on how board game players, designers (through the games they create), and the general public (perceived by the board gamers) see cities from many different perspectives. Some think of the material, architecture, and geographic dimensions, while others look for the historical background, the culture, or the economic manifestations. All these approaches delivered successful games (according to BGG ranks), exploring the human fascination for cities. Returning to our research question, despite being classified as games where players build cities or interact with topics about real cities, players feel engaged by different game elements and experiences. Considering the variety of player profiles, when proposing game-based approaches for PSSs to increase engagement and public participation, the games should consider that participants are not homogenous. Different games will engage different users, and some games that combine different dimensions might be better suited to approach more diverse audiences. However, when games try to include many dimensions, they can be complex and inadequate for mass usage. Our sample reveals that the education level of the users might determine their play preferences.

We must acknowledge that the sample was not representative of a country or the culture of any local specific community. We dealt with MBG gamers in general. We cannot review all cohorts of participants in public participation as it is too large a group to survey, it would be too expensive, and they differ in socio-economic context, engagement, regulatory frameworks, and attitude towards urban planning. We identified a large community (209,000 participants in the Essen Spiel fair, plus the 3 million users of the BGG website) of board game players and developers. Despite most of our sample not being urban planning professionals, 7.84% assumed a connection to this field. The sample distribution has some characteristics that can be found in the known distributions of participants in urban planning processes [83]. Learning from MBG design to build serious games for planning seems promising in reinforcing participation and experimenting with new publics as these games reach new publics every year, meaning that the users’ preferences might be changing.

Existing MBGs successfully explore cities from a marketing perspective, engaging players that seek to interact with urban places’ economy, flows, and development. Some simulate other dimensions like social, cultural, and ecological dimensions. Those recognized by the target population sampled as the best games to represent cities (CBGs) tend to have maps and graphical tangible information combined with game pieces that represent the urban morphology, buildings, and the built environment. GNACs sometimes ignore these traits and focus more on the non-material and non-spatial characteristics based on heavy abstractions. Participants in urban planning participatory processes are known for desiring to have concrete and perceivable conceptualizations of their cities to discuss and decide upon.

In general terms, MBGs that use the name of cities (GNACs) do not seem fully suited to be used directly as tools for urban planners, not even for the specific city portrayed. This is due to the focus on playability and not detailed simulation or achieving a specific purpose besides engagement. Despite these limitations, the games successfully explore specific urban dimensions that game designs invoke to engage players. In some cases, it is the local economy or the aesthetics of the built environment. City-building games (CBGs) seem to be better for urban simulation because they represent the spatial dimension, changes, and interactions resulting from players’ actions. Learning from GNACs and CBGs provides different examples of how to represent cities through games, which is essential for those who wish to use game-based approaches for PSSs. We realized that players could be interested in games related to cities for many reasons, not only because of urban planning approaches like land uses, transport systems, building densities, and functions. Some players resonate with the economic and social dimensions, the historical background, heritage, and even nonmaterial dimensions like traditions or important historical events that took place in a city. These findings show that planners should not ignore these dimensions when using game-based approaches to engage as much of the public as possible. As we realized in the literature about CBGs [14,16], some gaps in the simulation of these entertainment games result from the lack of ability to approach the previous dimensions.

We believe that MBGs can be useful for those wishing to address cities from a game-based perspective but in an indirect way, such as design examples to build other games (e.g., game mechanisms, components, etc.). Exploring these games reveals how a game system (and which game elements) can simulate and address urban dimensions in interactive, tangible, and playable ways. Future research could test what types of game-based approaches urban planners can create after exposure to these board games and what can complement their possible training on serious game design for PSSs.