Division of Labor: My favorite mechanisms

 Jamey Stegmaier has a video series on his YouTube channel called My Favorite Mechanisms in which he makes short videos for various games he has played, highlighting mechanisms he finds interesting, clever, or fun. As I approach the finish line on my latest design, Division of Labor, I thought I might try to do a post highlighting some mechanisms in the game that I'm particularly proud of or happy with. So here we go!

I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement

The core mechanism of the game is worker placement mixed with I-Cut-You-Choose. While WP is a very common mechanism, ICYC seems a little underused, and I actually get the impression that it's a well-liked mechanism, with its popularity on the rise. But most games I can think of that use ICYC are small games where that's the whole game: from older titles like Colloretto, Zooscape, and Tussie Mussie, to new ones like The Great Split. There's a classic game called San Marco that utilized ICYC pretty well, though people say it's really only good at exactly 3 players. I did think Zooloretto did a pretty good job of building a bigger game out of the mechanism that is Coloretto - that's probably my favorite entry in the genre so far.

Division of Labor uses ICYC to drive a game that has a lot more going on, which I think came together pretty well.

"Penalty" tracks

As a key part of the ICYC mechanism, I think a "poison pill" is necessary - like the penalty you get in Zooloretto for taking an animal into your barn because you haven't got room for it in an enclosure. In Division of Labor, you are able to do 2 different colored actions per turn, but your split might have 3 or even all 4 colors of action cubes in it. Doing the same colored action too often, or taking splits with extra cubes you won't be using are ways to introduce this idea of "poison" into the game, which helps make the splitting and choosing really work well.

Note that you can mitigate the in-game penalties with a couple of the actions by gaining cubes to store on your board, covering up the penalty spaces on the tracks. However, if you do a particular action too many times, you could still end up with some negative points at the end of the game.

Overbuilding

A happy accident in Division of Labor is the dynamic born of the ability to cover up smaller buildings with larger ones of the same shape. I initially allowed this as a way to sort of increase the amount of space to build, so it wouldn't be too frustrating. But it led to a dynamic where building early for the uncovered benefit on your player board made you susceptible to being covered up, while waiting and building later in the game could potentially be better for scoring (cover up opponents' buildings, and ensure yours are in play to score at game end). That was an unintended dynamic that emerged, and one I'm pretty happy about. 

Overbuilding also makes the game feel a little more interactive than some euro-style WP games. 

Explore as a backup option

In Division of Labor, there are 4 actions color-coded to the action cubes, but anytime you're resolving an action with some cubes, instead of the action associated with those cubes' color, you may opt to Explore - drawing 1 tile per cube and choosing one to add to the island, augmenting the whole island for everyone. Doing this gives you a small benefit of your choice from what's available on the tile you added (a free level 1 building - if you haven't already built it, a free icon token - if any remain, or a free cube of a particular color). of course, the more tiles you draw to choose from, then more options you have.

Being able to Explore, which is never amazing but is also never bad - it's always a little bit good - means that you're never stuck with cubes you cannot use, and it also means you can explore with your first action in an attempt to improve your second action, making room for clever plays.

One of the building types allows you to draw additional tiles when you explore, which means you'll have a lot better odds of getting something useful, facilitating these clever plays even more.