Boardgame adaptation : 2D or 3D ?

Hello dear community =)

I'm a beginner with Unity, but I'm one year away from my master degree in computer science.

This summer, some friends and I decided to work on a project using Unity. They already created a nearly complete board game and I'm going to try and recreate it in a video game with their help.

Right now I'm following Unity's tutorials to train myself, but I already have a question that I can't really answer :

For a boardgame adaptation, should I go 2D or 3D ? More precisely, what are the pros and cons of these two format for this kind of games ? I feel like I could really do with either, since most of the work will be on the interface, and I don't see why I should pick one over the other.

Thank you for your time ^^

 

3D might be cool, you could make a 3D board very easily and do some fun camera tricks to rotate around it.

You could also do 2.5D. Just a top down view of the board with flat pieces, but picked up rewards and items could be 3D models and rotate on the screen on pickup.

 

Yep, you can do either. It really boils down to how you're going to make your art assets. If you're going to use a pixel editor or paint program, then do that, and build your game in 2D. If you're going to 3D model the pieces, then do it in 3D.

 

I'm really going to hit a wall with my 3D endless runner game (no pun intended!); because coding this game is time consuming as it is, and at the same time my 3D models are just primitive types (cubes/capsules), and I will at some point need some real 3D art, which I am not expert at.

@7r17r1 maybe you can find a 3D artist to work with. There is also the option of purchasing the 3D models you need from the asset store. It will cut the time in half, you might be able to finish a simple but decent looking game by September.

 

Definitely 2D. Don't even consider using 3D for a board game adaption. 3D implementations of board games normally suck.

Almost all board games are inherently 2D. Boards are flat. At best the third dimension is used to stack pieces on top of each other, but most of the time its ignored. Adding 3D to a video game version really doesn't add anything to the game play. And often gets in the way.

Board games are also fairly abstract. The goal is typically not realism, but to build a set of mechanics that in some way approximate realism. Putting in a bunch of complex 3D models with realistic animations can get in the way of that abstraction. And a critical part of board games is players being able to see all of the rules.

TD;DR: Do 2D, 3D will just get in the way.

Note that none of this applies if you are building a game based on the same franchise. Have a look at the bioshock video games and board games. They are based in the same universe. But the game play in each is built completely differently, and plays to the strengths of each medium.

 

3D != realism.

You're making it seem as if there's extra work in designing a 3D game past what work there actually is. Sure 3D games are more complex if you want them to be but a 3D board game is simply a 2D game with a different perspective. That and a completely top-down perspective in 2D is very difficult to pull off so you'd probably be stuck doing isometric art which is a-whole-nother thing.

It really depends on what you feel more skilled in art wise. From an art perspective I think it's pretty easy to make simple low-poly 3D models using blender that look pretty good in an orthographic camera.

 

I'm not talking about developer work at all. Apologies if I wasn't clear on that. This is a game design question, not a development difficulty question.

Board games are by nature 2D and top down. So if your game is inherently 2D, it makes sense to build your video game adaption in 2D. Making the game 3D obscures the underlying game play. This adds cognitive load to your player. This is a bad thing. You want to have your player spending most of their time thinking about what to do next, working out long term strategies, and the like. You don't want them scratching their heads figuring out what is going on.

Go take a look at any successful board game to video game port. They are all done in 2D. Solitaire, Hearts, Free Cell, Ticket to Ride, Hearth Stone, Small World, Chess, Dominion, Dominant Species.

In fact I think you would be hard pressed to find any board game ports that have done well in 3D. If you do find one, let me know. I'm really curious to see how it was done. I have somewhere near the order of 60 board games on my shelf, and as far as I know not one has been ported to a video game in 3D.

 

*Runs off to make world's first 3D VR-enabled Parcheesi*

 

You're not wrong about 3D board game ports. You could argue that the Magic the Gathering games are 3D games along with anything you'd play in Tabletop Simulator (which i happen to play a lot of).

I think my main point was that while board games are inherently 2D and top down the way the player consumes the visual information is still 3D. You are seeing the board and pieces in a 3D space which is why I don't think that 3D removes realism or takes away from the objective of the game. Implementation is key and making sure your players focus on the objective at hand and not get derailed by poor controls and mechanics and gameplay (see Talisman: Digital Edition).

So I sorta agree with you but I still feel like throwing 3D off the table for those specific reasons would be silly. Hell, as @MikeTeavee mentioned, VR implementation of a board game is a great idea in my opinion; however, bringing VR into the conversation is kinda beyond the point.

 

I am just working on one.

Prototype was 3D (top down view) and it made me realize, that it adds close to zero value to the gameplay. It just felt better to me initially as it was a closer copy of a real board game set, but no one other than me would care

I switched to 2D for the build version, which uses actually one 3D element (top down spinning wheel - kind of a dice alternative) - 2D setup does not limit you to 2D objects, just to the orthographic perspective.

Programming wise it's pretty much the same. If there is no benefit to the player / gameplay from 3D, I suggest 2D.