Space & position
Position, adjacency, territory, or line of sight on a spatial representation is the operative state.
20 entries. Tie-break question: Is position the operative state?
Adjacency Bonuses
A placed piece yields or scores more according to what sits in its neighbouring cells, so each placement is valued by its local relations rather than by the piece alone or by a target arrangement.
Area Control
Players place or move pieces into regions of a map and are rewarded for holding regions, by sole occupation or by having more presence there than any opponent, when control is checked.
Combat Building
During a fight players spend materials gathered in the match to raise walls, floors, ramps and roofs in real time, as cover, height or a blocked route, and opponents can shoot the structures down
Connection Games
Two players alternately place pieces on a shared board and the first to form an unbroken chain of their own pieces linking designated edges or points wins outright, so every placement both extends one path and obstructs the other.
Cover Systems
Positioning a unit behind terrain or an object reduces the chance or amount of damage it takes from attacks along the obscured line, so position becomes a defensive resource.
Grid Movement
Pieces move across a board divided into discrete cells, usually squares or hexagons, spending a movement allowance per cell entered, so distance, adjacency, and terrain are counted rather than measured.
Hitboxes and Hurtboxes
Each attack has an active volume and each target a vulnerable volume, both defined apart from the drawn sprite or model and switched on for specified frames, and an attack connects only when the two overlap.
Hunt Games
Two sides on one board are unequal in number, movement and goal, so that one or a few strong pieces try to capture the others or escape while many weaker pieces, unable to take them, try to hem them in
Lane Pushing
Computer-controlled units spawn on a timer at each base and advance along fixed lanes toward the opposing base, while players fight alongside them to break the towers guarding each lane and to defend their own
Line of Sight
An attack, spell, or observation is permitted only if a straight line can be traced from the acting piece to the target without crossing blocking terrain, so what a unit can affect is decided by geometry.
Network and Route Building
Players place route segments between nodes on a map to build a connected network and score or earn for the connections made, so the value of each placement depends on what it links to and whom it blocks.
Pick-Up and Deliver
Players move a carrier of limited capacity to collect goods or passengers at one location and carry them to another location that pays for them, so earnings depend on the route between source and destination.
Piece Capture
A piece removes an opposing piece from the board by moving onto it, leaping over it, or enclosing it, so a spatial relation between pieces converts directly into permanent material loss.
Platforming
An avatar traverses platforms and hazards by running and jumping under a fixed movement model, so progress depends on the timing and placement of each jump rather than on choosing among options.
Race to the Finish
The winner is the first player to move a piece, or all their pieces, along a track to a goal or off its end, so victory is a matter of relative progress along a course rather than of score, capture, or territory.
Sowing
A player lifts all the counters from one pit and drops them one at a time into successive pits around a circuit, with captures or further moves decided by where the last counter lands and what it finds there.
Supply Lines
A unit is in supply only if a path of permitted length, free of enemy units and their zones of control, can be traced from it to a supply source, and a unit that cannot trace one fights, moves, or survives at a penalty.
Tile Placement
Players add tiles to a growing map or personal grid under adjacency and matching constraints, so that the shape of the play area and its scoring features emerge from where each tile is put.
Tower Defence Pathing
Waves of enemies advance along a path toward a goal the player must protect, and the player places static defences beside or across that path, so the geometry of placement decides how long each enemy is under fire before it arrives.
Zone of Control
Each piece projects a zone into the cells adjacent to it, and an enemy piece entering the zone must stop, pay extra, or accept an attack, so a piece controls more ground than it occupies.