Board Game as a Participatory Design Technique for Urban Spaces: A Ludological Analysis

Background The contemporary city has transformed into an ever-changing and multi-actorial entity, necessitating more transformative and communicative understanding. This has resulted in the development of participatory methods emphasizing collaboration and negotiation among multiple actors over the future of urban spaces. Board games have gained popularity as a participatory technique in this respect, as they allow multiple players to engage, negotiate, and present their perspectives within a structured environment while exploring potentials and alternatives in an emancipating atmosphere enmeshed with the fun experience. Despite the growing literature on the applied examples of participatory board games in architecture and planning, there is a lack of a comprehensive understanding of the elements of board games concerning participatory interactions. In light of this, the study aims to provide a ludological analysis of participatory board games to understand their instrumentalization for engaging practices in architecture and planning. Methods The study applies a ludological analysis to understand the fundamental aspects of a selected sample of ten participatory board games based on their constitutive elements. It evaluates how diverse approaches impact the forms and processes of participation. Results It is seen that most participatory board games utilize abstract board environments for collective materialization through modular pieces and tiles representing buildings in various scales. While there is no dominant approach in determining the rules, spatial placement mechanics are incorporated in most games, followed by economy and discussion-based ones. Unlike modern board games, many analyzed participatory games lack defined scoring and win conditions, leaving the gameplay more vague and open to player alterations, which might hinder practices’ learning and research qualities. Conclusion The study showed that despite the increasing practices in participatory board games, there are still potential areas of knowledge in both spatial studies and modern board game design that can merge and enhance practices toward new paths and forms of participation.