Throneless Games

The Throneless Games is a project containing 4 board games.

These games all have the same core mechanic (the “Throneless Mechanic”): you simultaneously vote every turn, and either your vote is registered OR you swap places with someone.

I invented this mechanic to see if I could create board games that are very active: you’re always doing something and actually physically moving. A secondary objective was to make it possible to play the games without a table or chairs, such as when having to wait in some impractical space.

All of this yielded the first entry more than a year ago: Kingseat.

I wasn’t satisfied with this, however. Yes, it looked great, but the game itself didn’t really click or reach any of the objectives I set out. (The old version is still on my portfolio to keep an accurate timeline of projects and improvement. The actual game is now very different—and much better—than what it was originally.)

That’s why I came back a year later—after making 25+ more games and having coded much better systems on my website. I developed this “Throneless Mechanic” into 4 completely different directions and decided to organize them into one neat project: the Throneless Games.

What’s special?

It’s the first time I planned to return to a game later and significantly improve it. Since then, I’ve done it with more older games of mine, because it has proven a great idea to iterate on these older ideas. Though this creates the trap of never creating new work—only endlessly revising—so I limit myself to a handful of “updates” per year.

Besides that, the entire core idea of the game is simply something I’ve never seen before.

The name “Throneless” was chosen because in these games …

• You have no fixed position: you swap places a lot
• The first 2 games can be played while standing up (or with minimal table space)
• The person sitting on the “throne” each round is important. (Some games are won by ending on the throne. Others are won by getting the most votes.)
• The medieval theme about kings and princes, of course

Especially the first two elements made it a challenge to find simple and satisfying rules. They had to really lean into the idea of “swapping places”, without making players tired from too much physical activity ;)