Description
A game with three or more players in which players are not assigned to static teams and which ends with only one loser.
Discussion
Games with one loser flip the script by incentivizing players not to perform better than everyone else, but better than at least one other person. Like the old saw about not needing to outrun a ravenous bear, these games emphasize impeding other players more than advancing yourself. Old Maid is a well-known classic card with this structure. Alcatraz: The Scapegoat is a modern game in which all players, but one, escape prison. Alcatraz can end with all players losing, if they fail to break out of prison in time, which makes it a bit of a hybrid with a cooperative game. Stacking games often feature a single-loser structure, because many of them end when a player knocks over the shared structure. Jenga and Rhino Hero are examples of this dynamic, though Rhino Hero does offer some rules for determining who the winner is among the surviving players. In practice though, groups often ignore this final scoring or even scoring of any kind.
Single-loser structures are not very common in modern games, perhaps because they encourage sharply confrontational “take-that” play in which players can directly impede or harm one another. These structures can also be susceptible to a bash-the-loser pattern, in which the player who falls behind becomes the most attractive target to all other players and has no chance to recover their position. This structure represents an innovation horizon for designers to explore.
Sample Games
Alcatraz: The Scapegoat (Cywicki, Cywicki, and Hanusz, 2011) Aye, Dark Overlord (Bonifacio, Crosa, Enrico, Ferlito, and Uren, 2005) Cockroach Poker (Zeimet, 2004) Jenga (Scott, 1983) Pairs (Ernest, Glumpler, and Peterson, 2014) Rhino Hero (Frisco and Strumph, 2011)
描述
有三个或更多玩家、玩家未被分配到固定团队且最终只有一名失败者的游戏（Single-Loser Games）。
讨论
有一名输家的游戏翻转了剧本，激励玩家不需要表现得比其他人都好，只要比至少另一个人好就行。就像关于不需要跑过贪婪的熊的老谚语一样，这些游戏更强调阻碍其他玩家而不是推进自己。《抽鬼牌》（Old Maid）是这种结构的著名经典纸牌游戏。《Alcatraz: The Scapegoat》是一款现代游戏，除一人外所有玩家都逃离监狱。《Alcatraz》可能会以所有玩家都输而告终，如果他们未能及时越狱，这使得它有点像合作游戏的混合体。堆叠游戏通常具有单输家结构，因为其中许多游戏在玩家推倒共享结构时结束。《叠叠乐》（Jenga）和《Rhino Hero》就是这种动态的例子，尽管《Rhino Hero》确实提供了一些规则来确定幸存玩家中的赢家是谁。实际上，小组经常忽略这最后的计分甚至任何形式的计分。
单输家结构在现代游戏中不是很常见，也许是因为这就鼓励了尖锐对抗的“针对”玩法，玩家可以直接阻碍或伤害彼此。这些结构也容易受到痛打输家模式的影响，在这种模式下，落后的玩家成为所有其他玩家最有吸引力的目标，并且没有机会恢复他们的位置。这种结构代表了设计师探索的创新视野。
游戏范例
Alcatraz: The Scapegoat (Cywicki, Cywicki, and Hanusz, 2011) - 《Alcatraz: The Scapegoat》 Aye, Dark Overlord (Bonifacio, Crosa, Enrico, Ferlito, and Uren, 2005) - 《Aye, Dark Overlord》 Cockroach Poker (Zeimet, 2004) - 《德国蟑螂》 Jenga (Scott, 1983) - 《叠叠乐》 Pairs (Ernest, Glumpler, and Peterson, 2014) - 《Pairs》 Rhino Hero (Frisco and Strumph, 2011) - 《犀牛英雄/Rhino Hero》