In my experience, board game experiences have always felt somehow better than video game experiences: they are more memorable, engaging, richer… I remember fondly the many nights I spent around tables in dark rooms, filled with dice, beers, and snacks, in the worlds of D&D, Cyberpunk, or Mausritter. I long for board game night, gathering around a game of Catan, tricking friends in Saboteur, or simply pulling a Joker in a game of Rummy.
I had my fair share of online game nights as well! But these somehow felt incomplete, less memorable, less sacred. Board games have these inherent qualities that make playing them with others superior. How is it possible, though, when video games can create incredible cinematics, gigantic and detailed worlds, make you wield a sword, drive a supercar, or tell you these incredibly immersive stories? After all, board games only have pieces of cardboard and a few tokens to do so.
I’m sure you already think of many possible answers: “The stories you create together with friends are more powerful than the ones being told to you by a piece of software”. True. “It’s about spending time together: game night beats sitting alone behind a computer”. Agree, I still miss the LANs of the old days. “The physicality of a board game makes the experience more real: it makes you more connected to the moment”. Ah! this one is interesting: physicality has great qualities (oh the smell of a new rulebook’s ink…) but also many shortcomings: setting up a board is a chore, distributing pieces in a game of Mahjong is tedious, someone needs to be the Bank in Monopoly and actually do the math and count bills, dice can roll under the couch, tokens will be lost, cards bent… All of these issues have been solved, and improved on, by video games: setting the playfield is instant, the game will distribute cards, shuffle decks, and count points for you, it will automate every repetitive, boring action… Video games have this superb ability to take care of all the friction and leave players with only the fun part of games!
Or so we thought.
I am convinced that this simplification process, streamlining games, letting players play together from all over the world from the convenience of their own couch, and making playing as convenient as possible, is what killed part of the soul of what makes these moments so special. If we want to create deeply engaging digital experiences, we will need to bring back friction, chaos, and appropriation to the video game space. Why? Because it is through them that Rituals emerge.
The Key Role of Rituals
Rituals have always played a critical role in human societies. They shape human experiences, develop social structures, and create meaning. They help us navigate uncertainty, reinforce social bonds, and provide a sense of continuity across generations. Anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists have studied rituals extensively over centuries, showing that they serve both practical and symbolic purposes. Some of these rituals are based on habits (your morning coffee, or make-up routine, or how each object you carry has its own pocket, etc.), some are spiritual or superstitious (putting your lucky shirt, knocking on wood, repeating mantras…), while others serve social purposes (weddings and funerals, greetings, inaugurations…).
Whatever shape they take, these rituals have been found to affect the human experience profoundly:
- Rituals reduce anxiety and increase confidence – Alison L. Brooks et al. (2016)
- They provide a sense of control, especially in uncertain or traumatic situations – Mauricio Delgado and Andrew Wagner (2017)
- They reinforce collective identity and create a sense of belonging – Émile Durkheim (1912)
- Shared rituals increase cooperation and trust, even among strangers – Daniel Fessler (2014)
- Repetitive ritual actions create strong neural associations, making experiences more memorable – Pascal Boyer and Pierre Liénard (2006)
- Anthropologists even suggest that rituals evolved as cultural mechanisms to ensure cooperation and group survival – Roy Rappaport (1999)
Johan Huizinga, in Homo Ludens, famously drew strong parallels between Rituals and Games: both share a “Magic Circle”, a sacred space where different rules apply, and both are rule-based and very codified. Huizinga further claims that Rituals have evolved from their Play form and that early rituals were essentially games: “Ritual grew out of play. It was sanctified play.” Many games today (board games or sports) are direct descendants of old rites!
Video games, unfortunately, have often lost this connection to the sacred on the altar of convenience and entertainment and, by doing this, removed an essential part of what makes games social, fundamentally human experiences. It is my deep belief that video games must reconnect with the ritualistic essence of play. But to even attempt to do this, we first need a structure.
Rituals: a Taxonomy
Ronald L. Grimes, a scholar in ritual studies, spent most of his life studying rites. As part of his impressive work, he developed a taxonomy of rituals that categorizes them based on their function and form. This categorization is structured around 6 groups:
| Ritualization | Repetitive behaviors that become significant over time, often without explicit meaning at first. |
| Decorum | Structured behavior that maintains social order, often emphasizing politeness and etiquette. |
| Ceremony | Highly formalized, structured, and often symbolic actions marking transitions or important moments. |
| Magic | Actions believed to have supernatural or cause-effect influence, even if purely symbolic. |
| Liturgy | A repeated, almost sacred script or structure followed within a specific context. |
| Celebration | Joyous communal rituals that reinforce social bonds. |
These categories may seem obscure at first read, and difficult to apply to our topic, but if we start studying them through the lens of board games we can connect many important parts of the game experience to each of them. Let’s take some examples:
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Ritualization |
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| Decorum |
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| Ceremony |
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| Magic |
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| Liturgy |
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| Celebration |
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We could list many more examples, but those already let us draw an important conclusion: almost none of these examples can be found in, or apply to video games. Looking at video game adaptations of board games (the easiest comparison) we notice that video games usually try to improve on the limitations of the physical product: animating actions, creating 3D renditions of cards and boards, bringing juicy cinematics to key moments of the game, adding SFX and VFX to every single interaction to create a highly playful, juicy, and immersive experience. And these are GREAT!
But video game designers have another tendency: they tend to view friction as a negative thing: why ask players to move their tokens or roll their dice when we can do it for them? Why ask them to calculate points by hand when a simple calculation can automatically display the final result? Why would anyone want to set up a game board when we can instantly instantiate it? Well, because these moments, with all their friction, are the fertile ground for rituals to emerge. And with rituals come meaning.
We could then argue that by stripping away friction in video games for the sake of convenience and streamlined experiences, we have removed a fundamental, sacred component of what makes games so meaningful and important. Rituals go beyond the game itself: they ground us in our humanity, forging connections with others through shared actions and meaning.
Replicating Physicality
Mimicking these complexities and moments of friction in a video game is a complicated task: asking players to set up an entire board by hand before each game will most likely lead to frustration and players dropping from the game entirely. Requiring players to count points by hand opens the field for cheating, and miscalculations, but also dead time. Allowing players to organize their board as they want in a card game will most likely lead to confusing tables and abuses, and letting players flip the game “table” is simply not acceptable.
Another issue is that many of these moments are directly linked to the physicality of board games, something naturally difficult to mimic in, well… a digital medium. But this doesn’t mean that there aren’t opportunities to take!
Take rolling dice for example. Many games reproduce this moment in various formats but often lose its physicality in favor of its pure functional purpose. Baldur’s Gate 3 introduced a beautiful UI for rolling dice which is not only extremely functional but also captures very well the excitement of seeing a die roll and waiting for its result. It’s juicy and efficient, and somehow replicates the physical aspect of dice (the rolling animation in the window) but, to me, it still feels artificial: it is the game that is rolling the die, not me, and as a result, I feel less connected to the moment, less in control.
Now let’s take the latest installment of Monopoly by Ubisoft: players can aim dice, and shake them. This may feel minor, but this feature truly connects players to their throw, it puts them in control. The fact that dice roll on the board, are affected by physics and collisions, and can knock pieces down is another excellent addition, opening possibilities for rituals to emerge (magic – knocking pieces down is bad luck and dice bouncing on board elements affects the result negatively, decorum – knocking down another player is rude and bad form, etc.)
Mimicking the potential of physical elements is often underused and could lead to more engaging, immersive experience. Take cards for example (MtG, Hearthstone, etc.). What if players had the choice of how they wanted to put their cards down: tap for a normal lay, double tap to flick the card on the board, hold to slam the card… Allowing players to convey emotion and intent in these moments could really elevate a game! Putting a card down, as insignificant of an action, is actually filled with intent and depth.
But only trying to replicate board games would be short-sighted: video games are their own unique medium, and many games already opened the way for ritualistic play in new, innovative ways.
Video Game Digital Rituals
If we look at the history of video games, we can actually find quite a few examples of unique, medium-centric rituals:
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Ritualization |
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| Decorum |
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| Ceremony |
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| Magic |
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| Liturgy |
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| Celebration |
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At this point, you may think that this feels random, with many of these examples just lucky occurrences born from big communities or dedicated players, and very difficult to design consciously. There is some truth in this, but this would be missing the point: your role as a designer is to create the ground, the fertile soil, for these rituals to emerge. Ritualization will arise naturally from player behavior, community habits, and repeated engagement. But for this to happen, we need the right environment, and it is your responsibility to create the conditions for them to flourish.
And designing this favorable environment will revolve around carefully balancing 2 key elements…
Freedom and Constraints
The first important step is to give your players freedom and space to express themselves. Seems straightforward enough, but these are often the first cut features in development, and for a very good reason: this freedom often occurs in non-key-gameplay moments. Think pre-match warm-up, victory showcases, hubs, secondary communication features… The games would often function just as well without these but, as we discussed, only considering the pure functionalism of games is often removing part of its soul.
Take Deep Rock Galactic for example: my memories of my time in DRG are as much about its hectic gameplay as it is about everything else around it: the mandatory beer before deploying, the victory dance after it, the flare spamming, “Rock and Stone!”, etc. All these moments could have been removed from the game to save time and money: a 3D hub is very costly compared to a UI matchmaking interface, a beer-drinking feature as well… And yet, I am deeply convinced that these seemingly minor features are what created a deep player engagement and made this game so successful: it built lore, made belonging and community emerge, and pretty much ritualized the game experience.
But, interestingly enough, Freedom isn’t enough: when everything is possible, nothing happens. Possibilities are infinite, and chaos isn’t favorable for rituals to emerge. We need to frame this freedom, to contain it enough in scope and moments.
We already took many examples of specific moments (pre-match, post-match, starting of a duel, specific game phase…), but the scope of each feature is just as important. Take communication for example: when limiting the words, and combinations of words players can use, they are forced to project meaning into it, to be creative about their usage.
Elden Ring is a beautiful example of a communication system done right.
- Limited vocabulary created jokes that evolved into community-driven traditions (much like an inside joke in a TTRPG). Ex: “Behold, dog!” used to describe anything, from turtles to dragons.
- 3D placement of said message, becoming part of the ritual and creating extra meaning to these messages.
- Finally, an upvote system reinforces the meaningful messages and pushes them to more players in priority, cementing their legitimacy and spreading their reach.
The key here is to limit expression just enough to guide player-made traditions while still allowing personalization and unicity.
Take Away
I am convinced (and hopefully now, you are too!) that the ritualization of the player experience is one of the keys to powerful, long-lasting player engagement and meaningful, fundamentally human experiences. Video games, historically, tended to destroy the elements creating this fertile ground, but we start to see more and more games introducing features that directly feed this deep connection to the experience.
Should you want to work on this aspect for your games, remember these points:
- Emergent, not developer-created: you can’t force rituals, you can only create the conditions for them to form. Rituals arise when players find meaning in repeated actions.
- Shared meaning through repetition: a ritual ground itself, and become powerful, when repeated and recognized by a group. Habits become rituals, and rituals become shared traditions.
- Stronger through time & participation: support long-term engagement and features allowing rituals to spread organically.
- Foster Freedom: give players the space to create their own rituals. Allow them to physically interact with the game world and their peers. Let them own their experience.
- Engineer Constraints: provide just enough structure to frame the possibilities. Constraints lead to shared meaning and expression.
Great game experiences linger not only in their mechanics, but in the rituals they inspire — those unspoken traditions that turn play into something personal, communal, and timeless, and invite players to be part of something greater than the game itself.
Praise the Sun!
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