Game pieces are physical representations of the game mechanics and dynamics that exist in a game. In board games, these are the physical pieces that players interact with throughout the game. They often have a variety of purposes, including: representing information; positions; and relationships in the game. It includes primary components, common components, identification components, randomization components, and measurement components. This article will focus on Measurement Board Game Pieces in board games.

What is Measurement Board Game Pieces?

Measurement Components often used to measure or judge the relationship between different states occurring in the game. These can be progress on a track; the scores of other players going up or down; or the time remaining in a real-time game. These measurement components can take many different shapes and applications, depending on their purpose in the game.
Sliders/Dials, Counters, Times are all Measurement Board Game Pieces.

Sliders: One of Measurement Board Game Pieces

Sliders and dials used to measure the relationship or state of a given object or resource state. Some games choose to use cubes, chits, or other objects (i.e. money) to represent the quantity of a given resource in the game. If these quantities change frequently, then sliders are often a better choice to represent this. Sorcerer’s City is a game that uses these sliders to track four different resources for the player during the game. Dials can also used to select a certain amount of information on the scale. Dice can used for this, up to certain values. However, if the player needs to select information to hide, the dial is a better choice. An example of this is in Scythe, where the amount of force used in a military operation needs to kept secret until it revealed to the opponent.

Counters: One of Measurement Board Game Pieces

Counters are another form of measurement game component. Game Counters are usually chits or cubes or meeples that can used for this specific purpose. Typically, one of the most common forms of counters in games is money, currency, or something more goal-oriented like victory points. Counters can also used to track different states of different components, like cards in Magic the Gathering. As such, they can used for many different purposes, like multi-purpose components.

Timers: One of Measurement Board Game Pieces

Timers are often a misunderstood component in board games. Many players may recognize sand timers from games like Codenames, but they often forget about other components that are both timers and tracks. Star Wars: Rebellion uses track as a timer to predict when the final action of the game will occur. Timers can also be considered for when a game resource runs out or a deck of cards runs out. Most designers and players often attribute timers to actual sand timer components in the game, though. They are best used when a certain amount of actual time needs to be measured.