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What is Spoon Theory?

Spoon theory was first described by Christine Miserandino in 2003 as a way to explain the lived experience of managing chronic illness, disability, or neurodivergence.
Imagine you start each day with a limited set of spoons – representing your finite daily energy units. Healthy, neurotypical individuals often wake up with an abundant or seemingly unlimited supply of spoons, while those managing mental or physical differences start with a severely restricted number.
Every single activity, from taking a shower to answering an email, costs one or more spoons. When the spoons run out, your day is effectively over – you cannot simply push through without borrowing spoons from tomorrow’s reserve, causing a compounding exhaustion or “crash”.

“The difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn’t have to.” – Christine Miserandino, The Spoon Theory

How is it relevant to board games?

We decided to bring the Spoon Theory into board games because they are highly interactive, multi-system puzzles. For many, they are a source of great joy, but they also demand varying levels of cognitive energy. Choosing the wrong game when you are running low on spoons can turn a fun evening into an overwhelming, stressful chore. Whilst BoardGameGeek is a decent way of determining complexity, it doesn’t go into details such as; rulebook clarity, setup fatigue, requiring memory etc.

Here is how we calculate the Spoon Rating for each review:

📖 Rulebook Complexity

The sheer volume of rules, exceptions, and conditions
you must understand and retain before starting.

🤔 Fiddliness & Setup

Energy spent sorting cards, building modular boards, and shuffling counters before you’ve even taken turn one.

🧠 Memory & Tracking Load

Having to track hidden cards, opponent tableaus, active player triggers, and cascading combos.

👥 Player Aids & Icons

Excellent icons and reference cards reduce memory load, letting you rest your mind instead of memorizing rule details.