Engine building is a mechanism where players construct a system of interconnected components (cards, abilities, resources) that generate increasingly powerful effects over time. Early turns focus on building the engine; later turns produce large returns. The satisfaction of watching your engine accelerate is a major draw.

Tableau building focuses on placing cards in front of you to create a display. Engine building is specifically about creating combos and chains that produce compounding benefits. Most engine builders use a tableau, but not all tableau games have engine-building aspects. Wingspan is both; Ticket to Ride has a tableau but no engine.

Great engine building games include Terraforming Mars (building a production engine on Mars), Wingspan (bird-themed card engine), Gaia Project (space civilization engine), Splendor (gem-trading engine for purchasing power), and Race for the Galaxy (card-driven space empire engine).