Couldn't we argue that about all games? Particularly no or low randomness games (such as sudoku, or euro board games, respectively). But even games with randomness might be winnable by following an algorithm. The trance of executing those "algorithms" (playing, basically) is also part of the fun. Solitaire card games, for example. The gambling part of playing the odds against randomness is just one diension of fun!
I guess that depends on what "trivial" means. Given that it is np-complete any true solver needs to be able to go into exponential time (assuming p != np) which I wouldn't generally consider to be "trivial" unless its a brute force solver.
And using trivial deductions (based on the numbers in the column, row, and square there is only one possibility) is not sufficient to be better than me (and I don't consider myself to be good).
The "classic" boards (9 by 9) are all easily solved by straightforward methods. Maybe "trivial" is a step too for for the 'eliminate' and 'search' functions here, but they aren't a lot of code either:
The term relates to a specific style of rule design.
They are usually sitting right in the middle between entirely abstract games like backgammon and "simulation" games like Risk or Monopoly. There is usually some theme, but gameplay considerations (mostly revolving around keeping the game interesting for those not on an obvious path to victory and balancing luck vs skill, hence the mention in this thread) are far more important in the design than adhering to that theme. Sometimes it even seems as if the theme was not serving as inspiration for the rules but it's only a skin pasted over the bare rules after the gameplay had been tweaked to perfection.
Broadly, they have indirect player interaction and abstract physical components (eg Ticket to Ride), but more importantly in this context, they are board games that often do not use dice or a spinner to introduce randomness. Strategy then becomes a "boring" matter of executing an algorithm.
(There are many exceptions that do use die/dice, but for those that have not played board games invented after Monopoly, the idea of a board game that does not have die-introduced randomness may be quite foreign.)
Some of them have larger amounts of player interaction, at which point the game becomes "modify your strategy on the fly to deal with an ever changing situation".
Ticket to Ride has randomness in the train card deck. You can effectively gamble by drawing off the deck rather than choosing one of the face up cards.
There's at least the metagame of discovering the algorithm. Also, the Simon Tatham Minesweeper is only mechanistic up to the last ten mines. After that, it can require (by design) reasoning across all remaining mines and spaces.
My favorite examples of this are Picross (aka nonograms, https://www.puzzle-nonograms.com/) and Slither Link (https://www.puzzle-loop.com/). Both can be made difficult enough to require advanced planning ahead and some trial-and-error, but the simpler ones are nice to zone out to.
Whereas otherwise, it's "execute as fast as possible, to try your luck as often as possible within a given timeframe". Almost the same, but I fully agree, one is just a task, whereas the other is still a game. Kind of like a form of gambling, where the stake is the work put into executing the algorithm and the pot is a solved board with a fast time.
Many years ago I used to be quite addicted. The unconscious pattern matching went far enough to detect unknowable situations and do even the switch back and forth between guessing and solving without spending a conscious thought. The goal was not to solve as many boards as possible with a timeframe, but to get the best time so there was a kind of triage going on between trying to solve possible solvable large scale situations and failing fast. The strategic level was finding the right cutoff.
Many games (by common definition) are strictly execution based. For example, most rhythm games (e.g. Osu!, Beatmania, DDR, Guitar Hero, etc) do not have any element of randomness or strategic requirements, yet some people find them very fun.
