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Why we still love board games

timharford.com

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Re: Why we still love board games

#31

Post by ygra »

Something I found quite nice was a web series by Wil Wheaton: TableTop (http://tabletop.geekandsundry.com/) which basically consists of a round of people playing a board game, explaining the rules and generally having fun doing so. The nice part is that you can experience how the game is played and whether you might like it or not – much better than just with a verbal description or review on Amazon.

Of course, for cities that have such a thing, a dedicated board game shop where you can try out games is even better, but those seem to be rare, even in Germany.

Re: Why we still love board games

#32

Post by kriro »

I've always had this hypothesis that if a country has a strong cultural background in games people tend to have good critical thinking skills c.p. The case study for this would be Germany.

Either way I'm pretty convinced playing board games with children is an excellent thing to do to foster their development (sadly in this day and age it almost seems spending any time with your kids puts you way ahead of the curve already as far as parenting goes). It's fun, too.

Crowdfunding seems to work pretty well for board games btw. And I wouldn't be shocked to hear that passionate board gamers make good startup guys (poker players seemingly do)

Re: Why we still love board games

#33

Post by kriro »

luu wrote: post #3

What's interesting to me is new board games aren't just variants on existing games; there's noticable innovation in board game "technology". If you ever play board games from the 80s and 90s, they often feel dated and clunky, even more so than video games from the same era. I recently went back and played some classic Avalon Hill games that were popular when I was a kid. I can't believe me and my friends spent so muc…

Oftentimes old stuff is digged up and reimagined and fitted into new games, too.

A great example of this would be the fairly recent game Trajan which uses a Mancala board as a core piece of the game mechanics.

Re: Why we still love board games

#35

Post by kriro »

michaelochurch wrote: post #25

Board games are discrete and closed, often in a well-thought-out and beautiful way. It's generally intended as a social experience, but the discrete world makes the game possible to take apart and analyze, so that if you want to dive deep into the game, you can. It's up to you what kind of experience you want to have. If you want to play today and forget who won tomorrow, that's fine. On the other hand, if you want t…

I love to analyze games and as a programmer there's quite a bit of neat stuff you can do due to the discreteness. Build DSLs for the game logic or strategy, the whole field of AI, modelling of games as FSM, Petri Nets whatever seems interesting.

There are quite a few of these cafes. They have game collections and you can rent a table+game and pay for the drinks. You can also bring you own etc. the atmosphere is usually pretty nice/relaxed.

Re: Why we still love board games

#36

Post by throwaway1979 »

mikeknoop wrote: post #26

Haven't seen these mentioned yet, and I recommend both: Powergrid: Unique because there are no dice involved; a game of economics Steam: Unique because there is a bank (partly tied to your score) that you can borrow against to build pieces faster

I love powergrid! I recall the last two turns require a lot of calculations. When I played with non-mathematically oriented people (most people in my life), they got frustrated.

Re: Why we still love board games

#37

Post by kriro »

PussyRiot wrote: post #34

My main problem with board games is that they're too expensive sometimes.

If I'd do a ROI analysis on all my board games most of them beat out lots of other social activities.

If an average game lasts maybe an hour and you play it with an average of 3 players that's 3h of entertainment per play. 10-15 Euros per hour of entertainment seems very reasonable so most games actually tend to pay for themselves after just one play if oyu look at it that way.

Re: Why we still love board games

#38

Post by kriro »

phatbyte wrote: post #4

Lately I've been buying some of my child board games like Monopoly, Cluedo, Hotel and such... I noticed that people are going back at this type of games, and I can see it why. It's an awesome excuse to invite some friends to your house, setup a game, get a few drinks and just play, talk and have some fun. You can't do this with videogames. Also, you'de be amazed at how much a good strategy boarding game can reveal of…

I've got to +1 the "try some other games and be amazed". I'd recommend some cooperative games for family entertainment.

Pandemic is excellent (Forbidden Island is more light if your kids are younger), Ghost Stories and Arkham Horror for the more mature crowd.

7 Wonders and Stone Age are also fantastic "gateway games".

Re: Why we still love board games

#39

Post by jere »

lmm wrote: post #10
luu wrote: post #3

What's interesting to me is new board games aren't just variants on existing games; there's noticable innovation in board game "technology". If you ever play board games from the 80s and 90s, they often feel dated and clunky, even more so than video games from the same era. I recently went back and played some classic Avalon Hill games that were popular when I was a kid. I can't believe me and my friends spent so muc…

Dominion lets you spend all the time making decisions rather than waiting for other people by having hardly any interaction between players; at times it can feel like a time trial race. I tend to prefer Tanto Cuore; while it's largely a direct rip-off (and the art puts some people off) it gives you more attack options, and the balance shifts to allow a wider variety of strategies (Dominion I find duchies are almost e…

Maybe check out Puzzle Strike? David Sirlin claims to have sidestepped several of the problems Dominion has (slightly nsfw pic at beginning):

http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2010/11/28/puzzle-strike-and-domi...

Re: Why we still love board games

#40

Post by michaelochurch »

kriro wrote: post #35
michaelochurch wrote: post #25

Board games are discrete and closed, often in a well-thought-out and beautiful way. It's generally intended as a social experience, but the discrete world makes the game possible to take apart and analyze, so that if you want to dive deep into the game, you can. It's up to you what kind of experience you want to have. If you want to play today and forget who won tomorrow, that's fine. On the other hand, if you want t…

I love to analyze games and as a programmer there's quite a bit of neat stuff you can do due to the discreteness. Build DSLs for the game logic or strategy, the whole field of AI, modelling of games as FSM, Petri Nets whatever seems interesting. There are quite a few of these cafes. They have game collections and you can rent a table+game and pay for the drinks. You can also bring you own etc. the atmosphere is usual…

Are you taking this Coursera course, in April?

https://www.coursera.org/course/ggp

It looks really interesting.

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