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Why we still love board games

timharford.com

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Re: Why we still love board games

#111

Post by b0rsuk »

endersshadow wrote: post #80
JimWestergren wrote: post #49

I absolutely love board games and card games. And I love to think about game mechanics. If I would not be a web developer I would love to work with this kind of game development. I have developed a version of Magic the Gathering which is played with a normal 52 card deck (one deck per person) with much more simple rules and good strategy (better?) and less luck. I have played it around 100 times and the rules are fin…

I'm very curious--is there a way for me to play this game? I'd love to get the rules from you and try it out. I loved the mechanics in Magic when I was younger, and I'd love to not have to buy all the cards and worry about building a deck, and just be able to play the game with my fiance without telling her it's Magic.

http://code.google.com/p/magarena/

Magarena is a GPLed program to play almost Magic: the Gathering. There is only a small rule modification to simplify AI calculations: the defender chooses how combat damage is distributed, not the attacker.

Magarena doesn't have ALL the cards - only close to 3000 - but it has disturbingly good AI. Several AI algorithms to choose from, in fact. It plays like a bastard, and despite having a few flaws (sometimes it performs suicide attacks, it doesn't save cards for later, is bad with activated abilities and doesn't guess what card you might have in hand) you will dearly regret underestimating it.

More cards are coming, but each new mechanic needs to be coded separately.

Re: Why we still love board games

#112

Post by cpeterso »

The Ludemetic Game Generator [1] is an amusing, and often inspiring, fictional game generator. It randomly combines BoardGameGeek.com's game category and mechanics keywords to create a new game. Some random examples:

* Web Tycoon in Space: Categories: Expansion for Base-game, American Indian Wars, Mythology. Mechanics: Commodity Speculation, Hand Management.

* Popbid: Categories: Music, Territory Building. Mechanics: Auction/Bidding, Modular Board.

[1] http://kevan.org/ludeme

Re: Why we still love board games

#113

Post by b0rsuk »

PussyRiot wrote: post #34

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

1. You can play at fantasy/SF club. You will only pay a monthly fee, if any.

2. On http://boardgamearena.com , you can play several dozen board games for free. No flash, it uses HTML5 magic.

Re: Why we still love board games

#114

Post by javanix »

Also enjoyable is building and designing a board game from the ground up.

Similar to software development in that you need constant iteration, much different in that it takes forever to implement and test those iterations.

Re: Why we still love board games

#115

Post by gliese1337 »

dminor wrote: post #107
bunderbunder wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate playing a game where I feel like I could lose by pure chance no matter what my level of skill is. I've discovered this is a crucial element in social games. Because the implication is that someone could also win by pure chance no matter what their skill level is. That makes the game a lot more approachable for people of all skill levels, and makes it easier for a room full of people to have fun together. Com…

Exactly - it's like the difference between chess and poker. Both are popular but poker is more widely played because differences in skill are less apparent (especially to an unskilled player) People who don't like randomness mixed with skill just need to stop measuring themselves by the outcome of a single game.

> People who don't like randomness mixed with skill just need to stop measuring themselves by the outcome of a single game.

It's not measuring yourself, it's the emotional experience of playing that one game. If you can play the same game a bunch of times, such that the randomness gets smoothed out, that experience is different from the experience of just playing one game. There is thus something to be said, I think, for games that are explicitly designed to be played in a tournament style. For example, Mexican Train Dominoes- you're supposed to play it in 13 rounds, so even though you may get completely screwed over by bad draws on any one round, it's highly likely that everyone ends up on even footing overall (except for that one time I got a double 6 five rounds in a row...). Or Hnefatafl- it's empirically unbalanced, so standard practice is that you always play two games switching sides.

Hnefatafl has another interesting option for redressing unbalanced skill levels, though; each player can simply bet at the beginning on how many moves they think it will take them to win. If you play beyond the lowest number of moves wagered, that player loses. It's a similar idea to handicapping in Go, but extremely simple and requiring no negotiation such as would seem condescending. Unless, of course, you want to be a jerk about it and just always overestimate your move count on purpose.

Re: Why we still love board games

#116

Post by alphaBetaGamma »

RTigger wrote: post #57

Love this article. I think the end captures it perfectly - there's really nothing else that gets the same social interaction as board games. At work we use board games on a daily basis for team building, usually play a 1-hour-or-less game over every lunch. It's amazing how quickly you get to know someone and how those relationships build and blend into your work as well. You can see how someone teaches a new person h…

Could you suggest a good board game that is playable turn by turn? We are a group of friends in very different time zone, and playing a turn based game, about one turn a day works nicely.

We have played Tigris & Euphrates, and it works great, but would be looking for something different.

Thanks.

Re: Why we still love board games

#117

Post by danielweber »

hendrik-xdest wrote: post #21
yycom wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for telling us about your favorite hobby, how many you have played, where it fits in your personal spectrum, that it has been around for many years, and giving us some titles! But, what is a German-style board game?

German-style board game is a term that refers to specific game mechanics. The reference to Germany stems from the success of the "The Settlers" board game. In contrast to well known American games, like Risk or Monopoly, the game ends with all players still in the game and it introduces mechanics where players have to interact (trade) with each other to advance. The Settlers obviously isn't the first game with those…

> Monopoly, the game ends with all players still in the game and it introduces mechanics where players have to interact (trade) with each other to advance

This is needed in Monopoly, too. Unfortunately the meta-game is such that most people play the game the way they played when they were 9, and can't handle things like declining to purchase something in order to start a bidding war for a property two other players want. If Monopoly were freshly introduced, clever strategies of what to trade would develop. (I recently won a game with no color monopolies, just the railroads.)

I understand the ire some game fanatics feel at Monopoly, and some of it is deserved. It is using "technology" almost a century old and should do more to accelerate the end of game. But a lot of the problems with Monopoly are because people don't play by the rules, or they expect the game to suck and so it sucks.

Re: Why we still love board games

#118

Post by danielweber »

simonw wrote: post #9
lmm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, try some modern, German-style boardgames like those described in the article - settlers if you play with people who pay attention, something slightly less interaction-heavy (san juan?) if you don't. You'll be amazed how far game design has progressed since the ones you remember from childhood.

Couldn't agree more. German-style games make Monopoly etc look positively archaic. Two great starter games are Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne. I'm a big fan of Ticket to Ride as well. There are a couple of things that make these games so good. Firstly, they're extremely well balanced - unlike Monopoly, it's rare for one player to pull ahead to the point that it's impossible for anyone else to catch up with them. S…

Monopoly, it's rare for one player to pull ahead to the point that it's impossible for anyone else to catch up with them.

In playing with 3 or more people, the way to deal with a front-runner is for other players to deal their way into also competing.

I had super-long games of Monopoly as a kid lasting multiple nights, but it was because we were doing stupid house rules, like rewarding people for landing on Free Parking, keeping the money supply way too high.

I'm not holding up Monopoly as the greatest game ever; "technology" has improved and board games should as well. (Here's one rule change to speed up end-game: after all properties are bought, cut the $200 salary to $100.) But a lot of the abuse it gets is undeserved, so I feel compelled to defend it.

Re: Why we still love board games

#119

Post by rpfennig »

michaelochurch wrote: post #78
marekmroz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you should mention the board game cafe concept. In Toronto we have Snakes and Lattes, it's very popular and constantly expanding into adjacent buildings/floors. Fun place to go and hang out, have a beer play with friends. I think that somehow in last several years board games begun to be perceived not as a nerdy thing to do but something cool. I have seen people go on dates to SnL.

This is a great idea. Adults tend to become socially retarded once Work gets in and asserts total dominance over peoples' lives, and board games are a great way to build a context that's independent of (a) people trying to hit on each other, which becomes pointless once you're married, and (b) people trying to assess each others' professional status and "network". One of the things that I see in board games is their…

That's interesting, I'm using games at Work to help build up networks because it's something that draws in people from different departments (developers, product managers, customer support) and makes it easier for people to approach each other outside of the lunch hour games.

Re: Why we still love board games

#120

Post by peapicker »

jbellis wrote: post #88
RTigger wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been wanting to try Core Worlds, and I haven't heard of the other two - I'll have to check them out!

I found Core Worlds to be a disappointment. By the time you can start to build up some interesting combos in your deck, the game is over. Fairly slow-moving, too.

When you are just learning the game, and if you are prone to Analysis Paralysis, it can be slower. We can play a full 10 rounds with the Galactic Orders Expansion (which adds more paths to win and other variety) in 70 minutes with 3 players. (and in fact, just did over lunch today!) Also, the more you play, the better you get at making good combos. Once everyone is up to speed, if the scores aren't at least in the 30s and 40s (base game) you haven't figured out how to combo well.
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