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Why we still love board games

timharford.com

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Re: Why we still love board games

#121

Post by rpfennig »

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…

Similar situation where I work with a similar list of games but also including Carcassonne, Carcassonne Discovery, Kingdom Builder, Small World, Last Night on Earth (seasonally) and futile attempts to finish Robo Rally in under an hour.

Amusingly enough also in a Vancouver-ish software development office (Richmond area).

Re: Why we still love board games

#122

Post by Tipzntrix »

PuercoPop wrote: post #46
jere wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Well not having played dominion I can only vouch for Sirlin's Puzzle Strike. Another plus it is very easy to play. My girlfriend gave it to me as a present and my little brothers learned to play just after watching us play a couple of times. Plus the mechanics are solid, they keep the game from having a clear winner and then just having to wait for it (I'm watching you, Monopoly). They updated the rules recently with…

I am personally a fan of another of his games not mentioned here, Yomi. It definitely puts focus in a 1-on-1, competitive aspect where you're not playing time trial and every action you make involves picking the counter to the action your opponent is going to make.

Re: Why we still love board games

#123

Post by darkarmani »

gliese1337 wrote: post #115
dminor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> "Mexican Train"

That's offensive to those of us that use that to describe a sexual position!

But seriously, I agree with you. Since I only played it about once a year, I usually forget to play it very conservatively and get a large score. You don't have to win a single round to win overall, but people seem to forget what the real metric is with the excitement of winning a round.

Re: Why we still love board games

#124

Post by elemeno »

alphaBetaGamma wrote: post #116
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.

Take a look at VASSAL (http://www.vassalengine.org/) and the games it supports - between that and Dropbox, I find that playing turn based games over the internet is made a lot easier.

How many of you are there? How much complexity and/or depth do you like? At the deep (deep) end, 18xx and specifically 1830 plays well as PBeM (with a Java app called Rails), or there are games like Here I Stand that play well PBeM, or war games. Pretty much anything which doesn't need much interaction between players during each person's turn works well (especially if you can trust each other to roll dice for each other where needed).

If you want some more suggestions, feel free to drop me an e-mail and discuss further.

Re: Why we still love board games

#125

Post by elemeno »

eru wrote: post #90
barbs wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree, though obviously has to be particular games. I think the whole 4-controllers-1-tv formula works best here. Games like Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., Bomberman, Goldeneye, Mashed/Wrecked/Micro Machines make for great times, although they provide a much more energetic vibe than boardgames, which may or may not be a good thing. Also, LAN parties :).

> although they provide a much more energetic vibe than boardgames, which may or may not be a good thing. Depends on your boardgames. Some can be rather vicious, and since people usually take longer to think about their actions, backstabbing and then turning the dagger, is even more fun and meaningful. (But I guess, I like the American dinosaur of a game, Diplomacy, way too much.)

I think that Diplomacy is a rarity as being a Board Game which actually plays better on the internet and by e-mail just because it gives you that bit more time to think and plan and communicate.

If you're a fan, then I'm actually running a series of games at the moment on the DPPD judge (http://www.floc.net/dpjudge/) - if you look at http://www.diplom.org/openings/openings.html#USDP for openings on the judge they're the vole_xxx games.

Re: Why we still love board games

#128

Post by eru »

elemeno wrote: post #125
eru wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> although they provide a much more energetic vibe than boardgames, which may or may not be a good thing. Depends on your boardgames. Some can be rather vicious, and since people usually take longer to think about their actions, backstabbing and then turning the dagger, is even more fun and meaningful. (But I guess, I like the American dinosaur of a game, Diplomacy, way too much.)

I think that Diplomacy is a rarity as being a Board Game which actually plays better on the internet and by e-mail just because it gives you that bit more time to think and plan and communicate. If you're a fan, then I'm actually running a series of games at the moment on the DPPD judge ( http://www.floc.net/dpjudge/ ) - if you look at http://www.diplom.org/openings/openings.html#USDP for openings on the judge they'r…

Thanks for the invitation!

I agree, and I was pretty involved with the pbem hobby for a few years now. At the moment, I just moved to Singapore and am still settling in. I've mostly played the 1900 variant recently, and even introduced the Cambridge University Diplomacy Society to that variant and made it their mainstay.

1900 is a definite improvement over standard.

I prefer pbem over ftf, but ftf is a good pastime in its own right.

Re: Why we still love board games

#129

Post by ajtaylor »

dagw wrote: post #66
infinite8s wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which 'german' style board games do you recommend for 2 people? It's often just my wife and I, and it seems like most popular eurogames are best with 3-4 people.

Take a look at http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/67262/near-perfect-2-playe... edit: for what it's worth the game my wife and I end up playing most of the time when we have 45 minutes to kill is Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers, which isn't on the list.

My wife and I bought Carcassonne because it could be played with only 2 people. But it's one of our favorite games because it's never the same game twice!

Re: Why we still love board games

#130

Post by lmm »

danielweber wrote: post #118
simonw wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Park…

Also many people play without the auction rule, which makes the game a lot more fast-paced.
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