> ‘Euro’, or German style, games and what is affectionately called ‘Ameritrash’. Trash sounds more derogatory than affectionate to me?!
Well, a lot of the early examples of this style aren't very good. ;-)
Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)
101–108 of 108 posts
Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)
#102There's also Clue, Combat, stratego, Life, Parcheesi
None of those are modern. There's been A LOT of new ideas in board game design in the last eighty years.
Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)
#103I think you should play modern board games, but can we agree that there are both good and also heinously bad lessons to learn from them? Far too many board games want to be computer games, and seem to think it's trivial to have 20 different piles of crap to set up at the start, and then a dozen different pieces of state to track in your little corner of the table during what will inevitably be a complicated five-phas…
I think the lesson to learn from this is that different people are different? While most people are repulsed by the complexity of extremely heavy games, others will luxriate in them. There is a whole 40-year-old community built around Advanced Squad Leader, a game with rules so complicated that there's a 135-page tutorial to teach the Starter Kit version of the game [0]! The board game industry creates many very main…
I think there has been a shift in what kinds of games get published that privileges a slim set of experiences that are possible in board games and risks narrowing the range of what people think a board game is capable of. I agree there’s a vast range of different player types and psychological rewards people get out of playing games, but I personally find myself increasingly uninterested in new game designs, because the designs I like are harder to sell to impulsive buyers, players who don’t want to play a game repeatedly, or players who will have difficulty playing games again if anyone has a bad time (which I totally get! But it means designs that might prompt negative emotions are not sought by many publishers). I wouldn’t even say “heavy” games are the problem (I disagree with OP about high time commitment being a problem, there’s many games like that that deliver commensurate value to me).
Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)
#104I'm thinking of breaking up with my local board game Meetup. The reason why is: everybody there has board game ADD! I've been coming for 2 years, but we never play the same game twice; someone always brings the Hot New Game of the moment. But I find that the first playthough is the least-fun one. That's the one where you're trying to remember what the grey cubes do, and whether they're worth victory points or not. An…
I always enjoy the first playthrough(s) the most, because learning the system and strategies is the fun part. Once everyone knows all the rules and how to beat me, it's only going through the motions as a social experience.
To me that’s a hallmark of a game that isn’t very interesting! If you can discover a dominant strategy in a handful of plays, the game probably isn’t worth your time IMO.
Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the most complex board game I've really played any amount of is Carcasonne (Not particularly complicated). Often, if I'm playing a board game, I prefer it to be on the simpler end, more of a relaxing thing. One memorable board gaming experience I had was playing Splendor (I believe) with my cousin, and it ended up being almost completely silent, just passing tokens around and the occasional "oh..." when anoth…
Carcassonne is not very complicated, but when you start adding expansions it can become a bit complicated.
IIRC we only had two expansions. The River and Inns & Cathedrals. I don't think either of them added too much complexity
Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Carcassonne is not very complicated, but when you start adding expansions it can become a bit complicated.
IIRC we only had two expansions. The River and Inns & Cathedrals. I don't think either of them added too much complexity
no, there are also many others.
Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I play mostly with the aforementioned wife and kids! We were shocked by how early our kids could pick up board games, including many of the ones mentioned in this article. Our 2 oldest kids were playing Ticket to Ride and Carcassone well enough to beat us form time to time at 3 and 4 years old. Now that they're a little older, slightly more complicated games like Catan and Flamecraft are on the table!
Ah. My wife isn't very interested and my children are just at the age where they can accept a slightly more complicated snakes and ladders[1] but they would not be able to do anything meaningful in Ticket to Ride yet. Looking forward to the day! [1]: https://entropicthoughts.com/snakes-and-ladders
You didn't ask, but I would offer a few suggestions for games to introduce your children to soon.
Dinosaur Escape [0] if you can find it, it's basically a cooperative memory game but introduces them to some very gentle strategy. (Incidentally, there's a similarly themed game[1] on BGA that is also good.)
King of Tokyo is very fun, and it's easy to slim down the rules for someone who cannot read. It still allows them to understand the mechanics and make decisions about which dice to pick and which to re-roll.
Similarly, we started Kingdomino with simplified rules (no multiplication, just a tile matching game) and it was easy to graduate into full game play later.
Outfoxed is a logic / deduction board game that doesn't involve too much advanced strategy. Since it's cooperative it's easy to work with them so they can begin reasoning out the clues.
[0] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/175497/dinosaur-escape [1] https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=babydinosaurrescue
Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah. My wife isn't very interested and my children are just at the age where they can accept a slightly more complicated snakes and ladders[1] but they would not be able to do anything meaningful in Ticket to Ride yet. Looking forward to the day! [1]: https://entropicthoughts.com/snakes-and-ladders
You didn't ask, but I would offer a few suggestions for games to introduce your children to soon. Dinosaur Escape [0] if you can find it, it's basically a cooperative memory game but introduces them to some very gentle strategy. (Incidentally, there's a similarly themed game[1] on BGA that is also good.) King of Tokyo is very fun, and it's easy to slim down the rules for someone who cannot read. It still allows them…
I didn't explicitly ask but interpreting my comment as a question was the right thing to do. Thanks, I'll see what my local second hand market says about your suggestions.