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The Rise of German Board Games

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#121

Post by BrandoElFollito »

koonsolo wrote: post #64
5_minutes wrote: post #9

I love playing board games with my kids, gets them away from anything digital: nintendo’s, ipads or tv stuff. And hey having a 8 year old thinking about his Stratego setup, is a good thing!

For me, it's always a challenge to play board games with my kids. They are now 8, 6 and 4, and none of them wants to lose. It always ends up with someone crying, sometimes with all of them crying (including the winner). For other parents who have the same issue: I was able to "fix" this situation by declaring the winner as the person who is able to take defeat without crying. After that I mostly can declare all of th…

When playing games, my children somehow never cared when they lost (we never made a big deal of it). They were enjoying the game itself (and sometimes ended up upset one on the other, but not because they lost but because the other one laughed, cheated, breathed the wrong way or whatever). Two boys, 2 years apart, from 5,7 to now (11,13).

They were astonished when they played with their cousins (whom they like a lot) and the cousins started to cry when they lost. Mine told them that they (the cousins) can "take the victory" if they want cause this is just a game.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#122

Post by mariushn »

How do you copyright game ideas? Say one has a game idea, pretty worked out. What would be next best steps to take, without being copied/stolen in the process?

Unlike startups, with boardgames ideas matter much more than execution. Copyright is the only protection for successful games from being duplicated, since materials are so cheap.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#123

Post by labster »

adamredwoods wrote: post #53
labster wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoted because everyone is entitled to their own preferences in games. It's wonderful that the world is full of such different people. Also, I'm not definitely inviting you to my gaming group.

He's probably a grognard.

Thanks for making me look up the term "grognard". I knew it from gamer use, but didn't know that it means "grumbler" or its military history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Guard_(France)

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#124

Post by james-skemp »

Angostura wrote: post #76
koonsolo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it's always a challenge to play board games with my kids. They are now 8, 6 and 4, and none of them wants to lose. It always ends up with someone crying, sometimes with all of them crying (including the winner). For other parents who have the same issue: I was able to "fix" this situation by declaring the winner as the person who is able to take defeat without crying. After that I mostly can declare all of th…

For playing with kids try Forbidden Island. Has elements of Pandemic apparently (I haven't played Pandemic) cooperative, games typically don't take more than about half an hour.

Much easier than Pandemic though; I've never won in all the games I've played.

There's a desert version as well where you build a ship, which is fun no matter the age.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#125

Post by labster »

user5994461 wrote: post #117
KenoFischer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catan has significantly more adversarial aspects than Monopoly; Cutting off roads that players need, controlling the placement of the robber, choosing who to steal from, denial of trade of resources. I think one of the things that makes Catan so rage-inciting, is that it's quite common to take actions to deny the other players points, even if it has a negative effect on your overall position.

It's one of the most boring game out there. The losers and the potential winners are decided after a couple of turns. Then you're just powerless and waiting for the game to finish.

That's not really true, because dice luck is so important in Catan. You can have the best position in the world but if no one rolls your numbers there's nothing you can do to win.

Of course, this is still boring for a completely different reason.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#126

Post by Sylos »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #23

"Menschärgeredichnicht" anyone?

The Wikipedia-Article describes it aptly: "Mensch ärgere Dich nicht is a German board game (but not a German-style board game)".

And the name translates to "Don't get angry, man", so the game creator was quite self-aware here, too.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#128

Post by cdelsolar »

T-hawk wrote: post #120
erispoe wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrabble, at a top level, is a game of memorizing as many words and combinations as you can. Some top players in english don't even speak english very well. That's a pure memory game.

Scrabble isn't a word game. It's an area-control game with 150,000 rules that define legal placement for your resources.

Basically, yes, and it's a deep, fantastic game at the highest levels
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