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I Love Board Games: A Personal Obsession Explained by Psychology

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Re: I Love Board Games: A Personal Obsession Explained by Psychology

#31

Post by mg74 »

DauntingPear7 wrote: post #10
jader201 wrote: post #2

Board games are my favorite way to accomplish two things that I find hard to do as an introvert that works from home: 1. Getting off screens 2. Socializing But it still also accomplishes one of my favorite things to do: thinking — specifically problem solving and optimizing. And, as an introvert, socializing actually naturally is secondary in our group, but that’s ok — a good heavy heads-down board game (think 3-5 ho…

As a college student without too much spending money, what’re some board games I should check out? I have wingspan, catan, and azul and wanna expand my collection with other must have games

Get a 1830 variant (e.g. 18Chesapeake) and Age of Steam. Also any Splotter game (Indonesia just got a new printing). A new Brass will come to Kickstarter very soon, that could be a good choice. A pax game would be good to, Pax Pamir 2ed is a good choice.

Re: I Love Board Games: A Personal Obsession Explained by Psychology

#32

Post by dragon96 »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #11
mingus88 wrote: post #3

> I enjoy solo board gaming—largely because I haven’t fully converted my family yet—but nothing compares to a game night. I’m just going to get this off my chest here because I think a lot of “board game people” might not really understand why their enthusiasm doesn’t catch on with a lot of people I know a decent number of board game “enthusiasts” that will pull out a fancy new game to show off, and spend a couple of…

I am into board game and was into complex game because I thought they were more fun to play. Then playing a bunch of Spiel games, where the rulebook is 2 pages and the setup time is 5 minutes, I changed my mind entirely. I now refuse to buy complex games. I want little rules with a lot of depth. There are many of them, every match is intense and yet you can explain the rules in a few minutes.

What does a Spiel game refer to?

If you want the ultimate depth:ruleset ratio, come learn Go :) Every game is so different and exciting

Re: I Love Board Games: A Personal Obsession Explained by Psychology

#33

Post by Nition »

throw_await wrote: post #27
DauntingPear7 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a college student without too much spending money, what’re some board games I should check out? I have wingspan, catan, and azul and wanna expand my collection with other must have games

I can recommend Stardew Valley. It really captures the same cozyness as the video game, and it's cooperative.

My only complaint re Stardew multiplayer is because the clock doesn't pause in menus, conversations etc like it does in singleplayer, the game gets a lot less relaxing and more rushed. I wish the day would just be 25% longer when playing in co-op.

Re: I Love Board Games: A Personal Obsession Explained by Psychology

#34

Post by Nition »

sssilver wrote: post #19
barbs wrote: post #9

I love boardgames too and could wax lyrical about them for ages. Sucks that this article was clearly written by AI.

Man I suffer from this recently. Everything I read feels AI written but because it’s just a guess I get into this loop of questioning myself and then the whole read is ruined for me. I hate it so much.

So much is AI written now. I can only hope that more people start to notice and react negatively so that others will be discouraged from doing it. People are using ChatGPT to write the most ridiculous things for them, sometimes only a few sentences!

Re: I Love Board Games: A Personal Obsession Explained by Psychology

#35

Post by kombookcha »

leethargo wrote: post #29
DauntingPear7 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a college student without too much spending money, what’re some board games I should check out? I have wingspan, catan, and azul and wanna expand my collection with other must have games

I really like "Root" (for the asymmetry) and "Arcs" (for the openness), although they are quite "heavy" in terms of rules and interactions.

+1 for Root!

For a nice entry game for a group setting, I recommend Carcassonne. It has a simple and engaging basic gameplay with a surprising amount of depth, that can easily be scaled up and down in complexity depending on your group's preference and experience level by simply adding more pieces/mechanics.

Re: I Love Board Games: A Personal Obsession Explained by Psychology

#36

Post by enlyth »

DauntingPear7 wrote: post #10
jader201 wrote: post #2

Board games are my favorite way to accomplish two things that I find hard to do as an introvert that works from home: 1. Getting off screens 2. Socializing But it still also accomplishes one of my favorite things to do: thinking — specifically problem solving and optimizing. And, as an introvert, socializing actually naturally is secondary in our group, but that’s ok — a good heavy heads-down board game (think 3-5 ho…

As a college student without too much spending money, what’re some board games I should check out? I have wingspan, catan, and azul and wanna expand my collection with other must have games

I want to recommend a game you can pull out and explain in a couple of minutes that everyone tends to enjoy. I've played many a board games with people and this one has had unparalleled success in terms of enjoyment and replayability across broad audiences

It's called "So Clover!" and it's a word association themed game where each person gets four pairs of words, you write a one word clue for each pair, and then the rest of the group has to work backwards to figure out the original orientation of your cards (the cards themselves each have four words as well)

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/329839/so-clover

Re: I Love Board Games: A Personal Obsession Explained by Psychology

#37

Post by kombookcha »

dragon96 wrote: post #32
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am into board game and was into complex game because I thought they were more fun to play. Then playing a bunch of Spiel games, where the rulebook is 2 pages and the setup time is 5 minutes, I changed my mind entirely. I now refuse to buy complex games. I want little rules with a lot of depth. There are many of them, every match is intense and yet you can explain the rules in a few minutes.

What does a Spiel game refer to? If you want the ultimate depth:ruleset ratio, come learn Go :) Every game is so different and exciting

Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) is a boardgame award that notably favors family-friendly accessibility. If you're seeing the award on the box, you can be confident that even if the strategy can potentially get really deep, you can still break this out to have a fun time with both grandma and your 12 year old cousin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiel_des_Jahres

Re: I Love Board Games: A Personal Obsession Explained by Psychology

#38

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

dragon96 wrote: post #32
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am into board game and was into complex game because I thought they were more fun to play. Then playing a bunch of Spiel games, where the rulebook is 2 pages and the setup time is 5 minutes, I changed my mind entirely. I now refuse to buy complex games. I want little rules with a lot of depth. There are many of them, every match is intense and yet you can explain the rules in a few minutes.

What does a Spiel game refer to? If you want the ultimate depth:ruleset ratio, come learn Go :) Every game is so different and exciting

Spiel Des Jahres is a prize they give every year to a bunch of board games. Don't look at very old board games, but some of the modern ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiel_des_Jahres

As for Go, I was tempted, but it's also very abstract, I do like some kind of theme in my board games.

A board game well integrated with the theme gives great vibes.

Some of the games great from there: - Sky Team, discovered right there on the wikipedia page: for 2 players, me and my wife spent countless hours on it. Very simple rules yet so damn fun - Azul up to 4, simple rules and a lot of depths. Place tiles on a board while stealing from others the stuff they want to use - Kingdomino is so simple yet choosing the piece (some form of draft) requires thinking ahead so many turns! - Dominion is still a great game: deck builder with simple rules. Didn't think that was possible? It is!

A lot of the children games are also great (this is for families with kids)

Some nominated are also great, even if they didn't win

Re: I Love Board Games: A Personal Obsession Explained by Psychology

#39

Post by deaux »

DauntingPear7 wrote: post #10
jader201 wrote: post #2

Board games are my favorite way to accomplish two things that I find hard to do as an introvert that works from home: 1. Getting off screens 2. Socializing But it still also accomplishes one of my favorite things to do: thinking — specifically problem solving and optimizing. And, as an introvert, socializing actually naturally is secondary in our group, but that’s ok — a good heavy heads-down board game (think 3-5 ho…

As a college student without too much spending money, what’re some board games I should check out? I have wingspan, catan, and azul and wanna expand my collection with other must have games

A lot of the so far mentioned games, while great, aren't that cheap or portable.

I really recommend trying a trick-taking game! Skull King, Fox in the Forest, Tichu. Easy to learn, impossible to master.

Re: I Love Board Games: A Personal Obsession Explained by Psychology

#40

Post by leethargo »

kombookcha wrote: post #35
leethargo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like "Root" (for the asymmetry) and "Arcs" (for the openness), although they are quite "heavy" in terms of rules and interactions.

+1 for Root! For a nice entry game for a group setting, I recommend Carcassonne. It has a simple and engaging basic gameplay with a surprising amount of depth, that can easily be scaled up and down in complexity depending on your group's preference and experience level by simply adding more pieces/mechanics.

Carcassonne is also really nice with children. You can start them on just the "puzzle" aspect on attaching matching tiles, without scoring.

Our oldest child is now capable of the base game, and I can still make it interesting for me by going for secondary objectives, such as filling difficult gaps ;-)

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