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Why we still love board games

timharford.com

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Re: Why we still love board games

#51

Post by archon »

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…

Monopoly Deal is definitely an under appreciated gem. It's a great way to kill 15 minutes with friends. Doesn't require a lot of strategy, but it still somehow fun (I typically enjoy a lot more strategy than luck).

I've done something similar to your Magic the Gathering game. It involved a chess board and using 52-card decks to give your pieces "abilities." I believe the Ace of Spades was a "Resurrection" card that would respawn any one piece you'd lost.

Re: Why we still love board games

#52

Post by archon »

mikeknoop wrote: post #26

Haven't seen these mentioned yet, and I recommend both: Powergrid: Unique because there are no dice involved; a game of economics Steam: Unique because there is a bank (partly tied to your score) that you can borrow against to build pieces faster

I enjoy Power Grid with a larger group (4+) people, but with a small group, the game really drags. This is unfortunate, because my usual gaming group consists of my fiancee and myself.

Re: Why we still love board games

#53

Post by jdludlow »

throwaway1979 wrote: post #36
mikeknoop wrote: post #26

Haven't seen these mentioned yet, and I recommend both: Powergrid: Unique because there are no dice involved; a game of economics Steam: Unique because there is a bank (partly tied to your score) that you can borrow against to build pieces faster

I love powergrid! I recall the last two turns require a lot of calculations. When I played with non-mathematically oriented people (most people in my life), they got frustrated.

Power Grid has a lot of simple arithmetic. You're adding numbers in your head constantly. Barring a runaway leader, the endgame tends to have a slingshot effect where the person who is "leading" is actually behind those who are currently in 2nd or 3rd place. Timing this come-from-behind win is a big part of the fun for me.

It's the #6 game on BoardGameGeek [1], and well deserved to be there. Saying that "it's filled with math" doesn't make it sound all that exciting, but there's a good spacial element, an auction system that gets quite tense at times, and opportunity for "screw you" behavior that actually pays off. The winner is typically the one who was most efficient and has made some clever plays to keep his opponents out of his chosen markets.

[1] http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame

Re: Why we still love board games

#54

Post by JimWestergren »

archon wrote: post #51
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…

Monopoly Deal is definitely an under appreciated gem. It's a great way to kill 15 minutes with friends. Doesn't require a lot of strategy, but it still somehow fun (I typically enjoy a lot more strategy than luck). I've done something similar to your Magic the Gathering game. It involved a chess board and using 52-card decks to give your pieces "abilities." I believe the Ace of Spades was a "Resurrection" card that w…

Do you have any URL to show more info about your game? I would LOVE to read :) Here is mine with Google translate: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl...

Re: Why we still love board games

#55

Post by Jtsummers »

lmm wrote: post #11
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…

I've never been able to stand Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride falls firmly into my "meh" category - with multiple players you optimize your chances of winning by taking a lot of routes, and it's then mostly a matter of luck whether you get a set that overlaps enough to complete. Settlers is good if you play it with people who pay attention, but if not you can easily be waiting half an hour while everyone asks everyon…

For Settlers I've held firm to the rule that you get to make one offer/counteroffer per player for a particular resource. If you need ore, that gets you 2 times asking each player. If there are multiple things you can use then you get a few more times. It's made the game go so much smoother when a few particular folks get involved since most of the time players only need one or two things.

Re: Why we still love board games

#56

Post by archon »

JimWestergren wrote: post #54
archon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopoly Deal is definitely an under appreciated gem. It's a great way to kill 15 minutes with friends. Doesn't require a lot of strategy, but it still somehow fun (I typically enjoy a lot more strategy than luck). I've done something similar to your Magic the Gathering game. It involved a chess board and using 52-card decks to give your pieces "abilities." I believe the Ace of Spades was a "Resurrection" card that w…

Do you have any URL to show more info about your game? I would LOVE to read :) Here is mine with Google translate: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl...

I came up with the modified chess game when I was a teenager, and I've long since forgotten all of the rules, I'm afraid. Sorry to disappoint :)

Re: Why we still love board games

#57

Post by RTigger »

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 how to play the game, how they interact with alliances and respond to attacks from other people.

Some 1-hour games we play for reference, if anyone's interested:

Dominion - Already discussed in another post :) (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36218/dominion)

7 Wonders - Drafting based card game where you interact with your immediate neighbours (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/68448/7-wonders)

Race for the Galaxy - Card game where action choices enable other players (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28143/race-for-the-galaxy)

Lords of Waterdeep - D&D themed worker placement game (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/110327/lords-of-waterdeep)

Stone Age - Most "german" game of this list, worker placement and resource gathering with dice (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34635/stone-age)

Space Alert - co-op game where the main game mechanic is "communication" (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/38453/space-alert)

Galaxy Trucker - fun tile-based spaceship construction game (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31481/galaxy-trucker)

The Resistance - 2 out of the 5 players are secretly spies (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/41114/the-resistance)

I wrote this list out in a bit more detail on my website: http://rtigger.com/blog/2012/12/14/board-games-are-great/

Re: Why we still love board games

#58

Post by jdludlow »

ygra wrote: post #31

Something I found quite nice was a web series by Wil Wheaton: TableTop ( http://tabletop.geekandsundry.com/ ) which basically consists of a round of people playing a board game, explaining the rules and generally having fun doing so. The nice part is that you can experience how the game is played and whether you might like it or not – much better than just with a verbal description or review on Amazon. Of course, for…

Minneapolis has an embarrassment of riches on this front. We have game shops everywhere and dozens of public groups that meet regularly. There's also a monthly gathering that typically runs Friday to Sunday (16 hours each), and sells out its 90 person capacity almost instantly.

The groups are very newbie friendly, which is typical for this hobby.

Re: Why we still love board games

#59

Post by kriro »

michaelochurch wrote: post #40
kriro wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love to analyze games and as a programmer there's quite a bit of neat stuff you can do due to the discreteness. Build DSLs for the game logic or strategy, the whole field of AI, modelling of games as FSM, Petri Nets whatever seems interesting. There are quite a few of these cafes. They have game collections and you can rent a table+game and pay for the drinks. You can also bring you own etc. the atmosphere is usual…

Are you taking this Coursera course, in April? https://www.coursera.org/course/ggp It looks really interesting.

Pretty nice wasn't aware of this course. A colleague of mine actually has a student that is doing a paper on GGP this semester.

I'll sign up for it but will mostly just follow along and not treat it like a real course (that's kind of how I do all my online courses).

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