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Categorizing a gaming collection as a way to limit library size.
One way that I try to keep my collection trimmed down is to create a list of categories, and keep one or two games in each category---three if it's a category that gets played very often, since the extra variety will be necessary in that case. At the same time, I try to get very different-feeling games in each category. To tell the truth, I usually seem to end up with three and not two, and sometimes I allow a fourth if it's a game that can be played with children and that I can still enjoy. Certainly much better for entertaining young visitors who are not *too* young than Candyland.Categorizing a gaming collection as a way to limit library size.
This is a list of my categories, each with a short description, a very short list of my games that fall under it, and the game played most featured prominently as the item entry/picture. Example entry:
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Category name: 3, 1. A description of salient points of this category that set it apart from the rest. If I have own these sorts of games and they are NOT on my trade list, I will count them after the category name according to permanent standbys and under consideration.
I will usually describe each permanent standby or under consideration in its own paragraph, with particular editions being colored as standby or under consideration as necessary.
Sometimes games or editions will be mentioned but designated as being not yet tried/bought/both, on my trade list, or even
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I've ended up with some categories that don't seem to be present on the normal BGG "mechanics" list, so this is actually a fairly useful list for me. Maybe it's useful for others.
I'm not terribly sure about that. But we presevere for the moment.
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Short, mean, nim-style games: 2. A nim-style game generally features trying to avoid collecting items that are bad for you.
6 Nimmt! focuses on minimizing your score (avoid taking cards with too many flags).
Coloretto focuses on maximizing your score in a few limited categories (so you need to avoid taking too many different types of colors). Both games are quick to play, addictive, simple to teach, and very portable, making them ideal "purse" or "backpack" games.
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Moving little armies around on scenarios and attacking games: 2, 2. I'm no grognard (and I'm sure I got the term wrong) but I like a good little war game once in a while, so long as the rules are simple, the components are good, and there are ample scenarios and/or army variety around to keep me happy.
Currently the winner of this list is Wizard Kings, which I have all the armies and expansion maps and chaos units (sometimes in triplicate) for. I use some good third-party scenarios rather than the basic scenario, and I use the 1.5 rules. Any time I find myself pining for Warcraft realized as a boardgame, this satisfies me more than enough. (I even find it more interesting than the original Warcraft.)
Heroscape is a wonderful second in this category, because it's very light yet pretty and very fun, with widely varying armies. Wonderful when you're in a more raucous mood or need to entertain kids (including very big kids
).I recently got to try out Battle Cry, and I like what I see so far. I would prefer a fantasy-style Commands & Colors game from Richard Borg, because that would offer the widest variety of special powers and special units. I'm not sure I'll hang onto Battle Cry, but I think I like it for now.
Another item here is Kings & Things, which is certainly a nice light-weight game... but may ultimately lose out. Which is a shame, because I really like Kings & Things from what I've seen---it's whimsical in a very Tom Wham! kind of way.
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Cooperative games: 2, 2. I think of this as a unique category deserving of the best representation. Once in a while it's nice to work against a system than against each other. These games get out a lot due to the good frustration symptom, wherein you're all like "Okay, we can *beat* the system this time!" You definitely need people who aren't competetive to the point of bossing others around. More casual gamers seem to fit in well here.
Lord of the Rings is ultimately a favorite here.
The movies are a huge help to the general acceptance of Tolkien's beloved work, and I appreciate Peter Jackson very, very much... I have both expansions, but it's surprisingly difficult to find a Sauron. Just us hobbits here... I have Ghost Chase, which is a nice cooperative to play with young children, or when everyone is a bit blasted from the Halloween punch. It's more of a one against many, but very fun. The game gets pulled out not very often, but it *is* a good stayer because of the ability to play with young children (and adults have fun too).
Two recent and very, very strong contenders have come up: Shadows over Camelot, which fills in a need for a King Arthur-style game, and Arkham Horror. Both seem to be very evenly matched right now, especially because they are so different from each other, which may mean that this will be a 3-game category. We'll see.
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Pipe-connection games: 1, 3. Tile-laying games which involve connecting common features between tiles. If I just say "Carcasonne" here, you probably know what kind of game I mean.
I've always liked Carcasonne, though that like has wavered from time to time when I've had too much of it.Right now I somewhat like original Carcasonne with the Inns & Cathedrals expansion and the Princess & Dragon expansion. The improvements on road scoring, as well as the big meeples, are great; and the ability to chomp people's meeples is also pretty awesome. However, I think they may eventually fall to Carcasonne: The City, which is a nice chunk of the various Carcasonne mechanic goodness that's developed over the years. I may keep them both, however; sometimes I want a light Carcasonne, and sometimes a heavier one.
Ta Yu, my personal grail game, I recently acquired and am very glad to have done so. I like Ta Yu's scoring system, which requires you to maximize connections on both your near *and* far side of the board, and, while also being a pipe-connecting tile game, is very, very different from Carcasonne.
Different from both Carcasonne and Ta Yu is Ingenious, which I think is a brilliant game. I'm not sure it will stick around, due to the ingrainedness of Carcasonne and the beautiful nature of Ta Yu, but it's intriguing enough for me to decide to in the near future.
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Merger-style games: 3. Whether it's cooperations, hotels, civilizations, or corals, one thing clearly distinguishes this kind of tile-laying game: taking over and competing for limited space.
I have no preference in the three that I keep: Acquire (Hasbro uber-edition), Tigris & Euphrates, and Reef Encounter. If I had to choose ONLY one... I would pick Reef Encounter, since I like the theme best of all of them. But it would be a very painful decision.
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Territory-fighting abstract games: 4. Simple, simple games where territory is either a focal point of strategy or the entire point of any strategy.
The classic example of this would be Go; I recommend Janice Kim's Go books (actually a translation from a Korean 3-dan or so player's books), along with the Elementary Go Problems series. Were it not for these books, I think I would have dropped Go as being too esoteric a while ago. I prefer shorter games right now in my studies, with 9x9 being a quick favorite and 13x13 being an hour-long learning experience. 19x19 I tend to pretty much lose from the get-go, but it's just a longer learning experience.
An example more people here would be familiar with is Through the Desert. I think the FFG edition is a better bargin in several ways, three of those being price and compactness yet still having all the plastic bits that were in the original. I will put the Kosmos edition up for trade.
One very short game that pretty much is always out and ready to play (I have the wooden version) is Cathedral. It's an excellent quickie game, and forming territory is important towards the end goal of being able to place more pieces than your opponent. Short, good games are a treasure, particularly if they can sit on the coffee table. (Note: this may fit better into "puzzle-style games".)
On the light end of the spectrum is Rosenkonig, which plays upon a theme I like (medieval) and has great wooden bits. Your focus is on gathering blocks of territory, which score like in Entdecker (the square of the number of spaces in a particular territory block you control). Movement is done via cards, so it's not a true abstract, but it is a very light game. You can use four Hero actions to flip an opponent's piece to yours, which can be done at crucial points. And I really like the bits. You can also use the crown in Citadels.
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Adventuring games: 2, 2. These sorts of games usually go hand in hand with character leveling mechanics, but not always.
My ultimate favorite in this group is Dungeoneer. It's extremely portable, has many expansions, and has plenty of variety simply because it's a card game. The rules could be clearer, but I think the quick start rules are the best:
http://www.atlas-games.com/pdf_storage/HowtoPlayDgr.pdf
Once you get grounded in how the game works, the rest of the rules will usually click into place. I appreciate that the rules may be too fiddly for some, but those who don't mind or who get used to it have a blast.
Oddly enough to some, I consider Middle-Earth CCG to fall into this category. Even though it is a CCG, the game turns on you being able to move companies of characters from location to location, fighting monsters, finding treasures, and trying to convince people (factions) to join your cause. Unlike other CCGs, you can have separate companies of characters at different locations, and travel from location to location crosses over terrain, and you can use advanced movement that uses a Middle Earth map!
Although Runebound has a lot of potential, especially with the new expansions and so on coming along, it will need a lot more promise to keep me hanging onto it. I have to travel across the Sound to play my adventuring games, so bulkiness is not always welcome.
Return of the Heroes and its expansion In the Shadow of the Dragon are beautifully produced, but I think I have too many of this sort of game on my shelves. I'll have to do some more English paste-ups of them, and then trade them off. I'm a little way through Return of the Heroes in this respect. Still, they may stay around due to their simplicity, and the fact that they play well with medium-sized children.
Did I mention that I have a lot of games that fall into this category? And I usually tend to look towards getting more, such as World of Warcraft? This is a category I need to start making a lot more cuts for, and I think I already have my two mainstays, with the possibility of a third if World of Warcraft also fits me.
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CCG-style games: 2, 3. Think Magic: the Gathering here. This is my first-most far-too-numerous category, with adventure games a relatively distant second. As a result, I've gone through and done some painful weed-whacking and whittling down to CCGs that I do end up playing. (Some of the weed-whacking is due to not finding an audience for a CCG, which is vital to most games but for a CCG is very vital, due to their you-must-play-multiple-times-to-get-it nature).
For me, these days my main CCG/XCG/TCG of choice is Blue Moon. Knizia has made me a very happy gamer here, and the game is amazingly accessible even to those who've either never played a CCG or dislike typical CCGs with their myriad, sometimes unbalanced, of card powers and interactions....
At one point I played
I am also fond of Mystick, though I like Domination better than Companion. With Companion you need to do more in the area of deckbuilding---not a bad thing, since Mystick's decks are fairly simple in requirements for deckbuilding. I also think it's a brilliant use of the Tarot card structure.
I am very fond still of Camelot Legends, but there is a lot of bookkeeping there---more so than in many other games of this nature---so I have troubles getting new players involved. I think this would make an excellent online game, however, because the current scores of characters can be more easily (and automatically) tracked.
Currently I have an influx of too many real CCGs and will need to start chopping some off:
- Netrunner. Great game, and for me, great theme. Asymmetrical games are rare, and CCGs that play great from randomized starters are even rarer. I lost my Netrunner partner, so this game doesn't come out much anymore---and teaching it is a little difficult for me.
- Magic: the Gathering. This needs to go. I have some pre-constructeds I bought recently from the Kamigawa cycle, and older rares, and my interest in MtG is only rare and fleeting these days. I think it's a great game, but I think I MtG'd myself out in college.
- Call of Cthulhu. I think this game plays wonderfully from a "collective box" of cards, due to the resource mechanic that allows even three-faction decks to be competetively feasible almost all of the time. However, with Arkham Horror already in my collection, the need for a Cthulhu-themed game goes down. Currently I only have a premium edition starter left (the decks are fixed, so this would be a good introduction for anybody to the game).
- A Game of Thrones. Simple and elegant, there's a lot to like here for me, especially the theme (which is captured well by the cards---all illustrated quite well, usually, too). Building decks is more of a challenge, but building little casual play decks is less difficult. I don't compete in CCG tournaments these days, so I don't mind this aspect.
- Harry Potter. Honestly, not a bad game; it's too bad the starter decks didn't use the more advanced mechanics of story cards. I do like the game. But I think part of that is a current warm, fuzzy HP buzz... Nevertheless, it's nice to have a CCG I can play with young ones that I actually like.
- Babylon 5 CCG. I love Babylon 5. I really like this CCG. But only with four people. And since I'm no longer in college, pulling together four B5-o-philes with enough time on their hands is much more difficult.
- Jyhad. Needs to go. Only got a couple of starters, and liked what I saw, but not enough to stay around. I think it is a good game, though---I just don't have time for it.
I know there's more. This is also not counting CCGs I got rid of---like L5R (very nice game, but I have too little time to spend on it!), Spycraft (same deal), Decipher's LotR CCG.... wait, I think I actually have a box of those in a corner, which I need to give to a Legolas-loving friend of mine... Neopets, Pokemon...
Hmmm. Well, at least I already knew this category needed a good weed-whacking.
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Chess-like abstracts: 1, 1. There are multiple kinds of pieces, and each piece type moves differently.
For me, the game that fits here is the very small, portable, boardless, and fast Hive. While the not-very-advanced AI at the Hive website is very predictable, a real player is enjoyably much less so.
The penultimate classic example, Chess is not a favorite of mine anymore (probably because I "chessed out" some time in high school). I have tried it with Knightmare Chess and liked it for a time, but ultimately it's not for me.
I also have Shogi, but I'm not sure it's for me either. Possibly Tori (Bird) Shogi will fit the bill---it's smaller, faster, and I like the theme much better:
http://www.chessvariants.com/shogivariants.dir/tori.html
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Moving abstracts, plain pieces: 2, 1. All the moving pieces act the same, but their movement can be affected in strange ways. The GIPF series is an excellent example of this kind of game.
Of the GIPF, I am very fond of the games in this order: YINSH, DVONN, and ZERTZ.
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Drafting games: 2, 1. If you've ever played in a CCG draft (MtG is a frequent example), you're familiar with the aspect of taking your turn to choose a card to use in your deck. While you can certainly draft in CCGs, I prefer games that use the drafting mechanic as a major mechanic.
The game that comes to my mind, bar none, is Citadels, where players take it in turns to secretly pick, or draft, one character role. If you play the game two-player, you get to draft multiple roles.
Or you can take the drafting mechanic a step more towards the traditional MtG draft (I forget what it's called), as in Fairy Tale, a nice filler that uses five rounds of draft and play.
The small Adlung-Spiele game Im Auftrag des Konigs is a very nicely done, light drafting game as well---this time, you take it in turns to draft action cards, which grant you various benefits, some of which will depend on the others (quests, in the main, require you to have drafted different exercise actions multiple times in order to accumulate the cards needed to fulfill them). There's a limited number of action cards here, which is adjusted according to the number of players. Great game to play with almost all ages.
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Resource management games: 2, 2. You have ways to obtain a number of limited resources of different types. With these resources, you will use different combinations to pay for particular items. In a more complicated resource game, such "built" items can in turn produce more of a particular type of resource or other game-related game for you. Ultimately, you want to gather in some victory points.
Due to the build-up and management natures of these games, early screw-ups, whether your fault or not, will tend to haunt you for the rest of the game.
Settlers of Catan, and the Settlers of Catan Card Game are the poster games for this category. I don't particularly like the former, but the latter I like a fair amount, though I don't exactly love it.
I also like Keythedral, since I like the resource mechanisms better (the initial laying down of tiles is not random, but determined by players, and resources are not at the mercy of the die but rather another form of drafting), as well as the variety of combinations to get pew seats.
There is also Nautilus, which also offers an exploration aspect, but even that is ultimately paid off for by resource management. Still a cool game, and we like all the little researchers wandering around the modules, and the submarines. How many games are there about researchers?
Power Grid, I realize, also belongs here. I happen to like this game a lot, and is one of the few deep games I can get people here involved with. Power Grid also features an auction mechanic, so if I ever have too little in that category and too much in this category, I'll move it over.
I think both aspects of Power Grid are important enough in the game for me to consider this.---
Dexterity games: 3, 1. Games that involve physical coordination of one kind or other. Not too many gamers I've known have been really fond of these games, but I don't mind a few (even though I'm not the most dextrous person in the world).
Diceland, for instance, I think is a unique and engaging dexterity game. It is mostly dexterity, since getting your dice positioned is important, but it's also a game of knowing probability and being able to judge when a particular die is needed on the board (and where, if you can position it properly). Since the dice have different effects, this is a fun game, and since the dice are fairly sturdy cardboard and also large and colorful, the dice are easy to use and easy on the eyes.
Elchfest is much lighter than Diceland and, indeed, many other games, but it's an excellent coffee table game as well, and very fun when you're in the right mood. Particularly when you're waiting for something else to happen (popcorn to pop, DVDs being sought for and found, other games being argued about....). Another one of those short gems that can sit on a coffee table.
However, the top game in this category for me would have to be Wings of War. No, this game does NOT involve throwing anything around---but what it does involve is a lot, and I mean a lot, of hand-eye coordination. I think for gamers that are not dextrous, but who can think spatially very well, this is an excellent game. Wings of War definitely requires the same kind of spacial thinking and movement prediction that a "real" dexterity game would involve, but you can conceptualize it as moving at a slower pace---a dexterity game on pause, if you will. I've seen too many new pilots crash and burn (myself included) to fool myself into thinking that these sorts of skills are not needed to play well.
I used to really like Jenga, but ever since Bausack I've been less fond of it. I'm not even all that sure about Bausack... I have the noir edition, and while I really do like balancing the pieces (easy to do, since they tend to be turnings and thus well-balanced, except for the really evil pieces), I'm not sure I like it enough to justify keeping it. A white elephant purchase for me. I need to get the black pieces from Rio Grande before I really trade this off, though I guess I can trade it off at a discount as well.
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Connection games: 1. The goal is to form connections with your pieces from point A to point B.
This can be as simple as Hex and Havannah. Both of these I can construct for myself using one of the Chessex hex maps and Go stones.
But a more recent (and fun and colorful) implementation is the ever famous Ticket to Ride and its successor Ticket to Ride: Europe. I've had a lot of success with TtR as a gateway game, but I think I would prefer TtR:E for myself. I've never not had fun playing TtR when opportunity presents itself, however.
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Push-your-luck/betting games: 1, 1. The classic example here is Can't Stop, which I haven't played yet, but is on BSW so there's no excuse for me.
Diamant I also like, and is also on BSW, but this game I actually own. I think I may not have enough justification to keep it around, but we'll see. But it's fun to play with almost all ages.
Colossal (or Titan) Arena is the game I really like in this area, however. The new edition introduces new monsters that seem pretty balanced with the old ones, or as balanced as the old ones, although I think the design of the cards is less helpful. One particular reason to like this betting game is that the players are the ones that ultimately drive what happens, rather than just rolling dice or laying out cards.
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Speculative (stocks-investment) games: 2, 1. These involve investing in a particular kind of "stock" and manipulating the "market" such that your investments yield the most victory poins. Buying and selling is usually also involved somewhere. "Stock" and "market" can be rethemed in various, fun ways.
Probably the best example of this type of game is Alhambra, which actually is a reworking of a stock game. Alhambra added the aspect of building a city, adding a nice tile-laying puzzle aspect to the game.
Queen's Necklace is another example of this kind of game. It stays around because a female friend of mine adores this game's mechanics---which I think are elegant (like the gradual downgrading of gems to buy, and how gem selling prices are determined, and the special power cards you can use to manipulate the market or aspects of your investments).
But the game that gets played the most here is Jambo. Very simple and elegant, Jambo packs a lot of punch into a very small package, with a lot in the way of special manipulation cards as you try to sell your wares for the most gold.
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Race games (of the non-trivial type): 2. In order for a race game to really capture my gaming heart, it has to be non-trivial; there must be some interesting catch, usually to do with how movement is paid for, or side effects of movement, coupled with enough control and strategic options to satisfy me. Still, race games usually have to have an extra something to me to stay around...
Odin's Ravens is an ideal example of a racing game that I like very much; not only is there ample opportunity to manipulate the race track, pay for movement, and planning ahead, all winning aspects of any race game for me, but the game is simple and short. It's one of the great 2-player gateway games I've gotten people interested in.
Another nice game I like is Elfenland, for times when you have more than two players. In many ways, it's something like Odin's Ravens adapted (though I know this game came first) for multiple paths and players, and you do have a similar way of paying for movement (terrain matching). Still a different game, and I love the art of the board (Doris is one of my favorite game artists). I thought about getting Elfengold to add on, but the game seems pretty satisfactory right now.
Examples of race games that are good, but don't quite make it for me:
- China Moon. An interesting game, and the movement mechanic of leapfrog means you need to keep an extra close eye on where your opponent frogs are in relation to your own. Special spaces allow you to pick up lily pads, which are your actual VPs, and other spaces let you trade, steal, and do other things. It can be a rather vicious little game, but still cute (those butterflies are really evil). Elegant, but not enough to interest me for some reason.
-Pacheesi. With or without conch shells and special movement, with or without the better traditional board, I would still pass on this game. Decent, but not for me.
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Travel around and pick up VPs efficiently games: 3. Unlike a racing game, this is not so much about traveling a limited path to an end point, but you have multiple paths to travel, as you try to pick up victory points in various ways---usually by picking up items in one place and delivering them to another place where they can be sold for a profit, but not always.
The most simple example is also the one that gets played the most here, even though it's very new at my place---Auf Achse. It's a very, very simple pick-up and delivery game, with almost nothing else added on. We dislike the die, and usually use an A-6 from a playing deck for each player. You have a hand of die moves, and play one each turn until you run out, at which point they're all available again. There's a simplified game (tuned, too) for younger children, but the standard game can be used fairly soon.
Keeping in the kids-can-play-but-adults-also-have-fun vein is Dragon Land, which reminds me alliteratively of Elfenland. Both involve traveling, but in Dragon Land you're traveling to gather up sets of gems, which score at the end of the game in classic Knizia "keep balanced between colors" style. Travel is tuned probabilitically (this is a Knizia...), and special tiles picked up on the board (and a standard set that everyone has) can be used for special travel or other effects. There are also other elements here---lots to keep track of. Classic Knizia. And underrated, but perhaps I should count myself lucky for living in a place where this game is not underrated! (Advantages of living on a family-friendly pastoral island...)
And then there's the new darling, Plunder, probably the most complex of this kind of game that I have. While the board is built from cards, and you can indeed need to fight other ships, other pirates, sea monsters, and have other unfortunate/fortunate events happen to you, I don't think of this game as an adventuring-type game. You're here to gain plunder, I mean, victory points---not to accomplish one or more "quests". And that's the way a pirate game should be. Arrr.
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Game systems: 3. We interrupt this geeklist for a slightly off-topic area, but an important part of this 'Geek's collection: game systems. Game systems allow one to play a lot of games, and thus get away with having more games than what one owns. Sneaky, see?
My ultimate favorite game system here is the Icehouse. I've gone on about it elsewhere, but the idea of having a set of pieces per player, which can point, have different sizes, can stack, and have different point values, leads to all sorts of interesting directions. I also keep a tarot deck (Gnostica) and chessboard bandana (many games).
Mu & Mehr is a different take on a bridge-style partnership trick-taking game, but I really like the little side games that come along with this particular package.
I feel I should mention Sticheln decks at this point as a way of playing *many* little numbered cards games. This includes Schotten-totten, Lost Cities, En Garde, Geschenkt, and others (even Honeybears, using single-digit cards to represent the walks and double-digits to represent the runs). Although I usually end up just getting the original games anyways, but the Sticheln deck offers a nice way to try before you buy. I even managed to get a Sticheln deck to simulate DruidenWalzer, but while it was passable, I did get a headache.
I have thought about getting the Piecepack and Sly. The piecepacks available from Mesomorph are very attractive, and I may pick up some. They can be combined with Icehouse as well, and both systems are very compact!
Playing cards are another indisposable part of the kit. Usually I use cards to play one of my favorite games, Cribbage. There's also the checkers and checkerboard to consider, which can be used to play Focus/Domination, although if I ever find a Focus/Domination copy I'd be willing to get, the checkers would go flying out the door relatively soon.
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Box-and-lines games: 3. Perhaps you remember box and lines from childhood---you make up a grid of dots, then you and a friend take turns connecting two dots along the imaginary lines of the grid. If you complete the fourth side of a square, you got to mark your initials in it. Whoever had the most squares claimed at the end of the game won. Primitive, but the basic mechanics of some games derive from it.
The first and foremost of these is Knizia's Samurai. Like boxes and lines, this game is quick and tense, but unlike lines and box, the grid is hexagonal, the types of "boxes" made are of three different kinds which you must balance in order to score well, and the lines are hex tiles that have different values.
Another game that follows in these footsteps is the underrated Penguin Ultimatum. Here, the number of sides of a box vary (each performer card has dots on the edges that indicate that the audience is "complete" once cards are adjacent to all of its dots), and the lines are penguins that you can score points for if they're one of your current special guests (you have special markers to indicate this) and they're amused by the performer (certain penguins are only amused by certain kinds of animals or certain kinds of acts). You also score for the performer, and you have your own agenda for the types of performers to score.
Auf Heller und Pfennig's boxes are not apparent, but the box and lines concept is almost in reverse. Instead of surrounding a box with lines in order to score it, you already have "boxes", but you must place them in the developing grid of "lines" so that they score well. With both negative and positive scoring "lines" (really tiles in the same row and column as your "boxes"), as well as limited special effects such as boosting the negative or positive bonuses, or splitting up the scoring of a row or column, this is an intriguing entry.
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Simulations of natural systems: 2. I was always fascinated by a mathematical "game" called Life. Life is a cellular automata; you start off with a grid and random squares marked "on". From there the rules proceed with reproduction and death rules, which depended on how many live neighbors a cell was adjacent to.
By itself, Life is not a "real" game, but if you introduce the ability to influence the factors by which the simulation acts, then you get a game. This is the heart of any natural simulation game, which means you need to have a sort of scientific experimentism sprit: tweak factors of the system, and watch how it behaves. Hopefully you've tweaked it so that your team of organisms survives and thrives.
My favorite game of this type is Ursuppe, aka Primordial Soup. The movement of amoebas, the food they must find, reproduction rules, etc., are very mechanical with only a little bit of choice. However, movement direction varies from turn to turn, and you can influence how your amoebas cope with the system by choosing which genes to buy with the limited amount of points you get per turn (which can accumulate over turns, so you can choose to get a little benefit now, or a possible large benefit later). Watching how your little souped-up amoebas deal with the next turn is fun in a biological science experiment way.
My next favorite in this group is SeaSim, which is a revamped version of Ocean. Here, the various kinds of fish obey certain life reproduction rules, and you try to position your sharks so as to be able to survive and, hopefully, eat enough to gain health points rather than lose them. You can add extra factors to consider by adding one or more of three agents which affect the availability and health of the fish: a virus, which gradually kills off fish, an ocean current which moves fish around, and an orca which competes indiscriminately for fish and takes them away from your poor, starving sharks.
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Trick-taking games with unique mechanics: 1, 2. All of these are card games, and they play off the old "Wiin cards (somehow) for scoring points (in some manner)" game structure. How to win cards and score points both have to be fairly unique in order for me to consider a game in this category.
I consider Thor (aka Quandry, Loco, Flinke Pinke) to be the top contender in this category. Thor also has an extra player (big game) variant, and a variant that uses cards with special powers, selected from a deck instead of putting down a card, and played instead of putting down a card as usual. You play cards to "tricks" under certain gods on the table, and each time you play a card you collect a token of the god's favor. The value of a particular god's tokens is determined by the most recent card played to their column. A very different and intriguing game, and deviates the most from the idea of tricks, but not entirely.
Another interesting take on tricks, but using more traditional trick mechanics, is Four Dragons, aka Dia de los Muertos. Here, playing cards to tricks is much different from the standard following of suit (instead, you have to play a suit that hasn't yet been played), and scoring depends on capturing cards such that you end up with the most pairs of the scoring cards (in Four Dragons, earth and rain cards). Interesting and unique play, but only for four.
Terra definitely merits a mention in this category. In Terra you can either play cards to your personal stash, or play cards to remove global emergencies that come up from the deck. You score based on combinations you're able to stash away for yourself, but if you don't participate in playing to the "emergency" tricks, the emergencies can get out of hand and destroy the world (and then everyone loses). Over-competetive types apparently have problems not destroying the world, which is very amusing.
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Climbing games: 1. In a climbing game, tricks are really aimed towards getting rid of cards from your hand. You can often play multiple cards from your hand if they form a valid combination, and then successive players must play valid combinations that are higher than yours, going around and around until a player can't play anymore. Then the next round starts. Often the number of cards in the initial combination dictates that exactly that number of cards must be played to it in order to beat it, which can really affect you if you don't manage your hand appoproiately.
Climbing games all feel a little bit the same to me, so I just stick with Gang of Four, which is the penultimate "go out first" game, and doesn't have all the silly mechanics designed to make losing players more sure to lose from one game to the next, and also features the "gang of four" combination that beats all combinations no matter how many cards are in them.
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Maze manipulation: 2. Normally tile-based, mazes that are constructed (or constructed turn by turn) and traveled through to gain victory points of one sort or another. Travel is made difficult by other players manipulating the maze, and sometimes you manipulate it unintentionally wrong yourself.
Drakon has been getting quite a few plays, probably due to its very quick nature and the special effects of some of the tiles, both for good and for evil---ranging from winds that push you extra rooms to the ability to change or even destroy dungeon rooms. Rotating rooms is the worst thing you could do to an opponent. I prefer to play without the tiles that steal from the hands of other players (because that player tends to play with a reduced hand for the rest of the game) and without the Barbarian. Some of the other too-powerful or too-boring tiles are also removed, but it leaves quite a few tiles in the mix. No-one misses the "object that is slightly different from a magic portal" tile, but everyone likes the magic alluring harp tile (well, not when it's them that's being allured as much
). I wish the tiles were cards, however, as this would make them easier to shuffle, easier to hold as a hand, and you could make them larger!I've always liked Master Labyrinth, with the movement of the maze. It's rather like a puzzle which shifts uncomfortably as your opponents try to pick up ingredients. At least in Master Labyrinth, you know that ingredient 1 needs to be picked up by someone before #2 can be picked up, and so on, and that the number of points will increase as the ingredients get higher in number---you have a general idea where everyone is heading. But there are secret goals as well, so your opponents aren't entirely predictable.
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Programming games: n/a. The only game of this type I've ever played is RAMbots, which can be played with an Icehouse set.
I'm looking forward to possibly getting Roborally, where the goal is to tag all the flags in order first. The factory floors you move on have all sorts of moving parts that can help you move along, hinder you if you misjudge how they'll affect your movement, or damage you or even take a life token from you. Damage also limits your movement options. Before every round, however, players program the movement of their robots---in secret. When the programs are revealed, step by step, you may find your well-laid plans going awry.
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Sparring games: 1. These games can involve cards, but they are very unlike your traditional trick-playing games---they typically simulate a dynamic fight of some kind, where cards played represent movements or actions specific to the kind of fighting being simulated (either accurately or for humorous effect). Damage of one kind or another is usually inflicted with each "won" battle.
For me, the most illustrative game in this category is Kung Fu Fighting, which encapsulates a cinematic super-wuxia martial arts fight. Players start out with 20 "chi", and then take it in turns to punch and roundhouse-kick the chi out of their opponents. Kung Fu Fighting is not just a simple "play damage cards" game---you can defend against damage, reduce damage, and use weapons and stances to reduce or increase damage of one kind or another. All stances have their weaknesses, and weapons have their good and bad points, but everything is dynamic and always changing, and responding is as important as dishing it out.
Another game with a good sparring reputation is En Garde, which I play using a printed-out fencing piste board of my own and Sticheln cards. The game is said to capture the spirit of fencing to a large degree (just as Geosphere has said that Kung Fu Fighting actually captures the spirit of aspects of martial arts as well). I've never fenced, but during play you learn when to rush forwards, when to hold back, and when going forward might be a very stupid idea and when it's possible to go through the risk. I have a lot to learn, I think. I'm looking into getting a copy of this game, although not the Duell version (which I thought was rather garish).
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Dual competition: 3. Imagine a line, with five special areas. Players play cards to each area, but in doing so, they not only interfere with their opponent in some fashion (either by depriving them of necessary cards, or by requiring the opponent to be able to up the ante in value on the other side), but they only interfere with their oponent in that particular area on the board. Fights are localized, in other words, but scoring means that you have to divide your attention across each specific area. These games are usually two-player and many of them are Kosmos 2-players.
The classic illustrative game of this type is Lost Cities. And there have been various others since then.
My current and absolute favorite at the moment is Schotten-totten, which really does simulate multiple battles in which you try to get a good combination to overcome your oponent's combination on the other side. The game fits its theme of little fighting Scotsmen fairly well, and I imagine that its redevelopment as Battle Line also fits the new theme just as well.
Balloon Cup just recently came back, and is more of a race on both sides to get little color blocks to win trophies. I play with the original rules rather than the publisher's rules: you can only play on your opponent's side once you've finished the cards on your side, and you can't exchange cubes 3 for 1.
A growing favorite right now is Babylon, yet another Kosmos 2-player. It's difficult to explain Babylon concisely, but there are basically two aspects to the game: the first is that you're trying to build up a certain amount of temple points before your opponent does. In order to build up your temple, you need to play a tribe card to move your stone figure to the appropriate area, and then get the right level cards played. However, temples can never be built up more than the number of tribe cards in that area, so you need to play more tribe cards in order to build up the temple properly. Another aspect is that consecutive runs of at least three cards of a tribe can be utilized to exercise a tribe's special power (which also costs a card from the meld). There are numerous combinations to pull off, and often the choice as to whether to keep a card in hand so you can move your stone figure to an area so you can play cards to it, or to use it to buffer up an area for an extra temple level, or to manipulate things so that you have a run of three tribe cards... there's a lot going on.
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Sports simulations: 1. Capturing something as physical and usually dynamic as a sport (such as football, American or Soccer) can be difficult for a game that's turn-by-turn, although you can imagine scenarios where a no-turns game might work.
StreetSoccer works very well for this. It's a roll and move at heart, but passing the ball is key (even if how far it moves is dictated by a die roll). Moving players is expensive, and passing the ball is the most efficient way to do it (just like in soccer)---a little light game perfect for afternoons when you're waiting for whatever is holding up the game on TV to go away.
A Gamut of Games contains a baseball simulation card game using normal playing cards that captures the game to a surprising degree. In Card Games Around the World, also by Sid Sackson, there's an American football simulation card game that works for the most part.
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Auction/bidding, blind or not, games: 1, 4. Bidding is a very popular mechanic, since it's a relatively easy way to "balance" out a way for players to obtain something (although like all things, if you don't do it right or insert it at the right place, it can backfire). Some games are all about bidding. I used to have a thing against blind bidding, but less so these days than previously.
So far, only Knizia has created a bidding game that I truly like, Fabrik der Traume. It even works well with just two players, which seems weird for a bidding game, but apparently not for a Knizia bidding game. I hear good things about Ra as well, though I understand it's much more abstract and I may prefer to just stick with Fabrik der Traume. (If I were to get Ra, I would get Ra, not Razzia, because the theme, as thin as it is, appeals more around here.)
I think I like ZooSim (I have the O Zoo lo Mio badly-punning-name edition, but at least it has differentiated scoring markers and is quite nice). I say "I think" because this has been at a friend's place for a while and I haven't seen it, although I hear they play it from time to time. I keep forgetting to pick it up. Still, I think they may have more fun with it than I would, so not too big a loss here.
A blind bidding game combined with tile-laying seems to win hearts over there.I will be trying out Fist of Dragonstones again tonight, with the varying types of auction variant (similar to Modern Art's auctions, which vary from painting to painting, except that here the auction type would vary depending on a d10 roll).
Another blind bidding game with great components (come to think of it, my bidding games all seem to come with great components for some reason) is Aladdin's Dragons, which I'm still trying to decide if I truly like or not. The game is an interesting way of presenting blind bidding that doesn't feel like blind bidding, and it's also a sort of resource management game, in that you pick up treasures that you can trade in for artifacts/special effects/victory points. I think Knizia's spoiled me, though.
Yet another bidding game, although not blind bidding, is Evo. Evo is a lot like Ticket to Ride for me. It's a game that I don't think I like as much as others, but when I do play it, I have a lot of fun. It's a game that's a 6 for me on contemplation and at least a 7 during play, but for some reason it never crosses the six barrier when it's out of sight. At least non-gamers seem to love it.
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Memory games: 2, 1. Games in which memory is a vital component of the game's mechanics. It's said that a lot of gamers don't like memory games, although if you combine memory with other strategies, gamers seem to not mind.
My favorite memory game (and one of my favorite comfort games) is Kupferkessel Ko.. (You can call it "Copper Kettle Co."). It combines memory and set collection, with special scoring rules that are a bit Knizia-ish, along with special effects and a little bit of movement fun, in that a card you pick to put on top of your cauldron will also dictate the number of spaces you move next turn. It's only a two-player game, however.
When there's more than two, I like to bring out Mamma Mia!, a difficult game to describe, but I'll try here... each player has a list of recipes to prepare, and a hand of ingredient cards. Everyone plays ingredient cards to a common stack, and you can play one of your recipe cards instead of an ingredient card if you think enough ingredients have been played to the stack. Of course, if this is not the first recipe card played to the stack, you need to account for earlier played recipes using up ingredients before your recipe comes along. When it's time to stop playing cards to the common stack, the stack is turned over and ingredients layed out in the order they were played. If a recipe card turns up, it uses up ingredients that have been layed out on the table. If the recipe can be satisfied, it's scored, otherwise the player gets to try again next round.
I recently got Dracula during a bout of Kosmos 2-player game buying, and the one play I've had of it is intriguing enough... but I want to play it another time to see if I can even seriously put it under consideration.
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Inductive/deductive games: 1. This is a rarer category than most. Some games, like Zendo, are purely inductive, while some games tend more towards deductive, like Sleuth. There's a very subtle difference between the two, and one that the two articles below will describe much better than I can with my fuzzy hand-waving...
Deductive reasoning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_reasoning
Inductive reasoning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_(philosophy)
I've played Zendo with my Icehouse pieces, and I've had fun with plenty of people. Zendo is very definitely an inductive game, since you use empirical evidence to formulate whatever rule is that's producing the evidence.
I recently obtained Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, which is guaranteed to have a limited shelf life due to its nature of a limited number of cases/conclusions. It's a difficult game, and I tend to take my time with it. I've been working on the first case for a couple of weeks now, on and off. I'm not going to give Sherlock Holmes the satisfaction of saying "Elementary, dear Bilbo, the carpenter was obviously the culprit due to suspcious staining on his clothing not pertaining to carpentry and instead pertaining to lethal poisoning via the extraction and suspension in oil of particular chemicals from the petals of a rare African orchid in Mr. Mose's garden." I usually dislike deductive games, but I don't mind one I can speculate on at my leisure.
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Action-point systems: 1. The name sounds rather dry, doesn't it? But just as a great professor will keep you interested in the details of basket-weaving among the various cultures of the American Indian tribes all semester long, a great game will make you think "action-point system? Surely there's a less dry way to describe it? I mean... it's fun!" Or it least it makes me think that....
Action points can be part of many kinds of games, but some games are pretty much all about what actions you can take during this turn and how much they'll cost. Spending your action points wisely is the key to winning, which also means that you should be able to evaluate when any particular action is most worth doing during the game. For this reason, action point systems can also lead to the familiar analysis paralysis unless subtle precautions are taken by the game designer.
The only entry in this category that I've played a fair amount of is Torres. The most enjoyable variant is the one where everyone holds all their action cards in hand, and can play one card only once per game, since this way there's no complaint about not being to get an action card you needed during the game. (For children, or for very tired adults, it's best to play with a shared action card stack.) I could play multiple games of this all night. And I do when it comes out.
I have wanted to try Java for some time now, except that it's such a bulky and heavy game that it doesn't travel well, and it feels a bit intimidating to teach to new gamers. Torres is very simple. Java is... more. And not a game I'm going to get to try tonight!
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Diplomacy, negotiation, and politics: 1. This is a difficult category for me, because I do very poorly with negotiation games. Never, ever let me barter for boardgaming space for a crowded night at the local library. It never works out. Regardless, this area of games intigues me. It's an interesting mechanic that works on a psychological level. For me to like a game of this type, however, it has to have more going for it than simply diplomacy (such as resource management or army movement or something).
Ideology probably is the game that I play the most that falls into this category, and that's not counting a lot. I'm not even sure it is a diplomacy game, but that's partly because I like it.
You end up with resource management in terms of deciding whether to spend your cultural/political/military influence on bucking up your controlled countries, trying to influence independent countries, trying to remove influence (such as through war) of opposing ideologies, investing in upgrades that will make spending influence more efficient/more powerful/less risky. And there's weapons of mass destruction, too. Where the diplomacy comes in is in your diplomatic stance towards other major powers: if you're at peace with a major power, you can only engage in cultural conflict, whereas if you're at war, you can engage in the full range of conflicts, up to and including military. Sometimes you really don't want to engage in a military conflict... but negotiation definitely plays a part. Major powers all have their own special strengths and weaknesses, making this a very fun game.An example of a diplomacy game that I dislike is Oriente, which is more or less *all* diplomacy and little else, apart from a few special role powers and the revolutions of the Nofu. I really need the "something else" to keep me happy.
I really want to try A Game of Thrones for real one of these days. From what I've read of it (the rules and reviews and session reports and so on), it's a good blend of various mechanics, so there's definitely enough to keep me interested apart from the diplomacy. I worry that diplomacy may be too necessary for certain positions (like poor Lannister, and I never ever thought I'd say "poor Lannister"). I think the game would capture the theme of the books well---one overarching theme is that of succession, wars, and capturing the crown. Of course, the game is far more about the War of the Five Kings than about the various political intrigues going on, which are more down at the character level (that's what the CCG is for). Another game I won't get to try this evening...
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Stratego-style games: 1. I've never played Stratego, but it's the penultimate secret unit deployment war game. Up until you directly encounter a piece, you'll likely not know for sure whether it's stronger than your current piece, weaker than your current piece, or the flag that's your goal to "tag". You may be able to figure it out via deduction, and memory also plays a part.
The game that I love (and many others) in this category is Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation. It's simple, elegant, quick, and strangely thematic for such a small, abstract game (and a Knizia at that, although he's proved that he can work with theme before---he just gets such a bad rap in the theme area
). It's not entirely Stratego, due to the special powers that each character has, special spaces on the board (but only a very little of that), and the power cards, one card played by each side, simultaneously revealed. Thus, even if you know that a particular piece is weaker than you, you will usually not know for sure whether your opponent is entirely willing to invest in that character or not. Some of the cards also have special powers, but most of them boost the power of a character by the indicated number of points.I always wanted to like
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Area control games: n/a. You have various areas that you wnat to control, and your dinosaurs/nobles/advisors/cubes start off controlling some of these areas. The idea is to manipulate physical connections, movement, and possibly production of pieces on the board in order to control more areas and/or reduce the number of areas your opponents control. There are usually multiple scoring phases.
I seem to dislike area control games, however much I want to like them. The games I've played have felt dry, even when dressed up with special powers and extra mechanics. I suppose I simply dislike this category, although there are plenty of gamers who love this category. I think it's due to the scoring mechanisms than anything else. Plus the games I've put in this category are probably the most pure of the area control games, and thus don't leave in a lot of other things that would capture my attention.
Such games that have fallen flat with me, although I think they are great games---they just aren't for me:
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I am very cautiously optimistic about China, but seeing as it appears to fall into the same category that the above games fell into, I think I can safely determine that I will also dislike China, as much as it is loved by so many others.
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Party and other "soft" games: 2. This is a very wide category, but includes any game that depends much less on strategic principles of any sort, and more on social principles. There's a difference between a party game and the diplomacy games above, which is that diplomacy games involve heading towards a certain, inevitable, and serious goal of control (even if it's done tongue-in-cheek). There's also usually other mechanics that drive the diplomacy. A social game is usually based on less well-defined mechanics, such as free-association, or mostly on personal knowledge that's derived outside of games (trivia games fall into this category as well). There is also, but not always, a fuzzy sort of judging involved as well.
Such lack of well-defined borders is probably part of general gamer dislike of these sorts of games ("winning" some of these kinds of games doesn't carry the sa
Last edited on 2005-07-31 20:11:04 CST (Total Number of Edits: 5)
Posted Sun Jul 31, 2005 10:51 pm
