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Max Jamelli
United States
Chambersburg
Pennsylvania
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#18 on my top 20 countdown is Tikal.
During my High School years, Monday evenings were spent with my dad and several friends. Among the people that would come to the house to play - my dad's friends Art and Greg, my classmates Dan, Josh, Gerry, Norm, and Tim. Often times we would play a game that I'll talk about later in the countdown, Air Baron. But in the summer of 1999, my father brought home a new game to teach us. That game was Tikal.
The first time we played, it was like a new world had been opened. Air Baron had been the first game that really showed me what board games could be like. Tikal showed me that different board games were good because of different mechanics.
I forget who won that first game, but I do remember really liking it. For gamers like Art and Greg, who cut their teeth with my dad playing hex wargames, seeing a game like Tikal must've been wild. The main reason I remember liking it was the simplicity of the rules. We never played with the auction variant so we never really got the full flavor of the game, but I also don't remember us taking very long to get through a game, so AP was never an issue for us.
I was impressed with the artwork. Tikal was really the first game I played that really "looked" awesome. Even still today, Tikal would have to rank among the top games in terms of artwork.
When I re-discovered BGG in 2007, I looked at the Tikal page and was amazed (and changed forever) by two words. Online play. I was like, whoa - you can play Tikal ONLINE??? I was giddy. You see, I was married in 2004 and moved 2 hours south of the city I grew up in. My wife Jen would play games, but in the early years of our marriage the gaming was really limited to a goofy game called Killer Bunnies. The people that got together every week spent more time talking than playing (which was fun) but I spent less time gaming with them and more time looking for a way to play again. Online play would be a way for me to re-connect with my dad and Tikal was the first game to do that for me.
I was so excited by that first online game with my dad, I wrote up a session report about it and saved the final screenshot.
Maybe winning the game made it easier to save the screenshot
After playing so much online, I thought it was time to introduce Tikal to Jen. I purchased my own copy and since Jen and I have color preferences that aren't used in Tikal, I actually went out and bought blue and purple pieces for the game. The only change we had to make was the use of "power grid" houses for base camps.
Example of our Blue and Purple pieces in game action
Since that initial game, I've logged almost 200 games of Tikal. I remember feeling almost bad that my logged playes of Tikal would eventually overtake my logged plays of Air Baron (Air Baron is now 3rd as I inch towards 2000 logged plays). Tikal spent a lot of time in my top 5, but as I got deeper into the hobby and found other titles, and newer games - Tikal eventually slipped out of the top ten, but it's still a game I enjoy.
Final Thoughts
It's tough for me to call Tikal a gateway game, but in a sense it was for me. Air Baron may have busted the doors down, but Tikal was there to run through the doors. I am slightly intrigued by Tikal II: The Lost Temple, but not to the point where I'm rushing out to buy it. Maybe at WBC I'll get a chance to see it.
Extra Thoughts
After reading about Tikal on BGG I learned about the Mask Trilogy that included Java and Mexica (as well as Torres) I decided that since Tikal was such a favorite that I had to try the other two. I was able to purchase Mexica online and while I enjoyed it, Jen didn't so we don't play it often. Java, however, proved tougher to find. It wasn't until the WBC of 2008 that I saw it. I saw it being sold for $25 at one of the vendor's booths. I wasted no time. I bought 2, thinking I'd sell a copy. I did sell one copy, but I was kinda bummed that I didn't buy more copies when I had the chance. I have played it once with my dad (2P game). In my one game, I decided it really needed more than 2 to really work. Unlike Tikal, which surprised me as a 2P game, Java and Mexica need more.
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