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Jesse Dean
United States
Orlando
Florida
Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious predator on Earth!
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As 2011 comes to a close I find myself fairly interested in how the most-well regarded games of 2011 reflect on the year as a whole. Since 2011’s Essen games are only just now making an impact on the board game world, I’ve gone ahead and included two charts reflecting BGG’s consensus on 2011 games, the Top 10 of 2011 by Ranking and the Top 11 of 2011 by Average Rating.
There are several interesting bits of information in here, particularly for those who are looking for overall board game trends.
The first thing is that, for 2011 at least, Thematic games have won. Looking at these two lists, I see a wave of highly thematic games with a scattering of games (The Castles of Burgundy, Letters from Whitechapel, Ora et Labora, Trajan, and Dungeon Petz) that could be considered Euros. Those Euros that have done well are also generally from well-established designers; Chavatil, Feld, and Rosenberg dominate this list, with the only other one being by Mari and Santopietro, which is unlikely to make it into the Top 100. Looking simply at the Top 10 highest average, which is likely to be a bigger determinant of the eventual Top 10 of 2011 then current rankings, we have a higher relative number of thematic games compared to the Top 10 highest ranked of previous years. Thematic games have generally been on the rise for the last five years, taking an increasing number of slots in the Top 200 every year, and while I suspect that we will still a few highly regarded “pure Euro” releases per year, it would not surprise me for thematic games to continue their current dominance. The population of BGG has changed, and the types of games that are well-received have changed with it.
The overall play time of games is well within the average compared to previous years. 2010 was a particularly long year for new games (110 minutes average) and 2008 was particularly short (80 minutes average), and while 2011 is a little bit longer than 2009 and 2007 the difference is not particularly large, with around 90 minutes being the average game length for the most regarded games. I can’t say I am too upset with this. While I definitely like longer games, I appreciate that there is an overall mix of game lengths that are doing well critically, and as long as we see at least a few longer games do well we will continue to see publishers produce these kinds of games.
Only half of my own personal Top 10 for 2011 overlaps with these games, though that may simply be due to lack of contact. I have only played 7 of these 16 games, and of the remainder I am interested in trying out Star Trek: Fleet Captains, Trajan, The Castles of Burgundy, and Letters from Whitechapel. I think that there is a reasonable chance that at least one of these will eventually make it on to my Top 10 list, and at the very least I expect I will like at least some of them. Also, none of the top games are ones that I have played and actively dislike, which is better than previous years. The fact that I have gotten better at recognizing and avoiding games that fit that category might be a contributing factor.
These games fit a rather wide number of categories beyond the Euro and Thematic labels. If there is any particularly noteworthy trend for 2011 it is the emergence of deck-building games that feature a board and cards that are related to your interactions with the board. The fact these are the first deck-building games that have been released by well-established designers is probably not a coincidence, with Chavatil and Wallace showing off their designing capabilities quite well. I imagine that this push that these games (plus Eminent Domain) have made will probably result in a continued flowering of the deck building genre over the next few years, and considering my appreciation for Mage Knight and respect for the other two, I am looking forward to it.
2007 through 2010 currently have an average of 9 games in the Top 100. 2011 currently has 4, with 3 more (Eclipse, Mage Knight, Ora et Labora) almost certain to reach it and several others (Star Trek: Fleet Captains, Trajan, Yomi, and Dungeon Petz) having reasonable shots. This will probably end up being an average year for Top 100 impact, though it won’t take much for it to be exceptional. It will be exciting to see how things end up.
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Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious predator on Earth!
