49 - Memories: Games #3 - The Physical Era
A bit on the busier side at the moment - had to bring another boardgame one out! Skip if you’d like - I won’t be offended :)
In other news - we’re coming up fast on my 52nd post! A whole year’s worth of posts!
I’ll be trying to put some time aside to work out what to do in the upcoming year - and will be keen to hear your thoughts. Anyone ready for a SURVEYYYY?
Anyway - on to the post.
Look, it should be no surprise to any of you that I love boardgames. Heavens, I even wrote a piece on Game Design a month or so ago! I haven’t heard back yet about my game design but will let you know as soon as I know :D
I think I’ve recommended a bunch of them during the course of this newsletter - if you need any more recommendations HIT ME UP. I feel like a board-game sommelier - pairing the experience with the best boardgame. Having constraints like timing, people playing, type of experience - it’s just something else to get geeky about ^^.
He gets hooked
I cannot remember the first time I played Catan, or Ticket to Ride…I think it was a high school friend of mine who got into it, and I fell in love instantly. What you might have seen from these posts, or at least something that underlies everything here, is that I love things that bring people together. Sitting together in front of these…pieces of cardboard changed the whole experience of hanging out - providing a vehicle for people to focus on in a group, and another excuse to compete and have fun.
It started with a few gateway games - Catan, Ticket to Ride, Tsuro, Carcassonne. These are incredibly easy games that I would recommend as getting if you’ve never played a more modern board game before. They’re easy, but they have a simple strategic play that makes you feel smart when you can see the tactics to play. Some people I know have bought all the expansions for Catan, mixing and matching expansions to create a really fun experience - even though it’s a game I don’t like that much.
He obsesses
My acquisition phase rapidly increased as I stumbled upon the boardgames sub-reddit /r/boardgames. I remember finding some great YouTube shows and reviewers - like Tabletop, Rahdo Runs Through, and Rodney Smith - who would keep that #hype going by showing off new and upcoming games with fascinating ideas and evocative art styles.
I started to go on Kickstarter as well, examining prototype games and trying to think about whether I’d like playing them or not, committing money nearly a year in advance to get a game that I’d only read about. I’ve been lucky to buy a lot of really good games through Kickstarter - I research them exhaustively to try and see if I’ll like them. Blood Rage, which I’ve mentioned before, came through this route!
I won’t say I have a problem, but I also won’t say that the acquisition phase has particularly slowed down either :D Mum has on many occasions hinted (not subtly at all) that maybe I should slow down buying games or maybe sell some or that there’s not enough room in the living area for my games any more…
There’s so many new games to discover, to explore, and to try and work out how to win. Game mechanics can be shuffled around and combined in different ways - but not all of them are necessarily going to be great. As I show more games to my friends, they usually say ‘oh this is just like that other game!’.
That’s the dream. Being able to recommend something to someone, and they just get it.
He prevails
At the start of this phase, I was determined to be good at games, to conquer, to win, to be dominant. And to some extent, yeah, I was good at these games (cough and still am cough). But again, the underlying reason that I wanted to play these games was to spend time with people. There were some times when I had brought this big box of games, and realised that…y’know what? We don’t actually have to play them - it’s just as good to sit together and chat about nothing for 4 hours instead of forcing a game on to the setting. As I grew older, I realised that the game was just a vehicle for interaction - it didn’t need to be the focus of it.
If I do need people to play super heavy games, like Rising Sun, or Through the Ages, yeah, I have a group of people who would love playing those. But recently, it’s been much more fun to not be so serious, and just play things with a bit more luck, or a bit more of a party aspect. Especially during COVID, it’s no fun to have to play a brain-burny game all the time. Sometimes, you just want to chill out ^^
Chat soon :)
✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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Tabletop Simulator - if you’re bored during COVID, well, I guess you’ve probably found other things to do already, but I do still recommend this (though not at the $30 price point - wait for a deal!) - it’s a really good way to play boardgames with people online, and it just helps you have something to do. There are some really complex games that are actually a lot better to play online, because all the upkeep is done for you!
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T’zolkin - a boardgame about the Mayan Calendar (thought it would be appropriate due to our End of Days…), which uses a big cogwheel to determine what actions you get to do. I played it again recently and thought it was just such a great design!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Hikaru Nakamura, Chess GM, catapulting the love of Chess into Twitch - Chess has a well established class of grandmasters and styles of play; Hikaru Nakamura was once the world No. 1 for rapid and blitz chess. In recent times he’s turned his attention to helping streamers learn and play chess, creating the most hype events online and essentially becoming a ‘modern’ chess streamer. A wonderful article to read about!
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A tabletop game renaissance on Kickstarter - this piece is more focussed on a particular game, but interestingly does bring up some points about direct to consumer marketing channels and how different products can appeal in different ways. Most important is how demand can be more specifically managed through orders through Kickstarter, and design changes can be co-designed with the end consumer.
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The Landlord’s Game by the Dollop - recently listened to this, a thorough (and hilarious) history of how Monopoly was developed. The Landlord’s Game, initially supposed to show how bad Capitalism was, became a raging success during the Depression, when people had to rely on boardgames at home while they had nothing else to do! P A R A L L E L S…