Ah, board games! Monopoly and Chutes and Ladders and... well, no, actually, not at all.
The area of board games has evolved tremendously thanks to influence from European countries (especially Germany). There are now all kinds of interesting and unusual board games out there intended for adults. These games are sometimes amusing in theme and gameplay, and sometimes they are deep strategy games. I enjoy all kinds, and here I provide a brief introduction to the games that I like.
I am rather well known among friends as being someone with a lot of board games. So below I present a description and a few quick thoughts on each game.
I'm going to break down board games into two categories --- "Themed Games" and "Strategy Games." Themed games are those which are made fun by their theme; their gameplay could be simple or it could be complicated, but it is rarely the strategy that is the most important element. Luck will often play a role. They're fun because they're wacky and interesting, and the game play is just so darned good.
My favorite type of game is actually the strategy game, because I'm one for the thinking. But that is not to put down themed games --- there are many excellent games here that I really enjoy playing!
The players are together a set of characters exploring a haunted house. Each one has some different characteristics that controls how they explore, and what aspects of the haunted house they are most vulnerable to.
What this game excels at is that the house is not initially visible to players. It is laid out at random, with random events throughout that can cause harm or benefit. These random events drive the game; it is the random events that draw the game from the first stage of exploration to the second stage, when the evil presence makes itself truly felt, where the game appropriately gets its name.
This is a well-balanced, fun game that tells a little story in the process of the gameplay. Very solid considering the disparate elements that it brings together.
This game is quickly advancing to --- if it has not already reached --- the "classic" category. Each player "explores" by picking up a tile and then picking where on the map to lay it (so that it remains consistent with what has already been placed). They can then claim the region that they have created, be it road, field, or city. At the end, points are awarded for the best regions claimed.
It sounds dull, and yet the placement of tiles can be marvellously vindictive, a great way to strike at your fellow players and impede their progress. There's lots of room to turn things around, and somehow the style of thought required for this game is quite pleasant, quite simple to get ahold of. Definitely recommended.
From the makers of Fluxx, this is another card game that's very cool the first couple of times you play but quickly loses its lustre. (I feel British today.)
Chrononauts is a game of time travellers. At the beginning of the game, a huge timeline is laid out with events from all throughout history (up to the publication of the game, circa the shooting at Columbine High School, which is an event). Each player gets a card describing them as a time traveller, most likely from the future, who got stranded when events in history got changed so as to make their future impossible. It is their goal to travel backwards in time and change events so that the future reverts to their own, and so that they can go back to their families. There are dangers that everyone has to worry about; for example, too many changes that are not "patched" for consistency could lead to the destruction of the universe!
Despite this fantastic premise, and reasonable execution, this game fails in the gameplay. First of all, one quickly becomes familiar with all the permutations of the timeline. As with Fluxx, rapid changes can affect the game so globally that it is difficult to tell who is winning. And once you know the theme, and you know how everything interacts, there's just not that much to do but mechanically play your cards so as to try to bring your events about. There are none of the amazing moments of turnaround, none of the drama that ought to be inherent in time travel. You just do it, and it's funny and interesting the first few times. Like a Star Trek episode, however, by the fourth time (Voyager), why are you bothering with the time travel plots anyway?
Fluxx is a card game with constantly changing rules. During your turn, you can either play to your own benefit or play cards that change the rules. The mix of the rules creates unpredictable combinations --- it is not unusual to play a rule change card and discover suddenly that you have won, or that someone else has won, even though you didn't realize it while playing the card!
This game is great the first few times you play it; it makes a really nice introduction to more interesting board games. But it soon gets boring: after a few times you've seen all the rules, and they're all pretty much alike anyway. Moreover, you realize that there is little true strategy to the game, and winning comes down to change rather than play. You can't even tell who is winning at any particular time.
Sometimes, you just want to shoot things. Mag Blast is the game for those times.
Each player takes control of a race's flagship --- with a special power --- and four defender ships. Your goal is to blast through your opponents' defender ships and then destroy their flagship. The game is a fast-paced card game --- lots of drawing, lots of using cards, lots of refreshing your hand to get more ships, more shots, every little bit precious.
The game provides for interesting and highly temporary alliances, as one can only shoot at the nearest player that remains alive immediately to your right or left. It can support up to eight players, and if they are experienced, the game can still move quickly. All in all, a great game when you just want to get in and destroy your opponents, without overly taxing your little grey cells.
If you like storytelling, this game is brilliant.
The game is a group storytelling game. Each player starts out with a hand of cards. All but one are elements of a fantasy story --- characters, items, locations, events --- each one described simply, perhaps "witch" or "key" or "bird" or "brother," or "this animal can talk." There is also one additional card that each person gets, an ending card, which contains the last sentence of the story --- as far as that person wants it!
One player begins telling the story, playing their cards in the process. Their goal, ostensibly, is to bring the story to a conclusion where they can use their final sentence to end it. (This is sometimes tricky, since you must introduce the appropriate elements; for example, the card might read "And the brothers agreed to give up their wicked ways and live in peace with the villagers," in which case you must, in the course of your story, introduce brothers, their wicked ways, the villagers, and the cause for the brothers to abandon their wicket ways) In order to play that last card, however, you must have used all of your story cards. Moreover, other players can interrupt if you mention elements on their cards. For example, one player might say "Tall William listened to the birds chirp while he struggled through the thick growth of trees," playing the "birds" card in the process. But then another player can play the "forest" card --- which he had in his hand --- and take over the story from there, continuing it from where the previous person left off. The genius of the game is that the objects on the cards are general enough that it is actually quite likely that another storyteller will mention the contents of your cards, but, along with their pictures, they are also suggestive enough to inspire you to tell an interesting story.
Above, I said that the ostensible goal is to bring the story to a conclusion using your final sentence to end it. But the truth is that, in the best games, the goals of all the players are to tell a good story, to feed inspiration off of one-another and the game. Yes, everyone sort-of wants to win, but that is secondary. The game is often handed off to someone else if one has run out of good ideas, and I've seen people hand it off shortly before winning because "it was too early to end the story."
If this sounds like a game you'd love, then you will. If not, then it's probably not the game for you.
This is an odd board game that almost does what it intends. What child, when programming, hasn't thought about some sort of battle waged within the constraints of a programming language? Well, okay, probably lots of kids haven't thought about that, but I did, and clearly the designers of this game did, and the result is exactly something like that.
In this game, the instructions for a program are laid out and each player gains control over certain instructions by placing their tokens there. Then program evaluation begins, in a giant loop, and as it reaches each instruction, the player in control of that instruction can decide if it should be executed or not. There are instructions that damage other players, instructions that heal, etc., but the game shines with the flow control instructions. Subroutines, GOTOs (nightmare indeed!), skips, instructions that reverse program flow... these can all dramatically change the progress of the game in unexpected ways. Control over program flow has a huge impact on how things proceed.
The result is such a great big mess that no one can keep track of the consequences of any particular action, and so mayhem ensues: no one quite knows what they're doing but they still try to manipulate the program to kill off the other players. When it works, it works fabulously. But the program can also get caught up. Sometimes a lucky player gains control of a subroutine that loops infinitely, and can simply kill off the other players without any chance for action on their parts. Sometimes other unexpected things happen that turn the game from a pitched yet confused battle into something boring, or something that just fizzles.
Still, especially for programmers --- especially for those of us that once used languages like BASIC, but even for more recent programmers --- this can be tons of fun. So use it with caution, but it may be worth your time. (And the game itself is dirt cheap.)
A note: This is not in the rules, but it occurred to me while writing this review that it might be possible to give each player 1-2 chances to "override" and cause a particular instruction not to get executed, even when another player is in control of it. This may allow for escaping some of the more difficult situations above.
A simple, classic game of trading. On the island of Catan, up to four different groups have decided to settle and to try to build the most impressive network of towns and cities. By using the natural resources of the island, they construct their settlements and expand their control of resources. However, since no one can quite have access to all of the resources they need, they must trade between them, each trying to gain advantage through those trades.
The game is good, and wonderful for getting into the spirit of such games. It is balanced, fun, and not too long (about 45 minutes, depending on number of players). I have since gotten rather sick of it, I'm afraid, but I'm the sort of person who is always looking for something new. Still, a great game, and not to be missed if you've never played it.
With the possible exception of Once Upon a Time, Shadows Over Camelot is perhaps the best game in this category.
Each player takes on the role of one of the knights of the round table. Together, you must vanquish evil. So the game is cooperative... except that one of the knights may be a traitor. There might be no traitor at all, and so you can never be certain. But someone in your group may be working against you.
Thus gameplay proceeds with all the players working together to beat the advance of evil, yet there is always an undercurrent of distrust, of fear that someone is actually working against the others. The game has just enough that players do secretly vs. what they do openly that there is plenty of room for the traitor to take action while still being afraid of discovery. In here there are always three levels: the strategic aspect, as players work together to win the game; the aspect of random chance, which can tilt the balance in unexpected ways but which can also be controlled by the players/traitor; and finally, the conversation overlaying the game, both providing opportunities to strategize and to discover the traitor.
All in all, an excellent game, for up to seven people, and thoroughly enjoyable. Great for a group of friends to never trust each other again!
This game was published independently, not by a major publishing group. It's good, but not great, from a first playing experience. However, I have heard from others that love it, and so I do hope to have another game at some point and learn more about it.
First of all, this game is entirely cooperative. There's no backstabbing, even. Earth has been swallowed by this strange, unexplaned blackness, and that blackness is reaching out to envelop all of the (conveniently evenly-spaced) other alien planets. As one of those alien races, it is your goal to stop the black creature(?) and avoid getting destroyed. Fortunately, some communication with Earth on the other side is possible, and through that communication you can discover what is necessary to stop the blackness.
The real problem with the game is that what you to do stop the blackness is rather predictable --- spend these resources, or spend resources constructing some object and then discard it. So the game consists of resource management, perhaps some trading, and some maneuvering. Moreover, there's no enemy to taunt, no one to look at and know that you are beating them or they are beating you; there is just this blackness.
The game does have adjustible difficulty levels, so balance is possible by moving between these (start easy as a beginner, move up). I have a feeling that with the right players, this could be quite enjoyable, but as I've only played it once (and it was long), I don't really know yet.
These games make little or no pretense at plot or setting. They are about using your wits to win. Often they are similar in some spirit to chess, but they tend to be more adventurous. I like them because their strategy is less well-developed; I can feel like I am making serious progress in my play without having to consult with books and strategies that other people have developed before me.
This is perhaps the game that is least obviously in this category. Diplomacy is a wargame, but unlike, say, Risk or Axis and Allies, it has no dice, no weather, no technology, no random chance. The game is completely deterministic, and it even goes so far as to have players' moves occur simultaneously (each player writers down their moves and they are resolved together).
Simulating a war in Europe in the early 1900s, Diplomacy is not really about the strategy. Oh, there are a few impressive maneuvers you can perform with your armies and navies, but with only one kind of unit, always equal in power to everyone else's units, and without much space to maneuver on the map, it's not really about that. It's about the alliances you make and break.
Each turn is preceeded by a negotiation phase in which you and the other players can form alliances and agreements, and make plans to together divide up Europe. Of course, each of you is in control of a nation: there's no one there to enforce these agreements. So the art of the game comes in backstabbing your "partners" at just the right moment, thus crushing their armies after you've used them to your ends. With everyone trying to do that at once --- and turns resolving simultaneously --- it's total, wonderful, enjoyable mayhem.
I haven't played this game since my CTY days, but I love it dearly. Unfortunately, it's also a very long game (how I managed it at CTY I still don't know!), so be prepared to have it in multiple sessions.
I still don't understand this game, and yet I really like it.
Dvonn --- part of the vowel-impaired Gipf series, which also has Zertz, Punct, and several others --- is an abstract strategy game of the most abstract variety. The board consists of a collection of circles, and discs which one can stack upon them. The discs are white and black corresponding to each player, and on your turn you can move any stack with your color on top of it, but in a very restrictive manner. Your goal is to move on top of opponents stacks and take control of as many discs as possible. But when you create a large tower, it loses mobility, and your opponent might also be able to jump on top of it --- in other words, increasing your cache makes for large, easy targets for your opponent!
The game is confusing. It's hard to tell what kind of strategy is useful, and I've never met anyone who really felt they understood it. But at some point, I think I started to understand certain currents running through the game, and how to ride them to victory. I seem to generally win, although I have little idea why. All I know is that there seem to be deep principles underlying the game without the local tactics one can wrap one's brain around in other games. Because it is in this way so very different from other abstract strategy games, I quite like Dvonn.
Octi is perhaps my favorite game in this entire collection, and it has occupied that position for quite some time.
The game was built with the rather silly goal of making a game at which a computer would do poorly --- in other words, now that Deep Blue can beat any human chess player, let's make a different game whose game tree is structured in a way to prevent computers from winning. I don't particularly care about this. But the result was, accidentally, a great game.
You see, the way that you construct a game that a human can do well at but a computer cannot do well at is that you construct a great big gigantic game tree, but then you ensure that patterns flow throughout. Humans can take advantage of these patterns, create constructions that will allow them to build structures that they know will be beneficial in the long term --- a good ways down the game tree --- even though the computer simply cannot solve that far down. And so a game was created where it's possible to build towards the future without a specific intent; where one can find patterns within structures, and build adaptable defenses that will be ready for many different kinds of assaults. This is Octi.
The game is simple. You begin with three pieces that cannot move at all. During your turn, you can add a new piece (which begins with no mobility), or add a new direction of movement (there are eight directions of movement for each piece, thus Octi). Pieces can stack, jump each other to capture, and maneuver in other interesting ways. This allows you to create deep defenses to prepare for an opponents' assault, or to try to launch your own unexpected assault. The ability to change the capabilities of your pieces as the game progresses is what makes it so excellent. Even deep in enemy territory, you can suddenly change completely the function of your attacking pieces.
Octi is a wonderful game for those that like to think deeply, and to develop new strategy. Since it hasn't been around as long as chess, nor is it as popular, there's lots of room to develop new strategies that no one will have seen before. This game is a great mental exercise.
It's possible to play online, against humans or a computer, at octi.net. However, I suggest buying the board game, both to support the producers, and because it's so much more fun to play against a human in person. Be prepared to have to take lots of unexpectedly bad moves back your first few games!
A great party game for people who like to think deeply, this game seems to have buried within it the elegance of a mathematical proof. It is essentially a sequence of puzzles --- each puzzle asking "how do you get the robot to the goal" --- which players compete in a timed fashion to solve. It's wonderful because it is possible to come up with really beautiful solutions; even in losing, it is not common to compliment another player on the elegance of his solution.
The idea is simple: four robots are in a factory, but their brakes are broken. They must maneuver to certain goals, but they can only begin moving in one of four cardinal directions and do not halt until they hit a wall or another robot. At the beginning, a board is set up, the robots are placed, and a goal is chosen. The players essentially all stare at the board for a while until they come up with solutions. The first to see a solution announces a number, and everyone has one minute to beat that number of moves. After that minute is up, the player with the shortest solution gets to demonstrate and takes the token. Then a new goal is chosen.
What's magical about the game is the unexpected interactions between different robots, the unique paths you can set up. Most puzzles have gorgeous solutions just waiting to be discovered --- and after you've stared at this particular setup for a few minutes, you too will appreciate the person who comes up with the nice way of doing it. This is a party game for mathematicians and puzzle-lovers alike.
Such a simple tile-laying game. On their turn, each player (represented by a color, up to three) picks a hexagonal tile and lays it on the board. Each tile has on it winding paths of each different color, entering and exiting on two different edges of the hexagon. The player must place the tile based on simple rules that essentially insist that each hexagon must be placed consistently, so that sides in which a color enters match on adjacent hexagons. The goal at the end? That your color has the single longest path.
It's an interesting game, taking the essence of most tile-laying games and distilling it into something simple. But the ways in which other players can force your moves, or close off your path, are quite devious. Near the end game, it's almost but not quite possible to solve the game tree --- since you see the remaining tiles --- so you almost imagine that you could play optimally. But it's difficult enough that this doesn't happen.
All in all, a thoroughly fun game that has good depth and replay value.
An earlier game that first made Alex Randolph's name in board games (he is also the creator of Ricochet Robot). Twixt is pretty much entirely different from Ricochet Robot. It is also an abstract strategy game, but it is much more traditional: it is two-player, and players alternate taking turns.
The idea behind the game is similar to the more well-known Hex, although the board structure makes this a deeper game. Each player alternates placing posts in the rectangular field. These posts can be connected by bridges. No two posts may occupy the same spot, and no bridges may cross. Your goal is to construct a bridge spanning from one side of the board to the other, joining the two; your opponents' goal is to span the other two sides. In particular, he cannot win if you do, since your bridge would block his from completion.
The game is interesting, with lots of tricks, and it even comes with a book of "Twixt puzzles" where you must find a clever way to defeat an opponent and make a bridge. These puzzles are themselves very addicting, but situations of such interest do not (obviously) come up very often during gameplay.
The game is deep and interesting, and well worth a study, but somehow it never grabbed me as much. I enjoy it a lot, but not as much as most other games; it's a bit too traditional, a bit too common in its game play. Still, this is an excellent game that can easily stimulate your brain for hours.
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