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× Talk about Eurogames here.

The Eurogames Reclamation Project hits home.

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24 Jun 2014 09:57 - 24 Jun 2014 10:03 #181105 by Bull Nakano
Yeah, I definitely feel Euros are geared toward a really fun first play and offer diminishing returns. This happened to me recently with Terra Mystica and Kemet (which isn't much of a Euro, but comes from a Euro design pedigree). After my first play I thought they were very interesting, I played both about half a dozen times and now I never want to see them again. They're too predictable and mundane, and now that I've explored what was clever, they're just a chore to play.

This is totally different from games I just dislike on the first play, but these games just grow old to me fairly quickly. I could play Power Grid and Nexus Ops every week for the rest of my life and doubt I'd ever tire of either, so what's the force behind these games that are fairly similar but 10 years later that I just can't stand?

In Kemet it's the emphesis on how important the last turn is. It's like the designers had never played Risk 2210, but decided to make a DoaM game. Do yr homework. In Terra Mystica it's how simple the strategy is. TM is not a simple game, in fact it's a monster when compared to other Euros. There are so many things to constantly remember, but the strategy is really "set yourself up to maximise how many times per turn you can score that turn's bonus points". The order those points are arranged each game is different, but they're all known from the start game, so it's just jumping through hoops and if players ignore the bonuses and try a different strategy, they'll get crushed by players who are cashing in on those points twice per turn.

I do think TM would make a good video game, because even knowing this strategy, the interesting parts are still interesting, it's just not a game I want to spend 2-3 hours of my face to face game time on. 20-30 minutes playing against a computer on a bus sounds much more appropriate for what it offers.
Last edit: 24 Jun 2014 10:03 by Bull Nakano.

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24 Jun 2014 11:34 #181111 by Gary Sax
Great posts, veemonroe. I agree completely.

An interesting question would be if people on F:AT play games more frequently than the average BGGer in a non-game group/con environment. I know lots of folks game at cons here, but I get the sense many of them have game groups that consist of their friends and don't consistently go to a game group filled with randoms.

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24 Jun 2014 11:47 #181112 by Bull Nakano
I almost never play with a table of strangers, maybe we play with a straggler or a friend of a friend i haven't met, but I usually play at someone's house or my game club, so I usually know most folks at the table on at least some level (and therefore find them agreeable to play with).

Do these tables of 4-5 strangers playing a game really exist? Every heads down Eurogamer I know plays with friends.

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24 Jun 2014 12:11 - 24 Jun 2014 12:11 #181113 by VonTush
There's something that seems off with this conversation...I can't put my finger on it exactly, but there seems to be a lot of generalization, assumptions and fairly weak arguments being put forth. And it seems all to be for the sake of basing people that want to be focused on a game as they learn it...Which seems just flat wrong.
Last edit: 24 Jun 2014 12:11 by VonTush.
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24 Jun 2014 12:20 #181114 by wadenels
I do a lot of both. I play a lot of 2P games with my wife, we play a lot of games within a circle of our friends, and we play a lot of games at a monthly Minneapolis mini-con.

Among our circle of friends I'll usually play whatever people are pushing for. The group dynamic is always good, even if it's a heads-down victory point machine game. We chat and chide each other a little and if we have a strategy discussion after the game it's usually more valuable than post game discussions with strangers. We'll also tell each other when we think a game is crap. Well, at least I will. I hope my friends don't honestly believe I'd judge them based on their game tastes.

At the mini-con with strangers there's a lot of heads-down eurogames going on, and I've played more than my fair share of them. There's little interaction and after the game people just sort of wander away to whatever other heads-down eurogame is going on. I know a handful of regulars there that enjoy the type of games I enjoy and tend to gravitate towards those people. A lot of the people at the mini-con shy away from any type of high-interaction game where alliances may be made or broken and/or you might have to rely on other players for certain things to play out the way you want them to. We tend to bring a small bag of games we'd like to play multiple times, but the majority of people there bring a massive bin full of games with the intent to play each of them once. Not many people go to a con-type event to play Clash of Cultures a whole bunch of times. I was pretty pumped when I managed to play it 3 times in one weekend there with other people who enjoyed it.

Based on that I think veemonroe and Uba both have a good point. I bet a lot of games get designed and/or playtested amongst random groups where a good metagame never really develops. It usually takes a certain amount of experience with a game before any real metagame or valuable negotiation begins to surface. When I managed to play 3 games of CoC in that one weekend with mostly the same people every game was better than the last because all these great interactions started to bubble to the top. If you're playtesting with random people you aren't getting that feedback. Instead you get feedback like, "I didn't like how Player X was able to do that thing that stopped me from doing Y." The end result just might be that you end up with a game that has an interesting set of mechanics and the promise of potential, but isn't truly interesting beyond a few plays. Basically exactly what Bull Nakano is talking about.

Kinda veering off topic though. I'm going to go back to making my Legend of Zelda Hyrule Fantasy game now. Check it out; even if you don't intend to PnP it the artwork and content alone are fun to look through.

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24 Jun 2014 12:24 - 24 Jun 2014 12:31 #181115 by bfkiller
Last edit: 24 Jun 2014 12:31 by bfkiller.
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24 Jun 2014 12:46 #181117 by Michael Barnes
I've done my share of gaming with strangers, and I've been at the table of five complete strangers before. I've seen it happen many, many times especially at Dragon Con and at some of the local Atlanta events. It's a very different kind of gaming, and I think that the post-Princes of Florence heavyweight Eurogame is IDEALLY suited for this type of play. You don't have to commit to anything in terms of player interaction, you don't have to worry about abraiding people you don't really know, and at the end winning is something you can kind of do quietly and smugly before moving to the next table. Which isn't to say groups of friends or mixed groups don't or can't play these kinds of games and enjoy them. But I do think that one of the changes in gaming culture over the years has been a greater emphasis on "stable" experiences that work in settings where the players may not be familiar.

Which is, of course, a HUGE difference from both highly interactive, player-driven games as well as _family_ games where socialization and a degree of intimacy is almost assumed. But there again, that's not to say that a table of complete strangers can't enjoy Cosmic. That said, there is no way a game of Cosmic between strangers could be nearly as great as when we play a the Hellfire Club, with over a decade of history and friendship on the table with the components.

My point about design meshes with what is being said about playtesting and these kinds of games that are "stable" for three or four games and either descend into repetitiveness or a degree of scripting. It doesn't help that upstart designers think that taking a game to a convention- which is absolutely not the best environment for in depth gaming, IMHO- and playing with a group of strangers is effective playtesting. The "test audience" is going to return results that are more in tune with that culture of low playcount, low intimacy. Wade nailed it- a metagame doesn't develop.

Let's face it, the meaning of "hobby gaming" has changed since BGG introduced this "gotta play 'em all"/trainspotting mentality. It used to be that hobby gaming meant you were really into a couple of games that were really designed for the long haul. Now it means you're into A LOT of games. It's gone from a conissuer mentality to a consumer mentality.

To loop this back to classic Eurogames, one thing I'm really valuing about playing these games- Attika, Modern Art, Tikal, etc.- is that they NEVER feel tedious, repetitive or uninteresting. I think that back when the Euro designers were doing the more "family game" oriented titles and not thinking in terms of BGG, the big conventions, blind playtesting, etc. the impulse was to do more games that had lasting value. Simple mechanics, low rules bulk and maximum gameplay. Even with the Eurogames that I've owned for going on 20 years, I never look at them and think "oh man, I do not feel like dealing with that shit." I always think "oh man, I'd love to play that this weekend."

Which is kind of ironic, because you would think that simple mechanics and low rules bulk would foster a sense of needing or wanting to play more titles. But instead, I find that I'm feelng more rewarded by playing Attika with two other guys that REALLY know the game and it's a knock-down drag-out...for three games played back-to-back-to-back.

And damn, it's nice to put a game on the table and everybody knows it already.

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24 Jun 2014 13:10 - 24 Jun 2014 13:20 #181119 by VonTush
The assumption that people go to game conventions to meet new people is ludicrous. The person sitting next to you don't want to get to know you, he wants to get to know the game. If I sit down with strangers, I don't give fuck all about you or your family, I want to know about the game, you're just a useful tool for me.

BGG has created a mentality that breadth of knowledge is better than depth of knowledge. That it is easier to compare things against each other rather than judge something on its own merits. Breadth also allows a person to take part in a wider range of the community...Being a specialist in one game doesn't have anywhere near the cache of having hundreds of reviews in front of your game shelf with hundreds of games.

So games have to develop a "Wow" factor. The mentality of breadth over depth creates an atmosphere of game cycling. An atmosphere of game cycling pushes designers to go for a "Wow" factor. And "Wow" factor moves units but doesn't make for a deep** game.

Now, to say this is a Euro or AT thing I absurd. My first plays, with very good friends, of Horus Heresy, Twilight Struggle, Sekigahara, Merchants and Maruaders, Fury of Dracula, Eldritch Horror...All had me looking like an "anti-social gamer". I was focused on learning the game, the words coming out of my mouth were game related.

EDIT:
**Deep is the wrong word. Good. Good is what should go there. A game with a strong "Wow" factor will distract from the quality of a game, only after time and the "Wow" wears off can a game really be judged on being good or not.
Last edit: 24 Jun 2014 13:20 by VonTush.
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24 Jun 2014 13:17 #181121 by RobertB
It might have been the luck of the draw with opponents, but Attika utterly sucked for me as a 3-player game. Two is best, and four is okay, but three would degenerate into a whinefest about who's responsible for stopping the player that's trying to cross the board. Responsible player and board crosser then lose.

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24 Jun 2014 13:22 #181122 by wadenels

VonTush wrote: The assumption that people go to game conventions to meet new people is ludicrous.


I do. If I didn't want to meet people I'd just play games at my house with people I already know, or PBEM/PBF, or not at all. Meeting people with similar interests is the primary driver for me to play games with strangers.

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24 Jun 2014 13:25 #181123 by VonTush

wadenels wrote:

VonTush wrote: The assumption that all people go to game conventions to meet new people is ludicrous.


I do. If I didn't want to meet people I'd just play games at my house with people I already know, or PBEM/PBF, or not at all. Meeting people with similar interests is the primary driver for me to play games with strangers.


I've fixed it...My point is that conventions draw people that have a similar interest by showcasing that interest. By and large the showcased interest is the draw and meeting people with a shared interest is secondary and optional.

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24 Jun 2014 16:52 #181141 by ubarose

RobertB wrote: three would degenerate into a whinefest about who's responsible for stopping the player that's trying to cross the board.


That's the best part of a three player game. Although in our 3 player games it's more threats and bluffs and broken promises than whining.

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25 Jun 2014 09:34 #181175 by RobertB
ubarose wrote:

That's the best part of a three player game. Although in our 3 player games it's more threats and bluffs and broken promises than whining.


There might be a separate thread's worth of comments about, "Can _any_ game turn into a negotiation game?"

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27 Jul 2014 08:04 #183092 by bomber

Michael Barnes wrote: Let's face it, the meaning of "hobby gaming" has changed since BGG introduced this "gotta play 'em all"/trainspotting mentality. It used to be that hobby gaming meant you were really into a couple of games that were really designed for the long haul. Now it means you're into A LOT of games. It's gone from a conissuer mentality to a consumer mentality.


this is simplistic. It reads like theres been some huge change, but I'd suggest its more like a huge swell of people who werent playing games before. Those of you/us who were playing games long before the Settlers boom, and perhaps the cutoff came a bit later, maybe pre Puerto Rico? are probably still playing games and interacting with the hobby as you were before, only now, the internet. On top of that the "BGG hobby" (which by the way is still a tiny fraction of gamers worldwide seemingly, based on how few people I meet in games stores who have even heard of it, much less use it) has just sprung up, I think additionally to the "old school" gamers.


And the consumer market in gaming now is still minor when you think about it compared to many other hobbies.

The really sad thing is so many people get roped in from the beginning on the collecting/dross side of the fence and never escape. Their choice, but I do wonder, how many of them are really just using boardgaming as an interchangeable "filler" for hobby/obsession/passing time that we all have.

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27 Jul 2014 08:35 #183093 by bomber
It's a lot like how most hobby industries work. Take music for example, before the internet, and the onrush of mass commercialization there were people properly "into" music, who sought stuff out, knew about things that the average layperson didn't, went to the gigs, now theres a huge swathe of commercial crap controlled by big corporations, and finding the good stuff takes just as much effort as before despite the internet - the people who were "into" music are still there, and now have a lot easier time to get hold of stuff, and the internet and streaming sources and the total shitosity of most commercial music has probably pushed more people to seek out music of value, but instead of kickstarter you have X factor - vacuous talentless cunts paraded in front of mindless fucking idiots by cynical money grabbing twats who know what Joe fucking Idiot is going to buy despite most of these people having ZERO musical talent outside karaoking shit someone else wrote. Just an easy way to cash in, like all industries. It's sad that this just becomes a tidal wave that sweeps over any meaningful choice, so that people that might actually enjoy real music, made by real people for real reasons might imagine it doesn't exist or at least comprises a miniscule corner of the available music. When you see wave after wave of games that basically all do the same thing year upon year upon year - and with games, let's be honest, it doesn't have the same range of possibilities as music - just feels sad for those coming in and hoovered up by the new "mainstream" arm of the hobby. But you know, they're probably happy so fuck em.

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