Deckbuilding seems to have slowed down in recent years, after being one of the dominant forces in the industry throughout much of the ’10s. But it’s nice to know that when we see a new game in the genre, it tends to be more original and innovative, as is the case with Reiner Stockhausen’s newest bagbuilding game, Altiplano (2017).
The Physicality of Bagbuilding
Each of the bagbuilding games that I’ve played has gotten me thinking about the genre because it’s simultaneously so close to deckbuilding, but so intriguing different. So I previously defined the subgenres derived from deckbuilding (while writing about Orléans) and talked about the things that bagbuilding does particularly well (while writing about Automobiles).
This time I was thinking more about the physicality of bagbuilding: how it tends to be built around small pieces, like the cubes in Automobiles or the discs in Orléans (and Altiplano Itself) by simple virtue of the fact that that’s what you can easily draw from a bag. Continue reading