New to Me: Autumn 2019 — Farewell to California

2019 was a bit of a changing of the guard for me. After 30 years living in Berkeley, across the Bay from San Francisco, and after more than 15 years of gaming with friends at Endgame (and later Secret) on Wednesdays and at my house on Thursdays, I’ve moved to the Hawaiian island of Kauai. I’ve been here almost two weeks now, and I haven’t had time yet to search out my next board game opponents, but they’ll certainly be different from the friends I had out in the Bay Area. So here’s my last look at new games played on the west coast of the United States.

As usual, these are games that were new to me (whether they were quite new or quite old) and I’m listing my ratings of the games as a mid-complexity eurogamer. Your mileage may vary.


The Great (“I Would Buy This”)

Wingspan (2019). The hotness lives up to its hype. I’ve already written extensively about this game, but in short it’s a tableau building game where you improve the power of your actions, both by making them stronger and by giving them variety. And then you try and accomplish goals, some short-term, some long-term. This is all done through bird cards: you gather food, you lay eggs, you collect the bird cards and then you play them. The cards in turn can hold eggs, can generate actions, and can earn victory points. It’s a well-themed, variable, and enjoyable game that’s not quite like anything else on the market.

(And I can buy myself a copy now that I’ve landed in Hawaii and won’t have to ship it over in a container. I mean, if I can find one in-print.) Continue reading

New to Me: Spring 2019 — Sequels at the Top

My gaming has changed this year, due to the much-lamented demise of my old gaming community. My new groups seems to have gelled around slightly lighter play than the medium-weight games I prefer, and thus I’ve had a few more misses this time around. But I’ve also played some very enjoyable games in the last three months, most of which were sequels in one way or another. As usual, this list rates games based on my personal enjoyment as a medium-weight gamer, and they’re games I personally haven’t played before, whether they’re truly new or not.

The Great (“I Would Buy This”)

New Frontiers (2018). This is the fourth iteration of the Race for the Galaxy system, following Race for the Galaxy (2007), Roll for the Galaxy (2014), and Jump Drive (2017). This one is obviously the heftiest of the games, though it outweighs super-filler Race for the Galaxy by just a little bit.

As usual, you’re building developments, settling planets, and shipping goods to earn points. This new game goes back to the core role-selection play of Race for the Galaxy, which means that you do these things by selecting actions, and then other players get to take slightly less powerful versions of those actions. That’s a nice return, because Race for the Galaxy dramatically fell out of favor in local play as extensive expansions poisoned the game through too much complexity, then Roll for the Galaxy basically fired it. I love Roll, but its gameplay is quite different. Still, this isn’t quite the classic Race system. For example, you now have to have both settlers and money to settle a planet. Continue reading

I Poison My Games with Expansions

I love game supplements. If there’s an expansion for a game that I enjoy, I’ll buy it instead of a new game every time. It’s a blasphemous offshoot of the Cult of the New: I want to see what’s new and exciting in the euro field, but I prefer to do it from the comfort of my familiar, well-loved games.

And when this works, it really works. I’ve recorded exactly two games with more than 100 plays: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (2013) and Dominion (2008)Both are picture-perfect expandable games that have huge variability without changing the complexity or core values of the game.

Conversely, I’ve recently realized that I also poison my games with expansions. I have multiple well-loved games on my shelves that I’ve stopped playing because the last expansion I put into the box made the game either less fun to play or more complex to teach. Race for the Galaxy (2007) suffered from expansion #3, The Brink of War (2010), which introduced a “prestige” mechanism that was just one complexity too many. It’s only been brought out one or two times since that expansion went in. 7 Wonders (2010) might have suffered the same fate after expansion #2, Cities (2012). went into the box, as it added punitive take-that mechanics that made the game not-fun for players who ended up on the short side of the taxation stick, but fortunately I had the presence of mind to toss that bad expansion out. Carcassonne (2000) recently didn’t go on a family trip, because I thought that the inclusion of the first two expansions made it too difficult to teach to newcomers, even if I do think that’s the perfect balance for thoughtful play. Eminent Domain (2011), complete with Escalation (2014) and Exotica (2016), almost suffered the same fate due to my own intimidation at the multiple rule sets, but I eventually pushed through to relearn how variable ships and mining worked and was able to successfully bring it to the table, but it was a near thing and the huge piles of technology cards still caused problems.

In other words, though I uncritically purchase new expansions for my best-loved games, I think it actually would serve us all to be critical about what expansions we buy, because some can increase our enjoyment of those games, while others can be silent killers that consign their games to never leave their game-shelf homes behind.

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What Makes a Real Science-Fiction Game?

Ten years ago, I wrote an article called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, Part One: A History and Ten Top Games”, which discussed some top science-fiction games. Looking back, it’s shocking how inadequate the science-fiction market was at the time. Two of the “top” games I mentioned, Diceland (2003) and Light Speed (2003) were quite small press. Two others, Blue Moon (2004) and Blue Moon City (2006), trended more toward science fantasy — or even pure fantasy. Mission Red Planet (2005) was the only mainstream game from my list with strong science fiction themes. There were some others of course, with Starfarers of Catan (1999) being the most obvious, but as a whole science-fiction games were pretty scant ten years ago, especially among pure Euros.

Fast forward a decade. I recently spent an evening where I played Star Realms (2014) followed by The Captain is Dead (2014, 2016)A few months ago it was a couple of games of Jump Drive (2017) followed by Galaxy Trucker (2007). There have also been games of Colony (2016), Master of Orion (2016)Roll for the Galaxy (2014), and others. In other words, science fiction games have gotten really big in the eurogame space — in large part due to non-German designers.

Obviously, science-fiction theming gives these games different façades. But a game’s genre should be deeper than that: it should determine the mechanics of the game, and ideally those should be mechanics that wouldn’t be possible in any other genre. So today I ask: what makes a real science-fiction game?

I’m going to take a look at several popular games that I’m familiar with to answer that question. I’ve purposefully avoided licensed offerings, as they obviously have very different reasons for their theming.

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What Makes 10 Great Games Great

I’ve been keeping track of my games played for almost fourteen full years. That means that I have a pretty robust listing of games that have worked well enough to get numerous replays from me over the years. They represent a set of great games, with features that any would-be great game could endeavor to repeat. So this week I’m going to go through my listing of those top games and offer my opinions on either of their best features — the ones that make them so worth playing and replaying. Continue reading

New to Me: Winter 2017 — The Card Games

I was happy to see a number of actual 2017 games hit the table this winter. Quite a few of them were, surprisingly, card games instead of full board games. As usual this is a list of games that are new to me, and and as usual this listing ranks them by how much I personally like them, as a medium-weight eurogamer.

The Great

The Dresden Files Co-op Card Game (2017). I’ve actually been playing this one for over a year through numerous prototypes, the designer is a friend, and I love the Dresden Files novels, so caveat reader. But with all that said, I honestly love this game.

DFCO is a cooperative game where you have a case laid out for you as an array of problems: cases to solve, foes to fight, obstacles to overcome, and advantages to take. You have to figure out how to work through the cards that have been laid out, in order to defeat enough foes and solve enough cases to win the game. The co-op play comes through the facts that you’re jointly working on this puzzle and that you’re using a joint pool of resources to take your actions. This design is really unique among co-op games, and gives it much of its original feeling.

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The Design of a Resource-Efficiency Game

A resource-efficiency game focuses on turning resources into victory points through a chain of actions. It’s a very common design style for euro games, but also one with considerable room for variety.

The recently released Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction (2016) shows the style at its simplest. You start out with worker resources. You turn those into yellow cake, which you turn into uranium, which becomes victory-point bombs. There’s a single development path for a four-link chain. The game is all in how fast you can walk that path.

Catan ConflictThe ever-popular Catan (1995) shows a different methodology. A variety of resources become roads, settlements, and cities. You can also look at this as a four-link chain: resources are necessary to create roads, which are necessary to build settlements, which in turn upgrade to cities. However, as with many more complex resource-efficiency games, there’s a feedback loop: settlements and cities can create more resources. Thus the game becomes not just about maximizing efficiency but also maximizing opportunities. Continue reading

Anatomy of Three Conversions: Burgundy, Ra, and Galaxy

Games can be defined in a lot of different ways. They can come in different styles, from American take-that to Eurogames, from party games to abstracts. They can can in different fictional genres, from science-fiction to history, and in different mechanical genres, from worker placement to auctions. Finally, games can also be parts of different mediums, primarily including board games, card games, and dice games.

Gaming mediums are particularly interesting because they seem to encourage conversions. Board games  become card games or dice games, and vice-versa. This trend seems to have been growing in the last few years, as Intellectual Property has become a byword of the eurogame community. Alea is currently be the poster child of IP conversions, with Broom Service (2015), Castles of Burgundy: The Card Game (2016), and Broom Service: The Card Game (2016) all being conversions of this sort. The last is particularly notable, since Broom Service: The Card Game began life as Witch’s Brew (2008) … a card game!

So are medium conversions good or bad?

Too frequently they result in a game that’s a pale shadow of its originator. I know I’ve played Euphrates & Tigris: Contest of Kings (2005), but I barely remember it, while Shadows Over Camelot: The Card Game (2012) and Bang! The Dice Game (2013) were more interesting, but in no way overshadowed the original. But, in some cases you get games that are quite exciting. San Juan (2004) is obviously the vest example of a game that managed to massively innovate its predecessor, creating something that was as good, in its own way.

This week I’m going to take a brief look at three games that were converted to new sorts of dice and card games: one of the newest entrants to the field and two that I think really worked.

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Anatomy of a Genre: Role Civilization, Part Three: The Galaxy

Race for the GalaxyIn November, I took a look at a smallest of mini-genres: what I call the Role Civilization genre, which originated with San Juan and which also grew to include games such as Glory for Rome and Eminent Domain. My previous articles covered the origins of the field in role selection and those three games. In this latest article, I’ll be looking at the final major  entry in the category, Roll for the Galaxy, discussing how it simultaneously invented and reinvented the field.

The Shared History of San Juan and Roll for the Galaxy: 2002-2007

Puerto Rico (2002) was the game that brought role selection to the field of serious, dense eurogames. It ruled the gaming table for a few years and was considered the top game in the field. Alea production manager Stefan Brück asked Puerto Rico designer Andreas Seyfarth for a card version of the game, and the result was San Juan (2003), which kicked off the whole role civilization subgenre.

But that’s not the whole story.

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Anatomy of a Genre: Role Civilization, Part Two: The Empires

Glory to Rome I.VA few weeks ago I kicked off an investigation of a small genre of games that I call “role civilization” games. These are “role selection” card games that were inspired by San Juan. My initial article defined the genre through four mechanics that all debuted in San Juan: phase (role) selection; card building; multipurpose cards; and card economies. 

This week I’m going to continue my look at the genre by seeing how it’s evolved since the advent of San Juan and by investigating two Imperial successors to the game. 


A History of Role Civilization: 2004-Present

Andreas Seyfarth’s San Juan (2004) could have dramatically changed the board gaming field. Not only did it make the very popular mechanics of Puerto Rico (2002) more accessible, but it also introduced a new style of dense filler that played quickly in a short period of time while still allowing for real strategic decisions. Unfortunately, San Juan was held back by the fact that Alea games tend to be somewhat underproduced and until very recently didn’t get supplements. The best San Juan ever managed was a few mini-supplements in Treasure Chest (2009), one of which reappeared in the second edition San Juan (2014).

Despite that, a few related games trickled out. Continue reading