Columnists

Boardgame News columnists come in three varietals, as wine aficionados might say. This page combines the columns of everyone listed below; to single out the works of one writer or check out someone's biography, click on that person's name.

Tom Rosen: Non-German Three-Peat

A third consecutive year with a non-German designer winning my Game of the Year would have been unthinkable in the 1990s, but in this day and age it’s perhaps not even noteworthy.  The globalization of board game design over the past decade has been remarkable, and these days we have great designs coming from all corners of the world, and especially from all corners of Europe.  I’m not quite sure what has happened to the Knizias, Kramers, Dorns, Moons, and Teubers of the world in recent years, whose games still dominate my all-time Top 25 favorites, but I think it has something to do with the classic great designers getting stuck in a rut (see, e.g., Alcazar, Ra: The Dice Game, Samurai: The Card Game, and the ad nauseum additions to the Keltis, Ticket to Ride & Settlers of Catan families), while the new designers are the ones pushing the envelope and innovating.  The German dominance of my Game of the Year ended in 2006 with Mac Gerdts’ Imperial, and the non-Germanic three-peat started with Vlaada Chvatil’s Galaxy Trucker and Antoine Bauza’s Ghost Stories.  After sending the award out to the Czech Republic and then France, what country will it land in next?  For the answer to that, you’ll have to first read through a discussion of the nominees.

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Ryan B.:  Interviewing the Designers of Warlords of Europe

In my mid-thirties I discovered the Milton Bradley “Gamemaster” series of games through Eagle Games’ remake of Conquest of the Empire, which led me to familiarize myself with the full Milton Bradley line. Published in the mid-1980s, the series has a good sized fan base, even today.

Always on the lookout for games of similar ilk, I was intrigued to hear of a new game from Conquest Gaming LLC: the recently released, medieval-themed wargame Warlords of Europe. (2-4 players, ages 9+, 180-240 minutes) The game features a theme untouched by the Gamemaster series, with excellent production values and what looks to be interesting and unique game play. To find out more about the game, I got in contact with designers Russ Rupe, Ken Griffin and Kyle Battle. Here’s what they said:

Ryan: Tell me about the history of Conquest Gaming. Warlords of Europe is your first professionally produced title after self-publishing all of your earlier games. Why did you decide to make the next step?

Ken: The inception of Conquest Gaming occurred in 1997 during a conversation that Kyle and I had one night after gaming. We had been gaming buddies for a couple of years and during a discussion we both realized that each of us had the desire to create our own games in general, and a medieval combat game in specific. Thus was born Warlords of Europe. Kyle and I decided to start a company and shortly after invited Russ to become a full partner. It was through this synergistic partnership that Conquest Gaming was created.

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W. Eric Martin: Games for Soldiers 2009

I don’t have the best record in following through on projects that I start. (If you’ve failed to notice this tendency, despite such evidence as the months-late game giveaway to BGN members or the lag time in raising the BGN membership rate, then ignore that libel directed against my person. I’m a paragon of timeliness!) Thus I’m only now posting the results of the 2009 Games for Soldiers Drive, roughly three months after the drive ended with nearly $1,000 in the kitty. In particular, I want to thank:

• Alfredo Nevarez at Thought Hammer for once again donating the funds raised at the BGG.con Midnight Madness drawing, funds that amounted to $400.
• Ted Alspach of Bézier Games, who donated a case of Beer & Pretzels (12 copies) and a case of Rapscallion (30 copies!) – if the word “rapscallion” somehow makes it into modern Army slang, we’ll know who to blame.
• Steve Jones at Blue Panther LLC, who donated a half-dozen games, including Pulling Strings and Duck Duck Boom.
• All of the individual donors of both money and games, of whom I once again forgot to ask permission to use their names in a follow-up post, so I won’t call them out by name in case they wish to remain anonymous.
• All those who renewed their BGN membership during the drive to take advantage of my offer to redirect $10 of each such payment toward Games for Soldiers.
• Dan Yarrington at Myriad Games in Salem, NH for once again handling the order and kicking extra bucks into my account to purchase another eight decent-sized games.

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Kris Hall: Walter Hunt and New England Rails

I think that train and rail games are one of the more interesting sub-genres in the boardgame world, and so I snapped to attention when I learned that Walter Hunt and Gregory Pozerski had designed a game called New England Rails.  As a former inhabitant of Little Rhody, I was interested in any game that would let me build a train network into and out of Providence.  I soon contacted Walter Hunt and he agreed to an e-mail interview, and graciously sent me a copy of the rules.

I was pleased to learn that New England Rails is actually part of a small sub-sub-genre of games that deal with the way businesses interact with a transportation network (Brass, Indonesia, and Container are similar games that spring to mind).  Railroads actually aren’t the primary businesses that players own in New England Rails, but a rail network is essential to generating the most revenue from a player’s holdings.

But I should let Walter speak for himself.

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Jennifer Schlickbernd: Ask Ms. Meeples – Through the Ages for Ages

Hi, Miss Meeples, I run a game group and I’m noticing that one of the members isn’t quite keeping up with more complex games – he mainly likes party games and doesn’t seem to take to more “complex” games like Through the Ages or Battlestar Galactica. Any time he plays such a game, he really seems to be struggling and doesn’t seem to enjoy the experience and takes a VERY long time to make decisions, to the point of it being painful and uncomfortable for the other players.

At the same time, he doesn’t seem to notice that he’s not keeping up and is becoming a liability for the other players; he won’t bow out or say, “This is just not my cup of tea, so I’ll wait for another game that’s more my style.” Most of the time we’re diplomatic and just put up with it, and we don’t want to hurt his feelings, but is there a better approach to this delicate situation? Thanks…

Complex games can easily break down into very slow moving affairs, making them last a long time and convincing people never to play these types of games again just because of the time involved. I think that it’s important when you play these kinds of games that you explain this experience beforehand, and ask that people try to move the game along before playing.

If this encouragement doesn’t work for this particular player, then you can explain to him privately that a certain pace is expected while playing more complex games and that unfortunately he’s not keeping up, making the other players uncomfortable. If he still doesn’t get it, then I think you’ll need to suggest alternate activities, depending on your situation. For example, I’m having a meetup this weekend for 90+ minute strategy games. If someone whom I thought couldn’t handle the complexity wanted to come, I’d suggest a different gaming venue for him or her.

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Dale Yu: Techniques for Teaching Dominion to my Kids

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve talked about the kids and gaming – but that’s because I’ve been so busy working on games that I haven’t been able to spend as much time playing games with the kids (or other adults for that matter!) However, the kids’ birthdays have recently come and gone, and the immediate aftermath of the celebrations are a closetful of new boardgames for the kids.  And, with this new stack of games comes the daily requests for me to teach them new boardgames.  The funny thing is – they don’t want to learn the games that they were given… They want to learn the games off MY shelf!  So, as I am starting to prepare for a spring filled with teaching games to the kids – I’m reviewing my guidelines that I try to follow when teaching the kids any new game.

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W. Eric Martin: Two, Two, Two Games in One!

I’ve played a trio of new games in the past couple of months that have the unusual quality of featuring two games within the same game: Mystery Express, Cornucopia and Martinique. How did these mash-ups turn out? Anyone recall a David Cronenberg flick from the mid-1980s?

Let’s start by looking at the new Days of Wonder title from Antoine Bauza and Serge Laget. I’ve played an advance review copy of Mystery Express three times now, and feedback from players has been all over the board. (I’ll post a complete review in the next couple of weeks, prior to the game’s general release.) The most damning criticism has come from two people who have refused to play the game again due to one aspect of its design. What’s more, a third player skipped game night this past week because I had expressed a desire to play Mystery Express again that session.

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Matt Thrower: The Next Level

I’ve been waiting to play Conflict of Heroes for a long time. The idea of a relatively lightweight yet demanding World War 2 tactical game really got me excited and the only reason I didn’t dive in right away was because the historical background of the first game didn’t interest me much. I almost bought Storms of Steel but eventually passed on that because it looked like what I really wanted, a Normandy campaign iteration of the system, was coming up next. So until that time I was reliant on a friend getting a copy to try the game. Someone eventually came up trumps with Awakening the Bear and I sat down to get my fill of squad level Operation Barbarossa action.

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Matt Carlson:  Going to Visit

As one might guess, uprooting yourself from home for months on end to wrangle a pair of very young boys does not lead to lots of time boardgaming.  However, while my wife is on sabbatical, we have been taking in some sights.  Most recently we headed over to Normandy to take a look at some of the history there.  We had a very tight schedule, so didn’t have time for many diversions, so it was with quite a bit of longing we passed by the expressway turn-off for the port of Le Havre.

Why?

I have no idea.  While I’m sure it is a nice town, my understanding is that it is primarily an active port town with far less tourism than one finds in the many other historical towns in the area.  Pretty much the sole reason I was drawn to visit the place was because it shares its name with a popular board game.  I wonder if anyone else has gone out of their way to visit a location simply because it was referenced in a board game somewhere?

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Kris Hall: Roundelmania, or the Fiddly Fun of Shipyard

I am still trying to get some of the seemingly more important 2009 games to the table.  Recently, I managed to play Shipyard, the game about (obviously) ship construction by Vladimir Suchy.

Shipyard is probably best known as the game that takes roundel mechanisms to a new level.  Whether that level is someplace that you want to be may vary by individual taste--some have found Shipyard to be overly complex and busy.  The Appalachian Gamers found the game to be “fiddly,” a word that I believe means that the rules-complexity-to-game-satisfaction ratio is a little out of balance.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed Shipyard --even if I am wondering if the designer went one roundel too far.

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Shannon Appelcline: The Good & The Bad of Tobago

My articles often arise from my gaming experience. Usually, ideas arise from individual games, but once I’ve got a topic I then try and generalize it, so I can talk about a commonality among many games. But every once in a while, some thing stands out originally enough that I really only have one game to talk about, and that’s the case this week.

So, though it may look like I’m picking on Tobago this week, that’s in part because it’s doing some neat and new stuff--even if I don’t like the final form that it took.

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Game Snapshots – February 2010

February has been a month of exploring the new purchases from the Australian Games Expo, some talked about last month, some explored for the first time in the weeks following the Expo.

Of those reviewed last month, Dungeon Lords is holding up well and has seen repeat play, getting faster, with more competition developing over rooms and players keener to climb the Evilometer and take on the Paladins for the points. Assyria has also seen repeat play, with deliberate exploration of non-ziggurat strategies – none of which have succeeded yet, so it’s looking like players may have no choice but to go heavy on ziggurats, which would be disappointing. I haven’t given up on alternate strategies yet though, and it’s still a neat abstract.

In the filler categories, Bluff, Ra: The Dice Game and Pack and Stack are getting play at the moment. We’ve tried some variants for Pack and Stack with Dutch Auctions, holdover pieces and the like, but basically it’s just more fun as written with chaos abounding.

In the oldies but goodies category, we did a ten-year timewarp and played El Grande and Princes of Florence in one night. Princes is still getting multiple plays each year and still shining – we’ve played the variant but prefer the simplicity of the original. El Grande‘s coming out only once a year or so, and again showed why, there being a touch too much collateral damage and accidental kingmaking on the final turns. Enjoyable – just not shiny.

To the new stuff:

Alea Iacta Est – Roll eight dice. Decide whether to go for longest highest straight (top two get a bonus tile), or for biggest highest group (to claim a father tile for points), or a pyramid scheme for potluck points, or settle for placing low dice into a low-to-high ordered field to claim children tiles which will score only if they match in colour to father tiles. Go round until someone’s played his last dice. Grab tiles, and repeat for five rounds. Decisions are pretty simple with only four things to aim at, the choice being mainly whether to go all out for something or spread yourself around more. Re-roll chits previously earned through leftover dice give a bit more to think about, but I’m thinking this one may not provide enough decision oomph to earn a lot of table time. Replay indicates that there’s not enough differentiation between player’s strategies – everyone’s pretty much going for all the same things, and you adjust the order of what you take based on what you roll. Playable, but not seekable as a result. 6ish.

Bananagrams – The same experience as Pick 2 / Take 2. Essentially a solitaire crossword building exercise where you get letters added to your collection at random times if other players are completing faster than you, or you’re driving the pace for others. It’s for those who love Scrabble and Boggle. This gives more control over your word building but keeps the pressure on by making it a race. More of a pastime than a game, but enjoyable in a puzzle-type way. 7ish.

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Game Overview:  Mystery Express from Days of Wonder

By Ryan Bretsch
February 25, 2010

Designers: Antoine Bauza and Serge Laget
Artwork: Julien Delval
Publisher: Days of Wonder

Players: 3-5
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 75 minutes
Rules Language: English / French / German

Mystery Express is the latest offering from Days of Wonder, a boardgame company located out Los Altos, California with offices in Paris, France.  The premise of the game is based on a murder mystery, as you are working to “solve the case” as you travel by way of a well-known flagship train as it choo choo’s its way from Paris to Istanbul.

In this gaming mystery, Days of Wonder opts for a “period piece” set on the Orient Express, originally made famous by Agatha Christie as one of her best known Hercule Poirot mysteries.  This is a superior move, as the romanticism behind the novel, the nostalgia of the time period and the luxury that this mythical train conjures up makes for an incomparable game setting and it becomes very easy for the players to slide into the interlude that the game creates. 

Days of Wonder cements the mood of the game by calling up their secret weapon, artist Julien Delval, for the absolutely gorgeous artwork which does a very pleasing turn of inducing the rich opulence and understated indulgence that traveling in the appointments of the Orient Express wisps you away to.  And Mr. Delval fits it quite properly into the art deco stylings of the era.

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W. Eric Martin: Aiming for Perfection

I purchased the Rush Hour iPhone app in mid-February 2010 and have already completed 300+ of the 2,500 puzzles included. In case you couldn’t guess, I like it.

Rush Hour, for those of you who haven’t played, is a sliding block puzzle from Nob Yoshigahara in which the solver needs to manipulate various blocks in a grid in order to slide the target red car out the slot in the right-hand side of the grid. Vehicles move only forward and backward based on their initial orientation and cannot be picked up or reoriented. As with the plastic version of the puzzle published by ThinkFun, the iPhone app divides the puzzles into four layers of difficulty, with a player being able to choose the difficulty as he wishes.

One nice addition to the app over the physical game is that each puzzle tells the player the minimum number of moves in which the puzzle can be solved – but this number isn’t revealed until the player has solved the puzzle. So you slide, slide, slide, solve – “ooh, I can do this puzzle in two fewer moves. Let’s try it again.” Once you’ve found the minimum solution, the checkmark in the directory indicating that you’ve solved a puzzle changes to a star.

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Kris Hall: Craig Bartell and 1817

This is the last of my interviews with designers of upcoming 18xx games.  Today’s guest is Craig Bartell who (with co-designer Tim Flowers) created 1817.  Enterprising gamers can now create their own print-and-play version of 1817 by downloading the files at www.proto.deepthoughtgames.com.  Those who create and play the game should then contact the designers with any questions, comments, or suggestions.

Kris: Why design 1817? What will be special about this 1817 game?

Craig: Tim and I have both enjoyed playing other games in the 18xx series for many years, but wanted a game with more financial depth. 1817 was born out of that desire for a more financially focused 18xx game. 1817 is special because of its use of financial mechanics not available in any other 18xx game. These include short selling, market based interest rates, corporate liquidations, and hostile take-overs.

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Jennifer Schlickbernd: Ask Ms. Meeples – One in a Hundred

We have a delicate situation this time, one that might be familiar with many readers:

Our situation is similar to that of your December 2009 blog ”A Clue for the Clueless” in that this person is very slow to pick up on games and doesn’t seem to play many games outside of his comfort zone – which is all fine and good, but there’s an added element of him being extremely awkward socially, to a point where he’s considered either incredibly tedious to be around or (in some cases) slightly creepy. He’s a bit of a milquetoasty, dull little man, and all of my conversations with him have been polite but a bit strange; he’s the sort of guy who has no charisma or charm, and we find ourselves frustrated to be around him. If immersed in a particular game that he doesn’t understand or enjoy, he doesn’t even have the self-motivation to say, “This one’s too tricky for me, I think I’ll go play something else,” and excuse himself; he’ll just continue to plod along, much to the frustration of his fellow gamers until they convince him that he should bow out.

His intentions may be good, and I don’t know for a fact that he has any sort of mental impairment (though I do suspect he may be afflicted with a light case of Asperger’s Syndrome), but he’s been to only two of our meetings, and we know that our feelings are shared by some of the more die-hard, regular members of the group.

We find ourselves torn over whether to continue to allow him to be part of the group; in particular, at the last meeting he attended, I found myself constantly trying to figure out a decent group dynamic to accommodate his play style and that of those around him. It becomes a chore and a tedious exercise for something which should ultimately be fun. In a group of 100, I know that I don’t have to worry about 99 of us getting along, having a great time, and playing stuff that we like – it’s that 100th person which is constantly making me feel more like a nanny and less like a host/organizer.

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Dale Yu: My Quadrennial Olympic Rant / Puzzle Answers!

Though I put the word “rant” in the title of this column, let me start by saying that these two weeks of the Winter Olympics are amongst my favorite times in the calendar for an avid sports fan such as myself.  What could be better than having more than 2 weeks of nearly continuous sports coverage of the best athletes in the world competing against each other.  Every night, I can come home from work, turn on the television and watch four or more hours of mostly compelling events.  Admittedly, there are plenty of events that I’m not overly familiar with – as I only encounter them about once every four years – but that doesn’t stop me from being captivated by them when I get a chance to see them on TV.

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Fraser McHarg: Was a trip to Essen enough to stop the purchasing?

So after spending months in Germany, attending Essen and various stores across Europe last year you would think that we would have finished buying games for now wouldn’t you?

Not quite.  At the end of January we went to CanCon/Australian Games Expo.  There were quite a few retailers there and MilSims have their big sale.

The temptation was too much.  Here’s what we got.

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Matt Thrower: Q & A With Martin Wallace

I’ve been meaning to ask Martin Wallace for an interview for ages: I’ve often thought that he’s one of the more innovative designers working today and I love the manner in which his games retain the basic feel of a Euro whilst usually allowing a very high degree of player interaction. And of course, just like me, he’s British and in the US/German-centric world of board gaming us minorities need to stick together! But what finally gave me the impetus to ask was the fact that Brass turned up very high on my latest game ratings article and it seemed an opportune time to ask him some questions about it. To my great pleasure he agreed to take time out of his busy schedule to field my inane queries. I found the answers frank and quite surprising - I hope you do too. 

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Kris Hall: Tom Lehmann and 1834

This week I continue my interviews with designers of upcoming 18xx railroad games.  Tom Lehmann may be best known to gamers as the creator of Race for the Galaxy, but he is also an established 18xx designer.  1834 is his upcoming game about New England railroads.

Kris: Why design 1834?  What innovations to the 18xx genre does 1834 make?

Tom: I designed 1834 over a decade ago, in 1997-1998.  It was my “rethink” of the entire 18xx financial system, following my work on 2038 in the mid-90s.

In 2038, we focused on operations, getting asteroid mining and spaceships to work within an 18xx framework.  We didn’t rethink the financial system, except to introduce “growth” corporations to let a minor company “grow up” into a 10-share corporation, with per share capitalization.

In 1834, I introduced a linear stock track, corporations starting at just 20%, and combined per share capitalization with corporate stock issuance.  1846 (published by DeepThought Games in 2005) shares these rules.  I designed 1846 in 2001 as a shorter, simpler game than 1834.

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Dale Yu: How to explain our wonderful hobby? / TWO puzzles this week

Let’s face it – this boardgaming hobby that we share is wonderful.  Boardgames provide us a way to enjoy time with family, friends, or even complete strangers.  They allow us to exercise and improve our mental capabilities as we learn the rules and nuances to the different games that we play.  For some, it provides the opportunity to travel and meet new people.  Boardgames provide a fairly economical way to enjoy a few hours of relaxation – and they have the added benefit of being re-usable.  Despite all of these great reasons (and many more that I didn’t list here), I’ve found that most people look at me with either confusion or disbelief when I tell them that my major hobby is playing boardgames.

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Ryan B.:  Meeting the Needs of the Mass Market (Expanded)

NOTE: This is the same article that ran briefly this last Wednesday morning, but was later moved for today.  I have expanded the article since then with some relevant outside commentary. In sales, much effort is focused on working to understand the needs of your customers.  The same holds true for any effective retailer/manufacturer striving to understand the mass audience of consumers.  When discussing boardgames, I seem to be observing two approximate schools of thought that seem to take shape on forum boards, websites and similar sites dedicated to the boardgame hobby.  One school of thought focuses on the game itself to provide the primary medium for entertainment while the second school of thought views the game as a means to an end to get friends or family together for a shared social experience. 

I am of the viewpoint that I believe most people in the boardgame hobby are primarily about “the game”.  In other words, it is the game itself which drives the level of enjoyment people have playing it.  For another contingent of the gaming community, the definition of a great game centers primarily around its ability to create a memorable, fun, shared experience between people. 

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W. Eric Martin: Stupid Fun

One of the game categories missing from the BoardGameGeek advanced search function is “stupid” – as in “this game is so stupid that you have to play it.” Stupid games embody the maxim that it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, only how you play. When you play a well-designed stupid game, you think only of how much fun you’re having and don’t worry about where you place in the standings. The experience of the game itself provides all the satisfaction you need.

A few truisms about stupid games:

1. They tend to be short. While it might be possible to design a 120-minute stupid game, I’ve yet to see one. These games provide a quick emotional jolt, not a feeling that could be sustained for hours.

2. The more, the merrier. Stupid games tend to be at their best when you have the most players that the game permits. The game is a catalyst for fun, with players providing the raw material, and the more people you have around the table, the more likely they are to react to one another.

3. The strategy is there if you want to look for it. You can play a stupid game thoughtlessly and concentrate only on having fun – many people do – but you can typically get better at the game if you care to do so.

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Kris Hall: David Hecht and 18Ardennes

Today I continue my interviews with designers of upcoming 18xx train games.  David Hecht (designer of 18FL, 18EU, and 18West, among others) was gracious enough to discuss his game 18Ardennes, which is currently in playtesting..  In fact, gamers who are willing to do some printing, cutting, and pasting can make their own version of 18Ardennes from files available for downloading.  The website for the download is listed at the end of this interview.

Kris: Why design 18Ardennes? What will this game add to the 18XX genre?

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Jennifer Schlickbernd: Ask Ms. Meeples – Better to Give (Hints) than Forget?

I’m in the middle of a bad cold, folks, so I am going to have a short column for you today. Much more next time!

Dear Ms. Meeples,

When someone forgets to take a bonus to which they are entitled, what is another player’s obligation to remind him? A thread on BoardGameGeek discusses bonuses in Race for the Galaxy with many examples. If someone forgets to take their bonus card for settling or discards too many cards when paying for something because they forget to count a benefit, should other players remind them?

Assume that these are players who have played often, so they are not in the learning phases.

If this is a tournament or a game where prizes could be won, then definitely no reminders. You’ll likely cause annoyance if you do. Otherwise, you should consider the situation and the players. If you are playing a casual game and this happens only in the middle or later part of the game, then sure, remind them once or twice. If they start the game and within the first ten minutes or so of playing have forgotten a few times, then you may have a problem player. In a short game like Race, I’d just let it go. However, the next game I played with that person I’d mention that I’d like to keep the game moving without a lot of takebacks and reminders.

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