Shannon Appelcline: 2008 in Review: The Board Games

2008. Not only was it a good year for gamers, but it was also a year with quite a bit of exciting momentum in the gaming world. Keep on reading, and I’ll tell you why.

To offer a teaser, it’s a tale of depth, dollars, beans, workers, frogs, and innovation.

Some of these events and trends actually date back to 2007--both because I’ve been a little loose in looking at when things occur and because I’m usually much more interested in the American release date for a game than the German one.

A Good Year for Gamers. Gamers should be pleased with 2008 because it was the year that serious games made a comeback in the Euro market. I think 2006 might have actually been the nadir, as epitomized by Alea’s release of Rum & Pirates and Palazzo, so things have been on the upswing for a couple of years now, but the trend really broke out in 2008. Agricola was the standard bearer. Z-Man overall continues to be a great new member of our euro-publishing community; they also brought gamers’ games likeNeuland and Chinatown back onto the market last year. If the first reports are accurate, even Reiner Knizia seems to paying some attention to gamers again, with Munipium‘s hour-long play being described as his best in years. These weren’t the only examples, as I think releases like Alea’s In the Year of the Dragon and Lookout’s Le Havre also showed the push toward games that last more than an hour and allow for deeper strategy.

Games Become Pricey. Sadly, the release of new gamers’ games coincided with the precipitous plunge of the American dollar due to eight years of severe economic mismanagement. The result is that it doesn’t buy as much as it used to and that games, largely produced in other countries, have gotten much more expensive as a result. Just a year or two ago, a game that ran more than $50 was a huge shock, and only made sense if it enjoyed Fantasy-Flight level components. Now, $35 games like Vikings are quickly becoming a thing of the past and standard Eurogames are running up into the $60 or $70 range. I’ve found it a bit sad that the ever fractious attitude at BGG has singled out FFG for their price increases, but if anything, FFG held their prices longer and is being more upfront about their price increases than anyone else. (Of course some percentage of BGG readers don’t even know what inflation is.)

Welcome to the new American depression, folks. At least you still have your library of games to play.

Uwe Rosenberg Breaks Out. I’ve already mentioned the releases of Agricola and Le Havre. What I find most surprising is how they totally changed Uwe Rosenberg’s reputation. I mean, there was no question that he was a talented designer before. Bohnanza rightfully remains a classic and even subsidiary releases like Space Beans showed off his talent. But on the American market, he was just that card-game guy. No one looking for a design with depth would take a second look at this games. The near-simultaneous release of two heavy, thoughtful, and deep board games really shows that Rosenberg is a force to be reckoned with. Though I’m usually happily enthusiastic about a designer constantly retreading his one famous work, this is a situation where I hope that Rosenberg will never return to his beans again, because he’s shown that he has a lot more to offer.

Workers Become an Institution. We’ve had role-selection games around for years, but it was in 2005 that they became more than an occasional release, thanks to Caylus‘ variant of “worker placement”. Worker placement games have been increasingly produced ever since, including standouts like Pillars of the Earth and Cuba, but I think that it was in 2008 when they became an institution. We found them in Rosenberg’s two well-loved board games. Even Alea has returned to its role-selection roots, adding Witch’s Brew to a catalog which already contained Puerto Rico and San Juan. It’s great to see a totally new type of gameplay emerge, and though I still think that Caylus was a little long and a little clunky, I have to give it props for kicking off a revolution.

Treefrog Starts Rolling. Martin Wallace has been one of my personal focuses for the year, as I’ve played through as much of his library as I could. Thus it’s been great to see his new Treefrog line emerge. Following up on Warfrog’s last game (to date), Brass, Treefrog has put out three winners: Tinner’s Trail, After the Flood, and Steel Driver. Though they’re not quite as heavy as Wallace’s Byzantium and Brass, they’ve definitely contributed to the return of the gamer’s game that I’ve already talked about. If this is what a full-time Wallace is going to be designing every year, I’m very enthused to see it, and I hope it works out well for him. You can now see a list of his games all the way out through 2010 at the Warfrog Website.

Rio Grande Breaks New Ground. Finally, I find it quite notable that Rio Grande might be changing from being a jobber to being a real publisher. In 2006 and 2007 I was frustrated with how bad some of their own productions like El Grande 10th Anniversary and Gloria Mundi were. However, Race for the Galaxy seemed to turn a new corner for them, and Dominion and The Gathering Storm show that wasn’t a fluke. If Rio Grande could just get their scheduling in hand, so that they could keep their games in print and supplement them appropriately, we could have a new publisher of original games on the market.

I hope that some of the trends of excellence in serious game production will continue into 2009. I think the biggest problem is going to be the world’s failing economy, as it drives prices even higher and makes top companies like Days of Wonder unable (or unwilling) to put out new big-box board games. Still, based on the quality of the releases in 2008, I’m very eager to see what 2009 brings.

Around the Corner

I wrote a companion article on the state of roleplaying games over 2008, which you can find at RPGnet: 2008 in Review: The RPGs.

As I mentioned, Martin Wallace was a focus of my gaming attention in 2008. I wrote about his catalog of games as I played them. You can find all my thoughts on the topic in my journal. I also pushed out three Martin Wallace reviews over the last couple of weeks. I updated my Brass review to talk about the new printing from Eagle Games. I also wrote brand-new reviews of Steel Driver and After the Flood. Watch for some discussions of Martin Wallace in this column over the next couple of months, as I put together some of the things I learned over a year of play.

I’ve got a new project scheduled for 2009: a play through all the Alea games. You can again read about that project in my journal.

It’s been a month since my last column, so you may have missed out on some of my other December reviews, of: Formula D, Operation Overlord (for M44), Hedgerow Hell (for M44), Mediterranean Theater (again, for M44), Hero: Immortal King, and Rock!.

In two weeks, I’ll post my first Martin Wallace article, which will talk about the strategy of After the Flood. Coming up later this year, I plan to write about FFG innovation, worker-placement games, Martin Wallace’s designs (plus mini-reviews of all his games), and lots more.

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