Shannon Appelcline: Greatest Hits

Hello to Boardgame News! I’ve been writing about board and card games for a few years now, over at Gone Gaming, with those articles all soon to be available on BGN itself. However, since there’s doubtless people here who haven’t seen the GG articles, I thought I’d use this first entry of 2008 to introduce myself and my work.

First, about myself. I’m a writer and a computer programmer. Professionally I run the Skotos Online Game site as well as entertainment sites RPGnet and Xenagia. Game design has always been one of my interests. I have a long running column about computer game design, and when I started writing board & card game reviews, game design and analysis were my focuses there too. Not surprisingly, game design has been a focus in my Gone Gaming articles, but you’ll also find reviews, rants, and looks at the industry.

What follows are three of my favorite articles/series from the last two hand a half years.

Six Degrees of Bruno Faidutti

Complete Article

One day I was sitting around my office, considering the many people with whom French designer Bruno Faidutti had collaborated. For reasons that I can’t now entirely comprehend I pulled out my copy of Adobe Illustrator and started sketching out interconnections. The project soon came to suck up an entire weekend as I drew more and more connections, expanding my chart from France to the United States to German, from the latest Euro releases to the classic SPI games. I revised and expanded my chart in 2006, and it’s that second edition that I linked to here.

I love charts, and I personally find seeing the interconnections of these 50+ designers intriguing. And I’m happy to say that thus far my initial guess has proven correct: Bruno Faidutti lies at the center of the gaming universe with eleven-and-a-half collaborations. Leo Colovini and Redmond Simonsen trail with just eight each.

Almost a year and a half later, it’s time for a third edition.

Anatomy of a Game: Carcassonne

Part One: The Original Game
Part Two: Balance & Tiles
Part Three: Cooperation & Competition
Part Four: Complexity & The Rivers

Standalones, Part One: Tiles and Scores
Standalones, Part Two: Rules Changes

One of my earliest board game articles, in pre-Gone Gaming days, was a look at The Settlers of Catan. It was my best attempt at a thorough analysis of the game (though I could do better now because I understand the Euro scene a lot better), complete with charts. When Gone Gaming came about, I decided that I wanted to replicate that really in-depth look with another gateway game, Carcassonne. I started analyzing the play, how the supplements changed things, and what the tile distributions were like.

However, the article turned into a total monster. Before I was done, it was four long articles in length, with one topic totally ignored. (That would be the standalone games, which I finally got to the next year, adding another two articles to the total.) The result is, I feel very safe in saying, the most in-depth analysis of Carcassonne available anywhere in the world. It’s a novella. Of course, as with the Six Degrees, time has marched on, and now I’m sure that I could supplement the series with info on the brand newest releases.

Supporting Your Locally Owned Game Store

Complete Article

I was playing Eurogames and writing reviews well before I found a local game store that I liked. However, I chanced to stumble upon EndGame at a time when I badly needed an additional source of community and entertainment, and it’s since become a very regular part of my life. Further, I suspect that I might have burned out on Eurogames by now if not for the friends, new games, and wonderful environment that are all constantly present at the store. Thus, I’m a strong proponent of supporting local game stores.

Or rather, I’m a strong proponent of supporting local game stores that deserve to be supported. The last article that I’m highlighting from the past is on this topic: how game stores can be good, how they can support the hobby, and how they deserve to be supported in return.

Around the Corner ...

This week I’ve also written a review of Brass at RPGnet. I think it is one of the best games of 2007, and a rare long and dense game that kept my interest.

In two weeks’ time I’ll be back here with “Brass Tacks”, an article talking about Brass in more depth and looking at some of its strategies.

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