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Valerie Putman: Nothing Wrong But Nothing Special
It was a light gaming week. During an unexpected snow day I got in a game of Through the Ages. What a fantabulous game. It hasn’t lost its shine for me one bit. At game night an old favorite came out, Euphrat & Tigris. This game still gives me goose bumps every time I play it. Oh, and I played Key Harvest. It was fine. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s nothing special.
If I look at my BGG game ratings (which doesn’t represent half the games I’ve played, unfortunately), I find that nearly 33% of them were rated 6 to 6.5, which is fairly standard for me and “nothing wrong but nothing special” games. Other games that I’ve rated similarly include Amazonas, Goldbrau, Palazzo, and Tongiaki. All are games that I didn’t hate, but since no one else is requesting them either, I may never play again.
If fewer games were published each year, the 6’s of my game world would get played a lot more often. While a girl can literally play nothing but Agricola and Age of Steam all night; eventually she wants some variety. With repeated plays, some of the 6’s might even turn out to have hidden depth that catapult them right up there with the often played 8’s, 9’s and 10’s. But as it stands now, I feel like my 7’s aren’t getting the love they deserve and even the 8’s might go a year without seeing table time.
I certainly don’t want to see fewer games published to solve my dilemma. This is because my 6’s are someone else’s 10s. For example, I rank both El Grande and Memoir ’44 as 6’s but I know lots of gamers who like them more than I do. In fact, after the great game of E&T, two of us proclaimed that we need to play it more often, but one of the players remarked that he remembered why he hadn’t played it again after his first play. So I’d hate to lose some of my favorites because they are someone else’s 6’s.
I think I just need more time to play games!
I’d rather be gaming,
Valerie Putman
Posted by Valerie Putman on Feb 17, 2008 at 01:00 AM in Columnists, Valerie Putman / 1248
Comments:
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That’s too bad - I’ve really found that I like Key Harvest. Like most Breese games, the depth of the game isn’t apparent on the first play, but I’ve found that I really enjoy the competition around the tiles and figuring out how to best value the tiles in my store to either make sure that I get the tiles I want or to maximize the return on the tiles that my opponents buy. Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Feb 17, 2008 at 08:43 AM | #
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I think there are many games which you cannot appreciate after one play. But in those times with so many new games every year it becomes more and more difficult to get a game onto the table again if it did not absolutely “rock” the first time. Klaus, made first post here ever Posted by Klaus Knechtskern on Feb 17, 2008 at 11:53 AM | #
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I agree: everyone would need more time to play!
And sometime you didn’t choose the best game, and you feel a bit like you loose :-)
Posted by Emanuele Ornella on Feb 18, 2008 at 10:26 AM | #
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Gaming is a social activity. People often play a game that isn’t their favorite because their fellow gamers want to play it. I’m especially willing to try a “less than favorite” game if I have reason to suspect it may be better than I thought. This weekend I played Fifth Avenue with another gamer who really wanted to try it. I said to myself “it’s a 4” and when I got home I checked to see what I had rated it before. Yes, it was a 4 the last time also. But I didn’t mind, because my friend plays some games that I want to play that aren’t his favorites. And we did have fun being together in a group and playing games, even if not every game was everyone’s favorite. Posted by Eric Brosius on Feb 18, 2008 at 07:58 PM | #
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Unfortunately, I have some 10’s that I’ve not played in over a year. :( It may be that I never find another 10, because I don’t play games often enough for them to make it to 10’s, even if they are “good” enough. There’s always another new game to try. Posted by Scott Russell on Feb 20, 2008 at 02:59 PM | #
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