Before BGG started in Sep 2000, public discourse on games was mostly held on a reddit-type discussion board on Usenet called rec.games.board. For those who were around back then, this is the place where Scott Peterson had multiple colourful episodes defending PIrateer (or P*r*t**r as it was laughably referred to because some half-assed legal threat was thrown around at some point re disparagement of the game) and it was also where David Coutts had a tough time defending how real the science was in 6 Billion.

Anyway, prior to BGG there were multiple ranking systems, using different terminology, being bandied around that discussion board. At one point I took what I thought was the best of them, Mik Svellov’s and Mark Jackson’s I think, and combined the best bits into one that I preferred. And BGG eventually took the first line of those rating descriptions for each rating point and used that as their rating system – it was all in the public domain and a group effort of gradual refinement so no issue of course, but anyway that’s how it started. There wasn’t any science behind it … just boardgaming minds at the time thinking it’d be nice to find a consistency.

And that, right there, is a potentially forgotten little piece of boardgaming history for the young ‘uns out there.

New-to-me games played recently (and check out the rating spread in this lot!) include …

KANSAS CITY: THE TRICK-TAKING GAME (2024): Rank 10721, Rating 7.3 – Wray

It’s an interesting design. Everyone’s trying to hit the same number of tricks for max points, and you can manipulate your hand by, after each trick, turning any card into a face-up trump on the table (as long as no one else has a trump of that number tabled). Which makes for a slowish game while everyone figures out how best to do this after every trick. So, clever, but I prefer a more flowing nature in my trick-takers over the continual stop-start and was ready to move on after the requisite number of hands.

Rating: 6

KUZOOKA (2022): Rank 4656, Rating 7.0 – Colovini

It’s a co-op version of Limits, making higher and higher bids as to how many cards of a colour are in everyone’s hands a la Bluff. Start low, each player’s bid indicates their colour strength, until someone thinks that’s as high a bid as can be risked. If you succeed at a high enough level, place wild cards in your deck allowing future rounds to have even higher bids. You win if your last round bid is in the highest category and successfully made. It was fun but majorly luck bound. It also lacked the competitive razzing and tension of Bluff and Limits – I’m really not sure co-op suits these mechanics.

Rating: 6

LORD OF THE RINGS: DUEL FOR MIDDLE-EARTH (2024): Rank 36, Rating 8.4 – Bauza / Cathala

Same system as 7 Wonders: Duel but replacing the military track with a Middle-Earth map, providing an alternate path to victory through dominant map presence. I loved the race of the hobbits to get to the ford before the Black Riders reach them (ie more victory conditions). The game-play has the same weigh-up decisions – do I take a lesser card to deny my opponent access to a card that’ll help them or do I just go for the card that suits my strategy and let’s race. The thematic tie-in helps these mechanics tremendously (with 7W it felt more like an abstraction) and I was tense throughout, what with fates being decided and all – it’s really enjoyable and invokes smiles afterwards. Thumbs up.

Rating: 8

 PAI PAI (2024): Rank N/a, Rating 5.8

Picture a pile of white blank playing cards all scattered in a pile on the table a la 52-pickup. Pick a card and extract it from the pile. If it’s glued to another card, you’re out, otherwise you’re still in. This is without doubt one of the most pointless games I’ve ever played.

Rating: 1

SAIL (2023): Rank 1115, Rating 7.3

This 2p trick-taker co-op limits comms to 1 card pass, and then you try to balance the tricks won and aim for icon combo’s in each trick to make progress. I’ve only played a beginner scenario and did fine (both being experienced trick-takers) but it didn’t show enough for me to want more. Playing silently wasn’t fun, I didn’t find the trick-taking satisfying (being only 2p), and the lack of interesting ways to comm things (like Sky Team with its order of placement, or Fox In The Forest with its effects) felt non-engaging. I’m sure later scenarios are more interesting and challenging, but unfortunately it didn’t make me care enough from the get-go to want to explore more.

Rating: 6

SKOVENTYR (2023): Rank 4486, Rating 7.4

This is some weird Scandanavian folk-tale themed co-op. Points for that. Unfortunately the game-play was rather obfuscated. Basically, removing bad cards from the display causes bad stuff to happen but you need to do the removing to get to the good cards. Once enough consecutive players have the right good cards in hand, play them out to fix the bad stuff. You feel beholden to the deck, there’s not a lot of decisions, not a lot of co-op, and everything seems likely to die regardless. We played 4p and BGG implies it’s best at 1p so read into that what you will.

Rating: 4

                                                               14527

WANTED WOMBATS (2022): Rank 15805, Rating 6.3

Call a value. Flip a card. If it’s that value, risk it to go again. Or keep it and score the values gained so far. First to 15 wins which will take about 5 minutes. Ok, I’ll admit I had some very stupid fun but, really, keep this around for drunken nights only. Very drunken nights.

Rating: 4

WIND THE FILM (2016): Rank 1601, Rating 7.4

You pick up cards from a row in the central grid, add them to the back of your hand in order, and then play the same number of cards from the front of your hand (in order) to your tableau. You’re aiming to build from low to high, or high to low, in each colour a la Lost Cities. It’s tricky. The cards in the grid rarely seem to fit ideally with where your tableau will be by the time they’re played so you’re perpetually trying to make the best of a bad lot with the occasional piece of luck but that overarching sense of restriction and struggling frustration was the primary takeaway.

Rating: 5

Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:

Mark Jackson: Complete agreement on how well the marriage of theme & refinement of the 7 Wonders Duel system work in LotR: Duel for Middle-Earth. Every game has been enjoyable – and those nifty little wooden army men & towers are nice eye candy.

OTOH, I still don’t get the love for Kuzooka. At all. I understand the idea (I think?) but I can’t find the fun.

I do not remember what I said/wrote that inspired you in codifying game ratings – but being put into the same sentence as Mik Svellov is an honor. (Still have incredibly fond memories of meeting Mik at the Gathering in 2002 – and convincing him to play Cairo [odd flicking/area control game of pyramid building] at 1 am. He told me that “this is a stupid game, but I am having fun” – which is pretty much all I aspire to in board gaming.)

Larry:  I’m afraid I was one of those who ran afoul of David Coutts, although it was completely unintentional.  I mentioned in a Counter review of 6 Billion that I rather liked this game and its fanciful theme (or words to that effect).  In the next issue, there was a letter from Mr. Coutts, saying that the ideas were not fanciful and that this was intended to be a realistic prediction of Earth’s future.  Given some of the game’s mechanics, this was a bit shocking to me, but it was not my intent to poke fun; I never dreamed that the designer took the game that seriously.  Anyway, I felt kind of bad about it, particularly given the other flame wars the game inspired, but things were so wild and wooly back then that sometimes it was hard to completely avoid the controversies.  I never did play 6 Billion again and had forgotten about the incident until Alison mentioned the title again.  Ah, memories…

Tery N.  I quite enjoy Kansas City; I really enjoy the puzzle aspect of it, and have not yet found it too slow, although I can see how it could happen.

I also love Wanted Wombat.  Is there any strategy involved? No. Would I choose it over a more meaty game? No.  Do I have fun every single time I play it? Yes. It is silly, it is 100% luck based and I am never going to suggest it at a game day unless we are waiting for other people or it’s late and we want to play one more game, but I enjoy it every time I play it. It’s also small enough that I can carry it around for times we are in a restaurant and are waiting.

I agree with Alison on Kuzooka; I really wanted to like it and I generally like co-ops, but I just felt frustrated that I couldn’t really ever seem to get the things done that we needed to.