Let’s continue with our discussion of our favorite games from great designers. Today, the trio will be Vlaada Chvatil, Simone Luciani, and Alan Moon. 64 people weighed in with their opinions.
Vlaada Chvatil
Few designers have burst upon the scene more dramatically than Chvatil did 20 years ago. At a time when few gamers even had the Czech Republic on their gaming map, he released a number of notable games, including the all-time classic, Through the Ages. He has maintained that pace through the years, including a blockbuster game from the most recent Essen fair. Here are his top 10 games:
1. Codenames – 40
2. Through the Ages (both) – 36
3. Galaxy Trucker – 24
4. Mage Knight/Star Trek: Frontiers – 13
5. Dungeon Lords – 12
6. Codenames: Duet – 10
7. Space Alert – 7
8. Tash-Kalar – 5
9. Pictomania – 4
10. Dungeon Petz – 3
By the way, the Codenames category includes all the different versions of that game other than Codenames Duet, which I felt was sufficiently different to warrant its own entry.
There was a close battle between Chvatil’s top two games, with Codenames narrowly beating out Through the Ages. (Thinking about how different those two titles are gives you a good glimpse into Vlaada’s greatness.) Galaxy Trucker finished a strong third, with three other designs also getting double digits in votes. His top 10 games were the only ones to get more than 1 vote, so the breakdown for him was pretty top heavy. Overall, 16 of his games got at least one vote and there was a total of 160 votes cast for them.
Chvatil hasn’t released too many games, so it’s hard to draw a lot of conclusions from these results, but one thing that stands out is that it’s a fairly even split between his heavy games and his lighter ones. TtA, Mage Knight, and the two Dungeon games are certainly heavyweights, with the others being considerably lighter. So there’s no real dominance with either type of game in our vote count.
Simone Luciani
Luciani is next. His work is considerably more recent than most of the other designers in this exercise, but when it comes to heavier designs, he’s achieved almost universal success since his first big title, Tzolk’in, back in 2012. Here are the games which received the most support from our voters:
1. Grand Austria Hotel – 30
2. The Voyages of Marco Polo – 21
2. Tzolk’in – 21
4. Barrage – 15
5. Nucleum – 12
6. Lorenzo il Magnifico – 10
7. Tiletum – 8
8. Darwin’s Journey – 7
9. Newton – 5
10. Etherstone – 4
10. Marco Polo II – 4
As you can see, six of his titles got double digit votes. The support for his top games is fairly well distributed, but there were still some designs that distanced themselves from the rest. His top game is Grand Austria Hotel, which I’d call a mild surprise, since it took a while for it to establish itself with its ratings and reviews. But sometimes, slow and steady wins the race and that seems to be the case with GAH. With the exception of Etherstone, all of the titles in his top 10 qualify as heavyweights and that’s always been Luciani’s strength (maybe not Lacerda-style epics, but still, fairly long and rules-heavy games). Other than that, I don’t think it’s possible to draw too many conclusions from our vote totals—they’re pretty evenly distributed over time.
18 Luciani games got at least one vote and they received a total of 147 votes.
Alan Moon
Our last designer is Alan Moon, who has had a long and illustrious career. He began at Avalon Hill in the late 70’s, and had his first success in 1990, with Airlines. He’ll always be remembered as the designer of Ticket to Ride, considered by most to be the greatest gateway game ever created, but he’s had many other hit games over the years.
For Alan, we decided to try something a little different. We grouped all the different spinoffs and standalone expansions of Ticket to Ride together. But then we also had a second poll, in which we asked everyone who picked Ticket as one of their three favorite Moon designs to say which version of TtR is their favorite. I was able to come up with about two dozen different TtR variants, so I thought it would be interesting to see which ones our voters liked the best.
First, let’s see which Moon games are our favorites:
1. Ticket to Ride (all) – 50
2. Diamant – 19
3. Elfenland – 18
4. San Marco – 14
4. Union Pacific – 14
6. 10 Days in… – 10
6. Airlines Europe – 10
8. Capitol – 6
9. Elfenroads – 4
9. King’s Breakfast – 4
9. New England – 4
It’s no surprise that Ticket to Ride is far and away Alan’s most popular title (almost 80% of the voters listed it), but six other games of his also got double digit vote totals, so he’s far from a one trick pony. Most of the top 10 were released in the years just before or just after 2000. About half of them were designed with a partner (usually Aaron Weissblum), while the rest were solo designs. As an indicator of Moon’s long career, 22 of his games got at least one vote and they received 172 votes in total.
Next, let’s look at which Ticket to Ride versions are the most popular. Here is the full breakdown:
1. Ticket to Ride – 19
2. Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries – 7
3. Ticket to Ride: Marklin/Germany – 6
4. Ticket to Ride: Europe – 5
5. Ticket to Ride: Asia – 4
5. Ticket to Ride: Pennsylvania – 4
7. Ticket to Ride Legacy – 1
7. Ticket to Ride: (City) – 1
7. Ticket to Ride: First Journey – 1
7. Ticket to Ride: Switzerland – 1
7. Ticket to Ride: United Kingdom – 1
I’m not surprised that the original Ticket is the most popular version, but I didn’t think it would be that dominant. Almost 40% of the voters chose it and it’s nearly three times as popular as any other version. It does make some sense. Not only is it the version just about all of us have played, but it’s likely that TtR is most often played with our casual gamer friends, who very likely are happy to keep playing the no-frills version of this classic. Still, Alan has come up with a bunch of very clever spinoffs, so I thought there might be more support for some of them. As it turned out, five different variants (Nordic, Marklin, Europe, Asia, and Pennsylvania) each got at least 4 votes.
That finishes up today’s group. Here are all the games that got at least one vote for each of them. And be sure to tune in tomorrow, when we’ll be looking at the games of Antoine Bauza, Rob Daviau, and Martin Wallace!
Vlaada Chvatil
1. Codenames – 40
2. Through the Ages (both) – 36
3. Galaxy Trucker – 24
4. Mage Knight/Star Trek: Frontiers – 13
5. Dungeon Lords – 12
6. Codenames: Duet – 10
7. Space Alert – 7
8. Tash-Kalar – 5
9. Pictomania – 4
10. Dungeon Petz – 3
11. Arena – 1
11. Bunny Bunny Moose Moose – 1
11. Graenaland – 1
11. Prophecy – 1
11. Severton – 1
11. Travel Blog – 1
Simone Luciani
1. Grand Austria Hotel – 30
2. The Voyages of Marco Polo – 21
2. Tzolk’in – 21
4. Barrage – 15
5. Nucleum – 12
6. Lorenzo il Magnifico – 10
7. Tiletum – 8
8. Darwin’s Journey – 7
9. Newton – 5
10. Etherstone – 4
10. Marco Polo II – 4
12. Golem – 3
13. Rats of Wistar – 2
14. Council of 4 – 1
14. Echoes of Time – 1
14. Entropy – 1
14. Masters of Renaissance – 1
14. Mesos – 1
Alan Moon
1. Ticket to Ride (all) – 50
2. Diamant – 19
3. Elfenland – 18
4. San Marco – 14
4. Union Pacific – 14
6. 10 Days in… – 10
6. Airlines Europe – 10
8. Capitol – 6
9. Elfenroads – 4
9. King’s Breakfast – 4
9. New England – 4
12. Andromeda – 3
12. Santa Fe Rails – 3
14. Airlines – 2
14. Clippers – 2
14. Get the Goods – 2
14. Santa Fe – 2
18. Black Spy – 1
18. Das Amulett – 1
18. Elfengold – 1
18. Freight Train – 1
18. Mush – 1
