OK, well it’s been a surprisingly temperate winter so far, but this is still the main time to stay indoors and keep myself busy. There are a lot of different forms of entertainment, and I’m going to run down the different things that have kept me busy this winter so far.
Deckscape: Behind the Curtain
I have recently had the pleasure of playing board games with a number of folks that are relatively new to the hobby, and it has me thinking about the foundations of contemporary strategy board games. Having been completely hooked on these games since the mid-1990s, I often mistakenly assume that everyone has a similar frame of reference. So I am repeatedly amazed at many people’s unfamiliarity with the games that I see as foundational.
I’ve been struck speechless when finding that people who are otherwise very familiar with games from the past few years are nevertheless entirely unfamiliar with the likes of Nexus Ops, Princes of Florence, or Tigris & Euphrates. And yet, those games are not on the list below. Neither are Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, both of which are of course foundational in their own way. The games below represent my view of the core pantheon that undergirds modern strategy board gaming. The Nine, if you will. These are the games that I recommend just about everyone try in order to better understand developments of the past 25 years, and where the latest hotness on Kickstarter truly originates. These are games that came without ornate artwork, shiny pieces, or custom stretch goals; these are games that managed to thrive on simply their rules and gameplay alone. Over the course of two decades, the ideas promulgated in these forerunners have flourished by subtly seeping into thousands upon thousands of successor designs across the globe.
Continue readingIn Deep Blue, players are treasure hunters who are trying to explore the ocean floor to extract the best treasure from a number of shipwrecks. These wrecks are seen on the large playing board; there are six starting wreck sites near the harbor and nine advanced wreck sites further afield. Each player gets a player board, two boats and a starting crew deck of 4 cards all in their color. The deck of additional crew members is shuffled and a tableau of 4 cards is placed out next to the appropriate area on the board. A bag of gems is prepared per the rules, and the extra gems are set aside – they will be added in later. Finally, a Captain’s log scenario card is chosen and placed near the board.
Brainwaves: The Brilliant Boar
The Brainwaves series of games was first released in 2019. This set of three games is meant to help you train your brain to increase function. The games are reportedly “scientifically tested by neuroscientists”. Not quite sure what that means, but I was happy to give one a try when it was sent to the Opinionated Gamers.
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I was really excited prior to SPIEL 2019 when I learned that Cranio was releasing a game that they were calling Lorenzo il Magnifico: The Card Game. The original Lorenzo il Magnifico was a well received strategy game here (as was its expansion — though not so much in its digital form), but it’s a fairly complex game, and one which hadn’t made it to the table in awhile in part due to its 120-150min length. I was surprised to see that when I got my demo of the game that the game involved player boards, a marble tray and a bunch of other components. While I was initially disappointed that it wasn’t a small card game, I was pleased to find that there was a great looking light strategy game in the box, and one which has a bad subtitle. It would be better to be called Lorenzo Il Magnifico: Lite…
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Brandon Kempf – Surviving the Purge 10
Over the next few months, instead of going with my Three Games articles, I am going to take a look at my collection and try to discuss why certain titles survived the great purge of 2019. During this process I may take a look at some games that didn’t survive, but only as a measuring stick for what did survive. Since I am silly, like a lot of gamers, I use Ikea Kallax shelves to display the games that we own. This makes it pretty easy to break things down cube by cube, so that’s what we’re going to do, twenty-four cubes, plus a top shelf for games that don’t fit in the cubes, over the course of a few months. I hope you enjoy!
If you are a BoardGameGeek user, you can also follow along on the Geeklist I created.
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