The new thing in boardgaming

[undyingking]

Wired is that prestigious magazine of the technological elites, its finger firmly on the cutting edge of all things geeky and zeitgeisty, right?

Apparently there's a new boardgame called Settlers of Catan, which is "poised" to become popular in the US. "Along the way, it's teaching Americans that board games don't have to be either predictable fluff aimed at kids or competitive, hyperintellectual pastimes for eggheads. Through the complex, artful dance of algorithms and probabilities lurking at its core, Settlers manages to be effortlessly fun, intuitively enjoyable, and still intellectually rewarding, a potent combination that's changing the American idea of what a board game can be."

Who'd have thought it? Why have none of us ever heard of this game before -- why have the Germans been keeping it secret for the fourteen years since its launch? What will those fiendish foreigners come up with next?

Comments

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Do most people play Monopoly that way? I think we played it occasionally but knew it was a variant. I dimly recall that by combining variants (I think the 500 pounds for landing on go AND the fines go in the centre and are got by landing on Free Parking) we managed to get hyperinflation.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

I don't know about "most", but I am aware that there's a relatively large contingent (probably of casual players) who use the logic:
a) The game is long
b) I run out of money
c) Running out of money, for a long time, is boring.
(I'm with them up to this point).
So they add:
d) We'll reintroduce the fine money via free parking.
While this fixes b, and therefore c, it exacerbates a.

What they really want to do is make people run out of money faster, so that the game is shorter :)

And, it seems, from casual conversation, that very few people are even aware that "unowned properties upon which a player lands, if not bought by the player, are immediately put up for auction". Which (as the article notes) gets the properties into circulation faster and removes the tedium of the first few turns around the board where people buy whatever properties they land on, without worrying about what future properties they'll land on, but be unable to buy. Now they have to worry (which means that they might be able to buy the current property for less than face value, depending on other people's desire to keep cash in reserve). And, of course, the auctions are a good interactive part of the game.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Of course, you might still not have a good game. But the point is that the bits people change because they don't like it usually make it worse, not better.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I never used that variant, and was aware of that rule. But I still came to the conclusion pretty early in my childhood that it was a deeply tedious game of following a simple strategy and grinding away until it worked / the youngest player started crying.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Did you ever play 4000AD from Waddingtons? That was a fine example of a strategy game with no strategy to speak of (build up resources, hope your opponent makes a mistake so you have enough points to blast them into oblivion, the end).

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Thankfully I wasn't exposed to that.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

pretty early in my childhood that it was a deeply tedious game of following a simple strategy and grinding away until it worked

Compare with other "classic" games. Snakes and ladders, for example, is a game of grinding away in the absence of strategy!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, I think the window during which a child will actually enjoy that must be pretty small. A child like I was, at least.

We mostly played card games rather than board games when I was little -- they have the great quality that the adult can introduce a new game with a bit more strategy, a new mechanic, etc, as the child seems ready for it, without having to buy another big box.