Financial Times, of all places, has a great article up on “German” board games:
Here’s the money quote for me, from Klaus Teuber, quiet genius behind The Settlers of Catan:
It is a part of mankind to play games. We played in the Stone Age. We played in Roman times. It’s an escape from the everyday grind. Every day we work hard and we make mistakes and we are punished for those mistakes. Games take us to another role where you can make mistakes and you don’t get punished for them. You can always start another game.
Games are experiments, ways to tinker and noodle around with thoughts and actions, all in a place where risk is minimized. That’s part of why I keep working on game designs; I think they serve a purpose that other entertainment and education forms don’t. Play, after all, is healthy.
And you can always start another game.
It really is OK to put down that MMO treadmill and try something new (though Altitis can be a good middle ground, leading to new experiences as BBB notes). Sometimes, I really do think we lose some of the joy and promise of games by insisting on perpetual progress and persistence, constantly comparing ourselves to others and their achievements in an effort to validate our time spent, rather than just… playing.
Bonus reading:
Greg Kasavin’s classic review of Chess
Above 49’s Of Mice and Dice, more on “German-style” board games.
The Escapist: Digital Cardboard and Electric Dice, and a good quote…
In my games, I’m always looking for a very simple set of mechanics or rules that lead to these complex situations,” says Creative Director Jay Kyburz. “I enjoy games where everybody understands how the game works, and has a simple set of decisions to make, but find themselves with lots of interesting problems to solve because of how the players are interacting within that simple rule system.
Tish Tosh Tesh 
I think gaming keeps adult minds fit and helps kids get smart. There is joy in experimentation, not so much in repetition and carrot-reward driven behaviour.
There is a certain trend of game design that drives me nuts. Two examples, Guild Wars “Nine Rings” minigame:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Nine_Rings
this game is *played* … AFK.
Or Dabo in Star Trek Online. It is like roulette without any higher/lower risk elements and incredibly dumbed down: I set my mouse to doubleclick every 15 seconds, that is enough to “play” it…
People even tell me these games are fun, this is when I usually get a hissy fit. They do not like the game. They like the “REWARD” for “playing” these games:
In both cases the rewards are superficial, mostly they are tied to achievement systems.
Even a fun little games as “Osmos” nowadays has a huge list of achievements for next to everything, including failures of all kind. And that Alien Swarm tracks the time between I last logged in and all bullets I ever fired also is kind of absurd.
The point of these addiction-abusing systems is to keep people playing & mostly paying for much longer than they usually would, when people would do the healthy and normal thing and move on to a game that is more interesting to them.
The modern idea that one PC game, usually a MMO, can keep a person entertained for YEARS is as absurd as it can get. Nobody would claim the same for a book. Variety is the spice of life and gaming.
Board games are also fun, it does not have to be computer games or sports all the time: http://bit.ly/as5g7o
“Atlantis” is one of my favorite board games, besides http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Labyrinth it is one of my favorites because it is so easy and quick to explain for people who do not know the game yet.
Agreed, Longasc. Thanks for chiming in with some great points. 🙂
As much as I’d like these MMO things to be much more interesting, dynamic worlds, even if they were, I’d not stay in any given one forever. I don’t play one game consistently, I dabble… and honestly, I get more out of them that way as I see the connections and underlying design.
…and I may have to check out that Labyrinth game. It looks good. Thanks!
I wouldn’t say minimised risk – I’d say no risk at all. Your design shouldn’t be making anyone risk anything (note that games like dodgeball might give you bruises – it depends if you call a bruise something that’s risky)
And the ‘it’s great, the game is ENDLESS’, where did that come from? And why?
I mean, who woke up in the night, sweating, going “I just realised I need an ENDLESS game!”
My really long draw of the bow hypothesis? It’s substituting their endless real life with a supposedly equally endless activity (here called a ‘game’). That’s the attraction, not at a concious level, but more like a moth is attracted to the flame, people have this attraction to an endless thing (because that’s what real life is). But like the moths functional instinct to navigate by the moon being driven dysfunctional by artificial lights, these endless games drive peoples urge to live in this endless real world activity dysfunctional by creating an artificial world.
Sometimes it’s also just great to sit down with something tangible. Some games translate well, but in many of these no matter how good the online version is, the boardgame itself is often better.
I love the trend of shorter games that the german and independent boardgame community has brought into popularity. A lot of the publishers make it key that most games must average less than an hour of play.
My favourites are still Bohnanza and Carcassonne. RoboRally is a great classic if you can find it too.
Aye, “endless” games just aren’t healthy in a lot of ways.
And RoboRally is awesome. I still need to try Carcassonne. It’s on my list. I’m definitely a fan of tangible gaming. 🙂
Funny, I just started getting back into board games myself. I picked up Descent, a dungeon crawler type board game reminiscent of games like Hero Quest or Dragon Strike. I love games with miniatures and chits and whatnot, and in this one, there’s actually 1 person ruling as the dungeon overlord trying to stop the other heroes from winning.
There’s another game along the same lines, but a bit more comical called Dungeon Lords, which I also want to pick up. Other than that, I bought some Munchkin Booty and the Munchkin board game + expansion. I finished reading the Horus Heresy from Warhammer 40k and I know there’s a board game for that as well.
My buddy is REALLY into games so he suggests stuff for me and he’s mostly been right. We have different tastes in some regards, but I like having the knowledge he has about stuff before I make a 60-90 dollar purchase.
All in all, I love board gaming and want to set up a day each week to play with my friends. Good break from the computer stuff.
That is a great article. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. I like your thoughts on why we play games. We can take on different roles for an hour and then leave those roles quite easily.
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