Analysis

When I was first introduced to the albums of the Beatles, my favorite album was The White Album. Since I had only known their hits, my first exposure to the Fab Four’s albums was overwhelming and kind of wonderful. Every song took me to a different place, and those places were always surprising. As I listened to their other albums, I found that pretty much all of their stuff was terrific. Rubber Soul and Revolver were tighter than The White Album. Abbey Road was more polished. Sgt. Pepper was more revolutionary, and A Hard Day’s Night was just punchier...

I have the attention span of a gnat, and while I’ve come up with a number of game designs over the years the chances of any of them even approaching a finished state is zero. The one that I like best, and that I made most progress with, was based loosely on the Irish myth of the Táin Bó Cúailnge. In the game, players would represent heroes competing for the magical bull of Ulster. Each would command a hero with asymmetric powers as well as ordinary warriors, and a key strategy driver would be deciding whether their heroes should...

In my never-ending quest to write articles that only a couple hundred people will ever read, I recently asked the advice of a fellow gamer for inspiration. He pointed me to a video from TED, that fount of ideas that makes everyone think they are an expert. In it, author Dan Gilbert poses the question of what makes us happy. You can watch his very interesting presentation here, but let me give you the condensed version. Humans seek happiness, but many of us don’t realize that we are actually capable of synthesizing it. We know that we are happy...

Risk – yes, the one with all the dice, the world domination, and Australia – is probably the greatest Ameritrash games ever made. Or rather, I think that the (rather) new version Risk: Balance of Power is, but that is patly because the original game is much, much better than its reputation.

It’s rare that a game makes an amazing impression from the very beginning, so when it happens, you remember it. I’ve only had a few games reveal how impressive they are right away. The Settlers of Catan was one. Power Grid was another that immediately appealed to me. And in the fall of 2008, Dominion did it again. A lot of other gamers were discovering the biggest recent event in boardgaming at the same time. It was easy to be caught up in the hoopla, and if you ask me a lot of that hoopla was justified. Dominion is...