Laissez-nous parlons... Franco-Trash

For the past few years, simply the best thematic games have come from our francophile friends. Not just designers, but publishing companies as well. They are taking chances on designs and succeeding where others fear to tread until the french lead the way.

Matagot is the clear and obvious contemporary example. I thought Asmodee was my fave company until Matagot has just been murdering the consumer base with their weapons of mass enjoyment for a few years now.

Its not even a new phenomenon. Its been quietly been going on for many years. Some, are no longer with us (R.I.P. Hazgaard, Rackham).

Games such as Okko: Era of the Asagiri, Room 25, The Adventurers, Dixit, Cadwallon: City of Thieves (not to mention Cadwallon and AT-43 themselves), Dust Tactics, Timeline, Claustrophobia, Hell Dorado, Libertalia, Ca$h 'n Gun$, Kemet, Cyclades, Dungeon Twister, Zombicide, King of Tokyo/New York (american designer, french publisher)... there are just too many solid titles to name, and those are just some notable ones.

France is consistently putting out not only beatiful games, whose component quality is setting industry standards, but rich thematic excursions into creative worlds. Combining all that with mechanisms that can carry the theme convincingly, often ingeniously, and we have an entire genre of games thanks to the frogs.

I look at my now meager game collection, and with only a couple exceptions, I realize that the majority of my game collection is incidentally Franco-Trash, and not Ameri-Trash. The fortress has fallen. I would shame on everyone else, but I am too busy happily eating "cwowsaunts". Trés magnifique. A beret and neckerchief adorn me, while judging passerbys with a lit cigarette and a sneer outside of my Montmartre window. Maybe Jerry Lewis is comedic God-Incarnate afterall? Oui?

You stupid americans, with your stupid american games, and your stupid american hair styles... you make my ass clench. *blows out smoke* What? Do you have something to say, oui? Well let us hear it then.

It looks like CoolMiniOrNot is trying to bring that aesthetic to the US. They publish Zombicide, Guilds of Cadwallon, Paolo Mori's (Libertalia, and Italian as it happens) recent Dogs of War, and they just ended their Kickstarter for World of Smog, which appears to be another French designed game.

When I visited Le Valet d'Coeur in Montreal a few years ago I bought Eollis: Pirates des Vents . French game from Asmodee, never published in English. No one's bothered to translate it (there's a lot of card text and it doesn't have great ratings.) My goal has been to regain enough French to translate it myself but that hasn't happened yet. It's still a goal, though.

It's not uncommon for Europeans to be the champions of Ameritrash. After all, I'd guess that most would recognize the UK's Games Workshop as the flag-bearer of Ameritrash for about a decade and a half (late 70's to early 90's).

Plus, GW still picks up the crown any year they re-release Space Hulk.

Also, fuckyeahbritisholdschoolgaming.tumblr.com/

There are quality French titles, but most are not my style. French games have an inherent wackiness to them, they take lessons from the German scene and twist them a bit to come up with designs that are much more playful.

Lego, Valet d'Coeur is such a cool store. I bought my first Magic starter there 20 years ago or so.

I think I'm gonna swing by and buy Battlelore for my ex-wife for xmas

My little girl is turning 4, I wonder if there are games I can get her yet.

Legomancer wrote: When I visited Le Valet d'Coeur in Montreal a few years ago I bought Eollis: Pirates des Vents . French game from Asmodee, never published in English. No one's bothered to translate it (there's a lot of card text and it doesn't have great ratings.) My goal has been to regain enough French to translate it myself but that hasn't happened yet. It's still a goal, though.

Wow, that style looked familiar to me. I looked up the artist, and it's Christophe Madura, who did art on Dogs of War.

I've always liked the French national game design style...going back to those earlier Faidutti titles, Full Metal Planete, Mare Nostrum, etc... It's true that their designs tend to be more playfully anarchic. I actually wrote an article about the French national style for Jeux sur Plateau some years ago but alas...it's in French. And I don't have the English draft I sent them.

Recently, Matagot has had an almost perfect streak with me. The last few Matagot games I've gotten have all been forever shelvers, including the new Sun Tzu that's coming out. That's actually an American design, but the head guy at Matagot liked the game a lot and thought it fit well with their style. And it does. Kemet and Cyclades are about as top-notch as it gets. Haven't played Giants yet, but I'm always on the lookout for a trade on it.

I worked in computer games as a programmer in the late 90s, for Gremlin Games in Sheffield that was later bought by the frenchies, Infogrames. We would quite often go over as a team to work in Lyon, and every time we did you could really see the difference in how their teams worked compared to ours, they were all a lot more invested in the story and atmosphere and bringing the characters to life, but as a result were a lot more stubborn to changes suggested (or enforced) if it altered something they'd really invested in. I just remember that very clearly that they really get into their fantasy tropes and buy into it.

Frontpage this discussion and contact Faidutti for comments. This should be a core conversation here, with a Christmas buying guide included.

S.

What I really dig about French and Italian games is that they are so free from the chains of "expectations" that enslave thematic games coming from the US lately. They may do fantasy but it'll be some really off the wall fantasy, not another D&D or Tolkein knockoff. Or if the do a theme that seems familiar, the art will be vastly different than the cookie cutter type stuff we see so often.

I think Eastern Europe is the place for new and innovative mechanics in games but France and Italy is where to go for new and fresh style and feel.

Mr. White wrote: It's not uncommon for Europeans to be the champions of Ameritrash. After all, I'd guess that most would recognize the UK's Games Workshop as the flag-bearer of Ameritrash for about a decade and a half (late 70's to early 90's).

Games Workshop?





They deserve credit for Space Hulk as the last decent quality product to be released from the isle of Avalon, and a few other games when they actually produced games and not garbage. But I shall begrudgingly concede that they were once relevant.

*blows out smoke*

Michael Barnes wrote: Haven't played Giants yet, but I'm always on the lookout for a trade on it.

Giants is an interesting case. The seconndnd of games produced by Matagot? It has the component quality that they are now known for. Yet it was a bit of a flop from what I can see.

The game plays well enough, with a very interesting and unique theme. But it just missed the mark a bit as being a bit fiddly for what it is trying to accomplish.

But the point is that its not just a product. They took a chance on making something special. And it certainly is. But it went one step further, and could be argued that this is art. A thing that has some flaws in comparison to the competition, but stands head and shoulders above what other publishers achieve by rushing out merely "product" to sell with even bigger warts than this. One simply has to look at FFG to understand this. Mansions of Madness anyone?

Game publishing is a business, but it doesn't just have to be a business. We need more creations like Giants being made, and less product like Mansions of Madness in existence.

repoman wrote: What I really dig about French and Italian games is that they are so free from the chains of "expectations" that enslave thematic games coming from the US lately. They may do fantasy but it'll be some really off the wall fantasy, not another D&D or Tolkein knockoff. Or if the do a theme that seems familiar, the art will be vastly different than the cookie cutter type stuff we see so often.

I think Eastern Europe is the place for new and innovative mechanics in games but France and Italy is where to go for new and fresh style and feel.

this is actually a great Point that I skipped over - yes, the themes, characters and ideas the Infogrames guys came up with were definitely "unique", quirky and very original, so when I said "fantasy" it really should have come with the attached Point that you make here, interesting that you see that even now in boardgames (the computer stuff was like 15 years back)

These photos are perfect. What are they from?