What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Ah, but designers have lost touch with the whole Sackson/Knizia school of design...everything has to be MORE. Instead of paring an idea to the minimum needed to communicate its theme, setting and gameplay, designers today just pile shit on top of shit in pursuit of making games feel more strategic, atmospheric, balanced, whatever.

T&E is an iteration of Acquire that adds JUST enough to make it different in terms of gameplay, to change the setting, and to alter the themes. But then FRE seems like it goes too far in the wrong direction, away from directness and simplicity, and toward bulk that creates illusionary depth.

The imminent microgame movement, hopefully, is going to get back to that. Games with minimal components, minimal rules, minimal bullshit to keep track of. Because MORE does not make a game better, deeper or more compelling.

Eklund is a very fascinating, always interesting designer. He does stuff that NOBODY else would do, and I love how singular his games are. But quite frankly, he's actually not a very good designer of actual gameplay- his games play very much like you'd expect someone that has a head full of book knowledge to play. I do feel that Pax is closer to a more "mainstream" game and is more accessible for that, it's not as squirrelly as High Frontier or Origins (nor as completely, screamingly unplayable like Lords of the Renaissance) but those "barriers to entry" of shit-hole graphic design, terrible rules-writing (revision after revision), and god awful information presentation are still negatives. And the subject matter issue becomes especially relevant if you DON"T care about realistic space travel or Mexican history because there is so much detail and specificity.

San Il Defanso wrote: I almost never analyze what icons will be revealed if I do a splay in Innovation. The game is just too unhinged to plan that much I think. I also win a fair percentage of the time.

Fair point about tracking all the different icons that are showing though.

Are you kidding? Pretty frequently, choosing which color to splay makes a huge difference in icon dominance, so it'd be absolutely crazy not to check beforehand what new icons you'd get, as it'll make a major difference *that turn*, or at very least the next turn. I've also had a lot of cases where removing an opponent's top card would change the icon balance unfavorably for me, so I've got to look at what's underneath the opponent's top card; or when I have two board-destroying icon-connected effects, and need to figure out what's underneath the opponent's top cards, etc.

Re: ldsdbomber, I have zero interest in online Innovation, sorry. I agree with you that most of time, it's easy to keep track of who's dominating which icons, absolutely, but when lots of random melds are happening you've absolutely got to recount everything every turn. I agree that you do something like "I'm going to do an attack based on factories", etc., but I feel like that kind of mindset is just because the board information is too obscured, so it's hard to see that, for example, since last turn the icon balance has changed so that if I get one more leaf I can do a leaf-based attack.

I'm not complaining that much, we're enjoying it for sure. But it's far from being a model of information clarity, and the completely inelegant, seemingly arbitrary change in icons between splaying left/right/up is not appealing either. Also inelegant in an annoying way: a LOT of the time, some card will have "splay blue or red cards right" or whatever tacked on after some ability that seems to have NOTHING to do with that; many of the cards feel like ability jumbles.

I think mostly you've just landed on how I play games, which is with a distinctive "who cares" attitude. I feel like Innovation actually favors that approach, since the best move when you're behind is often to totally destabilize the status quo, which can spin the game in some other direction that might not be advantageous for you but might also throw off what your opponent is doing.

Anyway, even giving an advantage is usually temporary at best. It's a game that lives totally in the moment, which is why I like it so much. No lead is insurmountable and no bad start can't be overcome.

Boy, I haven't played in a long time...

Played Adventure Time Munchkin with my boys tonight and they both loved it. They even took it in stride when the game randomly beat their ass.

This is my second Munchkin experience, the first being just the regular base game. This one is WAY better. Still Munchkin, but better.

Despite all the Munchkin hate that gets thrown around, my wife really likes the pirate theme and we have plenty of fun with Munchkin Booty.

I hate to ask this, but has anyone played the Conan Munchkin game? It's the one version I've given a second look at and am curious if it may be the best Conan board/card game out there.

Michael Barnes wrote: The imminent microgame movement, hopefully, is going to get back to that. Games with minimal components, minimal rules, minimal bullshit to keep track of. Because MORE does not make a game better, deeper or more compelling.

The microgame movement is the preferred future? Wow, I am not interested. You can have these fucking boring two mechanic 30-45 minute games.

Thankfully, people will continue to serve both markets, of course.

Why is a 30-45 minute simple game fucking boring by default? Is 30 minutes spent with good friends or family rendered boring by playing a simple game instead of a long, complex one? If that's your party line, it says more about the folks you're gaming with or what you want out of the hobby than it does anything about a particular type of design.

I'd never say a complex 5-6 hour game is bad or boring by default.

Played Dominion for e first time in ages. The newer expansions make it far more interesting than it used to be, especially Dark Ages and Hinterlands.

I'm completely on board with the microgame revolution. I've derived so much joy and pleasure this summer from playing Star Realms and Love Letter with my girlfriend. There's a place for longer games, too. I certainly don't understand that kind of arbitrary dogma w/r/t gameplay length.

What constitutes a Microgame these days? It's a term I've always been fuzzy on.

VonTush wrote: What constitutes a Microgame these days? It's a term I've always been fuzzy on.

I'd say a Microgame in 2014 terms would be 1. small box (obligatory) 2. $20 or cheaper 3. 30 minutes or less playtime.

The new wave of japanese card games seems to be a big part of this, but to be honest, those kind of games don't do much for me, because I don't get a feeling of being invested in the game itself. Nothing wrong with 30 minute quickies though (fnarr, fnarr), but I'd look at something like Battle Line, Roma, Street Soccer, that kind of thing, rather than the Love Letter type stuff thats 5-10 minutes.

I'd love to get hold of some of the old microgames though, I keep meaning to PnP Citadel of Blood, and I might try and get hold of the mini version of Ogre. But they are micro in size, not length (or necessary complexity).


I don't know whether these smaller games will lead to a renaissance in SacksoKniziaesque ethic with 1 or 2 mechanics and then allow player interaction to provide the interest, but we can always hope. At least in terms of "thinky" games I'm not convinced there will ever be need to add to the half dozen classics I have, so going forward I'll probably be mostly adding themey, trashy games with an eye on playing with the kids as they get older where fun, narrative and lack of brow furrowing is not something to be avoided at all costs. I mean, I really am a big fan of the great eurogames, but fuck, do I want to sit around and play Puerto Rico with my kid or Nexus Ops or Aliens or Assault on Hoth?

black inferno wrote:

VonTush wrote: What constitutes a Microgame these days? It's a term I've always been fuzzy on.

I'd say a Microgame in 2014 terms would be 1. small box (obligatory) 2. $20 or cheaper 3. 30 minutes or less playtime.

So a chess travel box??

Michael Barnes wrote: Why is a 30-45 minute simple game fucking boring by default? Is 30 minutes spent with good friends or family rendered boring by playing a simple game instead of a long, complex one? If that's your party line, it says more about the folks you're gaming with or what you want out of the hobby than it does anything about a particular type of design.

I'd never say a complex 5-6 hour game is bad or boring by default.

To get this off on a more productive tangent than I started it on, I don't generally find a situation for these types of games. If I'm actually having people over and we're playing games and not going to a bar or doing something else, I wouldn't play a 20-30 minute game 4-5 times. If we're just hanging out, I probably am not going to play a game, we'll do something else. If I'm playing with my spouse or family... we probably will do something else or we will sit down and play something specific that is longer, my spouse and I usually play games on Saturday or Sunday during the afternoon.

Do other people really just whip out a micro/filler game and randomly play it with spouse or family? Or do they make a game night out of a bunch of microgames? Maybe other people have more seamlessly integrated gaming into their daily lives than I have.