What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

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.

Maybe not micro games but definitely fillers; we play a ton of Liar's Dice and Great Dalmuti when we have family or friends over while having a few beers and chatting. We mostly play Love Letter when we're waiting for something bigger to start because we're waiting on players or similar.

A microgame is like a tiny bag of potato chips that you get with a deli sandwich. There might be 7 or 8 chips in the bag. That's better than no chips at all, but much less satisfying than a couple of big handfuls of chips from a larger bag.

I gave my girlfriend Love Letter for Christmas in 2012, but it fell flat as a two-player game and we gave it up after a few hands. Last month, I got out Love Letter during an awkward break in the middle of a D&D session, when one player left early and another was still running late. The four of us played about a half game of Love Letter and found it to be mildly fun. But I think a full game of it would have been a little too boring and repetitive.

It's impressive that somebody made a moderately good game out of so few cards, but ultimately the micro-game format probably can't offer what I want from a game: richly-implemented theme, immersion, narrative, and interesting decisions.

I'm with Sax on this one and have always detested the term and concept of "filler", like, OMG, we nerds shrivel and die if we don't fill every 10 minutes with gaming, heaven forbid we just chat with someone, have a beer, just sit the fuck still and be quiet etc etc. Yeah, I know that's not all that filler is about, but how it's generally discussed, and even the term itself implies a loserishness that I've always found unacceptable. Love Letter. I just feel it's part of a whole Emperors New Clothes thing where people just darent say, you know what, this is actually fucking pointless.

Or, a longer and more complex game is like a big, sloppy AYCE buffet stuffed with junky food. You know it's not really good or good for you, but you "invested" $12.99 to be "immersed" in the "narrative" of dinner and to have "interesting decisions" like whether to get the fried chicken or go to the carving station. Instead of a really good Chinese or Mexican meal, you can get greasy lo mein and a crude taco on the same plate. But you've got to wait in line, and the longer you're there the more you eat until it kind of starts to taste the same and you're sick of it. By the time you get to desert, you're bloated and gassy but you figure you might as well finish it off.

I'll take the bag of chips.

Seriously, I love how disruptive and controversial smaller, shorter games are with some folks. They cause so much angst and hand-wringing.

yeah but theres gotta be a scale right? You could toss a coin, 2 seconds, easy to rack it up and play over. These 5-10 minute microgames feel more in line with coin tossing to me, but there are a good number of games more in line with the 30 minute thing. Street Soccer is great, and can be reracked for multiple plays. At the same time, what I rail against is the concept that while "waiting for the rest of the gang to show up" you somehow MUST FILL EVERY SINGLE SECOND with some kind of gaming activity. No, fuck that. Play a game on merit, not just for the sake of squeezing some shit in for the sake of it.