Rants & Raves

You may recall a column from a couple of weeks back which sprang from a discussion I'd been having with Pedro Silva. It's proved a pretty rich vein in which to mine for column inspiration - in the latest episode we returned to the vexed question of how ill-defined the concept of "Ameritrash" still is, in spite of the term now being fairly well known amongst gamers. That in turn wedded together with some thoughts I'd been having about what binds us, here on this site, into a community...

In my last column of 2008, I made a public declaration that I was going to use John Farrels’ excellent stats tracking facility to actually try and make a concrete, measurable effort to play my favourite games more, try out more of my unplayed games and buy less games. Having made this public declaration, it struck me that I could actually make the whole thing a public enterprise - set myself some goals for the year and keep regular updates on my progress, thereby giving myself some real incentive to try...

I have a nearly uncontrollable desire to play CCGs.  Since that first sense of wonder when learned Magic: the Gathering 15 years ago, I have always felt drawn to these games.  I certainly don't miss the financial and chronological investment playing CCGs competitively requires, but there are still a lot of gaming experiences...

A short while ago, over on Boardgamegeek, I made a bold and public statement to the effect that current trends in Euro game design were bad for the hobby as a whole. Another user, Pedro Silva (Mallgur) called me out on this, and asked me to explain what on earth I meant. I couldn’t give him a succinct answer to this question: in truth, what I’d phrased as a bold and definitive statement was in fact little more than a collection of vaguely associated ideas in my mind. But I was pretty sure there...