Are Board Game Web Reviews Relevant?

I decided that it was about time I wrote something regarding board game “Web Reviews” and the reviewers behind them. From my own personal experiences with the hobby, these are an essential reference when it comes to deciding whether or not a game is for me. Without these video expositions, judging new publications from an article or a few screenshots would be near impossible. Not impossible mind you, just very nearly so. It’s hard to believe, that coming by such reviews, is indeed a very modern phenomenon which could have only ever happened thanks to established video streaming platforms like Youtube. Yet before we step into the thick of things, let’s take a step back, to a time before the Internet, web browsers, video streaming and dial up connections. 

I don’t know about you, but back when I was a boy, coming by new board games to play was difficult. Back then advertising was mostly magazine or TV based; it would be years before the internet even got into our homes. In the early 80’s computers were starting to make headway as something you could have at home and computer gaming was in its infancy. Locally, access to television was mostly via aerials installed strategically on our roofs and what we got were several Italian stations as well as the one local national TV channel. Satellite television was a luxury few brought into their homes. 

I’m saying all this to better frame the sources of information available to me at the time. It also sets the stage for the meagre offering of board games which was available locally. You could, of course, get your hands on the various classics like Chess, Draughts, Backgammon, Ludo, Parcheesi, Snakes & Ladders, Risk and of course Monopoly, but anything more exotic was difficult to come by. I do recall visiting toy shops in Valletta and Sliema but the general spread of games you found there, other than those already mentioned, involved car and plane model sets, dolls, toy soldiers and a slew of other dexterity games like skittles. 

At times, hidden in a magazine or interspersed within the pages of a comic book, I would spot an advertisement for something like Talisman or Hero Quest. Likewise, Italian channels would regularly air adverts for some of the more iconic games that came out in the eighties. Forget all about web game reviews and reviewers, those were decades away.

Occasionally I would get lucky when some friend would manage to get his or her hands on some unusual board game and I would be offered the opportunity to try out something I could otherwise not get my hands on. The Internet obviously changed all that!

I have always considered myself to be an avid gamer but obviously, you get to play what you manage to get your hands on. In the late 80’s and more so in the early 90’s, it was computer games. Back then D&D adaptations or Advanced D&D adaptations for PC were particularly easy to come by. They had clunky graphics by today’s standards, but they did a decent job of transposing the rules of the pen-and-paper classic into something you could play on your own, with the computer as your impartial DM. In fact, the feeling I get is that those early games were all about adventure and fantasy, crafted by whizz kids who had grown up playing D&D or choose-your-own-story books.

However, if we really must identify the advent of board gaming reviews, we need to wait till that moment when dial-up modems gave way to faster ADSL connectivity and to the birth of the platform that, to this day, still dominates the video blog and product reviews arena. YouTube was what really set the ball rolling. Board game enthusiasts the world over could finally come together and see what the new board games were about, assess component quality, go over the rules and watch as someone, somewhere, played the game for them in front of a camera.

 Obviously, there were several websites doing board game reviews before YouTube, but the immediacy of the video review can be considered as a strong contributing factor to the growing popularity of board games and the subsequent market growth. As of today, you can find several established board game reviewers hailing from various countries, each one of them reviewing hundreds of games per year. The competition in this arena has also grown exponentially over the years with reviewers refining their presentations and delivery, using the latest tools and streaming technologies. It’s no longer a matter of just rigging up a camera to your laptop and recording your opinions. The better reviews now have exact video editing, great studio lighting, as well as well-designed backdrops and studio props. Obviously, all this tech needs to be paid for and most of the better reviewers get sponsored for the materials they air on their YouTube channels.

These sponsorships are what keep these guys producing more material, together with their subscriber base, which in turn is what attracts the sponsors in the first place. So, what does this say about the authenticity or reliability of these reviewers, should you trust what they tell you about a given game? How can you be sure that what they tell you comes from a good place rather than being just paid advertising by the sponsor?

These are not easy questions to answer. I am sure that if you, like me, have watched hundreds of board game reviews, you will have noticed that reviewers often have Kallax-type shelves behind them highlighting hundreds of game titles. I for one tend to scan these boxes, especially if they happen to be standing behind a reviewer I trust or value over others. I do so because, in my mind, I want to see what else this reviewer likes to play when he gets the opportunity. I am sure that, while not in every instance, these reviewers do place some of those titles strategically on the shelves behind their backs as they present their next game review.  To an extent, this is viewer manipulation and akin to classic product placement. Nothing wrong with this, I am watching these reviewers because I intend to buy at some point. Still, you need to bear this in mind when you tune in to watch a game review. 

So, given that advertising is an important contributor to the ongoing success and commercial viability of game review channels, how can you at least guarantee that you will get access to a wide spread of titles, rather than those jockeying for your attention and strategically placed in front of you by the big players of the board gaming industry? This is because it makes sense that a board game review channel will tend to promote and highlight sponsored games over those which do not benefit from this extra push. 

As I see it, this is where you must use your better judgement to discern the quality reviewers from those who are simply more concerned with attracting sponsors. Mind you, the better reviewers are aware of all this, and they do their best to ensure that their reviews are balanced and as fair as possible. Now let’s have a look at how they address these matters and how they succeed (or don’t) in coming across as balanced, or at least as unbiased (if that is even possible).

A tactic that I have seen employed is to insert the sponsored product as a highly visible slot within the review itself. It’s normally a short insert, around 3-to-5-minutes in duration, and mostly unrelated to the review at hand. In so doing they ensure that viewers perceive the review as distinct from the sponsor while giving the sponsors the space they deserve and have paid for. 

Another tactic employed and which I tend to like personally, is getting the same game reviewed by more than one reviewer. It helps if the chosen reviewers have distinct proclivities when it comes to selecting games they like, as this makes the overall judgement feel more balanced. To attain this a review channel needs to have several reviewers with different tastes and sensibilities. So, as you can imagine, not all game review channels can pull this one off.

Other tactics which appear to work to some degree or other, include making specific reviews for games that don’t make the cut or are considered inferior by the reviewer in question. Negative reviews if you will. Personally, I don’t think that this does much for the hobby. If a game is blatantly bad, a brief note or comment should more than suffice. I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as bad advertising so I would refrain from advertising something that is inherently inferior. On the other hand, you could see these negative reviews as a necessary counterpoise to the positive ones. Think of it as balancing your accounts to ensure that the debtor and creditor columns tally. 

Another tactic that has become possible mainly because of the sheer volumes of games put on the market, is to review games either by publisher or by designer. This gives an extremely focused and in-depth investigation into the styles embraced by specific publishers or game mechanisms developed and refined by specific designers. This is also used as an opportunity for the reviewer to display his or her level of exposure and expertise. Personally, it is when you get to this level of gaming maturity that you can really start appraising games more closely aligned with your own personal tastes. 

These are some of the strategies employed by the established reviewers to further consolidate their role as ambassadors of the hobby. They use them to ensure that they do not seem as biassed or as supporting one publisher to the detriment of others. Doing so would tarnish their reputation and credibility. Still, these are waters they must tread carefully because they are constantly being scrutinised by thousands of viewers. 

As you can imagine, given that some of the more established reviewers have been on the review circuit for over 10 years or more, it has become increasingly difficult for new reviewers to succeed. I feel that a lot of the positioning and jostling for the attention of subscribers has already been done at this point and I cannot see how anyone can step in to grab a share of that viewership. It could happen, but it would be an uphill battle for the newcomer/s. 

Just to paint a clearer picture, I did a quick survey of reviewers, and those who got the most mentions as preferred reviewers. Around thirty-six respondents provided data for this assessment. Having tallied scores, I identified five reviewers (English speaking) which were frequently cited by those interviewed. The list in order of popularity (highest to lowest) are as follows: -

1. Dice Tower

2. Shut Up and Sit Down

3. Radho

4. No Pun Included

5. John Gets games

Both Dice Tower and Shut Up and Sit Down did not come as a surprise to me since the quality of their reviews and spread of reviews are second to none. It was however interesting that in the case of Dice Tower, Zee Garcia stands out as the preferred reviewer over the plethora of excellent reviewers that make part of the outfit.  From my own earlier memories of Dice Tower, Tom Vassel squarely handled the channel, then came Sam Healey and finally Zee Garcia. As I have noted in other blogs, Healey brought war-gaming and similar games to the fore since he was particularly fond of the genre. Zee on the other hand brought a more focused foray into gaming mechanisms that verge on the more cerebral and abstract. This standpoint however does not keep him away from exploring other games though his preferences will lead him to the formerly described types. As I have also said in other blogs Rodney Quinn (Shut up and Sit Down) is passionate about games and big box productions which never appear to unfaze him, unlike myself. Over the years he has also reviewed some games I have eventually bought and still love, including the abstract game Hive (which thankfully isn’t one of the larger games).

Radho’s channel is chock full of materials from short reviews to playthroughs and members only offerings. Many cited him as offering comprehensive and objective reviews. I will have to rest on their opinions, for now, as I have not viewed sufficient materials to be the judge of that. The last two on the list received a respectable number of mentions though nowhere near the top three mentioned above.

Before I conclude this part of the blog, I would like to mention Watch it Played. This channel, originally founded by Rodney Smith, focused on instructional videos which he still does impeccably. When I doubt how a game should be played, I check if he has done a video about it and watch that. His delivery is clear, concise and to the point, you could not ask for anything more. Many of those who submitted their preferences in fact mentioned Watch it Played as primarily an instructional videos channel rather than a review channel and I think they are right. This channel does stir away from scoring board games or offering pros and cons for any game they mention. However, due to their popularity I had to mention their work and the ever-growing compendium of game videos they have on their channel. In recent years, the channel brought more game reviewers on board (can’t think of another title for them), including Pair of Dice Paradise’s Chaz Marler, Paula Demming and Matthew Jude. In addition to offering the latest in gaming news about up-and-coming games and viewer preferences, the channel has now also included playthroughs as part of their offering, moving them away from being squarely about instructional videos.

Given the obvious popularity enjoyed by game reviewers, the importance or relevance of this source of gaming information can hardly be put into question. What is evident is that the industry as a whole and the reviewers which support it, have evolved over the years with some quality channels standing out as being both exceptional and reliable reviewers. Yet before I sign off, a word about gaming preferences.

When it comes to board games, no number of reviews can ever replace actual playtime. Not even the best filmed playthroughs can replace sitting down and going through the paces of playing a real, live game. There will always be elements of game upkeep between turns, procedurally executing the rules such that they make sense and ensuring that key steps are not glazed over inadvertently. As a quick example I would like to bring to your attention a game of “Castle Panic” I played with friends recently.

 

We played most of it correctly except the early instances where the first “invaders” made it to the castle walls. We were playing it such that when an invader in the Swordsman circle advances, he simply breaks the wall down (if it is still standing) and penetrates the castle defences immediately. While semantically this sounded right, we failed to read the details. The invader or aggressor does indeed break through that wall but when he does, on that turn, he loses one life point and stays in the Swordsman circle until the following turn. As you can imagine executing the action our way almost cost us the game.

What I want to get at is, that you cannot fully appreciate or learn a game from a video review. Board games are physical creations that ideally require a hands-on approach to be fully appreciated. The more you play a game, the more you start to appreciate what it is all about. This in a way can be taken as a call to play those games one might already own rather than resort to purchasing several titles that will never make it to the gaming table.

While watching or reading gaming reviews can be both entertaining as well as an informative exercise, we should never rely exclusively on these reviews for our gaming fix. At a certain point you need to commit to a title, crack open the actual box and go through the experience that drew you to this hobby in the first place.

Still, to conclude, board game web reviews have become an important tool in understanding what you might like and  what you might not. The truth is that there are way too many board games published on a monthly basis so finding that one gem you will love for life can be a daunting task. My take from all this is to use game review as part of your selection process but keep your eyes open for unsung games that might just satisfy your gaming requirements. Keeping an open mind is indeed key. 

Card Usage in Modern Board Gaming

 

Modern board games as we understand them, experienced a renaissance in the early 2000’s. From a hobby that was restricted to the occasional family gathering during Christmas, it bloomed into an 11 billion dollar industry as of 2022. There are several factors that have contributed to this, but what really got the ball rolling were a few innovative publications that elevated the genre from mere child’s play to an acceptable pastime for a more mature audience. Once this notion kicked in, designers became more willing to produce game concepts that went beyond the traditional roll-and-move game mechanisms which dominated the gaming experience. 

Why Cards?

Yet of all the components that are immediately identifiable with playing board games, cards are up there, with dice, egg timers and spinner boards. Cards have in fact always been present in modern board games in some form or another. Initially they served the exclusive purpose of introducing an element of randomness rather than being how a victory was obtained. Think about Monopoly for instance, here you have Community Chest and Chance cards, yet drawing them will seldom contribute squarely towards a player winning a game (unless you get “a proceed to Mayfair” card when someone else has already built it up to its limit!). They are also seldom the means through which a game can be won, no points are scored for drawing them. Likewise, the site or location cards are more of a reminder, to the player owning them, of the site they have bought. Their more obvious purpose comes into play once a site is mortgaged to the bank. 

Yet it helps to remember that card-based games actually predated many of what we can term board games in the modern sense. Owning a deck of cards denoted wealth any many of the early sets were works of art commissioned by wealthy patrons who could afford the expense. A quick search in Wikipedia mentions that in the account books of Johanna, Duchess of Brabant and Wenceslaus I, Duke of Luxembourg, we find an entry dating back to May 14, 1379, noting the payment of "...four peters and two florins, worth eight and a half sheep, for the purchase of packs of cards". So you see, not exactly a cheap item to own. It was only through the democratisation of the printing process and the increased availability of paper as a printing medium that playing cards eventually become available to the masses.

The Flemish Hunting Deck (1470-80)

Cards in modern games

Some modern card games tried to remedy this dearth of card-based mechanism, by introducing streamlined play and increasing the number of meaningful interactions, but this was achieved based on much earlier and familiar games. The popular Uno (first published in 1971) for example can be considered a rethinking of the card game Crazy Eights. Still, you do not see the level of decision making you would expect from the latest card-based board games. Uno offers limited strategic choices in terms of what cards a player sheds on his or her turn, while still relying heavily on the luck of the draw from a common stockpile.

That is why I am here focusing on games which employ cards in other ways. Cards that modify the course of a game in some manner, which create interactions or situations requiring meaningful, decision making. I am aware that there is a fine line between what is a board game or a game in which cards constitute the better part of the game, a “card-based” board game if you will. In these modern iterations, the cards behave as spaces on a composite board, establishing connections, permutations and variations that will later result in more complex, and rewarding choices. 

The main purpose to using cards is primarily, as stated earlier, to introduce an element of randomisation in the progression of a game. Yet while this has remained, cards are now employed to perform other equally important tasks. So having said this let us now look at some of the more significant mechanisms that involve the manipulation of cards in some form or other. 

The “Drafting” mechanism

Drafting, or “card drafting”, is straightforward and is normally employed as part of a more complex gaming engine. For instance, in the game Sushi Go, players draft cards from a pool of cards dealt to them, passing the remaining card to a player to their left in between turns, until all cards are drafted save one. The last remaining card is discarded face down. The drafted cards are then formed into sets and scored in line with scoring rules that are included in the box.

Likewise in 7 Wonders, players will draft cards from a hand dealt out to them to gather sufficient resources to build one of the 7 Wonders of the ancient world, achieve military supremacy or achieve dominance through the culture and science tracks. While theoretically these two games are quite different, the basic card-drafting mechanism is still the same. What is immediately apparent is just how versatile the drafting mechanism can be. On the one hand Sushi Go adopts a remarkably simple variation to the concept, making it an ideal party game. 7 Wonders on the other hand uses drafting to allow players to create intricate interactions between the cards chosen, aimed at furthering point scores which are only fully tallied at the end of a game. What is also very much evident in both these games is the fact that they both adopt a euro-style approach to game play, where no players are eliminated during the game. 

The “Deck Building” mechanism

Deck building is another interesting card-based mechanism. It had been explored through several extremely popular titles but one of the first games to embrace it was most certainly Dominion (First published in 2008). In all deck builders, you will start off with a basic hand which contains two types of cards, those I refer to as “purchase cards” and those I refer to as “attack cards”. Normally this starting hand is weighted heavily towards purchase since this is what will help the player build his or her deck. Cards are then purchased from a market comprising several face-up cards. Some purchased cards will then allow a player to shed the less important cards in a deck, streamlining it in such a way as to ensure that the better cards will be better represented during play. In these games, card synergies and interactions are also strong contributing factors towards victory. This is what makes these games so interesting and popular.  This is also the reason the more popular deck building games have sizable communities of avid players keeping them alive. 

The “Pattern Building” mechanism

In Pattern Building, players will use cards or cardboard tiles  to create point-scoring patterns on their personal tableau. While not strictly speaking “cards games”, games like Carcassonne, Tsuro and Kingdomino all use pattern building mechanisms to score points. In Carcassonne and Tsuro, cards are drawn from a common pool while Kingdomino also adds Card Drafting into the mix. Two other games I own,  and which employ this mechanism are Codex Naturalis and Kodama. In Codex Naturalis, cards are drawn from a common stockpile and then played to a personal tableau in certain ways to achieve personal or game objectives. A similar mechanism can be seen in Kodama, with players adding cards to a “tree base'', essentially another large card,  to create a composite “tree” with the highest point-scoring opportunities. The nature of these games tends to remind me a bit of older games like Tetris, since the emphasis is normally more on the nature and position of specific pieces to achieve an objective. 

The “Engine Building” mechanism

I think of Engine Builders as a variation to the deck building mechanism. What changes, often, is the quantity of cards available to a player throughout a game. Most engine builders I have played with have a constraint on the number of turns, making each decision taken increasingly more important. Another peculiarity is that once an engine is started, an early mistake or a moment’s hesitation could have disadvantageous effects on the outcome of a game. If a player gets on the right track from the start, he or she will most probably win the game. Catchup mechanisms are not common here. Res Arcana and Century Spice Road come to mind here. Res Arcana uses a very reduced number of cards, yet the card interactions are intricate and provide surprising synergies once the right cards fall into place. The rulebook tends to be a bit unclear in areas, which increases the learning curve of what is otherwise an exceptional game. As for Century Spice Road, which is part of a trilogy of games from designer Emerson Matsuuchi, it is an engine building game embedded within a larger game engine.  

In these types of games, cards selected to create the in-game engine become vital linchpins towards generating and upgrading resources. Particularly in Century Spice Road, early mistakes tend to haunt you later in the game, you really need to weigh your choices carefully. Another extremely popular engine-builder is Wingspan. Here the cards themselves represent birds. Each card offers both points scored directly for the bird itself as well as additional point-scoring actions which can take place during a turn, after a turn or in between rounds. The constraints on the number of turns are very pronounced here with the number decreasing from one round to the next. Interestingly, in Wingspan the cards are not the actual engine components though they serve to activate aspects of the in-game engine. The mix of engine-building, personal, turn and round objectives, make wingspan one of the best examples of this genre.

The “Set Building” mechanism

Set Building is one of the older mechanisms employed when cards are involved. At a quite simple level, you can see a practical example of set building in any rummy inspired card game. Players will here make sets or runs of cards to be the first to complete their hand and secure victory. Some modern boardgames embrace this mechanism within the overall game play making the final product quite easy to teach. For instance, one such game is Ethnos. Here players put together sets of cards depicting fantasy creatures to subsequently lay claim to territories on a common map. Interestingly then, once a set is used to claim a territory, it does not end there. If  another player creates a bigger valid set, he or she can then grab control of that same territory. Indeed, it is likely that certain valuable territories exchange hands a few times due to this mechanism. The more territories you lay claim to by the end of a game, the higher your chances of winning.

The “Trick-taking” mechanism

No exposition dealing with card games can be complete without a mention of trick-taking. This is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, card mechanism ever designed. The earliest card games on record frequently featured trick-taking as the sole mechanism. The most popular exponent of this mechanism is Contract Bridge, though other games such as Hearts and Spades also feature trick-taking as the basis of their point-scoring method. Even some modern board games have espoused this mechanism with varying degrees of success. 2017’s The Fox in the Forest and both games in “The Crew” series (2019 and 2021) use trick-taking. Their ongoing popularity, with the former (Fox in the forest) having a popular digital adaptation, and with 2019’s “The Crew” getting a sequel two years later, further extols the undying appeal of this mechanism. Ironically however, trick-taking happens to be my least favourite mechanism.

Infinite Combinations 

Game mechanisms are constantly evolving with every new game published. For this reason, no reasoned inroad into the subject can be considered definitive, indefinitely. Indeed, I don’t even claim that this blog is, by any stretch of the imagination, a comprehensive list of card game mechanisms. Still, I think I have successfully brought together the most popular mechanisms based on the success of the games they are found in. I have intentionally left out Collectable Card Games or CCGs as these belong to a separate and vast sub-genre of card mechanisms. One day I will write a blog exclusively on them. 

At the end of it all, cards are still a resilient and malleable tool used by game designers to render their abstract visions into modern cardboard masterpieces. Cards have been with us from the very moment it became convenient and cheap to produce them in volumes. For what they are, they take up truly little space, while still offering themselves as compact platforms from which imagination can soar and ideas can come alive during play. Personally, few gaming components are more compelling.

Planning a Great Board Games Night

We live with our limitations
 
I decided to write this blog almost as a reaction to little problems I have faced in the past while setting up board gaming sessions with friends. I am here referring to things that if allowed to accumulate can just as well derail an otherwise pleasant evening. Make no mistake, these matters will frequently surface in some form or other and tackling them, while not impossible, requires a willingness to solve them.

So let’s set the stage in the hope of establishing the possible contributing factors that could lead to these situations. We are assuming that all invited players are married couples with kids. Furthermore, these couples may or may not have kids who are still “dependents” at the time an invitation is sent out.
 
 

Where?

Location is the first problem that needs to be tackled. Deciding where to hold the gaming session can strongly affect how successful the event will be. Ideally the place is somewhere central, preferably requiring minimal to moderate commute.

Guests should also have no problems parking their vehicles or perhaps provisions could be made to pool cars if possible. If on the other hand you intend to host at your own house, just make sure that enough time and advance notification of the event is offered to all potential guests. A simple invite with an RSVP could also help establish both who will be in a position to attend and as well as offer a discreet way to manage the event and plan for it.
 
 

It’s all about timing.

When it comes to timing, I can identify two aspects that could affect an event. First there is the aspect of how much in advance you should issue your invitation and the second the actual starting time for the event. Both will have an effect on how guests will manage themselves on the day.

Starting with the idea of invitations, an invite should ideally be sent out between three week to a month before. This should offer a good time-window for all willing guests to block their calendars and make their preparations for the event. From experience, this is a good amount of time, some guests will guarantee their participation outright, others will confirm and then cancel closer to the date..it happens, just make provisions for these eventualities.

 

When it comes to the actual starting time for the event, you will need to take into consideration whether kids will factor in the equation. Parents with young kids in tow could prefer earlier starting times on account of sleep patterns they might be trying to enforce. 

On a different level, a comfortable and relaxing environment is also important, including how easily a gaming session can be set up. Adequate table space commensurate to the size of the board games being played is also a factor. Playing card based games will normally not require large surfaces (there are exceptions!!) but games that came with large boards will need equally large playing surfaces. As a rule of thumb, each player should have enough space to allow them to spread their game pieces or game resources comfortably. Ambient temperature and lighting are also important contributing factors in this instance. Poor or inadequate lighting could make it difficult to read instructions during play, while uncomfortable temperatures may cause players to focus poorly on their actions during play.

With or without kids

Now the matter of kids. When you reach the “family” stage in life, you must expect that there will be kids in tow so any event needs to be approached tactfully if it is to succeed. The first option would be an event that is child free. To organise such an event, all participants need to be in a position to leave their kids with family or a babysitter. Not everyone can do so, so you would need to assess the matter before suggesting a no-kids event. There are obvious advantages to sessions where kids are not in tow but the likelihood is that most of your events will include kids and this is what we will consider next

Kids in attendance can increase the challenges of setting up a gaming session, especially if they happen to be very young. All players must feel confident that they can handle the needs of their dependents if they will be tagging along. When kids are small, there will be emergencies, there will be a need to ensure they are taken care of. The trick here is to have, readily available, resources that could help. For instance, you could prepare a variety of accessible, child-friendly foods as well as create a safe play area. More importantly children should be guided towards not disrupting the main board gaming area, in most instances this will entail offering them alternative activities and/or distractions at an acceptable distance from the main gaming table. 

 

Kids onboard!

If on the other hand, kids are within the eight-year-old to early tween bracket, then this will present other challenges. Normally you will try to include them within some of the games (if not all of them), particularly if they happen to show some aptitude towards board games. The main challenge will be to select games that are appealing to them while also being engaging for the rest of the players. Personally I would tend to choose games which are fairly simple to teach, with a clear (and short) turn structure. 

 

 

You should definitely favour shorter games which resolve in around 30 to 45 minutes. If you are not sure how well they can handle competitive play, then ideally you should opt for cooperative games that would allow them to act within a team structure. Cooperative play will tend to offer fewer antagonising moments (if at all) with a sharper focus on beating the game. However don’t exclude competitive games in those instances where the kids can handle them.

 

Food and Refreshments
 

Another aspect that could impinge negatively on any gaming session is determining what food arrangements will be best, given the type of games played. Long games will require some form of snacks distributed at intervals, while playing, but these should preferably be light snacks, possibly non-greasy so that game components are not compromised while being handled. Ideally snacking should not detract from gaming time. Equally important is ensuring the availability of absorbent napkins, wipes as well as access to a bathroom with adequate supplies of hand wash and towels.

 

Dinner anyone? 

The situation becomes more challenging if you intend to host a dinner before the games themselves. You would here need to prime expectations and ensure that there is no overindulgence on particularly heavy, carb rich foods. The reason being that these, while notably cheaper to prepare, could lead to players feeling sluggish or tired afterwards. Good choices could include vegetable based dishes, pasta salads that emphasise vegetables. Light roasted meats like chicken or fish, soups, or vegetable or dairy-based dips or entrees. This does not mean you go zero carb, just that the carb and fat content should be kept low.

 

 

Continuing on the idea of a light dinner or lunch before a gaming session, you also need to ensure you have sufficient time for such a setup. You need to set aside at least one and a half hours for eating and at least 15 minutes to clear up the dining table if this will also double as a gaming table. If you have a separate table for the gaming session, even better. 

 

Drinks on the house!

Alcohol should be consumed in moderation as this will definitely affect game-play. As a host you should offer lighter alcoholic drinks like beers or wine. Alternatively you could agree to serve  just soft drinks if that’s fine for everyone. 

 

Commitment.

Commitment is another critical limitation when it comes to organising gaming sessions, especially when it comes to multi-episode campaigns as one would find in legacy games. It is vital to ensure that players are committed to the sessions, while at the same time avoiding the trap of making each session feel like an obligatory grind. This is the hardest to handle as gaming groups will fluctuate over time with players falling by the  wayside and others stepping in. You will need to be the session champion, the person who will at all times enthusiastically propose the next meet-up, even when feedback or response rates would be low. More importantly, fine tune your ambitions to the realities of your gaming group, it will spare you disappointments later.

 

 

That just about sums up the main aspects you would normally have to face while organising a games night in the marital period of your lives. Sure it's more complicated to organise a games night once you have a family and kid/s in tow but don't let that dishearten you in any way. With sufficient commitment and advanced planning you can still organise a board game party that your guests will remember fondly for years to come.

 

 

 

Terrforming Mars : Ares Expedition - A Review

 In many ways, a good euro-style game can be considered a model or perhaps a simulation of a concept or real-world scenario. A model therefore, which can be interacted with by players through their choices and decisions. In most cases, these games offer me the most enjoyment. Primarily because I can play with concepts or ideas that are dear to me or for which I have a personal affinity. In doing so, I use the tools that come with the game, as part of its ruleset, subscribing to the limitations imposed. A good simulation will embrace a strong theme within which the decisions and choices made will further enhance the experience.

I own several games which purport to do this, but there are only a few which leverage the above concepts of simulation and theme in ways that make the experience unique and exciting. I recently bought a game called Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition. The game can be considered an off-shoot, or smaller brother, to the successful game Terraforming Mars. When Ares Expedition came out, I thought  I was just looking at yet another expansion of sorts. A money grabbing exercise not so much different from the steady stream which floods the gaming market. In this case, I could not have been more mistaken. Ares Expedition is not an expansion, it is a standalone experience.

However, before we go any further, a word or two about the original Terraforming Mars is in order. As the name suggests, in Terraforming Mars, you play the part of a powerful organisation competing with others to reap the benefits of terraforming the red planet. You will do this by taking actions to increase the temperature of the planet and plant vegetation in order to increase oxygen levels. During the course of the game, players will draw project cards and then select one of 5 possible actions, per turn, in order to achieve their individual goals. What this means is that during any given turn, some of the available actions will be executed while others will be left out depending on the choices made.

At its core, Terraforming Mars feels like a race with the principal objective of coming out on top. Yet when you look closer, you realise that there is more, so much more to this. Each action you take or project you play to your personal tableau, will help you build a virtual engine from which you will obtain the necessary resources. Some project cards will benefit you early on when the planet is still hostile, cold and depleted of oxygen. Others will make more sense once the planet gets warmer and oxygen levels increase and start sustaining life. 

The theme here is a strong one and ever present. Miss an important project card on your turn and your engine may not generate sufficient resources. Yes, there are standard projects you could appeal to when you have no cards to play, but these come at a cost which may not be sustainable in the long run.

The game offers various paths to victory and the competition aspect plays a strong part throughout, yet this game does not feel like it is only about the win. Every game you play, you will find yourself thinking about what could generate the best combination of heat and vegetation and which project cards will aid your terraforming objective. Basically you find yourself strategizing, feeling engaged in this well-crafted simulation. Then there are the colonies or cities, you want to build these as they will increase your  presence on the planet, earning you more Terraforming Points and possibly victory. If you allow it, this game can become extremely engaging for all the right reasons. Here is a puzzle that will draw you in, leading you deep into its world  through its well crafted rules.

Then we have the Ares Expedition. This has all the charm and theme which made Terraforming Mars such an incredible game but it purposely cuts down on the former's sprawling game time. Terraforming Mars can actually last 3 to 4 hours, a timeframe not many casual gamers can afford. Ares Expedition on the other hand, promises a similar experience in around a third of the game time. That is not to be taken lightly. 

In Ares Expedition you still get the project cards, and you still get corporation specific benefits, yet there are differences. While your objectives to increase planetary temperature and vegetation are still key aspects of this game, you no longer have cities to concern yourself with or forests to place on the main map. The notions are dealt with differently, not removed mind you! You get to terraform sectors on the main map (albeit a much smaller one) and to score points on the terraforming track. So ultimately the feel remains true to the spirit of the original game.

Component-wise the game is well presented. The large stack of project cards are all linen finish. The copper, silver and gold tokens are made from colourful translucent plastic. Everything has a proper place inside the box. The cardboard used is of good quality and the player boards have nifty recessed “scoring tracks” which help you keep your cube markers in their right place during the game.

The rules, while straightforward, have a minor issue which has put me a bit off. I feel that It is not clear when points need to be moved along the scoring tracks (on the player boards), and when I should be adding points to the credit, heat or vegetation pools. Still, I have resolved to give the ruleset another, more thorough, reading. The fact that I will even bother to better understand the ruleset, is proof enough of how appealing I find this game and my eagerness to dive into this incredible experience.

Going back to the claimed game duration, Ares Expedition appears to have achieved a goal which few other games of its ilk can lay claim to. This is because there is a market for medium duration games like Ares Expedition. Games with longer playtimes are fantastic for hardcore gaming groups which are commit to regular gaming sessions. This however, isn’t the reality faced by most board game aficionados. Typical acceptable game durations for board games stand at between 90 to 150 minutes. There will be circumstances where games lasting 180 minutes will be tolerated but normally, casual gamers will prefer shorter games.

From the thematic standpoint, both Terraforming Mars and Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition could not have come at a better time. Mars has never been so present in the collective consciousness. Elon Musk is targeting Mars for colonisation and various countries already have separate exploratory missions on the red planet. Mars has become the embodiment of mankind's renewed desire to become a spacefaring species. It is indeed ironic that for most of the 90’s and early 2000’s, space exploration took a more back-burner approach due to other global priorities. Still, today in 2022, in spite of the COVID pandemic and other earthbound threats including wars, mankind is pushing steadily on the accelerator pedal of space exploration. These games I am writing about are one means of perhaps further solidifying this desire to reach up to the stars.

Then obviously you have those who question why we spend the kind of money that is spent to reach an essentially uninhabitable planet. The question is legitimate but the truth is that it’s not the goal itself but the push we are seeing in other scientific fields that somehow are linked to it. I am here talking about communications, internet, networking, alternative energy production and advances in energy production through nuclear fusion. All these scientific achievements will be necessary on Mars if we are to turn it into a viable colony.

Ironically while trying to seek ways to make the unliveable, liveable, we may indeed find ways to correct those manmade problems that are plaguing our planet at the moment. Things like sustainable food production, renewable energy sources and nuclear fusion.

Terraforming is not instantaneous, if it is to be achieved at all, the effect will be felt over several generations, in the meantime we need to utilise an entire arsenal of technologies to make mankind’s stay over there possible. Technologies which are being developed or improved upon, now as we speak.

But I digress...after all Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is but a game, a lofty mind game which in its own way contributes towards reminding us about what mankind could potentially achieve. It’s a thematic Eurogame that silently points a finger to the red planet inviting us to ignite our imagination.

…and perhaps one day, several decades into the future, colonists will be engaged in actual Terraforming, turning what is now but a game, or a mental exercise, into something tangible.

Abstract Strategy Games

Think of a board game, stripped down of any possible theme, just a concentration of simple rules with equally simple win conditions. What comes to your mind? Now hold on to that thought. Many of you will be thinking of Chess as the quintessential game that satisfies these criteria, others will mention Draughts or Checkers as they are known in the US.

Games like Chess or Draughts fall under a category of games collectively termed abstract strategy games (aka ASG). These are games which exist within an established gaming framework that has withstood the test of time and which adopts extremely terse rule sets. The beauty of these gaming constructs is not in their self-evident simplicity but rather in the myriad permutations to which each move is subject to. Taking Draughts for example, each piece can only move in very finite and simple ways. At the start of a game, each piece can move diagonally, either to the left or to the right, one space at a time. Alternatively a piece may capture another by jumping over it along the same, permissible, diagonal paths. Now fast forward to, say, half a dozen moves and suddenly the number of possible moves increases, as do the implications of each move executed. This complexity or increase in the number of possible permutations, is what makes these games highly replayable and timeless. Just to put you in the picture it was calculated that Draughts has ten to the power of twenty different possible board positions.

When it comes to game mechanisms, most of these games appear to follow the principle game concept of capturing the opponent’s pieces and you would not be faulted to think that this was the only game mechanism out there. In truth there are several variations when it comes to ASGs.

Area Control is another game mechanism that has been explored in classic ASGs. When this principle is followed, it is more about claiming territory and inhibiting the movement  of your opponent. In the classic game Othello or Reversi, players take turns trying to enclose lines of the opponent’s pieces between two of their own. When this is done, anything in between becomes spaces claimed by the active player. At the end of a match the player with most of their own pieces on the board is the winner. To achieve this effect players use special two-sided checkers with one side being dark and the other light. Yet while at face value you could still say that you are capturing pieces, in truth it is more an encroaching tactic since pieces are never truly removed from the board but only added. An even more ancient game called Go, hailing originally from China, uses a similar encroaching tactic until there is no more spaces to claim. Admittedly Go is infinitely more complex to both play and master, but the basic principle behind both is similar. Go has a strong  and passionate crowd of followers the world over and is considered by many to be superior to Chess. If this can be used as an indicator of the game complexity, the first AI win against a Chess grand master took place in 1997 when IBM's Deep Blue beat the world chess champion after six games with two wins, three draws and one win for the chess champion. Eventually AIs caught up with Go but that win had to wait nineteen years until 2016 when Google's DeepMind defeated the raining Go champion 4 wins to 1. You can have a look at a very entertaining video of Go over here.

Seeding games adopt a pool of common pieces, moving them along a common path leading to special designated areas where they can then be claimed and removed from play. Mancala is one such game. Tactics here involve moving pieces in such a way as to increase the chances of claiming them, removing them from play, while at the same time making it difficult  for your opponent to do the same. Interestingly, games like Five Tribes adopt this mechanism as part of their ruleset, proving that the  tactic can still be employed effectively in modern board games.

Other classic ASGs like Hnefatafl, also known as The Viking Chess Game, adopt an asymmetric approach where one side is trying, in this instance, to help a King escape while the other will do its utmost to stop him from doing so. Have a look at this gorgeous digital adaptation from Rain Games, available on Steam. Then if you would like a decent presentation on the history of asymmetric board games including Hnefatafl, have a look at this excellent video.

Yet ASG’s are not something you can compartmentalise as being something from the past. There are many game designers out there coming up with some brilliant ASG’s. Just consider Hive for instance. This is an ASG that does away with a board focusing instead on hexagonal tiles with a “capture the queen” objective. Some may argue that there is a theme, insects but the same can be said for Chess in that case.

Another intriguing modern ASG is Tzaar. This game, designed by Kris Burm, is part of a series of ASGs known collectively as the GIPF project

published by Rio Grande Games. Tzaar is a game which invites players to make choices throughout. There are three types of pieces and they must all be represented on the board if you want to win. It is part capture and part positional in that you can try to manoeuvre your opponent into a position where he cannot make legal moves and therefore lose.

Personally, when I think of ASGs I think of them as game mechanisms laid bare, stripped of all that would otherwise obfuscate their simple, elegant geniality. Here you have all the elements of a game, all the strategic depth in one beautiful package. This is why many have survived the test of time or have been transformed or are still being transformed one generation after another. Most people will forget the number one board game of 20XX but tell them to sit down and show an ASG like Chess or Draughts  and you will most likely find that they know the game.

That is all I have for you today. Now I will take my leave, I’ve just loaded Viking Chess and I think I will take it for a spin.