During the weekend tour of Metro Halifax FLGSs, I wasn’t the only one buying. Both of my friends picked up copies of a new Dungeons & Dragons product, Dungeon Tiles. I have to say that I was surprised and impressed.
Archive for August, 2006|Monthly archive page
Colossal Arena Addenda
In appraisals, boardgames, elegance, mechanics on August 28th, 2006 at 1:15 pmAfter I went to bed last night, I realized that I forgot about a couple of points that I wanted to make about Colossal Arena from my last post.
Fantasy Flight + Reiner Knizia = Two New Purchases
In boardgames, first thoughts on August 28th, 2006 at 12:17 amI did a tour of the Metro Halifax Region’s FLGSes yesterday with two of my best friends (and gaming buddies). Over the course of six stops, I made two purchases, both Fantasy Flight releases of Reiner Knizia designs, one a classic and one brand spanking new. I also got in a couple of plays of the classic. Here are my early impressions.
Parenthetically
In elegance, miscellany on August 15th, 2006 at 1:58 pmA few thoughts parenthetically related to my just started series of articles on elegance, plus one item that’s not related to anything in particular. Read the rest of this entry »
An Introduction to Elegance
In boardgames, elegance, game design on August 14th, 2006 at 11:32 pm
Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future.
-Gabrielle “Coco” Channel
Prior to 1995, there was little tradition of elegant design in the North American gaming industry. Hex ‘n’ Counter wargames that had 20+ page rulebooks were still thriving, and, while block wargames had been invented in the mid ’70s, they were still a niche within a niche. Quasi-RPG wargames like Car Wars, Battletech and Star Fleet Battles, which had their heyday in the ’80s before petering out during the first half of the ’90s, were almost an order of magnitude more complicated than the standard hex games.
A few oddballs, like Illuminati and Cosmic Encounter, had digestible rulebooks, but they relied on chaotic wackiness, including a healthy dose of Take That, to provide fun. Most hardcore boardgamers are no longer interested in Take That games (although Cosmic Encounter still has a loyal following), preferring light or heavy strategy games of various stripes. The primary market for that sort of chaotic game is now crossover buyers from the comic book and RPG markets. Judging by the number of Munchkin and Chez Geek sequels that Steve Jackson Games has published, it’s a winning strategy.
Don’t get me started on role-playing games. This was the era of Rolemaster and Palladium and Torg.
There were elegant boardgames around, of course. Aside from two player abstracts, which have been elegant since the beginning, hobby boardgames like Dune, Empire Builder, the 18xx games (which actually date back to the mid-’70s), and the designs of Sid Sackson were all pleasantly compact designs. They were few and far between, though, and except for the Sackson classics like Acquire and Bazaar, these gems also suffer from playing times in excess of 2 hours.
Then Settlers of Catan came to North America, and everything changed. The idea that you could have meaningful choices and a rulebook that is shorter than 10 pages (ironically, the layout of Settlers rulebook obfuscates that) started to spread. Soon, other games followed that offered greater depth of strategy and tactics than Settlers, but still had rulebooks short enough to be understood in a single reading. The German Boardgame Invasion had begun, and elegance— meaningful decisions coupled with compact rules—was along for the ride.
Even though elegance lies at the heart of the German boardgame revolution, in-depth discussions of elegance and boardgame design are hard to find. Even the most basic definition of elegance seems to be assumed. Thi Nguyen nibbles at the edges of a concrete understanding of elegance in this GeekList, but doesn’t quite get there (through no failing of Thi’s—that’s not what he was aiming for). Yehuda Berlinger takes more direct aim at a definition of elegance and a rough way of measuring it in an article he wrote for the group blog Gone Gaming in his article Elegance in Games (which he pointed out to me in comments below after this article was first posted). Based on the comments to that article, though, I think it is fair to say that there is still room for further exploration.
This article is the first part of a series whose aim is to clearly explain what elegant game design is, why it is important, and how it is achieved. I will focus on defining elegant design for the rest of this article, with an eye toward tying the definition to other uses of the word elegant. Other aspects of this subject, including why elegance is important and how elegant designs are created, shall be examined in later parts of this series. Read the rest of this entry »
Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Dontanville!
In miscellany on August 8th, 2006 at 7:29 pmI just saw that game designer (see my last post) and my long time GeekBuddy, Morgan Dontanville, just got married over the weekend.
Morgan is a great guy, and I know how happy he has been lately, so this is great news.
And, yes, she is a gamer 🙂