Vincent Cheung

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Sunday, January 08, 2006

Not your typical board games

I used to equivilate board games with Monopoly, Sorry, snakes and ladder, Payday, Risk, etc. requiring a lot of mindless dice rolling and luck. My view has since changed dramatically over say the past year or so. It all started when Rostecki introduced me to Settlers of Catan. Totally blew my mind as to what a board game can be. Like nothing I had played before and I really enjoyed it. A board game that you can play right to the end with it being exciting and actually making you think and require strategy? Who woulda thunk?!? I like it so much that I eventually got a board myself.

Then along came Carcassonne, Blockus, Ticket to Ride, Munchkin, and others. Some of which Rostecki introduced me to (in his numerous trips to TO) and some that I played at Microsoft.

Friday night I went to this board game night thing that Gadi organizes. Only a small handful showed up b/c of the holidays, but it was fun. Played Torres (build using little castle pieces and move "knights") and St. Petersburg (card game where you buy workers, buildings, and aristocrats), both of which were quite enjoyable. The thing that really hits me is that all these modern games are like radically different from each other, as opposed to what I refer to as classical American dice rolling crap. I say "American" because these modern games all tend to be German. Apparently the Germans are totally into board games right now and they're coming out with amazing games. These games are more than just luck, which I find is the biggest factor in many of the older games. Luck is evident in like all games, but it plays less of a role than in the previously mentioned type of games. These modern games tend to be however, less predictable, but because of strategy, cunningness, evil motivations, and revenge. The tables can turn quite quickly and others can screw you over and kick the shit out of you like the Canadian World Junior hockey team (GOLD BABY!!!) Games like Monopoly and Risk, if you've got a sizeable lead, it's basically just a formality to eventually wipe out the smaller players and it becomes mindlessly monotomous, not so with these newer games.

If you've only ever played old board games, I highly recommend you try some of these newer games. You can play Settlers online. MSN games has a pretty good version, which is also playable through MSN messenger.

8 Comments:

Bob said...

yeah Chris has some new game too.. he says it starts with a gn.. i dunno anything more than that. Apparently its fun.

Vince said...

Cool, we'll have to play when I get back :)

Anonymous said...

Apparently it's called gnadalos, but I can't find any reference to it anywhere... Maybe the person who recommended it spelt it wrong? I will continue my investigations, but feel free to have a look yourself.
Chris

Vince said...

I'll ask around to see if anyone around here has heard of it.

Chris, when you post, you should choose your identity as "Other", then put in your name, that way your comments don't show up as "by Anonymous", but with your name at the end, which isn't anonymous afterall :p. Either be anonymous or identify yourself, none of this on the fence crap! :)

Bob said...

hey.. at least he comments on your blog. Apparently I'm not special :P

Vince said...

Stop stealing my commentors! Chris is mine! I know what you did to Jill!

Bob said...

*whistles innocently* why vince, whatever do you mean?

Anonymous said...

Jill(TM) doesn't post for anyone. She gets her PR team--the Elf(R) and the Jelly Bean(R) to post for her.

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