Board Games and Memory

Posted on September 28, 2024 by Jeremy Olson

Some games are haunted. Maybe not literally. Jumanji is not a documentary after all. But like your favorite music, games seem to contain some resonance of all the times you’ve played them. They are not quite as ever present, always in the background like music can be, the literal soundtrack of your life. But they are certainly present in a different way than media that transports you from your current situation, like books or movies. When you play games, you are very much with the people you play with, interacting, telling stories or jokes between turns. It is social. It is also very much located somewhere, the play space matters to some degree. The where and the who is baked into the experience and consequently they sort of rub off on the game itself. So this week is less of a story about a game per se and more of a story of where and who. It is a story of the joy and grief tied up inside a cardboard box.

In 2019, inspired by a desktop background, my brother Matt and I planned a trip to Norway. He needed a travel partner and the picture was just breathtaking enough to inspire a whole trip. It was our first and only vacation that we have taken as adults; a small feat in and of itself. Like most brothers we had our challenges and butted heads when we were younger, but the stars aligned just right for this journey. We booked a flight North of Oslo, to Lofoten, the island where the picture came from, and where one of our ancestors emigrated from over a century ago. In my research I discovered there was a game named after one of the scenic locations in Lofoten, Nusfjord, a historic fishing village. It was designed by the creator of Agricola and looked intriguing so I hatched the plan to play Nusfjord, in Nusfjord. My brother was on board with the plan but there was one problem; learning the game. My brother is not as into games as I am and so I endeavored to learn the game from top to bottom so there’s less of a chance for it to fall apart the day of.

One of the elder cards looks a bit like my grandpa

Two years before this trip in 2017, I took a writing class. I was at a peak of loneliness, very much out of the board game hobby, and honestly looking for social connection as much as writing practice. The universe provided, and I met five friends in that class that were some of my closest in those next few years, and still friends to this day.While not everyone in that group was into board games, one of the group, Fatima, was a perfect accomplice. She loved a complex game and had mastered Agricola as a distraction from a particularly unfulfilling romantic relationship. When I asked her to help me learn Nusfjord she was enthusiastically on board.

What we discovered together was a strange game indeed. In Nusfjord, each player builds a fishing village, using three worker pieces a turn to claim the resources and actions they need to build the buildings and the ships of the town. So far, pretty straight forward, standard worker placement game like any of dozens of others in the hobby. However there are a couple of twists. First, there’s a fishing phase where your ever increasing fleet of boats catches more and more fish, a sort of passive income that you can work on each turn. But these fish don’t just go straight to your inventory, there are the village elders to feed, and shares of your fishing company to pay back… fish interest on? Meanwhile you also actively manage the forests on your board by cutting down or planting whole jungles of woods around your village Speaking of those elders, one of them has an odd resemblance to my grandfather. In another nod to the community of the village there is a banquet table that you can sell fish to that keeps the whole operation humming. It was, to be honest, a tough game to learn but once Fatima and I peeled back its layers we found something truly unique. We also, more importantly, got to spend some time together, just the two of us versus the larger friend group of six. We laid the foundation of a deepening friendship that would get us both through some pretty hard times.

So I was ready to teach and ready for the trip. Playing the game in the actual place exceeded all expectations. The sun was shining, we were there, above the arctic circle but in t-shirts sitting on the dock, drinking beers and playing a game together. A ship like one in the game was docked nearby, the iconic red buildings in the distance, and some yellow ones that the game did not capture. It was a perfect day, and it didn’t matter who won. Later that same week, rain had washed out our plans. So in the hotel lobby we played Nusfjord back to back, three times. It was the only game we had, and so it was what we played. Even on the tiny hotel desks at our next step along the journey. We passed the time, and dove deeper each time. I got to show my brother the depths of the hobby that I love.

Years later, after the strangeness, loss, and alienation of covid, and the upheaval of the protests that summer, Fatima and I had grown apart. I recognized where she was, feeling both helpless and frustrated. She was in the midst of an undoing, a phase we all have in one way or another, where life has to get torn apart before we know what it is again. Out of the blue, she reached out. She had gotten covid a second time, and was calling in the return of a favor after dropping off groceries when I had covid a few months before. She asked me to pick up a scone and a latte from our favorite coffee shop. I was happy to oblige. I left the gifts on her stoop, and looked up to see her in the window. She smiled and waved and we had a brief distanced conversation. It felt good to see her, to catch up after it had been too long. Months later the six of us of the original writing friend group finally got together again for the first time in two years. We were at karaoke night for one of the group member’s birthday, dressed in Halloween costumes. Fatima seemed subdued and tired, but there was a genuine high in all being together again like old times.

The writing friends together at a board game cafe, Fatima to my left.

Three weeks later I got a call while driving home. Fatima had passed away suddenly after a battle with long Covid. She was 29 years old. Life became a blur of strangeness and grief, and confusion among the friend group. We bonded together as we went through the strange finality of the funeral. We leaned on each other, finally arriving at a meal later that day, finding ourselves starving and exhausted. After I said goodbye to those who helped me through that day, I was kind of lost with what to do with myself next. I went, almost out of habit, to the post Thanksgiving game day. I brought the games I played with her. One of them was Nusfjord, a totem of a dear friend who was now gone.

Grief is strange. It’s been nearly two years since Fatimas passed away. And yet, I still expect to receive a text or call from her, to have a chat or play a game. Just this month, a new version of the Nusfjord was released. A big box version with all the expansions. I bought it at the local shop, opened it, and took out only what was new. I packed these into my well loved and beat up copy. It is complete, and it is the one that has traveled with me these past years. Perhaps it was a strange and superstitious thing to do vs just replacing it with the newest version. But the game has resonance, I cannot simply replace it. When it came time to pack for the convention this past weekend, I packed Nusfjord, excited to show it to new people. I put up a “Looking for Players” sign and met some friendly strangers. I played it twice last weekend, and relished in teaching its strange mechanisms, how you feed the elders, build the village, and bring in your haul of fish. I showed pictures of my trip, and explained how the real place differs from the board game. One of the players at the table had never played this kind of game before, and was struck by how unique the theme is. We all told stories of our villages, his was a village that was very bad at fishing but surrounded by tons of beautiful woods and a majestic theater. He asked me where he can get a copy and I mentioned I had a spare, the remainder of the big box copy. Who knows what new memories that copy will make.

Train games continued: Exploring the 18XX genre with Shikoku 1889

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Jeremy Olson

Finally a pretty 18XX cover that tells you where it takes place!

Last week I wrote about how I fell in love with trains and train games, including a tabletop version of Railroad Tycoon that I ran into early in my hobby. This week I am talking about 18XX games, which it took me until this year to try, after 13 years of playing other games. Why did it take so long? Looking back, I have played much more intimidating games than 18XX. Heck one is literally based on rocket science! There are several answers to this question. For one thing these games are not at all visually appealing. With a color palette of Red, Green, Yellow Brown and Black 18XX games are pretty ugly. They are similar in this way to the early austere cube rail games I wrote about last time. The second reason is just how mathy they appear. There are not one but two excel sheet looking boards in every 18XX game. As much as I have grown to like math and excel, neither have much sex appeal when it comes to selling a game. And thirdly I always heard how intimidatingly long these games were. People would talk about a game taking 6-8 hours, and while I do play longer games I couldn’t figure out how such a huge time investment could be worth it; especially when I was newer to games. So it took until 2024 to try an 18XX game, and to be honest I wish I had done it sooner. In this blog I hope to explain what the appeal is of these games in case you are the most train-curious type of player.

But before I get too much further, what is this 18XX thing I keep mentioning? Well, these are huge train, stock and business simulation board games that started with 1829 by Francis Tresham back in 1974! The game made waves at the time for being a long, involved strategic game that didn’t involve war as was more common of the games at the time. When it came time for a sequel, the designer kept the same naming convention and made 1830: Railways and Robber Barons. It was useful in terms of clueing in existing players that this was another game in the series they had enjoyed previously, but gosh is it confusing from a marketing perspective. And now, every 18XX game as the genre is now called starts with the number 18 and some sort of year. Fans talk about their favorites such as 1862 or 1846 and if you are not in the know you wouldn’t even know what country these things are set in much less what makes one unique compared to another. Needless to say, the name of the game doesn’t really sell it as something I would want to try.

Fast forward to 2021 and I backed a kickstarter for Shikoku 1889. I am still not 100% sure why I did it. Perhaps it was some Omicron Covid lockdown fueled retail therapy, or just the dream of more board games in general during that time. But I will say, part of the reason is because this was finally a good looking 18XX game, at least relatively speaking. I had heard it was beginner friendly, and when you combine Japan and trains, two of my favorite things I figured I’d give it a shot. In 2024 I finally had a group willing to give it a shot and from the word go I knew it was something special.

Shikoku 1889 in play. Poker chips, tile trays, and charts! This is later in the game with all three track types out on the map.

18XX games take the stock and track aspects of cube rails games and dials them up to 11. Players alternate between stock rounds, focused entirely on buying and selling stocks, and operating rounds where tracks are laid, trains are bought and routes are run, e.g. the actual business behind these stocks. As I mentioned above, stock rounds have a living breathing stock market where the company value can go up or down based on buying, selling, and company performance, just like real life, if quite a bit simplified. There are hostile take-overs, dumping stock of a company that doesn’t have great prospects, or starting up a rival train company to jam up the effectiveness of one that is surging ahead. The important thing to emphasize here is that the company and the players are entirely separate, right down to having different pools of money they are working with. There’s a reason these games are often played with poker chips as money is flying left and right and there is indeed quite a bit of accounting going on. But if you want to be a stock shark without the dangers of investing in GameStop there might be something here for you.

Operating rounds, however, are my favorite part. This is where the money is made as company presidents (whoever owns the most stock of a company) build tracks and buy trains to run rail lines out on the map. Unlike in cube rail games, track is limited, so if you need a simple curved track later in the game you may be out of luck. And secondly the tracks progress in different eras corresponding to the trains that are operating. Simple yellow track with one entrance and exit is available early on, which then evolves into green tracks that have multiple exits and finally brown tracks that are congested with many different exits. This is both compelling strategically as more complicated tracks allow longer and more profitable routes but also captures a bit of the sweep of history and the evolution of trains.

Speaking of those trains, these are also more complex. Trains must be bought in order so only 2 distance trains are available at the start, good for a route that connects two towns. These get longer with 3 distance trains, 4 distance trains etc until finally there are modern diesel trains that can run circles around the whole map. But in another strategic and historic nod, modern trains render older ones obsolete. So when anyone buys the first 4 distance train for example, all 2 distance trains “rust” and are out of the game. This means the little mom and pop railroad that was doing decent for itself with small local routes could be in a lot of trouble as they are suddenly trainless and maybe out of cash as well.

All of this makes for a very compelling, cutthroat game. Having played it I can see where the length of the game doesn’t matter to fans of the genre. As long as there’s not somewhere else you need to be, there is a wonderful arc to these 4-6 hour games. There are cunning moves on the stock market, interesting decisions and evolutions on the track and operating side and some interesting shared incentives between players who are both invested in the same company. While I will not be collecting these like I do trick taking games, I am very happy to have Shikoku 1889 in my collection. I also recently picked up another more beginner friendly title that broke the 18XX naming curse called Railways of the Lost Atlas. The hook in that one is that players build the map before each game, allowing for games that have a different map each time. It also boasts being 2-3 hours which seems much more palatable to most people. I am curious to get this one to the table and will certainly report back with a review when I do.

If you’re looking to learn more about 18XX there is a great history located here. Check out the chart of all the different variants and their family tree. There’s also a way to play online at 18XX.games. I hope you’ve enjoyed exploring the wide world of train games these past two weeks and who knows, maybe you’re more train-curious than you think!

Are you train curious?

Posted on August 16, 2024August 16, 2024 by Jeremy Olson

Let me tell you a story. It’s Christmas morning when I am ten years old, and I unwrap a Lionel Train set under the tree. I proceed to spend the rest of the day fascinated by the giant metal train engine model and the fake smoke it puffs out as it runs endless circles around the track. The passenger car lights up as well and these little touches of realism make each loop around the track feel real. For years the train would come out every Christmas time to circle the tree, and it started a love of trains that lives on to this day.

Let me tell you a story. Years ago I was a preteen in an EB Games perusing the clearance section of their PC games. I found a CD version of Sid Meir’s Railroad Tycoon for MS DOS for $4.00. A perfect price for someone operating on an allowance and lawn mowing. I snatch it up and manage to get it running in spite of the hells of MS DOS, and I’m transfixed. Truth be told, I don’t know a lot of what’s going on. There’s something about shares that sounds like math or grown up talk. But the fundamental drive of the game is to connect cities with rails, add trains to those rails and build routes that make the cities grow, year over year. I play it on easy, and I play it for hours with afternoons melting away in visions of an enormous rail network. I play and anticipate each of the sequels as crumby DOS art becomes clean 2d art becomes true 3d rotatable landscapes, and trains you can zoom in on while they chug away.

The evolution of Railroad Tycoon. From left to right Railroad Tycoon 1, 2, and 3.

Let me tell you a story. Years later I am at a friend’s house and there is a Railroad Tycoon board game. Having recently gotten into the hobby, I was intrigued and had to give it a try. The gameplay lived up to the memories I had of the video game. There we were, building rail networks into the open countryside, delivering goods to the towns that demanded them and watching them grow into cities. I never dreamed that such a complex game could translate to the table so well, but the game proved to be up to the task.

So today, I ask, are you train curious? Do you too want to build tracks, buy shares and prove you are worthy of the title of Rail Baron? If so, there are many options, and I want to highlight a few of my favorites and make a likely vain attempt at defining what IS a train game anyways.

First, and foremost, the elephant in the room. I am not talking about Ticket to Ride. I have early memories of that one too. Our family got it back in 2005 when I didn’t even know what a Spiel des Jahres game was. It somehow cracked out of the hobby games space that was brewing at the time and into our living room and is still sitting on the shelf there now waiting to be played again. I introduced my niece to it with Ticket to Ride First Journey, and she recently graduated to her own full copy of regular Ticket to Ride even at a relatively young age. The game is great, and it is also not, to my mind, a train game. It is, at its heart, a lovely version of rummy with a complex map you use for scoring. Players collect cards in order to fill tracks with their colored trains and complete routes. But the routes are pre-printed vs players playing track tiles. There is no sense of cargo being delivered or the map changing through play. There are certainly no stocks, bankruptcies or money of any kind for that matter. So while Ticket to Ride is great, it is not what I am talking about here.

Instead, let’s revisit that Railroad Tycoon board game. It is sadly out of print, but is actually a licensed version of a game that is very much still around called Railways of the World. Railways and its cousin game Age of Steam are where I truly cut my teeth on these types of games, and they still hold up today. (Small aside, there are three different version of this same system and in the hobby world it is very much a Coke vs Pepsi type of debate as to which is better. That could be a whole separate blog post in and of itself. I personally have the RC Cola version of this system…). In the game players each own their own rail network, and the aim of the game is to build tracks between different cities that are colored to represent what type of goods they want from elsewhere on the board. Mirroring the arc of history, networks start small and engines start slow so players can only maybe deliver a good here or there, one city away. But as players expand, and their engines get faster it is a race of sorts to keep connecting longer and longer routes to deliver goods further and further away. All while managing your income and loans so that you can afford to build those tracks and maintain that engine.

The version that I have Steam: Rails to Riches also has a turn order consideration as there are 7 special powers in the game. These powers can be simple like being able to build one more track or having the right to deliver first. Or they are more involved things like adding a new city tile to the map or turbo-charging your engine technology to get ahead of the pack. Each turn in player order players pick powers, but the power that they pick determines player order for the next round, with the most powerful action meaning you’re likely in the back of the line for the next pick. It makes for some delightful tempo considerations in addition to the core fundamentals of track building and delivery. I still have this one in my collection for its focus on these two fundamentals, but there are other games that focus more on stocks vs the sort of pick up and deliver feel of Steam.

Original cube rails games were… minimalistic

The simpler of these stock games are collectively called Cube Rail games. This is because the company that produced many of them Winsome Games was maybe a bit … sparse on components. Just some colored cubes, some stock cards and a map. In these games the different colored cubes represent different companies vs different players. This is true of many stock games and takes a moment of adjustment as no one company is you, the player, but rather they are tools to get ahead. Games usually start with an auction where players bid on stocks of each different company, and whoever has the most stocks gets to make the actual track building decisions of that company. Further auctions may see players investing in each other’s companies to share in some of the profits or even as a hostile takeover. Unlike the focus on delivering goods, cube rails games focus on connecting rail networks to more and more cities to increase the dividends they pay to their shareholders. I realize as I describe this, some of you may be falling asleep, or wondering how this talk about your 401k made it into your board games, but it is genuinely a great time, I promise. Cube rails games are often very short and play out wildly differently each time despite featuring the same core pieces because it’s all about player interaction. Who owns a company, and how other companies interact on the map can allow for very expressive plays in under an hour.

My current favorite is Irish Gauge, which adds a unique element where dividends are paid out depending on cube pulls from a bag and how they tie to those same cubes on the map. This adds a lot of uncertainty, but players are also using these same cubes to build up cities and increase their profits so there’s a balancing act where the more of that color cube that’s out on the map, the less likely it is to be pulled for dividends. The rules for the game are literally one sheet of paper double sided, so it’s very approachable but I want to give fair warning, this game is MEAN. You will cut people off, you will auction shares to make sure someone is left out of a company and you will pull dividends when it benefits you and no one else. Consider this fair warning if it ever hits your table.

Next week I’ll be talking about the enormous genre of 18XX games. Yes, that’s seriously what they’re called, and no, they’ve never been known for their marketing. These games are 4+ hour beasts and can be rather intimidating but have a lot to offer if you find yourself curious to explore more train games. So come on ride the train.

Spiel Des Jahres: Game of the Year part 1

Posted on May 21, 2021May 21, 2021 by Jeremy Olson

It’s that time of year again as nominees for the Spiel des Jahres or German Board Game of the Year were announced on Monday May 17th. A good portion of my collection is made up of winners or nominees for this prestigious award, so I always like to research the current slate of nominees. In a more normal year where I have been out gaming with friends it is also fun to guess at what will be nominated as the award often reflects a game that is hitting the table a lot on board game night. But every once in a while the nominees reveal a game that I hadn’t even heard of, either because it passed under my radar or because it hasn’t hit the U.S. market yet, this being a German award. This year is a little bit different of course as game groups haven’t been meeting with the pandemic, so I am certainly not tuned into what is popular on public game nights. Not only that, but I haven’t played most of these games so I don’t have a super concrete opinion on them, but instead have more of a reaction to what I’ve heard about them. Today I will cover the Spiel des Jahres award which is for lighter family focused games and I will cover the Kennerspiel or expert game award next week. Since I have only played one out of the three nominees I will cover that one in the most depth, and touch on the other two in brief in case they peak your interest.

Micromacro: Crime City is a game that was immediately appealing when I heard the premise. There have been several detective games over the last few years and before. Games like Sherlock Holmes, Detective: a Modern Crime Board Game, and Chronicles of Crime all lean heavily on a narrative structure combined with clues and puzzles to recreate the experience of solving a case like your favorite episode of CSI. Micromacro does away with all of that and just gives you an ENORMOUS map of a city full of devious acts and asks you to solve the crime by reviewing the map. There are some cards for each of the fifteen cases included in the game which will point you to a starting place and help confirm if you found the right thing or what the next step might be. But even using these is optional if you used the advanced rules. The game is just you and your friends, looking over a map and feeling really really clever.

There is some debate as to whether it is even a game. There aren’t really turns or actions or player pieces. It is in some ways a very dark Where’s Waldo. Except unlike Where’s Waldo, which is a static picture in time, Micromacro is a map that is in motion. If a card points you to the beginning of a bank heist you can find the criminal act on the map, but you also find the getaway, and anything that happened after the crime. In this way each crime is a story arc told in the language static image that contains multiple points in time. It is difficult to talk about the game without spoiling it, and like the best mysteries it’s the most fun to discover things on your own. It does have some wonderful moments when played as a group where one person spots something, calls it out and everyone else rushes to see the clue they have found. I personally play it with some clear plastic bingo tokens to track the different steps in the crime and the map looks a little bit like those conspiracy theory peg board by the time we’re done with a case. In a brilliant move the company put a test version of the game right on the box’s cover. If you click on the image alongside this blog you can follow along and solve a case. The full game’s map is positively massive and takes up the whole table, but this mini version of the game is an excellent example of what it feels like to play. The game’s success has already spawned plans for three sequels which will eventually have you solving cases across all the different maps, along with an app, and a more kid friendly version. It’s worth noting, this is not a game for kids, despite the cartoony drawings this city is full of adult themes and would spawn lots of tricky real world conversations.

The cardboard cutaway reveals a building on fire. Robinhood’s board can evolve and change without any stickers.

Micromacro is definitely my pick to win the award, but there are some other innovative games that have been nominated. The Adventures of Robinhood is one of those titles like I mentioned above that hasn’t made it out in English. It will be available in June, but all of the preview information I could find was based on the German version. The game is from a well known designer of another family friendly co-op game The Legend of Andor, Michael Menzel. Players are Robinhood and his band of merry men, and they use unique movement pawns to track their path around and through the town, avoiding guards and other hazards while trying to pass skill checks by drawing tokens from a bag. The odds of success are always changing as players add or remove tokens from the bag depending on their actions. The most unique aspect of the game however is the board. All over the board there are cardboard cutouts where players can flip that portion of the board to its other side. So by the castle for example there may be a circle cut out which, when flipped, reveals a guard. In this way the board itself is reactive depending on the scenario and what the players do. It is kind of like some legacy games where stickers would permanently change the board but with this cut-out method the board can evolve or change back, giving it the exciting changes of a legacy game without the permanence. The game also includes a story book that contains the narrative for each scenario and it provides alternate narrative paths if players fail a mission the first time. I’m curious to check it out when it hits the U.S. market.

Zombie Teenz is colorful fun but I can’t forgive the Z in the name…

The last title is a kid friendly legacy game called Zombie Teenz Evolution. I have to admit to being put off by this title, both because it uses the word “Teenz” with a Z and because of the Disney Channel art style. However if you have kids or teens this seems like an excellent way to try out legacy games. The story of the game plays out via a comic book included in the box and each new chapter has additional panels to add to the comic book as well as new rules and gameplay to keep the game fresh. While I am not a fan of the art style I must admit the game looks like a toy set and is well produced so it will definitely keep a kids attention better than some of the more dry looking games in the hobby. Still, it seems to be the least innovative of the three, despite how well made it is. This is one I will observe from a distance but likely won’t make it into my collection unless I am playing it with my niece and nephew.

That covers the Spiel Des Jahres nominees, I am doing some more digging on the Kennerspiel nominees and will report back with opinions on those in the coming days. The winner or the awards will be announced in just under two months on July 19th.

Board Game Arena Saves the Holidays

Posted on December 1, 2020 by Jeremy Olson

I wrote back in the Spring about Board Game Arena being one of the best places to play games online during the pandemic. As the year has gone on the website has added some tremendous games to their library, and for less than the cost of a single board game you can sign up for a premium membership to play them all. Given the coming winter and the fact that more people will be stuck inside as case counts go up, BGA has seen fit to send us all a care package of fun by releasing a new game on the service every day of December.

As one of those people are stcuk at home, I plan to learn and play each new game and report back here. While the blog posts may not be daily, I will cover all 31 games on this site. If one peaks your interest feel free to jump in and even challenge me to a round!

The first game of this board game bonanza is Thurn and Taxis. A game about… the founding of the German postal service. Sometimes, you don’t play a game for it’s theme, but simply because it’s fun, and that’s certainly the case here. The gameplay here sings, so much so that the game won the Spiel des Jahres or German Game of the Year award back in 2006. Each turn you must draw a city card, and play a city card to your postal route. You may then optionally finish a route and place houses. Three core rules, seems pretty simple, right? That’s where it gets devious. Each card you play in your route must be adjacent to a previous city you have played. And there’s a spatial element here as well as route cards can be played to the left or the right of the current route you are working on. Think of it like building a sequential set of cards in a game like solitaire. You are often looking for very specific cards to continue your route, and there’s often only one or two cards that would work. AS a result there is a push your luck aspect because if you can’t continue your existing route, you have to start a new one and lose all your current progress. So you may want to complete a route if you are not sure you can continue it in the next round. However, the longer the route, the more points, so maybe you take a chance and just hope the right card comes up in the next draw…

Board Game Arena has a fantastic tutorial that will teach you all of the basics, and the interface makes it very clear what your options are on your turn. Better yet since it is a digital version of the game playtimes are way down and there’s no set up or clean-up. Check back in later this week for more micro-reviews and if you’re bored at home give BGA a try.

Free games: Under the sea with Bargain Basement Bathysphere

Posted on May 29, 2020 by Jeremy Olson

Do you want to go on an undersea adventure, but you’re stuck at home during quarantine? Fret not! The adventure of a lifetime is just 32 double sided black and white pages away. Bargain Basement Bathysphere (of Beachside Bay) is a free print and play roll and write game. When you print it out it looks like a graduate thesis, but it is actually a series of puzzles trying to do death defying dives into the ocean and make it back to the surface before you run out of air. All you need to do is print it out and start on page one.

Each page details the story so far, sets out any new rules or, in most cases, is the roll and write sheet where the game takes place. Players roll five dice and then use these numbers to skip forward or backwards that many spaces. The goal is to get to the ocean floor and make discoveries along the way by landing on certain spaces, while avoiding hazards the cause stress to your vessel or soak up your limited oxygen. If you land on a space you cross it off taking whatever points are associated with it, or more critically diffusing the penalty associated with it. However, if you pass by a space with a hazard without landing on it you must cross off the hazard and take the corresponding damage to your rather fragile bathysphere. In this way the game creates a lot of tension even though all you are doing is moving backwards and forwards crossing out boxes on a sheet of paper. Each time you roll the dice you must spend an oxygen, and there is always a temptation to roll again before you’ve used up your current five dice, to perhaps get better rolls and scoop up discoveries or disarm more hazards. There is very much a feeling of panic as you race back up to the surface, low on oxygen, and with each previously crossed off space acting as a new hazard. If you get exactly the right roll and chart it out, you feel like a genius. But if you plan poorly or misjudge when to turn around and get back to the surface, disaster is always around the corner.

While each sheet is an adventure of its own, the real pleasure here is the progression that waits on the next page. Early on the game introduces a sort of global game that you play based on your score with each dive. Every few dives new rules are introduced and new twists are added to the puzzle. The writing is charming and silly and it makes for a wonderful morning coffee activity. I have written about solo games before, how they are a kind of puzzle. Usually they are not for me, I have other things I want to do with my alone time, and usually find games to be a social activity. But during quarantine when my life is filled with screen constantly, it is incredibly refreshing to sit down with some dice and a pen and just noodle through a tricky puzzle. This game in particular is a great entry point to print and play because it is just that. You print it, and then you are ready to play it. No assembly required. I am looking forward to continuing to dive and what twists and turns are to come, but if you have a printer and want a nice leisurely activity I cannot recommend this game enough.

GenCon and Essen Spiel 2020 Cancelled

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Jeremy Olson

In what was inevitable, but still very sad news both of the major board game conventions for the Summer and Fall were canceled this week. Spiel at Essen, which I have written about visiting in 2015 was cancelled on Monday. This is the largest worldwide convention with companies from all over the globe coming to release and sell new games. Given the global nature of this event, and the pandemic it was not safe to have this convention. Part of the reason this news is difficult is because the convention was due to happen in October which still seems a way off. This is another indication that the world and the board game industry will not be back to normal any time soon. The very next day Gen Con which is the U.S.’s largest board game convention which happens in August was also cancelled for similar reasons. I have never personally been to Gen Con, but it is like board game Christmas, where many games have their debut. I wanted to take some time today to write about what these cancellations mean for the hobby both as an industry and as a community.

Industry impact: Board games are one of the last media industries that is still very much a physical product. While movies, shows, and video games are very much in the streaming and digital age, board games often require folks to sit down and try the game. These conventions are huge for companies because they can drum up excitement and buzz for a release. At Essen and Gen Con there are demo stations where people try out the games, and while there are often surefire hits that already have the buzz and excitement coming into the convention itself, we will almost certainly lose the hidden gems that rely on word of mouth at the show. These shows are as much a release party as they are a chance for fans to discover games they might never have heard of. Because of this, a lot of publishers are debating when and how to release their games at all. From large publishers to small, there is a question of how to build up excitement or be discovered without the catalyst of a convention. There is the possibility of delaying games till times are different but this has huge budget implications as well as the possibility of being caught in a deluge of releases from other publishers when they feel the time is right. Regardless, it will be a somewhat quiet and strange weird in terms of board games biggest release months, and that is disappointing.

Community impact: There are two aspects that are affected here. For one, I love conventions first and foremost because of the community the develops among the attendees. This is more pronounced at fan conventions vs trade shows like Gen Con and Essen Spiel, but it is still very much there in these larger conventions. To be among a whole city-sized population of fans who like the same things as you is an incredible experience. Every stranger that you turn to probably has something in common with you, at least in the board game world. So to lose this for these two conventions is a huge loss of community building and excitement. The second aspect is the shadow convention that happens behind the scenes among designers and publishers. There are likely many publishing deals and board game pitches that happen at these events that will simply have to be virtual or not happen at all in the “hey I just ran into you” sort of way that organically develops at conventions. Both things are a huge loss and will be sorely missed by fans and publishers alike.

So what is the way forward? Well, there are various virtual conventions cropping up. These are very different and rather new, but as in all other spaces during such strange times the board game industry is trying out new things to fill in the gaps left by enormous change. The Dice Tower and Board Game Geek are putting on a virtual convention in late June. Gen Con will have Gen Con Online during the same dates as the original in person convention. There are still likely to be exciting announcements from these events, but there is no doubt that they will not provide the community and commerce that the original events would have. So join me in pouring one out for these great events that will simply not happen this year. In the meantime, it is time to explore other aspects of the hobby, and I will continue to do so in posts in the coming week.

Spiel Des Jahres nominees for 2020 announced

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Jeremy Olson

It is admittedly a strange time for the board game industry, but one event that is exciting every year is the announcement of Spiel Des Jahres or German Game of the Year nominees. My shelf is full of winners and nominees from this award and I stand by it as a surefire way to find a hit family game. Last year’s winners Just One and Wingspan are fantastic games so I am curious to see what this year’s slate of nominees is like.

This year is a bit odd as I am very familiar with the three Kennerspiel or expert game awards, while completely unfamiliar with the regular Spiel nominees. Another interesting aspect of the nominees this year is that both categories include some kind of legacy or campaign game. This trend of having an ongoing narrative and a series of games to play though is clearly a popular one and I have enjoyed many of the legacy games I have played. However, the pressure to have a consistent group to play through them vs an ad-hoc group of whoever is around to play a game makes them feel like a commitment, and consequently they can be difficult to get to the table. There’s also a creeping feeling with some legacy games that players need to play multiple times before they see the “full” game which can make it tricky to form a full opinion in just a couple of plays.

Below are the nominees and some initial thoughts.

Spiel Des Jahres Nominees (the simpler award for more family style games with broad appeal).

My City:Designer Reiner Knizia is on the list of nominees again with what I believe is his first legacy style game. Players build a city through different eras of history. The game has 24 episodes but if players want to just play it as a pick up and play game they can play through the first 4 episodes to unlock the key components of the game. I have to admit I enjoy a lot of Knizia games, but this one does not win in the looks department, appearing to be a rather bland theme with graphics that look like the games from a decade ago or more. However, it may be worth keeping an eye one.

Nova Luna: Another famous designer Uwe Rosenburg is on the list for a game that appears to be much lighter than the heavy agricultural economic sims he’s typically known for. Nova Luna is an abstract tile laying game that is more about the puzzle than about theme. The tiles you draft each have a requirement to fulfill, but also help you solve previous tiles based on how you place them in a sort of spatial puzzle. Uwe Rosenburg has been creating several lighter spatial games in recent years so it is exciting to see one of these efforts recognized by a prestigious nomination.

Pictures: In what is the most generic title and one with the least public information Pictures appears to be a party style game where players try to copy pictures from a center display using a set of abstract components like cubes and string. Players then try to guess which picture the creator was trying to copy. Certainly something for the abstract artists out there, but this one is definitely a wildcard for me.

Kennerspiel Des Jahres Nominees (More complex “expert” games that are more involved/thinky than the Spiel Des Jahres).

Here I have a bit more familiarity as I have played each game.

Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale: Another game in the category of Roll & Write games that I just wrote about last week, Cartographers has players draw a map in order to fulfill goals that are different each game. Each turn an explore card is dealt showing a type of terrain (villages, forests, farms or water) in a polyomino or tetris like shape. Players then choose where to draw this shape on their map in order to best accomplish the goal. There is a small dose of player interaction here as once in a while ambush cards come out that have players draw monsters on each other’s sheet to mess with other players’ plans. Having played a couple of rounds of this recently, it is a nice addition to the genre and has that classic satisfying puzzle feel that I described in the article about these games. Definitely some good fun.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine: This one is very intriguing. If you’ve ever played Hearts or Spades you’re halfway there, as this game is what’s called a trick taking game, where whoever plays the highest card or trump card takes the set of cards played that round, called a trick. Easy enough so far. However, in this game, players cooperate to try to accomplish a certain goal together, but without communicating except in certain restricted ways. For example, imagine playing a game of Hearts and trying to make sure that a specific player takes the Jack of Diamonds. This can be a tall order when you can only communicate what your highest or lowest card is, or whether you only have one card of a certain suit. The Crew contains fifty “missions” just like this and turns the traditional card game on its head in a fascinating way.

The King’s Dilemma: The second legacy style game on the list, this one is by far the most fascinating title. The game puts story above all else, and players are only going to see a portion of the content in a single playthrough. In the game players are part of a council to the King, advising him on certain key decisions during his reign. In terms of gameplay this amounts to voting yes or no in a sort of poker betting system. Players can raise each other by spending more and more influence on either side of the decision. Whoever spends the most influence then has their name associated with the vote, for better or worse. Based on these votes certain envelopes are opened in a branching narrative that has permanent repercussions on the Kingdom. In addition, players are trying to score both secret and public goals by manipulating five different aspects of the Kingdom: wealth, morale, knowledge, military, and food. The results of the votes determine how these aspects go up and down giving players a tug of war based on how they want the vote to go. This is a game of story above anything else but is definitely one of the most innovative games of the year.

Finally there are three Kinderspeil des Jahres or kids games that are nominated. I don’t have any insight here but want to point them out in case folks with kids want to research them. The nominees are

Hedgehog Roll

Foto Fish

And Wir sin die Roboter

Unfortunately German kids games are much less likely to make it stateside so not all of these are available in English.

Overall I am much more excited about the Kennerspiel nominees this year. However I have some homework to do on the regular Spiel Des Jahres nominees and maybe one of them will turn out to be a gem. Who do you think will win the award?

Quarantine Games: Roll and write games

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Jeremy Olson

A recent trend in the board game industry has been a huge influx of so called roll & write games. The most common example of this sort of game that everyone knows is Yahtzee. Essentially there is a set of dice and a score sheet, and players are tasked with rolling the dice and filling out the score sheet as best they can. More modern roll and write games have a lot more going on, but the concept is similar. The game consists of a set of dice (or cards in the case of a flip and write) and a score pad, which makes it easy to set up and play and low on the fiddliness (there aren’t a bunch of cardboard or wood tokens to set up/clean up). It also makes it a perfect candidate for remote quarantine gaming. All people need is a view of the dice/cards and a score pad of their own and they are good to go.

One criticism of these types of games is that they are essentially multiplayer solitaire. In other words there is minimal or no interaction between players, as everyone is filling out their own score sheet and not able to affect what another player does. However this again in times like these can be a benefit. A lack of player interaction makes setting these up for distance gaming much simpler. And since the games can usually be played solitaire, if you are bored but want a non-screen based activity to keep yourself occupied during lock down these can be a perfect distraction. I’d like to highlight a couple of my favorite roll & write games and then give some suggestions for others that can be freely printed for play at home.

Railroad Ink has players drawing rail and road networks to connect to the edges of the board.

One recent hit is Railroad Ink. Here players roll a set of four dice that show different configurations of roads and rails on each of their sides. All players then draw these four results somewhere on their board, which is a 9×9 grid of squares. Players must start from the edges of the grid and endeavor to connect as many different exits to each other as possible. The more connections for each network of rails and roads the more points they score. However, this is easier said than done. Three of the dice show curves, straightaways and a three way connection of roads and rails respectively. The fourth die shows places where there are rail stations that convert a road into rail as a curve or straight connection, or an overpass where a road goes over a railway piece. Each turn players are dealt the same puzzle pieces, but how they solve the puzzle can be radically different. Players also get points for their longest road and rail, and negative points for connections to nowhere. This is a very spatial puzzle to solve. It is a delight to see your network come together, but if you don’t plan well or if you don’t get the dice you need based on what you’ve drawn so far you can get stuck in quite a pickle. I personally find the game relaxing, but I have been informed by a lot of friends who have played it that they find it incredibly stressful. There are currently two versions of the game, red and blue, and each has different expansion dice for adding volcanoes and meteors, or rivers and lakes respectively. Additionally there is a kickstarter for green and yellow versions that address forest and desert dice as well as some new rules and objectives for players to chase after.

Game board, scoring sheet and work of art all in one.

Another favorite of mine is the flip and write game Welcome To. Here players are building neighborhoods by filling in house numbers on one of three streets. Each turn there are three numbers to choose from three different stacks of cards and each stack also has a corresponding power, cleverly printed on the back of each card. In this way the face up card is the number you can play and the remaining deck’s top card indicates the power.The goal of the game is to build neighborhoods, groups of houses that all have a house number filled in and a fence on the left and right side of the group. This is easier said than done however, as numbers have to be sequential like a real street however the distribution of the numbers 1-15 are not even in the deck. You can’t always rely on getting the next number you need on a street so there is a push and pull on when to skip a number.. The various powers let you spruce up the neighborhoods by adding parks and pools for extra points, increase the real estate value for neighborhoods of a certain size, or bend the rules to repeat house numbers or manipulate a house number up or down.

The face up cards show house numbers and the back of each card that makes up the deck shows a corresponding power.

You wouldn’t think there’d be a lot to a game that just amounts to filling in house numbers on a score sheet, but there is something immensely satisfying about building your neighborhood. As is often the case with roll & write games the tactile nature of filling out the sheet feels like a sort of fun kind of work. Almost like the feeling of paint by numbers. At the end of the game you have your solution to the puzzle drawn in front of you, and each player’s solution is wildly different despite having the same options. The game encourages some interaction between players by having goals that players race to achieve, but otherwise continues the common trend of players doing their own thing.

Corinth is available as a free print and play file.

A lot of companies are offering free print and play versions of these games to keep folks entertained during quarantine. So if you have a printer and some dice you are good to go. Days of Wonder has shared Corinth which is a Roll & Write version of a favorite of mine, Ysphan. In the game players roll a set of dice and then organize them on a selection board based on the values rolled. Each player takes a set of dice to do the corresponding action working on trade routes or selling goods of different types. While the theme is pretty dry the dice selection mechanic is a lot of fun. Check it out here. Stonemaier games has put out a free roll and write game that celebrates all of their different titles called Rolling Realms. The game has simple rules and a free app so you just need a set of dice and you’re good to go.

Roll & write games are incredibly popular and it seems like every publisher is printing one or two. They are easy to produce since they are usually just some dice or cards and a score pad. While they are not all great, and some players don’t enjoy the solitaire nature of these games. However, during a time when a lot of people are isolated they can be a great way to keep your mind busy and solve a puzzle. If you’ve got a set of dice lying around they are well worth a try!

Quarentine games: The Castles of Burgundy – comfort food gaming.

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Jeremy Olson

During these strange weeks I’d like to highlight a couple of games that seem relevant for board gaming while we’re all stuck at home. These are all games that can be played remotely through one method or another so in one sense they are suggestions. But I will also try to focus on games that just fit a certain mood that also seem appropriate. Granted, everyone is at a different place with what is going on and how it affects their life situation. But hopefully these games are useful and you might discover a new favorite. The game that I’d like to highlight today is an old favorite of mine that I rediscovered through the great sites I wrote about the other week to play games online if you’re stuck at home alone. That game is Castles of Burgundy.

Castles of Burgundy is pure comfort food gaming for me. In the game, players are trying to build up a castle estate with various different types of landscapes: buildings, farmland, mines, shipping lanes etc… On a turn players roll two dice and generally do one of two things with them. They either take a landscape tile from the central market corresponding to the die they rolled or they place out a landscape onto their player board, also corresponding to that die. There are of course more rules, and I’ll get to those in a minute, but these central two are where I’d like to focus first. Option one is essentially like shopping for your kingdom. What sort of tile are you looking for, and what’s available that matches your die. Immediately you are given options but they are not wide open or overwhelming. The dice dictate what you can do, but there are still interesting choices within that limitation. Option two then gives you a sense of accomplishment. You place any tile that you shopped for previously into the right place in your player board which represents your kingdom. Here too there are limitations, but there is immense satisfaction to placing a tile just where it belongs. It all has a very puzzle-like nature of finding the right piece and placing it in just the right spot.

My completed kigndom. I lost pretty badly, but am still proud of this board.

This is still a dice game, so the luck can be challenging at times. There are always more things that you want to do, but whether you roll the right dice is another matter. To that end, the game introduces a third way to use each die, which is to turn it in for worker tiles. You get two of these tiles for any die that you turn in, and they each allow you to change your roll by plus or minus one. So if you really want to place that tile you got last turn but you rolled a five and need a three, you can just turn in two of these tiles and you’re golden. Helpfully the dice “loop” around so going up from a 6 gets you back to one. There is a push and pull in the game for how many of these workers tiles you want to get because every die you use to get them could have potentially been used from something else. But that little bit of flexibility goes a long way.

Each landscape type has a different function or way of scoring, but they are all helpful. Farm tiles score for every animal of the same type, and this includes previously placed tiles which encourages players to specialize. Mines get you money which can be used to buy special tiles not available in the normal market. Ship tiles let you go first in a turn and take goods that you can sell later. Building and knowledge tiles let you do extra actions or bend the rules. It all comes together in a quintessential point salad. Everything you do helps in some way and pops off a little endorphin rush as you progress towards a better and better kingdom. And at the end of the game you may not have won, but you have a pretty satisfying kingdom built on your player board that feels like your own.

Recently the publisher put out a new version of Castle of Burgundy commemorating their 20th anniversary publishing games. This new edition has all of the expansions packed into one box and a new set of artwork to celebrate the occasion. If you are tracking down a physical version of the game, this is the one I recommend, as there is a whole lot more in the box for just 10 dollars more on the price. However, not everyone has the luxury or a partner for physical board games these days. In that case, there is an excellent iOS and Android version of the game that is really great and affordable. And the game is also available on Yucata.de if you want to play against opponents asynchronously. The website is free and you can take turns whenever you have a free moment.

I have talked to friends who have taken up jigsaw puzzles during these strange times to have a project, and to see progress on something when everything feels very up in the air. If you want a game that feels like that jigsaw puzzle with a bit more going on, Castle of Burgundy is excellent for that. It has been my quarantine game of choice. And if you want to find me for a game look up username Jerm on Yucata.de

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