Mapping the world with tiles

From an early age I had a fascination with maps. I would pour over the maps at the beginning of novels, daydream about the maps in my video game instruction booklets during class, and leaf through each month’s national geographic hoping for a foldout of some distant place to come tumbling out.

It is no wonder then that I have a soft spot for tile laying games. When I was young, we had a children’s game Rivers Roads and Rails, wherein different tiles each had one to three of the different modes of transportation. I do not remember the rules, I am not even sure they mattered to me then. I would simply connect the different tiles in a myriad of different ways  to see how the network would grow.

The Xbox 360 version of Carcassonne
The Xbox 360 version of Carcassonne

Even before stumbling into the game store years ago, I had developed a love for the Xbox 360 version of Carcassonne. Almost by accident I had stumbled into this great tile laying game. I was looking for something affordable that could be played with my roommates, and while the theme of laying down map tiles in the French countryside didn’t seem too appealing, the game soon won all of us over.

In hindsight, it’s no surprise that it was such a hit. Carcassonne won a Spiel des Jahres in 2001 and is a classic to this day. Much like Monopoly, it has exploded into a multitude of different themes and versions, with a Wild West version, caveman themed Hunters and Gatherers, and even a Star Wars version last fall.

Two player Carcassonne in play.
Two player Carcassonne in play.

In the game players lay a tile each turn, and have wooden figures colloquially called “Meeples” that they use to claim different terrain features. Meeples placed on the road become thieves, in the castle they are knights, when placed on monasteries they are monks, and those that are laid down in fields become farmers which introduce a light area control element to the game. The meeples placed out on the board cannot be reclaimed until the road, castle or monastery is complete. Each feature is completed a different way, with big castles scoring the most, but also being the most difficult to finish.

Here the beauty of tile laying games comes through. What starts as nothing, tile by tile, becomes a map busy with activity, and different every time you play. Each tile placed out into the map produces a cathartic feeling of creating order. Roads must connect to other roads, fields to fields, castle walls to other castle walls. While an intense game of Carcassonne can look a bit unorganized, larger more family friendly rounds often end with satisfyingly complete features at every corner. Above all else, the tile laying feature of the game adds a delightful puzzle like element as the orientation and features of the tile matter, much like a classic jigsaw piece.

The beautiful tiles of Taluva stack to form an evolving island.
The beautiful tiles of Taluva stack to form an evolving island.

Several other games have come along over the years to add their own twist on the tile laying formula. Taluva added a third dimension to the mix by allowing players to layers tiles on top of eachother. Each tile has three features, one of which is always a volcano. Volcanos can be stacked on top of other volcanos as an eruption to create an island with mountainous features. Here the challenge is not connecting and completing features as in Carcassonne. There are no roads or castles, but instead players try to place all of at least two of three types of buildings. Tiny huts spread from the valleys up the player-created hills, and are destroyed by volcanic eruptions. Temples require a minimum horizontal spread of villages, and towers must be placed on at least the third level of the island. The resulting play experience is still a spatial puzzle, but also a game of cat and mouse, trying to carefully place tiles that benefit you, while not simultaneously helping other players.

Alhambra in play
Alhambra in play

Alhambra, another Spiele des Jahres game of the year winner has players building their own tile cities instead of sharing a central play area as in Carcassonne and Taluva. In this way each player is solving their own puzzle, but it is by no means a solitary experience. Players must buy tiles for their cities from a central market, with four different market spaces that each accept a different color of currency cards. On a turn players can take currency cards, or build a tile. Paying for a tile with exact change grants a bonus turn, so smart money management is important along with smart tile placement. The market also plays into the scoring of the game, as players vie to have the most of each color building before each scoring round.

A player builds a villa ge in Glen More
A player builds a villa ge in Glen More

Finally a great game that twists the Carcassonne format is Glen More. Similar to Alhambra, each player is building their own village instead of interacting on a central landscape as in Carcassonne. The unique aspect of the game is instead of drawing tiles from a stack, they come out into a central circle. Players can select any tile from the circle, but they don’t get to take another turn until they are at the tail end of the chain. So there may be just the tile you need, but if it’s several tiles ahead, you may need to wait while other players take several turns before you get to go again. But if it’s the right tile, it just might be worth it. The game also introduces some simple resource management, as tiles produce, wheat, stone, wood, sheep or cows that are used to build other tiles, or most importantly, to distill whisky!

The central board in Glen More has many tile options, but the further away the tile, the longer before your next turn.
The central board in Glen More has many tile options, but the further away the tile, the longer before your next turn.

However, with so much more going on, Glen More needed to pare down the puzzle like elements of Carcassonne. Instead of building features, tiles have a central river running north south, and a central road running east to west. Road tiles must match road, and river must match river, but otherwise the only placement rules are much more flexible.

I have only highlighted a few of the many tile-based games that have filled the hobby in recent years. There are many more, with countless themes from building a spaceship with tiles, to the Sim City like Suburbia, to a personal favorite that captures the early plymouth settlers, Keyflower. Two of the six games just nominated for a Spiel Des Jahres Game of the Year award use tiles as a central element. There is something that’s just inherently fun about piecing together different tile elements to build a whole, be it a kingdom or a spaceship, that is your very own.  

 

Game of the year nominees announced!

Look for this logo when hunting down great games.
Look for this logo when hunting down great games.

It is “Oscar Season” for the board game industry! The Spiel des Jahres, or German Game of the Year, award nominees were announced on Monday. It is the most sought after award in the hobby, as just being nominated means more sales for your game, and winning ensures exponentially greater sales.

The award began back in 1978 and deals specifically with family style board games. A jury of judges reviews all games released in the German market over the past 12 months and selects games based on their originality as well as their accessibility. There are other awards that have cropped up over the years, with specific country best game awards (Portugal’s Jogo Do Anno), more hobby or publication specific awards (Board Game Geek’s Golden Geek Award, the Dice Tower Awards), but the Spiel des Jahres has remained the most prestigious, and most influential in the game market. In 1989 a Kinderspiel des Jahres, or kids game of year was introduced. Unfortunately many of these kids games don’t get released in the United States, so I won’t cover them in depth here. In 2011 the jury determined that there was a need to award games of greater complexity and introduced the Kennerspiel des Jahres, or expert game of the year, and I have loved many of the games announced for this new category.

The award is not just good for publisher sales though, it was also been useful in identifying games that are worth your time and money. In my own collection I have 10-12 spiel nominees or winners, and three of my favorite games of all time (Dominion, Kingdom Builder and 7 Wonders) were awarded the prize. As the board game industry continues to grow it is really helpful to have that award sticker on the box to separate the great games from the also rans.

 

This year’s Spiel des Jahres nominees are:

Codenames by Vlaada Chvatil. This is the best party game since Apples to Apples, and my vote to win it..  in part because it’s the only one of these nominees I’ve played so far! I have written about it previously when it made the rounds at Barnes and Noble. Below is Eric Martin’s fantastic overview.

Imhotep by Phil Walker-Harding. This game has not made it to the U.S. just yet, but with the award nomination announcement, its release date has been moved up to late June. It looks to be a great family game about building Egyptian monuments. Players assign  blocks to different shared boats that then ferry them over to different building sites. However any player can move any boat so there is lots of room to cause havoc in the plans of other players. The order of the blocks on the boat itself also matters for how each block scores. Much like other Spiel Des Jahres nominees, the game uses simple actions to create a strategic experience.

Karuba by Rudiger Dorn. A fantastic looking game that combines the best things about bingo and tile laying games. Players all have a board with a start and end points for 4 different adventurers marked in the same spots. One player draws tiles and yells out the number on the tile, and they and all other players place that tile on the board, or discard it to move an adventurer. So everything is symmetrical, but how you use the different tiles announced will determine your success.

 

This year’s Kennerspiel des Jahres, or Expert Game Nominees are:

 

Isle of Skye in play
Isle of Skye in play

Isle Of Skye by Andreas Pelikan and Alexander Pfister. This is an innovative tile laying auction game. All players draw three tiles each round and use coin tokens to secretly set the price for two of them, while axing the third. Then players reveal their prices, and in turn order each player can buy one tile from another player. Players keep any tiles not sold, but must pay the price they set. So there is a wonderful tight rope act of trying to price tiles to be attractive other players, but not pricing them out of the market. Players use these tiles to build a village and work to accomplish certain scoring goals that vary from game to game. In another interesting twist, all goals score at different times over the course of the five rounds, so timing is crucial as to when to go after any given goal.

 

red.0Pandemic: Legacy by Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau is a fantastic Legacy style games. I covered these games with permanent consequences previously, and it’s no surprise to see this great concept get recognized by the jury. As a recap, in Pandemic Legacy each game is a month of the year, and decisions in any given game change the game permanently. There is also a storyline that plays out through a “legacy” deck of cards that introduces new twists as players work through the games.

 

pic2617634_mdTime Stories by Manuel Rozoy is an adventure game system. I also talked about this in a previous blog, specifically about the single use nature of the game’s set up. Each game is a module that represents one story and players work together to solve the case, kind of like a mystery. However, once a story is solved, its secrets have been revealed and replaying it would be like rewatching a movie, or rereading a book. However the concept has allowed the designers to create some very compelling story content in board game form, and deserves recognition.

 

The winners will be announced on July 18th, and I will post then to celebrate the winners. Best of luck to all the nominees, and I am looking forward to trying out the three games I haven’t played on this list before the winners are announced.