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Fresh off the back of demoing games for Asmodee at UK Games Expo 2023, I wanted to share my experiences with introducing people to a new game. I think demoing and teaching games are two similar, but also different approaches. In this article, I want to look at them more closely.
Oliver KinnePost read time 6 min readLeave a Comment on Trick Taking – a modern card mechanism (Topic Discussion)Most of the earliest card games were trick-taking games played in the 800s in China. These will have felt quite different to our modern eyes. They didn't have the concept of trump cards or trump suits. There was also no bidding. Trumps were added to European card games in the 1400s, followed by bidding in the 1600s. It took another 100-200 years for familiar trick-taking games like Whist and Skat to appear. A few hundred years after that, the mechanism has now found a new lease of life in modern hobby games.
Oliver KinnePost read time 4 min read2 Comments on Round the Outside – tracking scores in board games (Topic Discussion)Pretty much every hobby game contains some sort of score which measures who is in the lead and decides who wins the game. That's undoubtedly true for competitive games, but sometimes also for cooperative ones. The score can be in the form of victory points, glory points, reputation, money or something else or even a mix of different things. Some games keep track of players' scores throughout the game, others count everything up at the end and there are also games that have a mix of in-game scoring and end-of-game points. In this article, I want to look at these different ways of score keeping and how it affects gameplay experience.
Oliver KinnePost read time 6 min read2 Comments on Deck Building – a modern card mechanism (Topic Discussion)Card games date back to the 1400s with Karniffel, or Thuringian Karnöffel, often listed as the oldest one, at least the oldest in Europe that we know of. As a popular trick-taking game in Germany for centuries, it clearly started a trend. Many trick-taking games are still popular in Germany today and I certainly grew up with a fair few. However, card games have come a long way since then. In this article, I want to look at deck-building games specifically and how this mechanism has been applied in many different ways since Dominion made it popular.
Oliver KinnePost read time 6 min read2 Comments on Review Pressures – fun versus review (Topic Discussion)When you publish a review every week, there is a certain amount of pressure to frequently play games that are new to you. Even if you bear in mind that I sometimes re-review a game and that once a year I list my top 5 games as well as look back at the past 12 months, that still leaves around 50 games that I need to get to the table and play a few times. That's a fair amount and risks taking the fun out of it.
Oliver KinnePost read time 5 min read2 Comments on Board Game Beginnings – how we learn board games (Topic Discussion)If you are a veteran board game hobbyist, you will have learned a lot of terminology and mechanisms. You will instinctively know what a draw deck is and that you usually shuffle a discard pile into a new draw deck, if it runs out. The concepts of action points and turn order are going to be obvious to you. It will be second-nature to you that resources can be converted not only into each other, but also into victory points, which is another concept that you will understand. However, many of these terms will mean very little to someone who is new to our hobby.
Apart from being a great way to meet new people and make new friends, just like any other hobby, for many of us in the hobby, playing board games is a social activity. We enjoy spending time with friends or family and catching up over a game or two. We have snacks and drinks and chat away in between turns. However, not everyone shares that view and there are good reasons for this. So in this article, I want to investigate why games can be a great conduit for socialising while also potentially being a hindrance.
Oliver KinnePost read time 10 min readLeave a Comment on 5th Anniversary – looking back to the beginning (Topic Discussion)Yes, my dear friends, Tabletop Games Blog is 5 years today. When I posted my first article, I didn't know where I was going with this and had no idea about the journey the site would take me on. Since then, I published 550 articles, releasing them also in audio format since December 2018, which means there are over 430 podcast episodes available as well. I played hundreds of games, attended many exhibitions, was a guest on a number of podcasts, met lots of people and made many good friends. So let me tell you about the journey so far to celebrate this anniversary with you.
Oliver KinnePost read time 4 min readLeave a Comment on Board Game Library – books and board games (Topic Discussion)The other day I noticed how similar books and board games are. The thought was triggered when I held a board game box in my hand and then plonked it on the table. The sound it made was very much like that of a tome being placed down. It also felt as heavy as a thick hardback book. I soon realized that there were many more commonalities. So let me investigate the spiritual twins that are books and board games.
Oliver KinnePost read time 6 min readLeave a Comment on Representation and Diversity – why it matters (Topic Discussion)Board and other hobby games are a form of entertainment for the people who play them. It doesn't matter whether these are solo games, family games, heavy games or party games for larger groups of people. There should be a game for anyone and everyone. However, as we know, our large hobby still struggles with who is represented in the games themselves, let alone with what groups of people our community make feel truly comfortable and welcome. In this article, I want to explore why representation and diversity in our hobby matter and what we all can do to promote greater inclusivity in the board game community.
