Tag: Learning

Community spirit

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There are a lot of great things happening in the tabletop game community, which is great and for a lot of us, playing games is about meeting new people, having fun and sharing a hobby. Yet, growing the community and showing people, who have never heard about board games, what it is that we all love about playing them, is a different thing and often seen as something that is up to boardgame cafes, tabletop evangelists or game publishers' marketing teams to achieve. However, we all can do something to grow the hobby and share with more people the joy of playing games.

Group mentality

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Solo gaming has a huge following and playing against an AI or trying to solve an objective or puzzle set by the game can be very satisfying. Playing two player games is a different challenge, whether you play co-operative or competitive, and I love playing games with my wife. However, having three or more players changes the situation again and it is this player count that I want to delve into a bit deeper.

Kicking it

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Let's not beat around the bush - Kickstarter seems to become more and more the de facto way to sell tabletop games. It used to be the domain for small designers to make their game become a reality, but now established publishers use the crowdfunding platform to bring their latest release to market. I don't want to discuss whether this trend is good or bad  - there are plenty of discussions on this topic already. Instead, I want to focus on how people use it to buy games and what their expectations are.

Abstract games

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Chess, draughts, cribbage, bridge and many other traditional games are completely abstract in nature. Yes, sure, there is a theme in chess. There are two fighting armies facing each other in the battlefield, and it makes sense for the peasants, i.e. the pawns, forming the biggest part of the army and being the most dispensable - but it pretty tenuous when it comes to how these pieces move. Draughts, on the other hand, is a completely abstract game of course. Many traditional games have great depth and complexity, showing that there is no need for a theme in a good game. So let's explore this some more.

Can you hear me?

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Language in tabletop games has been a topic for quite some time now. Many games aim to be language independent, using symbols and graphics, or colours and numbers to convey how the game works, instead of words. However, even language-independent games use some kind of language, which becomes only too clear when the symbols in a game have not been carefully chosen and just don’t make sense. So language is critical when playing games for many reasons, some of which I want to discuss in this article.

Family gaming

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I think for many in the hobby, playing games is about having fun with other people - and that is no more so true when it comes to enjoying a game with the family. I absolutely love spending an evening solving crimes or building the best bird reserve there is, instead of sitting in front of the TV. It's great to play a quick mint tin game while we wait for our food in the pub on a family day out. There are many opportunities to play games with the family, and the games don't necessarily need to be family games.

UK Games Expo is coming…

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UK Games Expo 2019 is around the corner now. In just over three weeks, 40,000 or so visitors and over 350 exhibitors will descend on the Birmingham NEC to explore the over 24,000 sqm's worth of exhibition halls, plus the dozen or so of rooms in the nearby NEC Hilton Hotel and probably other venues. From Friday, 31 May to Sunday, 2 June, the family friendly exhibition celebrates all things tabletop games and offers virtually everyone something of interest. I will be there on the Sunday and can't wait to see what's on offer.

Yucata (Saturday Review)

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In my second review of online gaming platforms I look at Yucata, a free website that is all about a great, friendly community of people who love playing modern German-style tabletop games. It was started by Kay Wilke back in 2001, but since then he and many helpful people expanded the selection on the site into what it offers today - over 140 multi-player games for your enjoyment.

Replay

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We all love to play lots of different games with lots of different people, it's only natural. There is also always the draw of the Cult of the New and the Fear of Missing Out, tempting us to play new games all the time. Most of us only have a limited amount of time to play games each week, so chances are we play each game only once, or maybe twice - and if we're really lucky three time - before moving onto the next. We might revisit a game if there is a lull, but usually only after many weeks, by which time we've forgotten how the game works. I am just as guilty as everyone else, but I have started to come round to the idea that playing the same game many times before moving on is actually much more fun.

Happy Meeple (Saturday Review)

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In a new type of review, I talk about Happy Meeple in this article, a free to join website where you can play tabletop games online against other people as well as AIs. The brainchild of Nicolas Guibert, the website aims to introduce more people to modern tabletop games, which is something I highly encourage, by offering an easy way to learn these games, as well as creating a friendly, welcoming platform.