5 ms·

An Old-School Board Game Goes Viral Among Silicon Valley's Techie Crowd

18 points by andrewpbrett 17y ago

JacobAldridge 17y ago
I've seen Settlers of Catan at my local puzzle store, where they promote its popularity. Any personal experiences here about whether this is worth buying it and introducing it to friends to play (especially over options like Risk, Cashflow, or even Monopoly which has less of a 'I don't know this game' resistance)?
- dmnd 17y ago
  Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Risk and Monopoly have player elimination which is anti-social. Settlers also packs in way more fun per minute of time spent playing. The rules are no more complicated, either. Just make sure you're getting them right so that balance isn't thrown off, which can make the game not fun. Play a few games online at http://games.asobrain.com/ http://games.asobrain.com/ where the program will teach you the correct rules.
  - eggoa 17y ago
    But there is something to be said for player elimination. Sometimes I like to have a graceful way to quit a game I'm certainly going to lose!
    - dmnd 17y ago
      Risk and Monopoly take so long to finish that player elimination is a necessity. Games of Settlers where one player has no hope of winning aren't common, as long as players are of relatively equal skill.
    - hugh_ 17y ago
      I think (without having played Settlers) that in an ideal board game you shouldn't be able to get into a position where you know you're going to lose until the very end of the game. That's a big problem with Monopoly -- it's too easy to die a slow and painful death as you mortgage and sell your properties one by one. The further you are behind, the harder it is to get ahead. This is why I like skill-based yet luck-dependent games like Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit. Even if you're 150 points behind in Scrabble, there's always the chance you're going to get two great racks in a row. And even if you're six pie-slices behind in Trivial Pursuit there's always the chance that you'll get a long run of questions you happen to know the answers to.
- pwnstigator 17y ago
  Yes. Board game design has come a long way in the past 15 years-- sort of a silent Renaissance. I'd also recommend Tigris and Euphrates, Ra, Puerto Rico, and a host of other "German-style" games.
  - dmnd 17y ago
    I agree with these recommendations, but if you're trying to introduce boardgames to friends, start with one of the 'gateway games': Settlers of Catan, Ticket To Ride, or Carcassonne. T&E and PR should be saved for later.
- RevRal 17y ago
  Out of all the games that we've played, none have been funner than Munchkin. The diplomacy aspects of this simple card game don't become apparent until you start playing.
  - snprbob86 17y ago
    And the copy on the Munchkin cards is absolutely hilarious!
  - misuba 17y ago
    The diplomacy is what game fans call "petty diplomacy;" that is, you have to smack somebody and there's no compelling in-game reason to smack anyone in particular, so you default to smacking the guy who smacked you last, or the guy who's ahead. This can be fun, but it isn't exactly the game itself that brought that fun to the table. As for the humor on the cards, you'll have seen it all in two plays (especially since the game drags on for a while). This explains the healthy market for expansion sets.
  - samdk 17y ago
    I played Munchkin for the first time this summer. By far the most fun I've had playing a game in a long, long time.
  - pwnstigator 17y ago
    Cutthroat Caverns is also a good RPG spoof.
- patio11 17y ago
  I play Settlers with friends in Japan on a semi-regular basis. My experience is that it is fun, ladies and non-gamers appreciate it more than many other things we inflict on them, it rewards skill but is friendly to people playing their first game, requests for a rematch are absurdly common, and it is much friendlier to a mixed language group than Scrabble is. My one pain point is that people who are indecisive about trading make me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon, since play slows... to... a... crawl.
  - samstokes 17y ago
    I second everything you said. For me Settlers is at the sweet spot for board games where "casual" and "serious" intersect. You can play it with non-gamers, games last an hour and a half (Monopoly never finishes that quickly!), and pretty much everyone enjoys it on their first play and understands it on their second. On the other hand, board game geeks happily play it and the game rewards skill. It scales well with player experience.
misuba 17y ago
Settlers isn't very good. The game is largely all due to luck after the initial placement of pieces; get that part wrong and you'll be spending 45 to 90 minutes repeatedly asking anyone if they can trade you that one resource nobody can get, and repeatedly hearing "no." (The 45-to-90 is conservative; if your game contains one of those knobs who drags trading out into elaborate haggling over resources-to-be-named-later, God help you.) Of course, the luck in Settlers is actually why it appeals to people. Nobody likes feeling like they lost because they played poorly or because somebody else is better than they are. That said, there are games like Carcassonne and Ticket To Ride that actually balance luck and skill, and so help to provide that social insurance against feeling pathetic while still making the time spent making decisions actually feel like it was worth something.
- nas 17y ago
  Yeah, I find the article humorous because of that. It's not a great game (well, maybe great compared to traditional North American board games). I get the impression that these guys are trying to be cool by playing and the WSJ thinks they are hip by covering it. Maybe that's too harsh but that's the vibe I get. There are lots of great board games out there, check out http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame. I like Puerto Rico myself although I would say it's too tactical to be a good simulation of running a business. Update: I haven't played it yet but "Power Grid" is on my purchase list and probably would be good for the entrepreneurial types. There is a "Board games with Scott" video on it (with the designer, cool).
  - eggoa 17y ago
    Power Grid is good. Less random chance, less trying to trick your friends into making bad trades.
- timdorr 17y ago
  Ever tried Puerto Rico?
  - misuba 17y ago
rms 17y ago
I'll play Diplomacy with people once I make it out to the west coast.
- vlad 17y ago
  Worst game ever.
mreid 17y ago
For kicks, play a game of Settlers with a New Zealander and ask them if they have wood for sheep. ;)
Calamitous 17y ago
So there seems to be a lot of more interesting board games than I ever realized, but they all seem to require 4-6 players and take over 90 minutes to play. Juggling two full-time work schedules and a toddler old makes these restrictions a non-starter. Does anybody know of a good tactical game, preferably playable by two people who used to have time for Risk and Monopoly, that can be finished generally in about an hour?
- branden 17y ago
  A game of Go played on a 13x13 board is my favorite way to spend a lunch hour.
- alanthonyc 17y ago
  Not quite what you're looking for, but Settlers can actually be played by 3 people and usually lasts for less than two hours. It's designed so that the longer the games goes, the more likely it is to end. Also, three seems to be a reasonable minimum number of people for a "social" game.
- iterationx 17y ago
  you can do some interesting searches at boardgamegeek, using your parameters you get http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7717/carcassonne-the-castle http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7717/carcassonne-the-...
- Calamitous 17y ago
  Great, thanks for the suggestions, everybody!

18 points by andrewpbrett 17y ago

I've seen Settlers of Catan at my local puzzle store, where they promote its popularity. Any personal experiences here about whether this is worth buying it and introducing it to friends to play (especially over options like Risk, Cashflow, or even Monopoly which has less of a 'I don't know this game' resistance)?

dmnd 17y ago
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Risk and Monopoly have player elimination which is anti-social. Settlers also packs in way more fun per minute of time spent playing. The rules are no more complicated, either. Just make sure you're getting them right so that balance isn't thrown off, which can make the game not fun. Play a few games online at http://games.asobrain.com/ http://games.asobrain.com/ where the program will teach you the correct rules.
- eggoa 17y ago
  But there is something to be said for player elimination. Sometimes I like to have a graceful way to quit a game I'm certainly going to lose!
  - dmnd 17y ago
    Risk and Monopoly take so long to finish that player elimination is a necessity. Games of Settlers where one player has no hope of winning aren't common, as long as players are of relatively equal skill.
  - hugh_ 17y ago
    I think (without having played Settlers) that in an ideal board game you shouldn't be able to get into a position where you know you're going to lose until the very end of the game. That's a big problem with Monopoly -- it's too easy to die a slow and painful death as you mortgage and sell your properties one by one. The further you are behind, the harder it is to get ahead. This is why I like skill-based yet luck-dependent games like Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit. Even if you're 150 points behind in Scrabble, there's always the chance you're going to get two great racks in a row. And even if you're six pie-slices behind in Trivial Pursuit there's always the chance that you'll get a long run of questions you happen to know the answers to.
pwnstigator 17y ago
Yes. Board game design has come a long way in the past 15 years-- sort of a silent Renaissance. I'd also recommend Tigris and Euphrates, Ra, Puerto Rico, and a host of other "German-style" games.
- dmnd 17y ago
  I agree with these recommendations, but if you're trying to introduce boardgames to friends, start with one of the 'gateway games': Settlers of Catan, Ticket To Ride, or Carcassonne. T&E and PR should be saved for later.
RevRal 17y ago
Out of all the games that we've played, none have been funner than Munchkin. The diplomacy aspects of this simple card game don't become apparent until you start playing.
- snprbob86 17y ago
  And the copy on the Munchkin cards is absolutely hilarious!
- misuba 17y ago
  The diplomacy is what game fans call "petty diplomacy;" that is, you have to smack somebody and there's no compelling in-game reason to smack anyone in particular, so you default to smacking the guy who smacked you last, or the guy who's ahead. This can be fun, but it isn't exactly the game itself that brought that fun to the table. As for the humor on the cards, you'll have seen it all in two plays (especially since the game drags on for a while). This explains the healthy market for expansion sets.
- samdk 17y ago
  I played Munchkin for the first time this summer. By far the most fun I've had playing a game in a long, long time.
- pwnstigator 17y ago
  Cutthroat Caverns is also a good RPG spoof.
patio11 17y ago
I play Settlers with friends in Japan on a semi-regular basis. My experience is that it is fun, ladies and non-gamers appreciate it more than many other things we inflict on them, it rewards skill but is friendly to people playing their first game, requests for a rematch are absurdly common, and it is much friendlier to a mixed language group than Scrabble is. My one pain point is that people who are indecisive about trading make me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon, since play slows... to... a... crawl.
- samstokes 17y ago
  I second everything you said. For me Settlers is at the sweet spot for board games where "casual" and "serious" intersect. You can play it with non-gamers, games last an hour and a half (Monopoly never finishes that quickly!), and pretty much everyone enjoys it on their first play and understands it on their second. On the other hand, board game geeks happily play it and the game rewards skill. It scales well with player experience.

misuba 17y ago

Settlers isn't very good. The game is largely all due to luck after the initial placement of pieces; get that part wrong and you'll be spending 45 to 90 minutes repeatedly asking anyone if they can trade you that one resource nobody can get, and repeatedly hearing "no." (The 45-to-90 is conservative; if your game contains one of those knobs who drags trading out into elaborate haggling over resources-to-be-named-later, God help you.) Of course, the luck in Settlers is actually why it appeals to people. Nobody likes feeling like they lost because they played poorly or because somebody else is better than they are. That said, there are games like Carcassonne and Ticket To Ride that actually balance luck and skill, and so help to provide that social insurance against feeling pathetic while still making the time spent making decisions actually feel like it was worth something.

nas 17y ago
Yeah, I find the article humorous because of that. It's not a great game (well, maybe great compared to traditional North American board games). I get the impression that these guys are trying to be cool by playing and the WSJ thinks they are hip by covering it. Maybe that's too harsh but that's the vibe I get. There are lots of great board games out there, check out http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame. I like Puerto Rico myself although I would say it's too tactical to be a good simulation of running a business. Update: I haven't played it yet but "Power Grid" is on my purchase list and probably would be good for the entrepreneurial types. There is a "Board games with Scott" video on it (with the designer, cool).
- eggoa 17y ago
  Power Grid is good. Less random chance, less trying to trick your friends into making bad trades.
timdorr 17y ago
Ever tried Puerto Rico?
- misuba 17y ago

rms 17y ago

I'll play Diplomacy with people once I make it out to the west coast.

vlad 17y ago
Worst game ever.

mreid 17y ago

For kicks, play a game of Settlers with a New Zealander and ask them if they have wood for sheep. ;)

Calamitous 17y ago

So there seems to be a lot of more interesting board games than I ever realized, but they all seem to require 4-6 players and take over 90 minutes to play. Juggling two full-time work schedules and a toddler old makes these restrictions a non-starter. Does anybody know of a good tactical game, preferably playable by two people who used to have time for Risk and Monopoly, that can be finished generally in about an hour?

branden 17y ago
A game of Go played on a 13x13 board is my favorite way to spend a lunch hour.
alanthonyc 17y ago
Not quite what you're looking for, but Settlers can actually be played by 3 people and usually lasts for less than two hours. It's designed so that the longer the games goes, the more likely it is to end. Also, three seems to be a reasonable minimum number of people for a "social" game.
iterationx 17y ago
you can do some interesting searches at boardgamegeek, using your parameters you get http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7717/carcassonne-the-castle http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7717/carcassonne-the-...
Calamitous 17y ago
Great, thanks for the suggestions, everybody!