I realize I'm promoting board games to the wrong people - to people who've already been trained to expect the same things from 'games' as from movies - but you

I realize I'm promoting board games to the wrong people - to people who've already been trained to expect the same things from 'games' as from movies - but you should take a closer look at board games. Outside of computer/console 'game' industry, games are rules. You distinguish two games by their rules. "How do you play it ?" is the question you need to ask. In video 'game' world, "game" has become an umbrella term for: - stories, - simulations, - puzzles, - actual multiplayer games, - playgrounds/toys (Minecraft, MMO...) Basically any interactive software that is used for entertainment is called a game these days. I guess vlc also meets the criteria, after all you can use it to watch porn. There's a parallel between Test Driven Development and board games. Today, computer games have become so complex and have so many moving parts that they have more in common with simulations than board games they largely came from. This is because you no longer understand all or even most of its RULES. Computer is kind enough to calculate everything for you. You don't know why a fireball deals 23 damage or why your city suffers an epidemic. It could be because it's scripted that way, because something gives it a +20% bonus (added before or after X ? Is it actually +20% or * 1.2 ? Wording is ofter ambiguous). The player is only expected to move around in a world and bump into things. Often the quickest way to learn a game is to try it. Learn the way children learn languages - not by memorizing grammar rules, but by practicing. Why TDD ? It is often claimed that in Test Driven Development, you write tests before you write code. THEN you write minimal code to pass those tests. By definition, you have practically 100% test coverage, which can be nice. By definition, you know all the rules of a board game. The rules tell you how and when move pieces, cards, tokens around. Modding and house rules is rampant in board game world. It happens even accidentally - when you fail to learn rules correctly, and later decide it's more fun that way. It's absolutel fine to play with "wrong" rules if all players agree to do it beforehand. Board game players often make their expansions, variants, prettier game art. -------------- Fun fact: "Sacrifice" spell in Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is widely considered one of worst spells in the game. Sacrifice a unit to resurrect another one ? Load game, I wasted so many resources on level5 guild!! Unless you know the formula, which is NOT specified in the game. Then you can produce a table like this: http://wstaw.org/m/2012/12/05/imps_1.png http://wstaw.org/m/2012/12/05/imps_1.png With a modest investment (3 skill points and growth bonus building), you can sacrifice 1 week worth of imps(level1) to resurrect 2 weeks worth of Archdevils (level7). Assuming you get the guild, it all comes early enough to be relevant in a cutthroat multiplayer game. And it gets better and better as the game progresses, because unlike with most spells the effect doesn't increase in a logarithmic fashion (experience levels), but with troop counts. This is not good. This is devastating. The huge discrepancy between the perceived value of the spell and its actual value is due to bad documentation and hidden rules. It is extremely common for computer games to contain hidden, unexplained rules.