Gateway Games

There are hundreds and hundreds of GeekLists over on BoardGameGeek about so-called "Gateway Games."  That is, "games which can draw more non-gamers into the hobby."

These are all German-style board games, because that is what I tend to prefer.  If there are questions, I can discuss Eurogames vs. American-style boardgames at some point in the future.

There are a few games which appear on nearly all of these lists, and with good reason.  There are games which regularly appear and probably shouldn't.  And then there are the games which are not regularly on these lists, but probably should be.

This week, I'm going to talk about two of the old standbys - games that appear on nearly all of these lists.

For each game below, I'll list the game, say a bit about it, give a brief overview of the rules, why it's a good gateway game, and what issues new players seem to have with the rules.

Settlers of Catan

For many eurogamers, Settlers of Catan was our gateway game.  It wasn't the first German import game to hit the US, but it was the first to hit big.  It is or has been available online via BSW, Xbox Live (under the name Catan), and is coming for the Nintendo DS.

The game itself is pretty simple - three or four players earn victory points by building settlements and upgrading those settlements into cities.  Each turn, the dice are rolled.  The results of the dice cause spaces on the board to generate resources.  Then the player whose turn it is can trade resources with other players and spend those resources to build more roads and settlements.  You can also spend resources to buy special cards (which do a variety of things) or upgrade your settlements to cities.

There are bonus points available for having the longest continuous road and for having the largest army.

The first player to ten points wins the game.

It's a good gateway game because it's very simple to learn, encourages player interaction, and is easy to find an opponent for. 

Non-gamers who are curious about this game can visit nearly any game store and find a store copy which is used for demoing the game. Ask the person behind the counter if they can give you a demo - the same goes for many other games as well.

The game is also expandable - there is an expansion which allows up to six players to play.

There are only a few rules points which tend to cause confusion, too. Ports are a bit troublesome, as is the bandit.

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is another regular on the lists. Aside from one of the scoring details, it's a very clear game of tile-laying, and its worker figures ("meeples") have become emblematic of eurogaming in general. It's also available on XBox Live.

Every turn, you draw a tile from the bag. Tiles have roads, cities, fields, and a few other elements on them. You just need to match tile edges - roads have to match roads, and so on. After playing a tile, you may place one of your workers on that tile (with a few restrictions).

The basic rules are simple and very clear, and the game has a number of expansions of varying quality. I do highly recommend the first expansion, which allows for a sixth player and introduces a larger meeple.

The only trouble spot rules-wise is scoring the fields - even the publisher(s) haven't entirely made up their minds on that one, as the rules keep changing. It seems like every printing includes a new method of scoring the fields.

In a few weeks, I'll be talking about games that I think are good gateway games - games which don't appear on as many of the geeklists as, perhaps, they should.

Year-End Wrapup

2008 is over, and here's a quick overview of how it went for me:

Total Recorded Plays: 351
Remember that if I play Game + Expansion, I'll record it as one play of the game and .1 plays of the expansion.

Five Most Played Games:
Mr. Jack (22)
No Thanks! (20)
Werewolves of Miller's Hollow (18)
Ca$h 'n Gun$ (16)
Neuroshima Hex (15)

Surprise Of The Year:
For me, it was Mah Jongg. I was given a set as a gift from a friend who lived in China, and made an effort to learn to play. I had expected it to be a rummy-style game, and was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. It had 14 plays in 2008.

Unsurprise Of The Year
Neuroshima Hex. I ordered this one from Portal Publishing before Essen 2007. I did not, unfortunately, get a chance to play it until this year. And I liked it.

News Of The Year
The death of WizKids. After a long series of shelf-eating flops and the loss of a lawsuit to Wizards of the Coast, WizKids was shut down by Topps earlier this year. If you don't already own Oshi or Tsuro, you'd better hurry.

Personal Discovery Of The Year
Online gaming. I'd visited GameTableOnline before, and had not been impressed. When they started putting games on FaceBook, I figured I'd give them another shot - and I'm glad I did. Five years ago, I'd visited BrettspielWelt, and had rapidly become frustrated - it was poorly translated and difficult to navigate. Not anymore!

Significant improvement on both fronts means I'll be playing more and more online to supplement my face-to-face games.

Looking Forward To Next Year
For 2009, I'll be tracking games played online, provided I'm playing human players and not AI players. This means that you can expect to see more Neuroshima Hex plays, as well as a few plays of Uno, Carcassonne, and The Settlers of Catan.

I managed to (mostly) maintain my posting schedule this year. I hope to maintain a similar schedule for 2009.

There are a lot of games coming I look forward to playing this year, and several games I picked up in 2008 that I need to share.

Formula D

I've now played Formula D a few times, and have even had the chance to try the street racing.

As you may not know, I was a fan of Formula Dé, and I own several of the tracks.

Because of this, I was initially skeptical when Asmodee told me that they were doing a new edition and were changing the rules somewhat. I knew it would sell, because Formula Dé had been out of print long enough that it was commanding disturbingly high eBay prices - even with their one-shot reprint of a few years ago. What I was uneasy with were rules changes. When they mentioned adding illegal street racing to the mix, I was concerned. I didn't see how to make it feel different from the basic Formula One racing, so I didn't see any added value to it.

I'm very glad to be proven wrong. The improved components are nice, and I really like the street racing. The differing abilities of the drivers are nice, and make for a very interesting race. Admittedly, not all abilities are created equal - and some of them are dramatically less useful with fewer players. The addition of Nitro and the different repair rules give it a different feel, as well.

And it's worth noting that the included track has three different special rules. The next street track (which I've seen) also has a few new tricks up its sleeve.

I hope all future releases include at least one street track, as it brings a lot to the game that I had not expected.

We'll be playing again on the day after Christmas. And probably again over New Year's Eve.

Next year, I will be tracking my games played online as well as in person, so expect that I'll show more plays of Neuroshima Hex, The Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and Wits and Wagers in my Games Played.

If I don't post again before then, I wish a very merry Christmas to those of you who are reading this.

The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!

Okay, not really. But Mayfair Games recently announced that they are requiring a 20% cap on discounts for their games.

Retailers who sell below that line will suffer "sanctions" and may be cut off from their supply. It'll hurt online retailers more than brick-and-mortar

Tom of Boards and Bits broke the news here. There's some good discussion mixed in with the ranting.

Here are my scattered thoughts:

It's not new to gaming. Games Workshop has done this for a while. They even go after eBay sellers.

It's legal - there was a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on this that didn't change the law, it adjusted the interpretation of the law which put more more power in the hands of manufacturers.

This sort of price control has been going for a long while in other industries.

I currently work in car audio. Various manufacturers have "Authorized Retailers." If you buy product from a non-Authorized retailer, then you don't have warranty coverage. MTX Audio has a page all about it: MTX - Unauthorized Resellers.

In order to become an Authorized Retailer, you get to jump through all kinds of hoops and sign a number of contracts. One of these contracts concerns "MAP" - depending on who you talk to, MAP is "Manufacturer Authorized Pricing" or "Minimum Advertised Price."

This gives the car audio-buying public a choice: Buy a speaker without a warranty and hope it doesn't die, or more and get a warranty backed by the manufacturer.

And there are ways around it:

1) Buy Product X, and we'll throw in Product Y.
2) Here's a Coupon Code for X% off your entire order.
3) Free shipping for all orders over $X
4) Buy Product X, save $Y on Product Z

So why would Mayfair do this?

1) It supports the FLGS. Internet retail is hurting the FLGS. I've ranted about this before. This levels the playing field a bit.
2) They can. Mayfair is the US publisher for The Settlers of Catan, arguably the best-selling Eurogame of all time.
3) It won't hurt internet retailers as badly as people think it will, because it means higher profit margins on Mayfair items (and because of the numerous ways around it).

There was discussion a few months ago about game companies possibly doing something like this. A ICV2 interviewed a few industry insiders:
Jay Tummelson of Rio Grande Games
Joe Hauck of WizKids
Loren Greenwood of Wizards of the Coast

... and that's all I have time to say.

XBox Live Arcade

Apparently, The Settlers of Catan is scheduled to appear on XBox live tonight.

I'll be buying it, but I won't review it here. I also will not be adding it to my Games Played.

I don't consider it a board game when it's in this format.

There is a lot of discussion here and there about what does it take to be considered a board game - I love The Settlers of Catan, and it's an excellent board game. When it's played on a tabletop with cardboard and wooden pieces. Or plastic. Or resin.

Once you're using a controller and the board is projected onto a screen, however, you've changed the game. It's now a video game, and is no longer a board game to me.

Board Gaming to me is (first and foremost) a social activity - it's something done in person with friends. It's not something done online with whoever happens to wander by. There are people who will argue that online gaming is just as social as tabletop - and, for them, it may be true. It just doesn't apply for me.

I think that having these games (Carcassonne is due in a few months) leap to XBox Live Arcade is a good thing - don't get me wrong. Anything which makes good games more visible is a good thing.

The new challenge for me is getting the XBox Live gamers to try other games which haven't made the leap.

I'm still figuring out how - it'll take lots of online practice research, I expect.