sunblush

Over the past year, I was given many oppor­tu­ni­ties to play board games with my fam­ily and with my excel­lent local game group. Of course, I wish I’d had even more chances, but I’m happy to have been afforded the time to pur­sue this quaint lit­tle hobby.

Look­ing back at 2009, I’d like to present (in no par­tic­u­lar order) the board games and card games that were part of my most pos­i­tive and/or mem­o­rable gam­ing expe­ri­ences of the year. Of course, my list­ing each of these games says just as much about the games them­selves as about the won­der­ful peo­ple they were played with, so your mileage may vary depend­ing upon the com­pany you keep.

Bat­tle Line

A two-player card game, pit­ting one army against another. There are 60 cards, num­bered 1 – 10 in six dif­fer­ent col­ors. The object is to cap­ture a flag by play­ing the best sequence of cards next to it. There are 9 flags in all, and the win­ner of the game is the player who man­ages to either take 3 flags in a row, or 5 total flags. My wife and I enjoy play­ing this one together, which says a lot because she’s not as big a fan of games as I am. It’s a short game, usu­ally tak­ing 15 – 20 min­utes to com­plete, and almost always below 30.

Tichu

Tichu is a trick-taking part­ner­ship card game that is best played with 4 play­ers. Other games in this genre are Euchre, Spades, Hearts, Bridge, and Rook. The most apt com­par­i­son to Tichu would be Rook on a cock­tail of E, acid, steroids, and mesca­line. Like Rook, Tichu requires a spe­cial­ized deck of cards rather than tra­di­tional play­ing cards. It’s very chal­leng­ing, yet not overly com­pli­cated or hard to learn, and an awful lot of fun. It’s an absolutely bril­liant game. Near perfect.

Race for the Galaxy (w/ expansions)

My nerdi­est friends love Race for the Galaxy. Why? Well, it’s San Juan with frickin’ laser beams. It’s got an eco­nomic sys­tem, a vic­tory points engine, a set col­lec­tion mechanic, and a double-think dynamic all in one neat pack­age. And it’s just a card game, no fid­dly bits required. I’ve played it nearly 100 times, thanks in part to the expan­sions and the excel­lent (and free) com­puter ver­sion I down­loaded, and it never gets old. Race achieves a depth of play and a level of replaya­bil­ity sel­dom seen in the game world.

Le Havre

Grab­bing my atten­tion early due to Agri­cola, its highly touted pre­de­ces­sor, Le Havre turned out to be a slow-churning, brain-burning, effi­ciency engine of a game. And I love it. There is so much to think about in this game, so many inter­est­ing deci­sions, dilem­mas, and prob­lems to solve. Although Le Havre is a longer game, the length seems appro­pri­ate given the com­plex­ity. With expe­ri­enced play­ers jock­ey­ing for the best actions, there can be some pun­ish­ing screwage, which makes for a tense and won­der­fully angst-filled gam­ing experience.

Chicago Express

This is the lav­ishly pro­duced Queen Games ver­sion of Wabash Can­non­ball, a railroad-themed stock mar­ket game, and it com­pletely caught me by sur­prise. I bought a copy of it purely because of word of mouth reviews. It’s short, tense, and sat­is­fy­ing from begin­ning to end. There is barely any down­time. The com­po­nents and board are beau­ti­ful. There is no ran­dom­ness at all — only player-generated chaos. For a game to be this good and yet be playable in 60 min­utes is sim­ply phenomenal.

Power Grid

I’d never played Power Grid before this past year, but I man­aged to get sev­eral plays of it in. The ver­dict: It stacks up, and is well-deserving of its lofty rep­u­ta­tion. Your goal, as an elec­tric util­ity com­pany, is to power the most cities at the end of the game. You have to build power plants, buy fuel to power your plants, and expand your net­work of cities on the map. Power Grid can be a lit­tle mathy and prone to induce analy­sis paral­y­sis, but I’ve been won over. I’m a big fan of its turn-order bal­anc­ing mechanic.

Steam

Steam is a vari­ant of the Age of Steam sys­tem. I’m not going to get into a long Steam vs. Age of Steam dis­cus­sion here, but I’m extremely happy that I opted for the for­mer. I per­son­ally don’t have the where­withal or the patience for the bru­tal and unfor­giv­ing AoS. The “Base Game” of Steam is quite excel­lent in its own right, and fills the “awe­some train game” void in my col­lec­tion nicely. As the owner of a rail­road com­pany, you spend the game build­ing track and deliv­er­ing goods to cities. It’s a top-tier game, and cer­tainly a brain-burner.

Brass

I’ve already writ­ten a review of Brass here, and from read­ing it, you are likely to con­clude that I am obvi­ously infat­u­ated with it and will play it any chance I get. And you would be 100% cor­rect. Brass is eas­ily in my all-time top 5. The game­play suc­cess­fully evokes the 19th-century Eng­lish indus­trial rev­o­lu­tion, and the real, work­ing econ­omy is tight as a drum. The turn-order bal­anc­ing mech­a­nism (he who spent the most goes last) is sim­ple, but effec­tive. Sorry, but I just love this game.

Star­craft: The Board Game (w/ expansion)

My good­ness, this thing is a beast. It’s by far the most mon­strous game in my entire col­lec­tion. I don’t often stray to the Amer­i­trash side of the gam­ing spec­trum, but I’m happy to own this one. Tons of bits, lots of rules, and plenty of strat­egy. The expan­sion adds a lot more depth and pol­ish to the sys­tem. The game can be on the long side, but time just flies while you’re play­ing. Star­craft: The Board Game, like its video game coun­ter­part, is like a knife fight. In a tele­phone booth. In space.

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

I have a self-confessed weak­ness for civilization-building games. My favorite com­puter game, even after all this time, is Sid Meier’s Civ­i­liza­tion II. Through the Ages is based on that com­puter game, which in turn was based on Fran­cis Tresham’s Civ­i­liza­tion board game from the ‘80s. So it appears we have come full cir­cle, except that TtA is a much shorter game that doesn’t include a map at all. Instead, it focuses on the core mechan­ics of Civ II: the tech tree, sci­ence, food, pro­duc­tion, and mil­i­tary. Stripped down and abstracted in this way, it doesn’t make me miss the map one bit, and it’s one of my absolute favorites.

Mid­dle Earth Quest

Here we have a semi-cooperative game that pits sev­eral play­ers, rep­re­sent­ing the Free Peo­ples of Mid­dle Earth, against one player, play­ing the role of Sauron the Great. It’s unlike any other game I’ve ever played. It’s an immer­sive, expe­ri­en­tial game akin to (what I imag­ine might be) a really light­weight role-playing game. You roam Mid­dle Earth, embark­ing on quests and fight­ing the orc, while Sauron hatches plot after evil plot in his attempt to spread his influ­ence and cover the world in shadow.

Crib­bage

2009 was the year I was first intro­duced to Crib­bage, a card game which was cre­ated in the 1600’s. It’s rare for a tra­di­tional card game to play just as well with 2 as it does 3 or 4, but Crib­bage pulls it off well. It’s amaz­ing how tough the decision-making can be in this game, and try­ing to foil your oppo­nents’ plans weighs just as heav­ily as max­i­miz­ing your own gains. Crib­bage is appar­ently quite a pop­u­lar card game in the English-speaking world, but I haven’t per­son­ally met many peo­ple who know it.

Endeavor

The shin­ing new star for 2009 is Endeavor, a game I anx­iously antic­i­pated for about a year prior to its even­tual release. It didn’t dis­ap­point, and it plays in about an hour. As com­pet­ing Euro­pean pow­ers in the 18th cen­tury, play­ers must bal­ance their progress in build­ing, cul­ture, finance, and pol­i­tics as they attempt to col­o­nize the four cor­ners of the Earth. The colo­nial theme is quite abstracted, but it man­ages to shine through, and there is a healthy dose of player inter­ac­tion to keep every­one engaged for the duration.

Winner’s Cir­cle

The “dark horse” game of the year for me, if you’ll excuse the ter­ri­ble pun, was def­i­nitely Winner’s Cir­cle. A guy in my game group hap­pened to own a copy, and we had a total blast play­ing it. The basic gist of it is plac­ing bets on horses, then try­ing to influ­ence the race to the extent that your horse wins, places, or shows. On your turn, you roll a die, and you get to choose which horse moves. Each horse has par­tic­u­lar strengths and weak­nesses, depend­ing on what gets rolled. Oppor­tu­ni­ties abound for bluff­ing and screwage.

Mod­ern Art: The Card Game

My wife and I enjoy Mod­ern Art: The Card Game (or Mod­ern Art, sans auc­tions). I was very sur­prised to see how well the game worked with­out auc­tions, even to the point where I’m now unsure if I’d want to play the orig­i­nal rather than this ver­sion. The core of the game remains: col­lect as many paint­ings of the most valu­able artists as you can. Of course, the crux of the mat­ter is that you don’t know which artists will end up being valu­able, but you can attempt to influ­ence the bal­ance in your favor as you play.

Tags: board game, card game