Wired on the recent meteoric rise of the German-st...
Wired on the recent meteoric rise of the German-style board game, with a focus on the creator of the popular game The Settlers of Catan.
Last year, Settlers doubled its sales on this side of the Atlantic, moving 200,000 copies in the US and Canada—almost unheard-of performance for a new strategy game with nothing but word-of-mouth marketing.
I myself have been on a German gaming kick in the past few years, often playing such games as Carcassonne and Alhambra. What distinguishes them?
German-style games tend to let players win without having to undercut or destroy their friends. This keeps the game fun, even for those who eventually fall behind. Designed with busy parents in mind, German games also tend to be fast, requiring anywhere from 15 minutes to a little more than an hour to complete. They are balanced, preventing one person from running away with the game while the others painfully play out their eventual defeat.
The article mentions that Monopoly has recently modified their instructions to emphasize the oft-ignored property auction, which evidently makes the game go faster and makes it more interactive.
Comments (5)
We've owned Settlers of Catan for over a year now. It's fun, however the article you cite is terribly inaccurate. Settlers of Catan can take a very long time( 3-4 hours), and it's entirely necessary to destroy, inhibit, and try to trick your friends. You should get it though... it's fun to play with friends, although I'm not sure why it's so popular... in other words, it's not amazing, but it's fun.
Perhaps the other games you mention do accurately reflect what the article says (I haven't looked at the article yet, only the segments you quoted)... Although it seems like the author might have only played Settlers of Catan once. We generally choose Scrabble if we want to play a faster game if that gives any guidance.
Just started playing Catan a week ago, first on Xbox, then last night we got a cheap board game version and played with another couple not prone to games like this. Everyone enjoyed it in their own way. I got pretty competitive with it. But at one point, while three of us were consumed with trading and sticking the robber on each other in a series of rolled sevens, we looked over at our fourth player, and he had taken his roads and cities and built an elaborate "seaside empire" as he called it on his side of the board for fun. The three of us kept on bickering and being competitive, and we'd look over and see more of his creations with the game pieces, including a very creative industrial complex with the roads as smoke stacks.
Here's a little doggie out of game pieces:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/284177
I might as well share:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/157786
And:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/125706
i'm remembering obscure board games night. i still have a copy of one of those games. the problem with my group of friends is that they aren't open to these "new" games or they're more interested in party games. the german games are much more balanced. try finding a game of risk with even mildly experienced players fighting for australia or maybe south america while initially placing armies.