Catan, the internet and the marketplace of ideas

When I first got into gaming about twenty years ago, there were three games that seemed to be in every group’s collective game closet: Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico and Carcassonne. Very quickly, Ticket to Ride got added to that list. (It had to actually get published before anyone was willing to play it)

I’ve found myself thinking about these four games and wondering where to ramble with them. I could write about how the hobby has changed and there isn’t a unifying game like these were anymore.

But honestly, that’s a delusionally nostalgic viewpoint. It’s picturing a world where BGG was the center of the gaming world. Plenty of folks were playing Axis and Allies or Battletech or Titan and didn’t know Catan existed. (And that’s not even getting into Chess or Rummy or Scrabble or Poker or Go or- you get the idea)

Yes, the gaming world has become bigger and more mainstream and more varied. But it’s not like it was a magical Smurf village twenty years ago.

I also don’t think they represent a golden era of gaming and game design. We are talking about a ten-year span. That’s pretty short compared to Mancala or Chess but that’s a long time in the modern market. And it’s not like there haven’t been a ton of great games since then.

My next thought was that the game that actually mattered was Catan because, love it or hate it (I love it), no one can deny that it changed the landscape. But I don’t think that’s quite what I’m looking at either.

Then an idea occurred to me. We are looking at games that came out as the internet was becoming more and more mainstream. It is now so ubiquitous we carry the internet in our pockets but the internet changed so much. (Wow, there are grownups who have always lived in a world with the internet. )

I firmly believe that Carson, Puerto Rico, Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride are all great games that will still getting played twenty years from now. I also think they were in the right place at the right time to take advantage of an algorithm we didn’t even know existed.

What about the games that survived the purge

 I’ve written a fair bit about purging games when we prepared to move across the country. But I forgot to write about what I didn’t sell or donate. So let’s look at what I’m actually keeping. 

Plenty of factors that I had to ask myself. Do I want to play it?  Can I get other folks to play it? How much storage space does it take up? How hard would it be to ever get again?

 

When I switched my thinking from what to get rid of to what the keep (which made getting rid of games a lot easier), the first thing I thought was that we were going to keep every Ticket to Ride map we have. Since I first got the US map in 2004, that franchise has been possibly my most consistent gaming experience. I can count on playing Ticket to Ride.

(And, no I don’t have all the maps. Far from it. But I have enough to keep us happy)

Ticket to Ride helped define my criteria. Family weight games that take less than an hour that I know folks like to play. Not every game checks every box but that was the basic idea. Generally, games for a family game night where bedtime is enforced.

(And smaller size did go a long way towards being a tie breaker. Storage space was the biggest drive towards this purge after all)

One criteria that didn’t get much traction was getting rid of games with the idea I could get them again. I had thought about getting rid of Take It Easy and Settlers of Catan’s and getting them again when I wasn’t worried about packing space. But I realized that was silly and wasteful. And my wife wouldn’t let me get rid of Catan.

What I did find myself asking was ‘would this game be impossible to get again?’ Which didn’t save a lot of games but that did save Discworld: Ankh-Morpork and Take It To The Limit.

At the end of the day, I still have a couple hundred games. It’s not like I stopped having a game closet. I’m just trying to have one that I’ll actually use.

Ticket to Ride: New York does its iob

I have read (but I don’t actually know if it’s true) that Ticket to Ride: New York was designed as a convention demo and only went retail due to demand. Even if that’s not true, it is a fun story.

I actually picked up a very lightly used copy a couple years back (so lightly that the cards were were still wrapped) but only recently got it on the table.

I’m assuming that anyone reading this knows how to play Ticket to Ride. If you don’t, close your browser window and go play Ticket to Ride. That will be a better use of your time than reading my blog.

The idea behind the city line of Ticket to Ride is a shorter, smaller version of the game, one that takes ten to fifteen minutes to play.  The boards are smaller (I want to say a third the functional size of the big boards) and you have fifteen cars instead of forty-five. Huh, that number supports my one-third estimate.

The only addition to the basic Ticket to Ride rules that everyone should know and love in New York is tourist attractions. Certain locations are marked with a penny and you get a bonus point for connecting to them.

I went in with two negative expectations. I was expecting that the games would be so short that sifting through tickets wouldn’t be a viable strategy. And I was expecting that the points from tourist attractions would be too small to make a difference.

What I hadn’t considered was that the routes and the tickets would both be smaller. So no one burns through their cars so fast that drawing more tickets is the equivalent of losing a turn. In fact, sticking with only your starting tickets looks like a losing strategy. 

And that’s because my fear about the tourist attractions does seem to pan out. The bonus points you get from them aren’t as much as pursuing tickets or even longer routes.

Looking at the other city games, New York doesn’t seem as polished. The map has more bottle necks and the bonus feature is meh. After playing it, I ordered the London map because the district bonus scoring (effectively having bonus tickets printed on the board) seems more of an actual game changer.

Still, at the end of the day, Ticket to Ride: New York succeeds at its most important goal. It feels like playing Ticket to Ride.

I will admit that ten years ago, a fifteen-minute Ticket to Ride would have just seemed cute. As a parent, it’s now a much higher deal. Being able to get in a game on a school night and feel like I’ve actually played a game is huge for us.

A rant about how I hate gateway as a term

One of the terms I hate is Gateway Games. (I also hate the term Filler Games but I also find that one harder to avoid) I understand the concept of the games that are easily to teach and introduce non-gamers into the modern world of gaming but I think Family Games or Casual Games covers the same idea better and without the idea that these are games that you leave behind as you ‘grow up’.

Both the terms Filler and Gateway imply a lower value of a game, which is definitely part of my problem. Ticket to Ride is considered one of the classic Gateway games but is has never been a game I’ve outgrown or grown tired of.  The Gateway label does it a disservice. Well, okay. I think it does any game that gets slapped with it a disservice.

I also may be reacting strongly due to experiences with game snobs. Liking longer and more complicated games doesn’t mean you are better or smarter than everyone else :P

One of the things that really brought me home to the idea that casual  games can be lifestyle games was the Pairs system. It’s not in my top five game systems but it is flexible and easy to introduce to people. It does the job that it was meant to. It is the epitome of a gateway game since you can teach many of its games to drunk people. It is the opposite of so many complex games in many genres.  But it is still good and very replayable.

This actually started out as me writing about Tokaido but things got a little out of control. Labeling games can be dangerous because it can make us look for something in a game other than ‘do I want to play it?’ It’s a useful tool and a necessary tool but it can be a dangerous tool.

Will Imhotep break my heart?

What has really struck me about Imhotep is the it follows the Ticket to Ride philosophy. While the two games are quite different, they both offer you three different, simple actions. Everything in the game is built off those choices.

The elevator pitch is that you are masons in ancient Egypt. You load stones on your sledge, load stones from your sledge onto boats and sail boats to building sites. Timing and brinkmanship is a big deal.

I had heard good things about Imhotep from friends but my experiences with it started with Yucata. And I got the basic gist of it but I didn’t quite grok it there. When I finally got to play it in person, that’s when things clicked and I really knew what was going on.

So much the game is physically moving cubes from point A to point B to Point C so actually going through those motions was important to me. Plus, I had the boat positions backwards online :D

And, so far, I have found Imhotep to be a really good game. There’s a lot of brinkmanship and just enough control to make you fight for that killer move but little enough control that you have to sacrifice other killer moves for that one.

It’s not really reasonable to compare Imhotep to Ticket to Ride but I can’t help it. They fit the same need at the gaming table. A family weight game that works with casual and experienced gamers that you can play on a work night.

And there are some interesting differences between the game. Ticket to Ride is more of a sandbox. You can collect cards without limit, claim routes on any place on the board, and get more tickets when you feel like it. In Imhotep, you move each stone in a prescribed order.

There is a lot of variety in Imhotep between the market cards, the double sided site boards, and the different layouts of ships. And there are choices between how you load the boats and where you steer them. I am pretty sure that this shakes things up enough that Imhotep won’t become formulaic and isn’t solvable. 

And with a game like Imhotep, that’s a good question. I can see it becoming a regular for family game nights (you know, when the toddler is older) and replay value would be even more important than usual.

So far, I have been very happy with Imhotep. Happy enough that I hope it’s not a heartbreaker.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191862/imhotep