Boardgame talk for Meeple & People
Being rich, influential and groomed for political office, that must be such an incredibly boring life. Why is it that the lower classes get all the fun? Well, you’re not going to let them have it without you, and if you have to get rid of your wealth and your good reputation to join them, then so be it. That’s why you and some equally rich and dimwitted friends started the Prodigals Club, a contest of who can most effectively ruin their future.
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I admit, I didn’t expect that one day a traditional, competitive eurogame would be in the majority for the Kennerspiel des Jahres selection. But here we are, next to Pandemic Legacy and T.I.M.E. Stories, both cooperative games with a limited number of replays in the box Isle of Skye is the only competitive game with virtually unlimited replayability. Lets have a look if it’s worthy of the nomination.
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World War 3 has come and gone, and to everyone’s surprise we’re not extinct. But the planet is not a great place to live any more, except for those select few that secured a space in the Golden City, the last beacon of civilization in the world. All the wastelanders want to live there, and the players in Raid & Trade actually have the chance to achieve that dream, if they find the right mix between cooperation and ruthlessness.
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This is the game you will never find on Google. Because the name of the game is The Game, and that’s just not very distinctive. The Game is a cooperative card game that was nominated for the 2015 Spiel des Jahres. It’s small and abstract, but that doesn’t say anything about how much fun it is.
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The year is god-knows-when BCE. The first people are spreading across the plains and forests looking for two things: food and shelter. Their most important tool in this dangerous voyage are Dominoes-like tiles they use to map out the surroundings. Okay, no, they didn’t really do that. You do that when playing Sapiens, map out the territory for your tribe to prosper.
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The Horribilorum Sorcery Academy for Witty Witches and Wizards, yet another institute of magical learning that not only ignores safety procedures, it’s probably using the handbook to start a fire. This time, students have to sit their Potions exam with ingredients from a rickety, old ingredient dispenser and a professor that actively encourages them to cause explosions in that thing and to drink their own potions they just created to see if they work. Realistically, this game is not about winning, it’s about surviving!
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It’s safe to say that The X-Files was one of the most popular TV series created to date. (Or maybe still is, with the 2016 revival mini series ending on a huge cliffhanger.) So finding a new The X-Files boardgame published 13 years after the last episode of the original series was aired wasn’t a big surprise. There are millions of people out there with nostalgia for agents Mulder and Scully digging up alien conspiracies, and nostalgia sells. If you know me, then you know that’s why I’m skeptical towards licensed games in general. Nostalgia sells irrespective of quality. But there are good games made on a license, so lets see what side of that spectrum Kevin Wilson’s The X-Files falls on.
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Anyone who grew up with a sibling will know the situation: there is ice cream, or cake, or something to be had, one of you had to split it and the other one would get first pick. As it turns out, that system not only works for ice cream but for exploring space ships as well, because that’s how you get your actions in Andromeda.
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Consumable games, games that you play a number of times and then they are over for you, are a new thing. Pioneered by Risk Legacy, the idea has spread. More games are coming with the Legacy system, but that’s not the only way to make a game “expire”. T.I.M.E. Stories tries a different approach, one that leaves the game material unchanged and changes what you know instead.
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You didn’t get your Hogwarts letter, did you? Yeah, me neither. I heard good things about the Elementary College, though. They have the Book of Madness in the library. Yes, THE Book of Madness. I have heard really, really bad things about their health and safety procedures, but they teach their students how to really work together and deal with a crisis. I’ll apply there right now!
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