How Different Must It Be to Be a Different Game?

As you may have noticed, I have written in the past about the differences between the games Fae and Clans. I recently visited the page for Fae on Board Game Geek, and I noticed a forum discussion about why the game got a separate page from Clans. The short version is this: the admins at BGG originally felt that theme was irrelevant in determining what constitutes a separate game, but after outcry from fans (in large part because searching the database for games of a particular theme doesn't produce the desired results), they created a 'reimplements' function that links games with identical mechanics but differing themes.

This apparently resulted from the reworking of a game called Penguin, in which you stack coloured penguins into a pyramid, into a game called Game of Thrones: Westeros Intrigue, in which you play cards representing characters from one of four of the noble houses from that fictional setting into a pyramid arrangement. Mechanically, these are the same game. Although the construction and appearance of these games are markedly different, the rules governing what you do with them are identical.

As such, BGG gave them both the same listing. If you went to the page on BGG for GoT:WI, you'd see photos of both games jumbled together in the Images section, and a listing for 'Alternate Names' that included Penguin. But if you did a search for 'Antarctic Theme,' you'd get GoT:WI in the results, due to it being linked with Penguin.

New Resolution

Very shortly after I had posted my Resolution: Failed article on 30 December, a friend invited me to partake of a 10×10 Challenge. I had never heard of it, so I did a bit of research. It turns out that a few years ago on Board Game Geek, someone created this challenge to counteract what she called 'the cult of the new' (more on that in a moment).

Here's how it works: you play ten games, ten times each, over the course of a calendar year. There are two levels of difficulty: Normal and Hardcore. In the Normal level, you are considered successful if you play any ten games ten times. Just keep track of how many times you play any game, and if at the end of the year, you have at least ten games in which you logged ten plays or more, you succeed.

In Hardcore, you decide at the beginning of the year which ten games you're going to count. You only log those games (and any plays you may have had before you accept the challenge don't count).

Resolution: Failed.

Welcome to the 200th post on the Game Dork's Gaming Corner! I've got to say, it's kind of amazing to me that I've come this far.

Enough woolgathering. Let's get to the issue at hand.

Some of you may know that I made a new year's resolution to play 80 of the games on the top 100 list over at Board Game Geek. Tomorrow is the last day of 2017, so I think it's safe to call it. I did not meet that goal.

Here's how the numbers ended up: the most games that I had played that were in the top 100 list at any one time was 31. This is a shame, as four of the games I had played that were at one point on the top 100 dropped to 101 or lower at some point over the course of the year. In fact, if we were to expand our criteria to include anything in the top 200, that would add another 16 games to my list, for a total of 47. Still thirty three games shy of my goal, but a good deal closer...

Economic Domination Games

I know I keep referencing the Six Board Games That Ruined It For Everyone article on Cracked.com, but it's such a good article. The Top 100 list on Board Game Geek is awesome, but it doesn't compare bad games to good games the way the Cracked article does.

As an interesting side note, I saw that, if you reverse the order of the Top 100 List so that it shows you the Bottom 100, five of the six games from that article are listed. The one that's not? Risk. Which is interesting, given what I'm about to say.

Anyway. Here's what the Cracked article has to say about Risk:

The worst part of Risk is victory by excruciation. A well-designed game has tactics and skill building to a climax, a thrilling race to victory, and when someone has clearly won, it's because the game is over. In Risk, someone can win hours before it ends, and they will not let you just admit it and leave. They spent hours carefully planning this victory, and by God you are going to sit there and patiently lose for just as many hours so that they can enjoy it properly. They've turned having fun into a zero-sum game.

Board Game Geek's Top 100

I was looking at the top 100 list of Board Game Geek a week or so ago. I realised that, despite all the games I've played in my life, I've only played about 16 of the ones in the top 100.

So I've made a resolution. I don't normally do resolutions, for several reasons. I think New Year's is a stupid holiday.  I believe that every day you wake up is a chance for a new beginning; you shouldn't have to wait for a specific day of the year. Besides, most New Year's Resolutions are silly, and forgotten before January ends anyway.

So this is not a New Year's Resolution. This is just a resolution that happens to coincide with New Year's, and is measured against the calendar year. My resolution is this:

By the end of 2017, I will be able to say, at least once, that I have played 80 or more of the games on the Board Game Geek's Top 100 List.