Giving It a Try

Before we get started, please allow me to remind you that I have set up a Facebook page for this blog. If you like reading the stuff I write here, head on over to follow me, so that you can keep up to date, and see interesting new stuff that I might post there!

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A friend recently drew my attention to an interesting post on Facebook. The short version is this:

An employee from Portal Publishing was irritated to see people claiming that a game is unbalanced and worthless after only playing through once or twice. Instead of learning the ins an outs of the game and getting good at playing that game, they give it a cursory single play-through and then give up on it entirely.

Really, the entry is quite interesting. It's a little emotional, as the author is clearly upset. But I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

The Downside of the Golden Age

As I've mentioned many times, we are in the midst of a Golden Age of board games. Lots of amazing new games are being published every month. If you go down to your local Board Game Cafe (assuming you're lucky enough to have one in your town, and if you aren't, maybe you should try to start one up!), they'll likely have hundreds, if not thousands, of different titles from which to choose. And that's not counting the ones they don't happen to have at that particular location, to say nothing of the out-of-print titles that are hard to find!

And that is an incredible thing.

To have so many options... to have hundreds of games you can play. You can seriously play a different game every day for a year. Two years, if you have access to a good supply, and maybe even more if you're in a place with a vibrant gaming community!

Board Game Review: Terra Mystica

I recently got to learn a hefty game called Terra Mystica. Being the dedicated game reviewer that I am, I will now review it for you. As always, we start with the numbers.