Six games that introduced me to modern board games
Reflecting on playing modern board games for a decade.
2013 was a truly great year in gaming for me, largely because it’s the year I really dove in head-first to the world of modern gaming. There was a whole world of games to explore that I had no knowledge of, and inside some truly boring looking boxes were incredible games.
Thurn and Taxis, Through the Desert, Race for the Galaxy — there were designs from across the world that brought me hours and hours of entertainment. Names like Reiner Knizia and Uwe Rosenberg showed me that the names of designers deserved to be printed on the box, and they became names I trusted in gaming.
It’s also the year I discovered the joy of a great YouTube review. With over 3,000 games published in 2013 — of which I knew about relatively few — filtering through the noise was important. Shut Up and Sit Down became my guide to great games, while the Dice Tower opened my eyes to just how many games were out there, both worth my attention and not.
Settlers of Catan
I know this one’s now just called Catan, but it was an introduction to this one in (I think) 2011 that opened my eyes. (It might have been late 2010. I know the house I lived in, but I don’t remember the time of year.) My friend Scott brought a copy when he was visiting, and I was struck by the game. While hobby opinion has largely turned against Catan, the fact that it’s still having an outsized influence some 25 years after it first hit shelves should tell us something.
As I learned more about games, I wanted to play every Catan expansion out there — and I did, at least with what was released by 2013. I don’t play this one regularly, but the resource management and trading have bounced around in my head for a long time since.
Bohnanza
This classic game of bean trading was an early hit for me, with Bohnanza teaching me (along with Catan) that the 1990s produced some great games. I loved a game that necessitated strong player interactions, and while this has shifted quite a bit over time, I still love good interactions in a game. But those interactions were rare in the games I played growing up, and it became something I really craved in newer games.
I haven’t played Bohnanza in a good while now, but I think that’s largely just because the groups I’m in have tended to be smaller. It’s still one of the best trading games I’ve played, and some day, I’ll get it to the table again.
Through the Desert
One of my favorite local game stores, Game Night Games in Salt Lake City, has long featured a used games section in their store front, and at some point in my first year of serious gaming, I picked up Through the Desert, a Reiner Knizia classic. It’s a game of laying pastel camels and forming discrete areas surrounded by said camels, and it opened up the world of lightly themed abstract games. It’s still a game I enjoy quite a bit when I have the occasion to play it.
Through the Desert is a game that was out of print when I found a used copy, it was in print for a good while, and it’s now (I think?) out of print again. It gave me a vision of the cyclical paths the industry can sometimes take, and I’m so glad this game is easier to find than it once was. (Rumor has it that Steeped Games, publisher of Chai, will be publishing a new version early this year. Fingers crossed, although Steeped’s been in some hot water around fulfillment of their latest Kickstarter, so maybe wait until this one hits retail. It does look like you can find used copies of Through the Desert at pretty affordable prices, though.)
Power Grid
I love a game with a bit of math, and Power Grid was the first modern game I played that put me in a situation of needing to do some to find success. This Friedemann Friese classic features an auction and a commodities market, both of which mesh to create a a well-balanced tactical and strategic game. I loved the rotating player order, the increasingly efficient power plants on auction, the network building, and the wealth of expansion maps. They’re all features that combined to create a game that felt unique and bold, and it introduced me to so many great mechanics in games that I love to this day.
Carcassonne
I couldn’t talk about my board games origin story without also talking about this absolute classic. Carcassonne is easily one of my favorite games, and it remains so to this day. I played round after round of this one, mixing in expansions on occasion, and always keeping it as a game to teach anyone interested in the hobby. There’s a nice simplicity to Carcassonne, as well as an intuitiveness to tile placement. There’s a real competitive edge to the game that I didn’t expect the first few times I played, and it really kept me coming back for more. It’s now a firm part of my board gaming experience, and if I need to scratch this particular itch and don’t have a group, I’ll fire up an app or play a solitaire variant. (Notably, a cooperative iteration of Carcassonne should be out in the coming weeks. Very exciting!)
Pandemic
Like so many others, my first play of Pandemic made me sit up and take notice. I got the idea from the description — it’s a cooperative game, and we play to win together — but my first time playing was eye-opening. I understood games could theoretically work like this (I’ve played enough video games in my day to get that particular fact), but I hadn’t played anything like it. Now, there are numerous games, both Pandemic and not-Pandemic, that feature cooperation as an essential feature. But when I first played it, I knew of only a handful of games that weren’t competitive.
No matter when you got into gaming, whether that’s 50 years ago or five days, there’s never a wrong time. There are so many great games for all of us to explore together, and I’m excited to continue doing just that. I’m not sure what I’ll write about next week, so I’d love to hear from you: What do you want to read about? Reply to this email or leave a comment! I love hearing from all of you.
I hope this look at my personal gaming history was of some interest. I love reading about folks just getting into the hobby now, in part because it gives me cause to reflect on the times when I first started learning about the hobby. It’s grown and changed so, so much — and I think that’s largely a good thing — and I hope it remains a place of discovery and invention.