Issue 4: Tricks in spaaaaaace!
Awards season is wrapping up with the Spiel des Jahres, and I'm super excited about The Crew winning the 2020 Kennerspiel prize.
Hello, all! I thought I’d try out the newsletter on another day of the week. How do you feel about Thursdays? I kind of like them. If I’m playing games over the weekend, I’m usually thinking about them on Thursdays, with the weekend in sight. (Technically, the weekend starts Friday this week for me — we have a state holiday on July 24.)
I thought this week we could skip major news items (the only thing I really have is the Pandemic Legacy Season Zero announcement and details, so go check that out if it’s something you’re interested in) and instead focus on the announcement of a major award in board games: the Spiel des Jahres. From there, I’ll talk about camping and playing games, then we’ll move on to something that’s most definitely not a board game, but I think maybe should be.
On with it, then, right?
Spiel des Jahres winners
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think awards are interesting and exciting, even if they’re not perfect metrics for the quality of a game. I’ve posted a fair amount about them on Instagram over the past few months, and now, the big one has been announced: the Spiel des Jahres, the most prominent award given to a board game published in Germany.
They give multiple awards: the Spiel des Jahres, as well as the Kennerspiel des Jahres and the Kinderspiel des Jahres: the Spiel des Jahres is typically given to a game that works well for families. They’re usually good with four players, and they’re rarely overly complicated. Games recently given the award include Azul (2018), Kingdomino (2017) and Codenames (2016), which really set the tone for the award. Low complexity, a bit of depth, and an accessibility to a range of members of the family are important qualities. This year’s award went to Pictures, a small-group party game that seems quite cool. (Read more about it on BoardGameGeek, which remains the canonical source for all things games.)
The Kennerspiel goes to a game targeted more at board game enthusiasts — literally, Kennerspiel translates to ‘expert game.’ They’re still not overly complex or huge-box experiences that win this, but they are a bit heftier. I’ve enjoyed quite a few recently Kennerspiel-awarded games, like Wingspan (2019), Village (2012), the Exit series (2017) and many more. This year’s Kennerspiel went to The Crew, which has been a smash hit for me. It’s a cooperative trick-taking game, and it’s also a campaign game, and it’s also just far more fun to play than I ever thought it would be. It’s a really lovely concept, and I’d highly recommend checking it out. Oh, and it’s set in space. Did I mention that? I should have.
The Kinderspiel, as you’d imagine by the name, is aimed at children. As we don’t have children, this is not a category I’ve paid much attention to so far. It’s well worth looking at, though, if you’re interested.
Camping and board games
Last week on Instagram, I talked about looking for some good camping games, and Hive was top of my list. I now have evidence to back that thought up — I took it on a short, weekend-long camping trip, and it was every bit as good a camping game as I thought it would be. It's easy to clean, the pieces are big enough that you won't lose them, and it's an easy game to teach.⠀
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I think the next thing I’d like to think about in this way is garden games — we have a table out in the garden (you've probably seen my photos there) and I'd love to play out there more. Just, you know, once it's less than 100 degrees outside. I don't think I could sit out there for an hour and be happy about it. As a result, it may have to be something that waits until, say, September or so.
On a high level, what makes a game good for camping? I think there are two categories that matter here. On one hand, you want a game that’s nothing but chunky pieces — something easy to wash if necessary, and certainly something hard to lose. You don’t want to take, say, Agricola. That would be a disaster. Campers would be finding your animeeples for years.
The other type of game that I think would work well are small card games, especially if you either don’t care about the quality of the cards over time (maybe anything you can play with a deck of cards would be good), or if you have a nice tarp-blanket combination you can use to keep things mostly protected.
I also think there’s some space for roll-and-write games and casual RPGs in the mix — things that either use disposable components or no components at all.
Not a board game, but still super fun — Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town
So I’ve been playing a lot of Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town on the Nintendo Switch. You may have known it as one of the Harvest Moon games, which it is, but a name dispute means new Harvest Moon games are not that great. At any rate, it’s been really quite fun, and there’s something kind of board game-y about this sort of thing. You’re sort of building an engine when you build a thriving farm — harvest crops, sell crops, buy seeds, plant seeds, harvest crops, repeated ad nauseum — and doing some other things on the side to improve your experience.
When thinking about games that replicate this experience, I have nothing. There is very little that has that same addictive quality for me that the Story of Seasons games do. (Or, for that matter, Stardew Valley, or the Story of Seasons spinoff games, Rune Factory.) One game that has some similar ideas is Reykholt (and probably Gates of Loyang, which I’ve yet to play but do have sitting on my shelf, so maybe it’s time!), and maybe that’s largely because you grow vegetables and get progressively better at it, moving up a track along the way.
But I guess the big thing is that a game like this is kind of endless. Your goal isn’t to reach a determined point, or to beat some other player, or anything like that. It’s just to have a good farm, and to be a good farmer, and to form meaningful relationships, in the sense that you talk to people repeatedly and give them gifts in exchange for their favor. Can any board game replicate that feeling of incremental, sustained progress without an end goal? Should one? Is there a space that’s not being filled? Could there be a great solo or small-group, endless, low-impact board game that would be legitimately fun every time you play it? Inquiring minds want to know. (Or, in other words, please give me Gloomhaven: Story of Seasons. Thank you.)
A few other items
I got a copy of McCoy Tyner’s Sahara in the mail recently, and I listened while I wrote this issue of the newsletter. All Music describes it as “Post-Bop” and “Progressive Jazz,” so if this one turned out a little out there, that’s probably why. It’s very good, but it’s known as an innovative album for a reason.
The garden’s coming along nicely, and we’re eating squash with most meals. That’s healthy, right? (If you have any good recipes with squash, send them my way!)
I’ve made it to season three of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is no doubt bringing my wife a lot of joy. (We started the first season while it was on Amazon Prime, I think it was, and when it went away, so did the convenience for me. Now that it’s on Netflix, I’ve been very happy to watch again, and she’ll be happy to know that I admit I should have watched the DVDs while it wasn’t available for streaming.)
At any rate, I hope you’re all doing well and staying safe. If you like what I’m doing here, you might enjoy following me on Instagram. If you made it this far and you think somebody else might enjoy it, do forward it on to them (or send them a link, or use the share button below!) And finally, if you like the switch to Thursdays, or if you don’t, or if it doesn’t really matter to you, I’d love to hear from you on it. You can comment on this post on Substack, and I believe you can respond right from your inbox, if you’re so inclined.