Meeple Mountain

1 week ago | meeplemountain.com | Thomas Wells

I’ve never been too concerned with genre identification and generalization of mechanisms as a method of critique. Classification is too often a cudgel that ends up keeping people from trying things that they might actually like. I am guilty of this. For example, I have disliked just about every game that Stonemeier games has published. Scythe? Undone by too many book openings that sour the experience. Wingspan? It’s Race for the Galaxy, but 5 times as long and half as good. Apiary?

1 week ago | meeplemountain.com | Thomas Wells

Super Boss Monster is a tough game to review, mainly because I’ve gotten crusty. My tastes have gotten so oddly specific that when I encounter something that is clearly designed for the mass market rather than the nose-in-the-air critic, I am at a loss for words. So, I’m transporting myself back, imagining that I am myself from 8-10 years ago, a person who hasn’t played hundreds of tableau builders, zillions of take-that card games, and about a billion drafting games.

3 weeks ago | meeplemountain.com | Thomas Wells

I’m extraordinarily critical of games with deckbuilding as a central mechanic. Part of the reason for this is that I find it to be one of the least immersive mechanisms in gaming. Nothing is more mechanical than probabilistically cycling a deck of cards to get the right combinations to maximize a turn. The other reason is that it often pulls players away from each other, rather than drawing them together.

3 weeks ago | meeplemountain.com | Thomas Wells

I’ve come out against system games before. I think most of the time the system that’s being reused or sequel-ized usually isn’t robust enough to support continuous iteration. 18xx games, while popular and with more franchises than McDonald’s, don’t get better than 1849. COIN—imperialist propaganda pieces with eye-crossingly bad rulesets that don’t stand muster. Quartermaster General doesn’t really improve that much past the original. And don’t get me started on the Spans.

1 month ago | meeplemountain.com | Thomas Wells

Who would have thought that a game about a fishing village would be an effective argument for both the welfare state and, dare I say, the working class owning the means of production? That’s Nusfjord, the best Uwe Rosenberg game that you probably haven’t played (yet). Every round of Nusfjord begins with everyone bringing in their catch. Each player has a player board that you’ll cover with boat tiles as the game goes on. Each boat tile covers up numbers representing a haul size.