Original link: https://blog.codingnow.com/2023/09/boardgame_subdomain.html
All games played on a tabletop count as tabletop games. Almost everyone has played chess, Go, and poker. Excluding these traditional abstract games, I’ve been playing modern tabletop games for over a decade. In the past, it was played with friends, but in recent years, it has been played more with family (children). Contrary to what many people who don’t play modern tabletop games imagine, although electronic games were born out of tabletop games, tabletop games have not been eliminated. Instead, they are constantly being introduced, and many new masterpieces are released every year.
After playing board games for so many years, I discovered that board games can actually be divided into several subcategories. There are many players like me who play all kinds of board games, but a considerable number of them focus on a particular sub-category and have little interest in other types of board games. Sometimes, I vaguely feel that there are still chains of contempt between different subcategories.
When we talk about board games many times, we don’t mean the chess and cards that most people can play (chess, poker, mahjong, etc.). In fact, these are indeed very different from the board games played in board game stores. They have a long history and no longer have the protection of intellectual copyright. This type of chess and card games can be regarded as a large subcategory of tabletop games, namely abstract tabletop games. It can be said that everyone is a board game player. It may be difficult to find someone around you who has never played board games. But not all abstract games are ancient chess and card games. There are also many new games in recent years that are quite interesting. For example, my favorite Azul (Tile Story) is often played at home.
We can also classify board games specifically for children under 6 years old into another subcategory, children’s board games. If adults played these games, they would probably be boring because of the lack of challenge. When my child was young, I paid special attention to this type of game for a few years and wanted to play it with my child. If the child is too young, he will probably only be able to play physics games, knock bricks, build blocks, etc. Now that the baby is older, these games have long been put on the shelf. Some famous board games for adults sometimes cut out the rules and produce children’s versions: Catan, Carcassonne, and Stone Age all have children’s versions.
When your child gets older, there will be many games to choose from at home. These types of games are often labeled as family games. The other is a party game with a lively atmosphere when friends get together. On boardgamegeek , family games and party games are two major categories. I don’t think there is any need to separate. The popular Werewolf Killing, Three Kingdoms Killing, Script Killing and other killing series are typical party games. The dice game in the bar (which is also an abstract game) is also the most popular of these games. Speaking of human-killing games, my favorite is Resistance: Avalon. It has strict rules and is quite strategic to play.
Another large subgenre is (card) building games. The most famous one is Magic: The Gathering. This type of game usually requires players to collect cards outside of the game (purchase), build their own card library, and then play the game against their opponents. There are also some that are not played against opponents, but are solo or cooperative in nature. It may not be in the form of cards, like the Warhammer series, which requires players to collect a large number of army models outside the game. This type of game is quite deep, and a single game can be played for several years or even more than ten years.
Another niche group is war games. It usually includes a designed map, abstract chess pieces for deduction, and a set of deduction rules. A turn-based war simulation. It is now even used in real wars, not just in board games. Wargames are complicated to play and difficult to get into. If board games have a chain of contempt, this is the top of the chain. There are also some lightweight improvements to war games, such as Battle Lore, which I really like.
The board game closest to most computer games is RPG. In order to distinguish it from computer games, games played on the desktop are now usually called TRPGs. This kind of game often revolves around a story theme, and players design rules according to the story background and play the roles in the story. This type of player calls playing games group running. But I think there are many board games that could also fall into this subcategory. For example, the legacy version of Plague Crisis can also be played by a group of people for a long time (it can be played for more than ten consecutive games, lasting several months); in recent years, there have been themes such as Arkham Horror that teams can play together. Games can also fall into this category.
What remains is a wide variety of strategy board games. Some people also call them German board games, European board games, etc. Their characteristic is that a single game can last from tens of minutes to several hours. Each game is independent of each other and requires the use of strategy to play. Most of them are confrontational games, where there are winners and losers among the participating players. There are also some games that are collaborative in nature and work together to achieve goals. If you don’t want to deal with people, or can’t find friends to play with, there are also many games designed with a single-player mode, so that one person can challenge the system. Regarding this part of board games, there are various categories, and we can subdivide them into more categories below. Let’s wait until next time to talk about the game mechanics of board games.
This article is reproduced from: https://blog.codingnow.com/2023/09/boardgame_subdomain.html
This site is only for collection, and the copyright belongs to the original author.