This blog entry will cover the first three genres and next week the final four. So let’s get right into it.
Area Control
Area control games are ones in which you want to control as much of the board as possible to win. The game that fits this description the best is the popular and well known Risk; take over the world and eliminate your opponents. However, the game that we like to introduce people to in this genre is Breaking Games Rise of Tribes.
This is the description from the publisher:
In Rise of Tribes, players control a tribal faction in prehistoric times looking to GROW, MOVE, GATHER, and LEAD their people. The board is modular, composed of hexes in various terrain types. Each hex has a population limit. Players manage the number of tribe members they place on any one hex to either trigger or avoid conflict.
Each turn the active player rolls two dice, then selects two of the four actions to take - GROW, MOVE, GATHER, and/or LEAD. Each action is resolved one action at a time. The power of each action taken depends on the die roll plus the last couple of dice placed onto the action board on the selected action by other players. Once both actions are taken, the active player resolves any Conflicts. The final step of each turn is the time to build villages and complete goal cards.
Victory is possible in a couple ways: gathering resources to build villages and/or completing development and achievement goal cards for your civilization. Villages (limited to 1 per hex) score 1 point for the tribe that built them at the start of that tribe's turn. Goal cards will score points immediately when completed. Every tribe's ambition is to score 15 points. The tribe to score 15 points first wins the game.
We really enjoy this game because it not about total domination and ruling “the world” but you have certain objectives for you to reach to help you gain the 15 points needed for victory. The basic game is fun enough to play to get people hooked but if you are wanting more of a challenge, lo and behold, there is advanced rules and additional content to help step-up the game to the next level. I feel this game gets overlooked a lot because it is a lighter weight game (2.16/5 on BoardGameGeek).
Cooperative
Thanks to Covid-19, couples and families that did not normally play games together are now using board games as a way to help combat being couped up together for long periods of time. For those that are not into competitive play where one person is declared a winner, cooperative games pick up the slack. There are a bunch of different games in the market right now that fit this category of play but not many, I feel, are simple enough to be classified as an introductory game.
Our go-to cooperative game is actually one that most other people would recommend for most non-gamers to start with, Forbidden Island by Gamewright. There are actually three games currently in this series and with each one building upon the previous increasing the complexity level.
In Forbidden Island each player (adventurer) has a different role to assist with winning the game. The difficulty level of the game increases with more players which actually creates a faster game time plus having extra help from the different adventurers abilities as always a plus.
Here is what Gamewright says about the game:
Dare to discover Forbidden Island! Join a team of fearless adventurers on a do-or-die mission to capture four sacred treasures from the ruins of this perilous paradise. Your team will have to work together and make some pulse-pounding maneuvers, as the island will sink beneath every step! Race to collect the treasures and make a triumphant escape before you are swallowed into the watery abyss!
The Forbidden series is a must-have for every game collection. We enjoy it and hope you will too.
Deck-Building
The last genre to discuss today is deck building. The fourth entry in this blog covered the “grand daddy” deck builder game Dominion. Which is a great game to introduce people to for this genre but it is not our go-to game. Before I disclose our game of choice I want to fill you in on the back story of how we got introduced to it.
Back in pre-pandemic days (okay so it was only in 2019) my wife and I made a trip to Utah for my friends’ wedding with a 1 month old child in tow. Since I lived in Utah for many years and it was the first time I had been back since moving back to the Pacific Northwest, our free time was spent visiting my favorite local gaming store and seeing some friends. I had gotten a hold of one friend and we met at the store with his family so I could show of my wife and child to everyone (yes, geeks do get married and have families), catch up on how things are going, and to play a game.
Now normally we would play Magic: the Gathering but instead they had brought with them a game that I had never played before. On that wonderful afternoon, we all played this deck building adventure game and before we left the store, we owned our own personal copy of it.
I have to add this…. Support your favorite FLGS whenever possible even if it is a 12 hour drive away from home.
What was I saying?? Oh yeah, the game. The game was Clank! In! Space! by Renegade Games. It is one that fits many different categories of games so this is why we picked it. Because you have a character that moves around a board collecting things and then trying to escape before being killed by a “bad guy,” it incorporates many aspects of board gaming we like. We do own the original Clank! which is the dungeon crawler version but do enjoy the space themed version for introducing other people this type of game. For your reference Clank! In! Space! is weighted at 2.53/5 and Clank! is 2.21/5 on Board Game Geek.
Coming next week….
Next week I will talk about the last four genres from the Whatnerd.com list.
• Eurogame
• Legacy
• Social Deduction
• Worker Placement
So until then… Happy Gaming!!!!
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