Blog Archives
Anti-Fun
There’s one word I try to never use when writing about board games. The F-word. No, not that one. “Fun.” There it is. My critical curse word.
Today I want to talk about why “fun” isn’t an especially useful word — and more than that, why it can be misleading or even counterproductive when discussing board games as cultural artifacts. Along the way, I want to propose some alternatives. Nay, some improvements.
Talking About Games: To Talk or Not
Three months ago, I encountered perhaps the worst board game I’ve ever played. This thing was truly non-functional, less coherent than almost any prototype that gets sent my way, a misbegotten experiment in game timers and open-ended negotiation. Worse, it was supposedly a game “about” something, the passage of time and the rise and fall of civilizations, the way societies are imprinted by their leaders. Surprise surprise, even those concepts were fumbled.
I’m never going to write about it.
Maybe that isn’t what you expected. Space-Biff! features a number of negative reviews. Some of them are scathing. Quite often, I’ve been told that it’s the inclusion of negative coverage that makes my site come across as trustworthy. So why wouldn’t I take this particular game down a peg?
In the interests of transparency, but also hopefully some good old-fashioned uncommon sense, today I’m going to talk about my thought process for what gets covered — and what doesn’t.
Talking About Games: One Billion Biases
Bias. It’s a scary word, huh? We all have biases, but never as many as other people. Or is that also a bias?
Surprising nobody, reviewing a hundred-something board games a year leads to regular accusations of bias. “Oh, you only liked this game because you’re so handsome,” they’ll say. “Oh, you only liked this game because all the ladies write romance novels in which you’re plainly the author-insert character’s love interest. But you’re so coy. You play with your food. Not because you’re emotionally neglectful, oh no. Because of your dark past. Because you were mistreated and thus mistreat others. She can fix you. She will fix you. Anticipation shudders down the novel’s spine.”
Yes, it’s a difficult life I lead. But I bear the burden gladly. So let’s talk frankly about bias. What it is, why it is, and how it impacts every review, mine included.
Talking About Games: Excavating Memory
There’s a phrase we use in English, one meant to strike upon its hearer the importance of a topic or the need to keep an atrocity close at heart for fear of its repetition. You’ve heard it before, cast in somber and memorializing tones: “Lest we forget.” The irony, of course, is that we’re a fastidiously forgetful species. We forget things all the time. As a defense mechanism, forgetfulness is unrivaled. In the rare occasion that we don’t forget, we do our damnedest to afflict ourselves with collective amnesia. Lest we recall.
John Clowdus’s history trilogy plays like variations on a theme. Its three titles, Neolithic, Bronze Age, and The Middle Ages, are mechanically similar. They’re all about excavating cards from a deck and then using those cards to build toward a brighter future.
They also express something deeper: cultural memory, in all its complexity and simplicity.
Talking About Games: Narrative & Exposition
One of my favorite questions to ask fellow historians is “When did the Roman Empire fall?” Not because I have a firm answer — it’s a harder question than you might think — but because our answers say a lot about how we conceptualize historical narratives. It’s easiest to respond with a year. Say, 410 or 476. If we remember Constantinople, maybe 1453. A conclusive final chapter. The end of an era. The opposing answer is that Rome didn’t fall so much as transition; that the Merovingian and Carolingian kings who fancied themselves emperors had no less of a claim than the string of weaklings who had ruled the Empire for centuries. This narrative is more meandering, but still, in its own way, unsatisfying.
And then there’s the answer that one aging professor offered in a course many years ago: “Why are you asking when something imaginary ended?”
I spent a good two years trying to figure out what that meant.
Talking About Games: The Price Is Wrong
Is a game worth its asking price? The question comes up so often that I’d be surprised to hear that this isn’t also true for other reviewers and critics. Most recently, two reviews in particular drew a lot of attention: Radlands from Roxley Games and The Shores of Tripoli from Fort Circle Games. Both are beautiful titles with noteworthy production values. Both are also shorter games, which understandably raises questions about their longevity. And of course, both are priced toward the high end. Hence the questions.
I get it. When I’m curious about a new game, what do I do? I check to see if anybody’s reviewed it. That’s why I spent years happily fielding these types of questions. Isn’t that what a review is for?
More recently, my policy has shifted. Now I refuse to answer questions about price. For today’s Talking About Games, I want to discuss why that is — and why other reviewers and critics might consider the same.
Infamous Company
Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Cole and Drew Wehrle and Travis Hill for a (digital) play of the latest build of John Company’s second edition. I’m not prepared to discuss any details; the game isn’t finished, and anyway the version I played was a departure from the build Cole had shown before, even among playtesters. Drew and Travis were as unprepared as I was for what happened over the next two hours.
But with both John Company and An Infamous Traffic soon to receive new editions — and given Cole’s tendency to revisit the statements made by his work, as discussed in my examination of Pax Pamir’s two editions — this seems like a good time to sit down and crystallize a few thoughts about what his games argue and how they argue it.
Talking About Games: Scope & Relevance
Let’s begin with a question. Imagine two different board game settings. The first is a goofball portrayal of piracy, complete with silly names, outrageous violence, and plenty of plunder. The second is a goofball portrayal of colonialism, complete with silly names, outrageous violence, and plenty of plunder.
Which bothers you more?
Talking About Games: Subjecting Subjectivity
You’ve heard the refrain before. “Stay objective.” “Keep politics out of it.” “I just want to hear how the game works.”
Fine, you caught me! Nothing gets past you. Those are three refrains, not one. Except… aren’t they the same thing? All three complaints ultimately come down to a single expectation, that game reviews should conform to some sort of master code, a Strunk & White’s Elements of Style to gather all forms of criticism, bring them together, and in the darkness bind them. Objectivity all over again.
I know what you’re thinking. Haven’t we been here before? True, a few installments back I talked about objectivity and subjectivity. But that was principally about defining those two terms and examining how they sometimes bleed into each other thanks to some complicated linguistic history. Today, I want to travel in a different direction by talking about some of the advantages of subjectivity. Namely, why is it better for everyone when our game critiques are as subjective as possible?
SPACE-BIFF! 