There are lots of ways to categorize board games, but an axis I care a
lot about is accessibility: how much of an investment is learning a
game? Race
For the Galaxy and
Power
Grid are great games, but I’d expect to spend 15+ min teaching
before we could play.
Set or
Anomia, though, I
could explain in a minute or two.
Games you can teach quickly are great in a casual context: people
wander over, and you can get them playing right away. And one of my
favorite casual games is Go.
If you know Go this is a surprising claim: we’re talking about one of
the deepest board games humans (and others?)
play. It’s famously complex, with two decades separating computers
surpassing humans in
chess and then in
Go. And yet, if you shrink the board to
where a game just takes a few minutes, it’s a great party game:
The rules of Go are very
simple, and it is only their interaction on a large board that
gives Go it’s depth. I can get someone playing on a 5x5 in a couple
minutes, and we’ll usually play a few quick games in a row. At this
scale people can draw strongly on their general purpose reasoning
while they’re building up their intuitive sense. Then I’ll
get them playing someone else who’s never played before. Once black
starts consistently winning on 5x5, we go to 7x7. And if someone
shows up who already knows how to play we can do 9x9.
The game does feel different at the smaller scale, with more focus on
capturing and less on territory, but the learning curve is
fantastically welcoming. I think the broader Go community has been
making a serious mistake in dismissing sizes below 9x9 as not worth
playing.
Mini Go: Gateway Game
Link post
There are lots of ways to categorize board games, but an axis I care a lot about is accessibility: how much of an investment is learning a game? Race For the Galaxy and Power Grid are great games, but I’d expect to spend 15+ min teaching before we could play. Set or Anomia, though, I could explain in a minute or two.
Games you can teach quickly are great in a casual context: people wander over, and you can get them playing right away. And one of my favorite casual games is Go.
If you know Go this is a surprising claim: we’re talking about one of the deepest board games humans (and others?) play. It’s famously complex, with two decades separating computers surpassing humans in chess and then in Go. And yet, if you shrink the board to where a game just takes a few minutes, it’s a great party game:
The rules of Go are very simple, and it is only their interaction on a large board that gives Go it’s depth. I can get someone playing on a 5x5 in a couple minutes, and we’ll usually play a few quick games in a row. At this scale people can draw strongly on their general purpose reasoning while they’re building up their intuitive sense. Then I’ll get them playing someone else who’s never played before. Once black starts consistently winning on 5x5, we go to 7x7. And if someone shows up who already knows how to play we can do 9x9.
The game does feel different at the smaller scale, with more focus on capturing and less on territory, but the learning curve is fantastically welcoming. I think the broader Go community has been making a serious mistake in dismissing sizes below 9x9 as not worth playing.