An Overview of Board Games

Board Games are generally split into three major categories heavy, medium, and light 'weight' games with two minor categories medium-heavy and light-medium for more subtle categorization. These weight classes, which  are oddly similar to boxing weight-classes, are determined by three major aspects, length, difficulty, and complexity. The longer, more difficult, or more complex a game is the higher along the weight track it settles. This is generally what you look at to determine, at a glance, if you and your gaming group will enjoy a game. Some groups like long games, others short and simple, and everything in-between.

After the general 'weight' of a game is determined then a games key mechanic, or game-play type, is defined to narrow down the game to a final pretty specific position. Some mechanics which I'll explain in more detail in future posts include, worker placement, area control, bluffing, etc. So for example a game like Ticket to Ride is firmly in the light weight category, taking roughly an hour to play, with very simple player actions and rules. It's three key mechanics include hand management due to objective cards, route networking represented by laying train carts along routes on the board and finally set collection as you try to collect certain numbers of specific colors of cards to lay those colored tracks. And that is how you classify a board game.

This brief overview will be useful as I talk about games and make references to some of the terms above while introducing and describing new ones. I'll end this post with a quick review of Ticket to Ride as template for how future posts will generally read.

Ticket to Ride 

Ticket to Ride is one of the few things that could aptly be described as an instant classic, a term so overused it's a wonder anythings cultural impact is ever really determined, but Ticket to Ride earns the title as it firmly establishing an entirely new baseline for what games can and should be. For anyone whose experience with board games began and ended with games like Monopoly, Candy Land, Life, etc. Ticket to Ride is such an approachable, elegantly designed, and wonderfully enjoyable experience you'll curse the names of those so called 'classic' board games. Ticket to Ride is a perfect game to introduce to non-gamers and experienced gamers alike. Player Interactions are less confrontational and everyone's goals are slightly different so antagonism is kept to the minimum.

The game revolves around collecting different colored cards that allow you to lay tracks of the same color. You lay these tracks in conjunction with your destination cards that show you which cities on the map you need to connect. Connect all your destination cards and you can risk drawing more, a risk because if you do not complete them the score they would have afforded you will be deducted from your total. At the end you are scored for number tracks laid, longest continuous route, and most destination cards completed. And that's all there is to it, Ticket to Ride takes mere minutes to explain and is so quick to play and simple to understand I can't imagine someone having a bad experience as long as everyone is playing correctly.