| As someone who has been playing these kinds of games for 25+ years I have to disagree. Complex games always existed. They're just becoming more mainstream. This is understandable. Boardgamers tend to fall into one of three camps: 1. The "let's see what happens" crowd. This group tends like to like games with a significant luck element. It includes coop type games that I tend to describe as "group vs deck" games. 2. The "social gamer". There is a strong social aspect in any boardgaming but for some it's clearly a priority. This group will favour lighter games and may not tend to play optimally or think too deeply about strategy. 3. The "board gamers". While this can still be social, this group tends to be more focused on the play and will try and optimize strategy. So what's really happened in the last 20+ years is that group (3) has grown quite a lot. So-called "gateway games" 9eg Catan) were probably a huge factor in this. A natural consequence for this is that people develop an appetite for complexity. It starts to become much easier to absorb the complexity of these games. For example, I've played probably half the games on this list and I would say that none of them are "heavy". There are a couple of "medium-to-heavy" but it can get much heavier than this. As an aside, of the group Great Western Trail is my current favourite. Mombasa (by the same designer) never really grabbed me. It just seems a bit too abstract (eg by playing bananas you may get to move armies around. Or not). To your last comment, I've played games that have a typical playing time of 4+ hours. 90 minutes is definitely in the medium (and maybe medium to heavy) camp. |