| > In my opinion, any game that needs more than one type of "counter" token is probably overengineered. (Sorry, eurogames, I know this hurts your feelings.) You're missing out. I can think of two of my family's favourite games that break your rule, and my players are only seven years old. First would be Splendor (engine-building game with 5 different colors of tokens that you use to buy properties). Second would be Speicherstadt (two separate sets of tokens - 1 set that represent's the players Agents that you use to bid on contracts, shipments, and properties, and second is a set of color-coded tokens that arrive on shipments that you use to fulfill contracts). These games are incredibly simple and can be explained in a few minutes. Simpler than Catan's tedious set-up process and annoying edge-case rules. And, for an over-engineered game, I played Terraforming Mars recently. The textbook example of an overengineered game. You have tokens to track quantity and income of each resource, and there are a half-dozen resources. Add that to a board and shoebox of cards each with its own elaborate rules. It was a lot to take in first turn, but I have to say: this was the most fun I've had playing in a long time. Every card was a new exploration of the interaction of the rules, a new twist. The game was brilliantly designed in that the well-structured board meant that managing income and quantities of each resource was never ever tedious (unlike the wargames of my youth). I couldn't play that with my kids, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. To me, the game's only flaw was the map - I felt like the Map of Mars was almost an afterthought despite how it visually seemed to be the centre of the game. For the most part the map could have been replaced with a couple of extra score-tracks (which would be consistent since it already had a fistfull of score-tracks). |
Seriously, thanks!