2006.10.06
So, what’s your favourite board game?
Inevitably, when someone finds out that board games are one of my hobbies, they will ask me the question. “So, what’s your favourite board game?” My usual reply is a single word. “Ingenious.”
The most common reaction to my answer is surprise and curiosity. This is most likely because most people in North America don’t realize that there are hundreds of board and card games that will never grace the shelves of their local Wal*Mart or Toys ‘R’ Us. Their experience with board games is likely to be limited to mass-marketed games like Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble, and widely popular abstract games like Checkers and Chess.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not necessarily as bad a thing as it seems. I view it as a good opening to describe briefly the rules of the game and a bit about why I like it so much.
There are also lots of jumping off points with a game like Ingenious – from there the discussion can wander into the broader territory of Eurogames, or what the Spiel des Jahres is, or who Dr. Reiner Knizia is. In my experience, people are a little surprised to learn that things aren’t quite the same in Germany as they are here in North America when it comes to board games. So from that perspective, Ingenious is already a good game – at least as a topic of discussion.
But the same things could be said about games like Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan. I’ve never considered either of those to be my favourites, though. Here’s why Ingenious wins with me:
- The rules are very simple – people can learn them in 5 minutes or less. The only potential sticking point tends to be the details of counting the score for a tile, and even that is relatively easy to teach to someone.
- There’s no way to be knocked out of the game.
- It’s playable in an hour, even with new players learning the rules.
- It’s possible to play a very non-confrontational style and still enjoy the game with newer players.
- It’s possible to play a very ruthless style with more experienced players, and still everyone can enjoy the game.
- Its apparent similarities to domino-based games and games like Scrabble makes people more comfortable with trying the game, even though it probably isn’t as similar to those games as it first appears.
- It has a good balance of strategy, tactics, and luck for a casual game.
- It’s quite possible to socialize while playing the game, since the strategic depth doesn’t require intense focus, and the board state isn’t difficult to analyze.
It also has a distinction that very few games in my collection can claim: it passes the coworker test. It’s one of the games I can bring to work and I rarely have trouble finding three other people willing to play over lunch hour. In fact, I can recall a few days when I had 5 or 6 people wanting to play. And these coworkers are all over the map demographically, so Ingenious obviously has broad appeal.
There are many other games I enjoy immensely, but Ingenious has never failed to be fun, even with wide-ranging demographic groups and people who don’t consider themselves to be board gamers. I can play it with almost anyone and have a good time. And, since gaming is all about socializing for me, it gets top marks for that alone.
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