The entertainment industry has faced several crises over the past few years. First came the pandemic, which broke the usual workflows, because of which many game releases were postponed immediately for a year, or even two.
It seems that now is the time to pay attention to board games. These kinds of games are developing games. While we wait for a calmer era to come, we tell you why boxes of cards, chips and figurines can temporarily replace detective quests, epic strategies and even fighting games. And at the same time we will warn you what dangers await those who decide to plunge into this wonderful hobby with their heads.
Benefits of board games
Modern board games bear little resemblance to those that existed 10-15 years ago. The development of the market, the increased quality of production and the emergence of new talented game designers made it possible to turn a fairly niche hobby into a big industry with its own genres, stars, awards and fans.
For example, one of the latest trends is games that, in addition to physical components, use applications on PC and mobile devices. In this case, the main events unfold on a table with figurines and cards, but the software simplifies the rules, helps you keep count or get new stories – without having to print them on paper every time.
In general, now the board game market offers the widest variety of genres. There are short puzzles for 10-30 minutes (Codenames, “Crackers”), and large-scale strategies with parties of 3-5 hours (“Twilight of the Empire”), and atmospheric cooperative adventures, the plots of which are interesting to discuss even after a few days (“Horror Arkham”, “Nemesis”). Everyone can choose a game for every taste – regardless of the amount of free time, budget and number of participants.
Scalability.
Another reason to love modern board games is the great scalability and the ability to play in any composition. Often parties allow the participation of two, three, four or even six participants (Ancient Horror, Game of Thrones), and especially caring designers provide an option for singles (Star Wars: The Outer Rim, Spirit Island). At the same time, the rules and complexity, depending on the number of players, do not change much or do not change at all. You can play the story campaign today with a friend, and tomorrow with a team of friends.
Of course, there are exceptions. Some games that use hidden information (Star Wars: Uprising) cannot be played alone, and duel hits (War of the Ring) cannot be played that way. Some strategies like “Roots” are formally designed for any number of players, but still reveal themselves to the full only with a large number of participants.
Home Rule.
Board games, like video games, often have difficulty levels. As a rule, you can strengthen the heroes, weaken the villains, or speed up the passage. However, if in some Dark Souls it is impossible to get around some restrictions, then in the world of board games there is a so-called home rule – the ability to change the rules yourself as you please. So the same problems with scalability are not a reason to be upset.
Home rule is different: they add bots to the game, create story scenarios, remove some boring optional rules, and so on. It all depends on the imagination and skills of the players – there are no restrictions, except perhaps damage to the game components.
Homerolling is completely optional, but often it is not only fun, but also useful. By changing the rules, you begin to understand game design and analyze how any game works in general. Also, analysis and adaptation of the rules help to understand yourself, which is why you constantly ask yourself questions. Why do I like this type of game? How can you make them better? The answers to these questions allow you to better understand your own preferences and spend money wisely.
And the world of board games has a real niche of mods in the form of fan-made rules and applications. At the same time, all this is distributed for free, so if you are too lazy to think for yourself, you can always find a new set of rules on the forums, which a crowd of fans has already managed to test.