Friday Filler: Board Games in 100 Moves

Another year and another bumper crop of board games as 2019 continues the trend of seeing the release of ever more board game titles and playing board games becomes firmly cemented as a hobby that everyone can enjoy. 2019 was also a good year for books about boardgames too, including The Board Game Book: The essential guide to the best new games, a retrospective of the last two years’ worth of games and Meeples Together: How and Why Cooperative Board Games Work, a detailed examination of board games in which the players work together to defeat the game. Joining them is a much broader examination of the board game, an examination which takes in eight thousand years of playing games from the ancient world to today’s golden age of meeples, co-operation, legacy change through play, thematic play, superb production values, and fantastic designs—all of which have come about in the last three decades. That book is Board Games in 100 Moves.

Published by Dorling Kindersley—a publisher known for the quality of its illustrated reference works, so the quality of the book is certain to be good, Board Games in 100 Moves is written by two stalwarts of the British hobby games industry, James Wallis, designer of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Alas Vegas and Ian Livingstone, co-founder of Games Workshop and co-creator of the Fighting Fantasy series amongst many other things. Both are avid board game players and collectors and in their time have played thousands of games. Together they take the reader through eight thousand years of games and six ages of game design, all in exactly one hundred games.

From the start, almost like the rules to every good board game should, Board Games in 100 Moves explains its set-up. Both authors introduce their love of board games and explain the book’s premise, how it is organised, preparing the reader for the grand tour that is come. It sets out what the one hundred board games of its title are—from Senet in 3100 BCE, the Royal Game of Ur in 2600 BCE, and Hounds and Jackals in 2000 BCE to Beasts of Balance and Sushi Go Party! in 2016, and The Mind in 2019. Along the way it lists classics like Chess and Backgammon, playing cards and Pachisi, surprises such as Kriegsspiel and Suffragetto, stalwarts such as Scrabble and Monopoly, children’s designs like Mouse Trap! and Connect 4, it touches upon roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons, before coming up to date with modern designs like Settlers of Catan, Pandemic, and Codenames.

The first four ages of Board Games in 100 Moves are ages of materials—wood and stone, paper and print, cardboard, and plastic—and examine how those materials changed the look and feel of the games as much as it examines the games themselves. In ‘Wood and Stone’ it looks at the oldest game that we know of, Senet, noting that the Pharaohs were fans of the Egyptian game of passing and that the game had spiritual significance in that passing also referred to moving into the afterlife and then it looks at the first game that we have rules for, the Royal Game of Ur. What is fascinating here is how the rules were rediscovered. Other games examined in this period are ones that we would recognise today—Go, Pachisi (better known by its modern variants, Ludo and Parcheesi), the many variants of Men’s Morris (originally a game spread by the Romans across their empire), Backgammon, and of course, Chess.

A common feature of these games is that often being made from stone or wooden, there is a certain permanence to them, but in the age of paper and print, games became colourful and complex, yet easy to transport and teach. This is when playing cards evolved from tarot cards and the first printed board games appear, such as the Royal Game of the Goose. The nature of games changed again towards the end of this period when they set out to be instructional and educational, as with A Journey Through Europe, before the age of cardboard heralded the arrival of games about campaign, first military battles, but then political ones two. So this examines Kriegsspiel, the wargame designed to teach Prussian officers military tactics and The Game of Suffragette, published to promote the cause for female emancipation, before mentioning some of the actual games as propaganda published before and during World War 2. Here it does not shy away from some of the more reprehensible and unpleasant game designs of the period. 

Unsurprisingly, Monopoly and its origins as a game completely counter to its big business theme, is highlighted before we come to the age of plastic. This period is likely to be the one that the older board game player—and certainly the authors—will be most familiar with as it is when they first played games. So Mouse Trap!, Scrabble, Connect 4, Twister, and both Risk and Diplomacy, but as Board Games in 100 Moves into the age of imagination with publication of Dungeons & Dragons and the rise of the Eurogame, there is a sense of the foundations being laid for where we are now, in an age of imagination, of Eurogames like Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan, and exploring a future of co-operation, of a global hobby with board games from Japan like Machi Koro and from the Czech Republic like Codenames, and digitalisation. Although one hundred games might lie at the heart of Board Games in 100 Moves, along the way, the book looks at more than that single hundred, not necessarily in the depth and detail accorded its singular hundred, but enough to intrigue and wonder about finding out more (or in some cases, rejecting out of hand).

This being a book from Dorling Kindersley, is very nicely laid out with hundreds of illustrations which showcase the changing look and design of board games throughout history as much as the words explore their impact and design. It even comes with an excellent index and buried deep in the back of the book there is a bibliography for the reader who wants to explore the hobby a little more as well as play the many games listed within the pages of Board Games in 100 Moves.

It should be no surprise that Board Games in 100 Moves gives a somewhat Anglocentric history of its subject matter. After all, the format that it is inspired by—A History of the World in 100 Objects—and its authors are all British. This in part also explains the attention paid to Games Workshop and Warhammer, although their inclusion in this history is certainly warranted and certainly does not detract from the inclusion of games from all over the world. Where Board Games in 100 Moves differs from A History of the World in 100 Objects is that it is not a look at a hundred specific games or objects—anyone wanting that should be directed to Green Ronin Publishing’s Hobby Games: The 100 Best or Family Games: The 100 Best—for many of the games listed at the book’s start are never mentioned again. (Which possibly means that there is a scope for a book which examines each title on that list in turn.) Instead Board Games in 100 Moves is a hundred moves through history of organised play, an examination of the importance and impact, the enjoyment and effect, of board games.

Board Games in 100 Moves is an interesting and informative introduction to the history of board games, an examination a hundred—and more—board games you may or have not heard of, and might want to play. For the board game fan, this book is a must, whilst for the roleplayer, this book is still of interest because of the many ways in which the two hobbies overlap each other, but either way, Board Games in 100 Moves is an attractive and enjoyable read from start to finish. One that fans of tabletop games of all types will find interesting.

Boardgame Bonanza

Published by Clyde & Cart Press following a successful Kickstarter campaign, The Board Game Book: The essential guide to the best new games is a new publication dedicated to showcasing the best that the tabletop gaming has to offer, primarily in terms of board games and card games, but also with a nod to roleplaying games and miniatures wargames. Every entry gets a page of its very own—if not three or four—containing a write-up, an interview (though not all), and lots of gorgeous photographs. There are almost one-hundred-and-forty entries in this book, covering the years 2017 and 2018, and all penned by a professional team of writers.  

The Board Game Book opens with two sections designed for those new to the hobby. The first is a potted history of tabletop gaming, somewhat slight in comparison to other treatments and in need of a slight reorganisation. That said, if you are new to the hobby, it is informative and it does lay the groundwork for the rest of the book. The second section, actually the first chapter, is titled ‘Get Into Gaming’ and describes almost thirty games, from Ticket to Ride and Machi Koro to Santorini and Takenoko, many of them considered classics, but all considered to be good first games to play. Then, it delves deep into the board games of the last two years, first with ‘Family, Casual and Party Games’, and then chapters dedicated to games of increasingly complex strategy. 

Every entry follows the same format which informs the reader of the game’s designers and artists, its category, the number of players it supports, playing time, suggested playing age, and price in both pounds sterling and US dollars. This is followed by a review and then an interview with the designers, both half a page in length. The reviews are quite light and positive, but give a good idea what playing each game is like and what their good and bad points are, but again mostly good. The interviews are also quite light, but are in a way more informative because in general many of the interviewees in the pages of The Board Game Book are not interviewed all that often. What is clear from these interviews is that some designers are prolific and have multiple entries and thus interviews, for example Matt Leacock with the entries from the Pandemic family and Matt Wallace with games such as Brass Birmingham and Wildlands, and that the designers come from around the world, though many are from Germany and Italy, and that being a game designer is not solely a male preserve. Of course they dominate the hobby, but there is still diversity on show here, whether it is the husband and team of Inka and Markus Brand behind Word Slam and EXIT: The Game or Nikki Valens, the queer and non-binary designer of Legacy of Dragonholt. Hopefully this is only a start and a greater diversity will be reflected in subsequent issues of The Board Game Book.

Not every entry in The Board Game Book benefits from an interview, but as the book progresses through its chapters, the entries grow in size to match the complexities of the games being described, both in terms of both the review and the interview. This is not always successful, as some entries do feel padded out in comparison to their content—the review of Crystal Clans is a noted offender here—but for the most part, the longer, more complex games deserve the greater page count.

The chapter on Storytelling Games such as Fog of Love and Stuffed Fables nicely dovetails into the chapter on Roleplaying Games. Sadly though, both roleplaying games and miniature wargames in the next chapter only receive a slight treatment in The Board Game Book in comparison, just a titles for each in comparison to the number of boardgames covered in the book. Now, obviously this is The Board Game Book and so board games are its focus, but really in covering just Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World, Star Trek Adventures: The Roleplaying Game, and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition, it all feels rather obvious, with the exception of the interesting inclusion of Star Crossed, the roleplaying game of unlikely romances from Bully Pulpit Games. Worse, the coverage of Indy style roleplaying games is more photographs than content and feels like an afterthought.

It is possible that titles like the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set, Art & Arcana: A Visual History , RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, Masks of Nyarlathotep: Dark Schemes Herald the End of the World, and Prince Valiant: The Storytelling Game were all released after the deadline for inclusion in The Board Game Book, but the renaissance of Chaosium, Inc. would have been worthy of inclusion as would the best horror roleplaying game supplement of the last two years, Harlem Unbound: A Sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu and Gumshoe Roleplaying Games. Another issue is that roleplaying games are not treated in the same way as the board games in the book. They do not get the same listing of information at the start of their entries as do board games. The chapter on wargames is likewise brief and suffers from the same lack of information as well as being dominated by entries from Games Workshop.

Rounding out The Board Game Book is a listing of some twenty or board games which have been adapted to apps. This is useful because it provides another easy way into the hobby, enabling players to pick and choose games at home, trying them before investing in physical copies. That and a decent glossary nicely bookend the ‘Get Into Gaming’ chapter at the start of the book, helping prospective players get a start in the hobby.

Physically, the presentation of The Board Game Book is crisp, clean, and highly professional. There is almost a foodie cookbook-like quality to The Board Game Book in its efforts to present each and every game in lovely detail, to make each and every game look intriguing and eye-catching. This book is simply pretty. The presentation extends to the text too, with nice use of colour for the interviews. The book could do with an edit here and there, but is otherwise very readable.

The Board Game Book does several things. First, as an ‘annual’—a once-a-year publication—it serves as a snapshot of the tabletop gaming hobby in 2019. Second, as a showcase, it shows off the best of the games which have been released in the last year in a bright, easily accessible form. Third, it serves as a coffee table book that you, a friend, or a member of your family can browse to get some idea of what the games look like and just a little of what the hobby is like rather than a collection of boxes. Fourth, it serves as a reference guide, though one given more to breadth rather than depth, and fifth, it works as a catalogue of games to try, no matter whether you are new to the hobby or are a veteran.

At its best when focusing on board games and thus living up to its title, The Board Game Book: The essential guide to the best new games is an attractive introduction to the tabletop gaming hobby, one that illustrates the best of hobby in 2019 for those new to it and those who are old hands. It deserves to sit alongside your games collection whether you are just starting out or already have shelves full of games.