Friday Night Shots – Disliking Popular Games

As the rain continues to fall here in Vancouver (though at the time of writing, it’s actually not at the moment!), it’s incredibly nice of you to come visit and spend a little time at the bar catching up and discussing board games with me.

It really means a lot to me.

It’s the weekend!

Have a seat at the bar and let me pour you a libation of your choice.

We have beer and…beer.

Oh, wait, we have some non-alcoholic stuff as well.

Let me just turn down the jukebox. I don’t really know how that Limp Bizkit cover band material got on there.

I should have a talk with the technician tomorrow.

Anyway, let’s talk about a subject near and dear to my heart (mainly because I just thought of it).

Disliking popular games!

Actually, I kind of lied. I didn’t just think of this topic. I was going to do a post about disliking games in the Top 100 on BGG, but it just never grabbed me.

But yesterday’s review of the Dominion app (by the wonderful Temple Gates Games) reminded me that I didn’t need to limit my “meh” attitude to the Top 100 games.

I could just include popular games in general!

I began my review of the app by saying that I’ve never really been a fan of the deckbuilding game Dominion.

I’m sure there were gasps of horror when I said that.

I know, right?

Part of it was that I just never really got how to play the game well, and there are so many players who are so good at it. You have to balance getting VP cards into your deck because those are how you win the game with actually building a deck that works (since VP cards don’t actually do anything and are worthless in your hand).

I’ve never been good at that kind of thing.

And Dominion had so many expansions and different cards, and different types of cards, that it just kind of froze my mind.

I actually had a similar feeling about Race for the Galaxy (not about building a deck, but about building an empire) in that the couple of times I played it on the table, I just didn’t really care for it that much.

For Race, it was more just how to build your empire, trying to maximize the actions that you and the other players take, and the iconography kind of turned me off a bit (not that it’s bad, but that it was hard to internalize what it all meant).

The Temple Gates app version of the game cured me of some of that, though it will never be a favourite game of mine like it is for some people.

(Maybe I should have titled this post “Games I Didn’t Really Care for Until Temple Gates Got Their Hands on Them”?).

Let’s get away from them, though, and talk about some other popular games that just kind of leave me cold.

We’ve already breached the BGG Top 100 games with Race (#76), so how about going for the big boys and talking briefly about Gaia Project (#12)?

I’ve played this game once, and a few times asynchronously on the app, and I’ve just bounced off the game so hard.

I should probably try it again to see if my strong dislike of Terra Mystica (#26 so another Top 100!) really carries over to it (Gaia is supposed to have some advantages over Terra Mystica that make it better), but I just didn’t get it in my first play.

I had no idea what I was doing, and I’m not a novice gamer. I’ve picked up some pretty heavy games and enjoyed them (even if I didn’t do too well at them).

But this one just left me really cold.

Maybe not that cold…but close.

Then there’s Puerto Rico (#43), which is a game that I have never liked.

It’s way too dependent on the quality of the other players, and I’m the one who you want to sit next to because I’m not a quality player!

I used to play the app some, and I’ve played it on BGA a few times, but have only played it on the table once.

Once was enough, though.

Yes, the action selection system is nice, where you choose an action and everybody gets to do that action but you get to do it a little better.

But for me it’s just not enough.

This game just turns me off when I even think of playing it.

And that’s not because of the colonialism aspect either (though that doesn’t help).

Rounding out the Top 100 as far as games which I’ve rated below a 7 (which is how I’ve ended up doing this post) is Caverna: the Cave Farmers (#44), another Uwe Rosenberg “build up a farm and feed your people” game, which I mostly bounce off of because I don’t want to feed my people!

Let them starve!

No, really, it’s just I find these games very limiting and I just can’t wrap my head around how to do things efficiently.

I’m not saying they’re bad games!

Just not for me.

I like this one more than I would like Agricola (I say I’ve never played that one, but I have played the app and asynchronously on various online platforms) because there are more feeding options that will avoid giving you penalty points.

But I still find it very inhibiting and hard to build my engine.

I won’t avoid this one like I will others, but it’s not something that I will ever seek out.

Looking at the Top 100, that’s the last one that I’ve rated below a 7.

I’m not counting Trickerion, because I’ve heard a bunch of good things about that one and my one play of it was a 2-player game that was taught by somebody who had just bought the game. I may end up not liking it, but I want a proper play of it before making that determination.

I mainly rate games on BGG so that they will show up in my collection for things like Pubmeeple when doing my Top 50 rankings.

Looking back at the beginning of this post, I guess with the exception of Dominion, I am writing about disliking games in the Top 100!

Good thing these posts are written in an almost stream of consciousness manner.

What popular games do you just not like at all? Or at least you don’t understand why everybody does like it?

Let me know in the comments.

Tonight’s post brought to you by Jack Daniels, the number 44, and the letter C.