I like to think that games evolve over time. Obviously some games have always been brilliant and need little improvement or none at all (I see you people who own Go boards). But many games or even game concepts go through a bunch of iterations that improve and sometimes just adapt to the currently dominating design paradigms.
The hobby as a whole has made improvements like the discovery that people like catch-up mechanisms. Sure some games have always had a way to balance out and prevent runaway victories but the awareness that people aren’t having fun without the ability to turn around the game, was not always as present.
For me personally, if I have the choice of a new and redesigned edition with maybe a few balancing tweaks and nicer art and better materials, I will always be willing to pay a little extra for the less beige version or just buy Hansa Teutonica
If there is a descendant with a new ruleset that is extremely similar the decision becomes more difficult. How well regarded is the older game? How interesting are the changes made in the newer one? Why were they made, do I want them? I ended up with Brass Birmingham and not Brass Lancaster. And I have both Terra Mystica and Gaia Project.
I could try and go back to find an 80s copy of the game that was the ancestor of Iwari (Web of Power) or I can pay for the deluxe version of the pretty new game.
Not all old games are bad and not all new games are good. But to me this is a bit like reading Science Fiction or Fantasy books that are 10/20/30/40 years old. Some of those are awesome (I am just rereading Dune) but a ton of the older ones are really hard to read today, either because sensibilities have changed, story telling and or language has evolved and or the topics just date the books and make them less relevant. It is not even the fault of the book or the author, these are the product of their times but there is a difference between reading something to study it and reading for the enjoyment of it. My personal taste goes towards more current works, same with games. I like proven designs but often prefer the newer iterations.
PS: the reason I do not own Tigris and Euphrates? The versions I could buy here for 5€ are the ugly-@$$ German editions from the 90s.
If it had ever been available here, I’d have taken the discontinued Z-Man edition -.-
Meh. One day there will be a reprint. And I have no interest in the new iteration whatsitcalled in this case.
Not even this beigey-loving degenerate can resist the allure of new games. Yashima made a good point. Why should I keep Neue Heimat when The Estates is such a gorgeous game?
But I don’t like this image. It presents things inaccurately for me. Once I Kondo-ise my shame stack, you’ll see those 2013 and earlier years falls down to a single digit and 2014 and so on will fall to 10-17 estimate. A lot are set “For Trade” and on the Geekmarket
If you’re curious on what 2001 is, it’s Traders of Genoa by Rudiger Dorn
Yeah, I think Knizia is great at the shorter games and auction games (which can get away with little to no theme). Tigris and Euphrates is the exception of not falling into those categories for me.
So that caused me to go away and think about a proper, rational, boardgame classification system:
those that belong to my wife,
obsolete ones,
those that are well-understood,
miniatures fests,
implementations of Monopoly,
undelivered Kickstarters,
cute ones,
those excluded from the present classification,
dexterity games,
versions of Munchkin,
those illustrated by Ian O’Toole,
others,
those that have just collapsed a table,
those that from a long way off look like books
Meanwhile my games-owned-by-year starts to increase from 2012 and peaks around 2018. That matches my own perception that my buying of things was declining in 2019. (Also 2012 was my first Essen.) I think the oldest game I still have that I bought on release is the 1987 version of Illuminati, followed by the Crimson Skies stuff from 1998-2000. Hmm, that’s a game I might like to try again some time…
Easily my favourite Knizia game (but admittedly not out of a huge sample), and a great short 2-player game, especially for anyone who has fond memories of Stratego (or even, like me, L’Attaque) and/or likes Lord of the Rings as a setting. It’s easy to learn, fast to play, cleverly designed and tells a good story. Sad to hear that it’s languishing in the shame pile.
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