Frequently designers have that game. The one that makes you spit out your water.
Wait, 6 Nimmt is a Kramer!?! El Grande Kramer? Bohnanza is Uwe??? (we all know that one by now).
There’s a handful of designers whose catalog is defined by these double takes, though, whose games rarely bear any resemblance to each other. Consider:
Bauza
7 Wonders / Duel
Takenoko
Tokaido
Ghost Stories
Hanabi
Conan
Samurai Spirit
Pfister (upon write-up, there's a few more lumps than I expected but still...
Great Western Trail trilogy
…and Maracaibo
Mombasa/Skymines
…and Boonlake
Isle of Skye
Broom Service
Oh My Goods / Expedition to Newdale
Port Royal
Blackout: Hong Kong
Mines of Zavandor
Tindahan, of all things (Oops, this is a Sylvester)
And of course this is where we discuss Vlaada
Mage Knight
Through the Ages
Codenames
Galaxy Trucker
Space Alert
Dungeon Lords / Petz
Tash-Kalar
Pictomania
Bunny Bunny Moose Moose
I would say all of these designers are decorated. Possibly also more hit and miss than their more monolithic colleagues.
A few prompts:
What are your own feelings on these designers and/or their games?
Do other designers characterized by breadth come to mind?
How do you feel about breadth as a thing? Does it make you respect them more as a designer or does it just make you wary that you never know the game/quality you’ll get? Talented, or just unfiltered?
We’re ramping up to our best designer convo. I think we’ve covered most of the big names and publishers. I’ll check my notes and maybe an “other designers (e.g. Chudyk)” week and then we can put a bow on this sprawling topic.
I think I would like to enjoy these designers games more than I do.
Out of these I think I have the most truck with Bauza because of his dipping into lighter stuff.
I think the best designers do have good breadth but with enough games you might see the same tricks being pulled off.
I like Paolo Mori for this and pay attention for any new game. Of course Warsch is the master of this some how creating a genius non game (the mind) and maths game (Ganz) in the same year. And then a whole series of weird things.
Also Phil Walker Harding seems to have. A lot of variety but his preference seems to be really light stuff now.
After Knizia and Rosenberg he is the designer most present on my shelves. I own 9 of his games and have at least one preordered (Cyclades Legendary). I will almost always be willing to have a closer look where he is concerned.
Pfister: I have not clicked with most of his games I tried. Currently I think I only have GWT:NZ edition and that has yet to be explored. I did enjoy my plays of GWT on BGA.
Bauza: I enjoy his games at first and then I sour on them and sometimes they make a comeback (7 Wonders Duel, I am waffling about rebuying Hana Bi). Ghost Stories is still on my shelves more for nostalgia than actual desire to lose a game Though at some point I was winning solos almost consistently.
Vlaada is legendary. I haven’t played all of his games as much as they deserve but whenever I play one I have to appreciate it. The only one I played that I didn’t get along with was Space Alert and I believe that may have been an issue of the person teaching more than the game and then never having access to the game again. Each of these games is an achievement. He made CGE. That said these games are a bit like what I call “sommelier wines”… great but mostly for special occasions. With maybe the exception of Codenames, I can’t play them all the time.
Never got on too much with Bauza. Played 7 Wonders until I “kinda liked some session” but it’s gone now. Didn’t take on with Duel, though I feel like it’s worth a closer look. Tokaido is pretty and pleasant but not enough game. Takenoko succeeds in being inoffensively diverting.
I did enjoy Ghost Stories, for a bit, but after beating it twice had no urge to keep trying on harder difficulties.
Pfister and Cvatil are something of mixed bags. Isle of Skye is one of my all time favorites. GWT is quite good, though it took me some time to properly learn and enjoy it. Oh My Goods was culled. I feel that all of his games are a bit unbalanced - GWT needed a second edition. Oh My Goods didn’t work so they kept releasing expansions to fix the problem (and created new problems with each one). Back to GWT, I still think the game as designed and the game as played are different - you can see these large, high cost buildings that benefit a train or cowboy strategy, but you can’t build high cost buildings in those strategies given the focus the game demands. Little vestigial buildings… maybe I just don’t understand yet…
So some great stuff has come out of him but it’s a try before you buy situation. Good ideas but not always completed? And not consistent?
Vlaada as others have said is quite solid. I respect his games. That said, I’ve never wanted to buy Dungeon Petz or Through the Ages. Good not great. Codenames and Pictomania are on the shelf and are awesome. Didn’t like Galaxy Trucker but only played the app. People said it was faithful, so I assume it’s the game not the medium.
Mori and Cathala are good names here as well, I’ve got a bunch of their works. I need to do the BGG search to see what their breadth really is…
If you lump Dogs of War, Blitzkrieg, and Caesar as tug of war area control, there’s not actually much there… I"m not familiar with Fall of Rome or Vasco da Gama though both are semi-recent and decently rated. Mori is creative and distinct but not making me spit out water with diverse systems.
Cathala
7 Wonders Duel (???)
Five Trives
Cyclades
SHadows over Camelot
Conan (guess he and Bauza are pals?)
Kingdomino
Jamaica
Abyss
Mr. Jack
Mission: Red Planet
Yamatai
Raptor
Kanagawa
Sea Salt & Paper
Dice Town
Splendor Duel
Sobek / 2 Players
Orichalcum
Mundus Novus
(I could have sworn Citadels but it’s not coming up in the results?)
And a massive, massive down catalog
Yeah, this shoe fits. I’m shocked to see these games in the same list. Wow.
(It may be the medium. I never really had any fun playing the app, but the real thing is in my top 10.)
On topic, I generally notice more iteration and similarities in the output of designers than breadth, even among the names highlighted so far. I also think that’s fine, and inevitable.
First, sorry. I now see that @yashima already have the Cathala rundown.
Second, Faidutti. Citadels is Faidutti. And it is kind of funny that Faidutti has Citadels, Mori has Libertalia, and Cathala has Mission Red Planet. Everybody wanted to take a crack at it.
Mission Red Planet is Cathala + Faidutti and I am quite sure it is not their only cooperation. I have played neither Raptor nor Boomtown nor ever really noted them before. There might be more.
Leaving out Knizia who just has so many games that it feels inevitable that I have more of his than anyone else… two of the designers most present on my shelves are Uwe Rosenberg and Bruno Cathala.
Rosenberg’s games on my shelves carry a lot of his signature moves though I would like to note that he has several that he combines in new ways. He seems to have found his design-language and iterates. I always mean to cull some of his games because they have all these similarities. But then I don’t.
Cathala seems to be breadth first. He seems to have many more ideas. Except that I still notice some patterns. He likes to iterate on other people’s games to make two player modes (While I mention that I have to think of another designer who recently crept into my top 10 most owned designers: David Turzci of the solo modes but I am almost sure solo-modes and variants deserve their own topic)
Cathala games also carry some signature moves. They are mostly on the lighter side. Definitely never rules-complex. Lightly thematic. Colorful. Many of his games are quite colorful and I don’t know how to express that be cause he certainly doesn’t do the graphic design.
And he does iterate on some of his biggest successes as well: has certainly iterated around Kingdomino a bunch. Both Dragomino and Origins are definitely iterations. I don’t know how different Queendomino is.
And I am reasonably sure that the tiles from Ishtar and Orichalcum are so similar they could count as iteration.
With a designer that is breadth first, the chance that something is not quite what I expected or hoped for is a little higher, because well the new idea is not yet proven. It is very likely that I will enjoy Black Forest (the next Uwe iteration I can’t wait for) far more than the next Cathala game because I already know most elements that will make up Black Forest. Okay, this turns out top be a bad example … because the next Cathala I will probably add to my shelves is an iteration: the Lord of the Rings Duel is a new coat of theme put on 7 Wonders Duel. But you get the gist. I can’t quite tell what Cyclades Legendary (I have never played OG) will be like from having played Sea Salt and Paper, Orichalkum, Abyss and Kingdomino.
Thinking on it, I do value execution over ideas. I’d rather have another, well constructed Lehmann than a novel Bauza. But when you have both, like (good) Knizia, Chvatil, or Cathala, that’s really something special.
I do appreciate Bauza’s ideas though. Looking down his portfolio, every one is pretty novel and I think most of them have been supplanted by games that built on the foundation. 7 Wonders → Neom, Tokaido → Parks, Hanabi → The Crew, Ghost Stories → Spirit Island. He is an incredibly valuable part of the food chain.
Re: Uwe, I’m also confounded by how each game is unique despite the apparent overlaps. I can say how each game is similar to two or three others, but none are replacements. It’s frustrating. Glass Road is the only one I’ve been able to let go of.
To me I still really like Hanabi and got rid of The Crew due to it being often arbitrary based on card distribution. Hanabi I’ve never codified a convention like bridge bids so it’s stayed fresh for me. Oceanos is a great older kids game and maybe my second favourite Bauza.
He also gets a designer credit for Conan which surprised me. That was a decent game. My impression is he’s not a main designer on that so I don’t know whether to enter that in the discussion.
While I only own one Bauza and have only owned 3 in total I think he’s my favourite non Knizia in this discussion. Pfister I’m really unfused on. Quite euro in a way I’m not keen on. I reasonably enjoyed my one game of Mombasa but not enough to overcome the theme distaste nor to look at the reskin. GWT I really disliked and nothing has tempted me in. Vlaada I’m not interested in many of his games but I am on the lookout for Mage Knight. I only made my mind up when it had dropped from print so hopefully a reprint will happen at some point.
I think in principle I like breadth and experimentation, I certainly do with music, films and art in general. I liked Kepler 3042 for being different to other games in the genre for example. However I don’t look at individual designers in the same way when it comes to games. Despite Food Chain Magnate and Indonesia being 2 of my top 3 games I’ll not pre order another new one after Horseless Carriage being a disappointment.
Used to have Takenoko, Hanabi and Samurai Spirit. Don’t miss any of them.
Do have 7 Wonders and Tokaido, and we like them very much. Never been tempted by 7 Wonders Duel, as we’ve always really liked the two player game of original 7 Wonders.
Was very tempted by Ghost Stories back when I was buying far too many games. I think I’m glad I didn’t succumb, and I have no desire to buy it now.
Pfister:
Used to have GWT (2nd edition), Maracaibo and Oh My Goods. Lost interest in all of them quite quickly - although I always find myself being tempted by the Maracaibo app. Do have Port Royal, which I always enjoy, and Expedition to Newdale, and we enjoyed playing through all the chapters of that.
Chvatil:
Used to have Space Alert and Bunny Bunny Moose Moose. Do have (and love) Galaxy Trucker, as well as Codenames and Pictomania, which are always fun. Unusually, I suspect, we both have and really quite enjoy Travel Blog.
I really can’t recommend 7 Wonders Duel enough.
It is such a good implementation of 2 player drafting.
Those of you who have it… the BGA implementation includes both expansions (I prefer just the first one) and it is really very well done.
It just feels wrong to splash out on a two player version of a game that we already play very happily two player!
However … Maybe I’ll get this upcoming Lord of the Rings version, which would be a totally different game, and could sit next to LotR The Confrontation on the shelf. I could justify that, no problem at all!
Though at some point I was winning solos almost consistently.