Topic of the Week: THAT designer's worst game

Boardgames
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So there’s a lot of prolific designers out there, and we all know (and have discussed) which of their games we like.

Curious to hear what is the worst game you have played by each established designer, if you’re familiar with their extended library.

Just an incomplete list of well-known designers who are likely topics of discussion:

  • Rosenberg, Knizia, Konieczka, Feld, Cathala, Mori, Lang, Chvatil, Luciani / Tascini, Kramer / Kiesling, Lacerda, Wallace, Pfister, Shem, Stegmaier, Bauza, Lehmann, Garfield, Suchy, Walker-Harding, Cramer, Wehrle, The Brands, Georges, Friese…
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I haven’t played it (but I do own it. It was a freebie from SHUX), but by reviews, Vlaada Chvatil’s worst game has to be That’s a Question.

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Dr Knizia’s lowest-rated game on BGG that actually has a geek rating is Penguin (2007).

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Knizia’s worst designs are co-designs or ones where Bitewing have taken it and asked Robert Hyvokinman to add stuff.

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I played two games of Nicodemus from Cathala, who is one of my favorites. I found it awful.

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Rosenberg: Didn’t enjoy Indian Summer at all. Maybe just by comparison, as Patchwork is the best and New York Zoo covers the other player counts. But Cottage Garden was just fine and Indian Summer didn’t even reach Cottage Garden level.

I also didn’t like Sagani.

Cathala: The aforementioned Nicodemus. I also really bounced off of Sobek 2.

Chvatil is tough. I wasn’t wowed by Galaxy Trucker, Through the Ages, or Dungeon Petz but neither would I say I dislike them.

Kramer: Expeditions Around the World was a real slog.

Wallace I don’t know. We didn’t finish the only game of A Few Acres of Snow we ever started. But there was some interest there, it was just too long and obtuse for the two people playing at the time we played it.

Stegmaier: Tapestry. I hate that one. I tolerate Viticulture and Wingspan.

Pfister: I sold Oh My Goods. I liked the idea and tried and tried and tried to like it. But in the end I figured I’d tried hard enough. Something about the balance and the mix, the production chains being too specific for the size of the deck and the number of cards you get to draw…

Haven’t played a Mori or Lehmann that I didn’t care for - though at least for Mori there are dozens I’ve never touched.

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I heard it’s because you actually have to stack the penguins.

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Stegmaier didn’t design Wingspan, but he did publish it.

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I have played it. It works. I’ve played worse games. I’d choose it over Bunny Bunny Moose Moose.

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I tried so hard I bought both expansions, but that just made it worse, with a mountain of different cards for different chapters. I sold it too.

A bit later I picked up Expedition to Newdale, which we rather enjoyed. It’s Oh My Goods The Board Game, with the good bits kept in and the unwieldy confusion taken out.

Which reminds me, I should try and play through all the chapters solo as a campaign, over a weekend perhaps; I’d meant to do that but had totally forgotten about it!)

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I am omitting designers I have not played enough games of.

  • Rosenberg: Planta Nubo. Not sure how much of the design is really his. But this is really by far the worst game I played that had his name on it. A convoluted mess that was not even saved by the cool solarpunk theme.
  • Knizia: Some lame Roll & Write I cannot even remember the name of maybe High Five? He has more than a few duds in his catalogue. I didn’t get on with Mille Fiori but that might be on me.
  • Konietzka: Rune Age. I think it was an early deck builder and we moved it on quickly.
  • Cathala: at first I thought he could do no wrong. But as I got down in the ranks Shadows of Camelot the Card Game brought back some bad memories. We adored the OG boardgame … this card game was just bad
  • Mori: Rustling Leaves. Boringest Roll and Write
  • Lang: My beef with him is about Quarriors. Bad production and awful balance. I didnt even know who to blame until today
  • Chvaatil should not be in this list. Personally I really don’t like realtime games. But I hear many people actually like Space Alert
  • Kramer / Kiesling: all good. Or good enough.
  • Pfister: I am still searching for one of his I like. But Cloud Age was a lame attempt on having campaign games. I need to look at my old reviews to remember why I thought it was so lame. But lame it was. edit: Oh my Goods didn’t last long on my shelves either. My partner hated it.
  • Shem: The ones I played were fine but got samey in the designs…. so I stopped trying more.
  • Stegmaier: Charterstone.
  • Bauza: I need to mention I will not play Takenoko anymore. But I don’t know anygame of his I consider really bad.
  • Lehmann: I have only played the good stuff. No idea if he has anything truly bad.
  • Garfield: Treasure Hunters or so it is named. We played it at Spiel and I was astonished how the same guy who made MtG and Robo Rally could have designed such a bad game. I do not remember many details except how much we didn’t enjoy ourselves
  • Suchy: I have only played two of his designs and those were good. (Pulsar and Underwater Cities). The one that looked the worst on the tables at Spiel was Woodcraft. It looked so convoluted….
  • Walker Harding. Difficult. I like most of his games less than other people seem to. Lamaland and Spellbook come to mind as the designs I least enjoyed but they aren’t objectively bad.
  • Georges: Black Angel … tried to give it away but it came back to me. Might give it another chance but I doubt it will be better years later. Convoluted amalgam of too many ideas that fails to become a cohesive system
  • Wehrle: either all his games are bad or none. There are so many similarities. My guess would be that many people will put forward Oath … as it is a big weirdo. But I happen to like the weirdo.
  • Friese: he made 504 bad games. But as a proof of concept I wish I had not moved it on. Our play of Fürstenfeld at Spiel was not great.
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Wait your list was Matthias Cramer right? Not Wolfgang Kramer. Both are very prolific. Kramer I played a lot of games of especially when I was younger. Many good memories. Cramers designs I haven’t played enough

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Both. I’ve only played Rococo and Lancaster from Cramer and both get the green light.

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After playing Arcs yesterday it’s really coming into focus how Tom Brewster is a big Wehrle fanboy, and his megaphone is Wehrle’s platform. Pretty much all his games are divisive, and I think they would have settled at a mezzanine if not for the one loud proponent.

That said, and as we’ve discussed before, I’m glad Wehrle exists as he is so unique and the ideas are always interesting if not always fun.

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Root and Pax Pamir 2 being successful predates Tom. However both SUSD and NPI have pushed those games before Tom. So yes and no or so.

Yes. :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

Hmf. I sold it. But now I kind of want to play it again. But it was basically tracks with some badly balanced player powers. If they made an edition with all cardboard where everything fit into a normal sized box… and promised balance I might be tempted.

One I actually got out recently. Enjoyable as a solo puzzle.

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His Friday annoys me by existing. It’s an unbelievably simple solo numbers game that is overwhelmingly stacked against you. I could have designed better.

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What a horrible topic. To avoid shitting on designers/games people like, I’m going to avoid commenting on designers I don’t like or know particularly well and stick to the ones I love and know well.

Carl Chudyk: Probably Splat! from 2005. But for a game I have actually played, Uchronia from 2012. It’s like Glory to Rome, but not nearly as good.

Vlaada Chvatil: Travel Blog, from 2010. Can’t remember much about it, except it was boring.

Cole Wehrle: Not actually a bad game, but I’m going to have to pick Root from 2018, simply because everything else is better and I don’t get along with Root much.

Jeroen Doumen + Joris Wiersinga (Splotter): Maybe Beest from 2001, but for a game I have actually played, maybe Bus from 1999, which is another example of a very popular game that I personally just don’t like as much as their other games.

Most designers are going to have very early games that just weren’t that great, from before they became well-known.

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I’ll stick with the designers that I like because it’s more interesting.

Rosenberg - Reykholt. Flat and shallow. At the Gates of Loyang already exists. Get that one instead.

Knizia - I went through a lot of his games in his name. Loads of them are just absolute shit. Keeping it from his highly rated ones, I didn’t like My City nor its sequel My Island. I swear it wouldn’t be so well regarded if Knizia’s name wasn’t on it.

John Bohrer - one of the best scoring designer by average in my ratings. Southern Rails is bizarre in a good way, but i don’t think it’s a good game.

Splotter duo - another best scoring by average. Roads and Boats was the least impressive, especially after playing Neuland. VOC! scored low too, but at least it was very original and zany.

Lehmann - Favour of the Pharoah. I forgot why I didn’t like it. I left no notes :frowning:

Mori - Unusual Suspects. I remember this being “stereotyping: the card game”. I remember that it was reeeaaallly awful.

Chvatil - Codename. Which isn’t even awful. It’s mid at worst. It’s just not the kind of party game I’d pick when we are flooded with these kind of word games. That’s how good this guy is, honestly.

Kramer / Kiesling -

  • together: Lords of Worlds. Bargain bin “take-and-make” that exists in a post-Azul world.
  • Kramer: Auf Achse. Bad, but you can see the gradual evolution of board gaming from pre-modern period to the German style games of the 90s.
  • Kiesling: Vikings. Wait, what’s this game again? Exactly.

Wehrle - rock solid designer. I actually had a hard time choosing which one. But if I have to, I would choose Root. I liked this the least becuase it feels like a game where everyone is playing their own Euro game by themselves, but there’s a strategic layer on top where you can disrupt their own Euro game and slow down their tempo. Cool, but there are more interesting games to play. Even if I can only choose from his ludography.

Amabel Holland - our game of Iberian Gauge developed in a way where the track building turns into auto-pilot. And the game also suffers from an awful turn-order problem. The Trans-Siberian Railroad is the title that executed IG’s “leasing” mechanism better.

Lacerda - One of the better modern Euro designers. CO2 is perhaps the game that highlights well what’s bad about his games (e.g. Left-Right binding).

Matt Eklund - another rock solid. It was playing his games that made me realise that it was him that made some Pax titles great, rather than his father. Pax Porfiriana would be my choice. Not that deep and more tactical than strategic, but still really solid. Well, that or I choose Stationfall. Stationfall is colour in a board gaming world that’s full of blandness.

Carl Chudyk - Another solid designer but Crash! - what the hell is this? Did I miss something when I played this?

Stefan Dorra - Valletta. His take on the modern Euro genre. And it was forgettable even on modern Euro standards.

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Space Alert is the game actually which brought me back into board gaming (it was so innovative and fresh back then). It’s a good game in itself but real time is problematic for a lot of people. It makes games more stressful for sure.

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I loved it as a child. But i doubt it would hold up today. There was supposed to be a remake called Leylines. I’d be interested if anyone has tried that.

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