The cynic in me says yes. Myriad reasons, I think.
In other news, I’ve had a bolt of inspiration for a game design I’ve been noodling with for a few years.
Renaissance of a design space, maybe? (Probably not)
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I think that may deserve a separate topic of the week, because games that almost everyone would agree aren’t Euros may be changing too.
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Stay tune next week for another episode of Topic of the Week
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I don’t think so.
- Exhibit A: existing games will keep existing. And the best ones have decades (plural) under their belt now. They are not going to be boring tomorrow.
- Exhibit B: I am an optimist. There are great designs coming out all the time. Why should that stop? There are have been trends that have moved the design space towards the Baroque (Lacerda and all my favorite crowdfunding disappointments). We may be in the Rokoko phase still. But in art after that came Neoclassicism because eventually people get sick of all the Schnörkelei. And the clear lines of classicism seem to be quite well represented in some of the older eras of Euros that we talked about…
- Exhibit C: When I feel like there are fewer new and exciting games out there, I think it’s me. The longer I buy games the more I evaluate them against my own history and collection and if they are worth my time and space and I am just more picky now.
I do hope that the design school that produced those games that seem to consist only of gothic flourishes will go away soon. I have had Septima set up for a solo on my game table for almost 10 days now and I am reasonably sure I’ll put it back in the box unplayed–each element of the game by itself is beautiful. But look at the table as a whole it’s almost grotesque in how busy it looks. We just need to stop funding those games on KS/GF/BK… which I have a feeling most of us here have already done.
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Where the good times are and when they end will be based on subjectivity. I’ve played a 3 player game of Nucleum. I thought it was one of the worst games I’ve played this year and the other guy thought it was one of the best this year.
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Well, Nucleum tries very hard to be a more accessible Brass B. And it tries by having more complicated rules. Or so is my evaluation based entirely on 1 solo of Nucleum and 1.5 games of Brass B 
I did enjoy both in their own way and won’t be able to get either to the table anytime soon. I did not like the way Nucleum packs up (I have previously complained about this)
-takes ftw 
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Nucleum is just Luciani and Turczi looking at Brass and say it has problems and then proceed to make it even more nu-Euro
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And solo-able! (which was my entire reason for buying it I remember now that you said Turczi)
It’s also in the lego-design-school: more pieces is better.
(sorry the serious part of my brain is currently scrolling through ~200 file diffs for work)
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I am reasonably sure that Septima qualifies as nu-euro. It’s Mindclash. They managed to nueurify 4x with Voidfail.
I love the colors here… I like the art. And it’s really not such a bad game. I just have way too many games to remember all the rules and it just doesn’t beat my favorites:
There is a good game on this table waiting to be played.
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I don’t think I can be bothered with Mindclash anymore. I could deal with Anachrony but Voidfall is the poster child for the more rules and icons = better game approach and I think I just prefer my complexity to be emergent rather than explicit…
Not that this should stop other people from enjoying it, because plenty of people obviously do like this style of game! Wouldn’t life be boring if we were all the same 
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I think around the KS for Lisboa I read an interview or quote from Vital Lacerda with him saying he designs the sort of games he wants to play. This is probably worth keeping in mind. These games are popular both with the public and designers.
I found at one point these optimisation engine and solitairish games were really good. Some things to me and my situation and some to do with the group dynamics. If you have the time and enthusiasm I think it’s quite natural to develop in to more complex systems. Like intoxicant tolerance leading people to seek a stronger buzz the systems getting layered up is very positive for some people.
When thinking of euros and low luck I think it’s a nonsense. Different randomisers but luck is in a bunch of the old german games none the less. Tigris and Euphrates having you draw coloured tiles out of a bag and make the best you can with what you’ve got is not luck free. I also think of Attika as an old style euro with a bunch of luck and random. Also I think some, what was termed, ameritrash games you have variance but part of the skill is assessing and balancing risks so while they can be dice heavy I don’t think it’s necessarily something that makes the outcome less determined by luck.
As to what I think makes a game a euro. I’m not sure, maybe the absence of story telling. I think Lords of Waterdeep is the most thematic worker placement game as it’s the only one that makes sense of what the human player is taking on the role of. You are not really creating a narrative through the gameplay though. So maybe it’s something like that. Maybe there’s something to do with the style of the abstractions favoured. I suppose comparing History of the World with Tigris and Euphartes helps here. One gives you chits to represent something like Assyrian warriors who get a terror effect the other gives you red or blue chits. Are they houses/work spaces and by extension the people associated with them? T&E still gives a similar grand sweep and thematic feel but it doesn’t give you details to hang on. Both are abstracted though.
While I agree the term euro feels now out of time and was always fuzzy I also agree with the you know it when you see it feel. Voidfall being described as a euro 4x does enough to encapsulate enough that it was all the marketing description needed for anyone to choose ti back it or not based in their preferences. So for any problems the term does have enough about it to carry on being useful.
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I think that smoe of this is a tendency to use cards, or a non-replaced tile draw, or something of that sort rather than dice—so overall it evens out even if you personally may still get all the bad results.
There are quite a few games that I characterise as “yes, there’s lots of luck, but you can choose to put resources into mitigating that luck in various ways”.
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This is all validating my current genre labels of Individual Efficiency Game and Complex System Wrestling. And, of course, the inevitable hybridization where we have Individual Complex System Efficiency Wrestling.
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Well, there’s Agricola where you are the farmer and placing your worker equates to going to a physical spot in your environs to, say, collect wood. I find the 1:1 real worldness of Agricola is what makes it so simple to teach.
You’re going to sites around the town to hire orange fighters and purple mages and then sending them on quests to further your Lording! But yes, there is no arc to this narrative 
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Very effectively! The description of “euro 4x” made me think “oh, a 4x game with all of the fun removed”, and lo and behold, that was exactly my experience 
Hopefully it worked for people who thought they would like the game too.
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Not quite. Each meeple or whatever is a member of the family. So you put the farmer down one time, that’s your avatar done. So what are you in relation to the other meeples? In LoW the workers are people you send out to do a task so it never breaks down with ‘what are you playing as?’ While I agree Agricola’s actions are labelled well to be easy to teach the game can’t answer ‘what are you playing as?’
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Yep! I am not big on 4x but always want to try them and hope to like them. I love other Mind Clash “euros” (are they euros?). I have the giant Anachrony infinity box and the Trickerion Collector box and am eagerly looking forward to the new Trickerion expansion coming soon. Jumped on Voidfall as the Mind Clash style “euro” take on 4x and very much enjoy it. Not quite love it, but like it a lot and certainly my favorite 4x Ive played so far.
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I’ve always thought you’re playing as the family. In as far as you need to be playing ‘as’ anybody, and I’m not sure how necessary that is.
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I like these current genre labels of yours, but I can see why board game companies don’t use them in their marketing.
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I’m with most of you on this, I prefer my games to have emergent complexity.
I’m reminded of this video when coming to modern euros
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