Can you tell where a game was designed, or what the philosophical heritage of a game is?
In briefest strokes, Japanese games tend to be minimal an psychological, with guessing and gotchas. German games are stereotypically mathematical (though that pool is large enough to defy distillation). American games tend to be theme first. On and on.
Do you find there are categorical distinctions between British, American, French, Italian, German, Scandinavian, and Japanese games? Are there any other enclaves of design that produce a large enough pool to discuss?
In my head, at least, canonically āAmericanā games tend to be lavish with components, while a āEuropeanā game will assume that you can keep track of things in your head, why would you need a separate counter for that? (Exceptions in both directions, of course.)
Thereās always going to be someone or something left off the lists, but at the risk of digging the rabbit hole deeper, Iād add Games Workshop to Britain.
Yes, everyone here is very sensitive which I think we all appreciate. Letās just take @RogerBW 's comment as a blanket statement:
Generalizations not universalizations, and modal conclusions rather than absolute. Any statement here should impute that caveat?
We all see Friedmann Friese up there making British/American style games out of Germany, the scoundrel!
Some stray thoughts from looking at these lists:
French and American pop with innovation as I read them - like every game has to do something new. But there is something quite different that I canāt articulate to their innovation. Maybe American innovations are a little more mechanical, with an engineering feel. French innovation is a bit harder to articulate, the unexpected, the alchemical.
German and Italian lists pop with elegance. But again, something very different. German elegance feels reductive, distilled. An explosion from few pieces. Italian elegance is entwined with complexity. A lot of bulky, unwieldy games that somehow hold together and feel far less complicated than they should, given their ambition.
In the latter case, the German elegance may be earned across a lot of different games and designers. The Italian elegance may be due to the dominance of the core Italian collective of designers (Tascini, Gigli, Luciani, Brasini). Mori feels more French by the generalizations Iāve put here, and Iām sure it would horrify any Italian to hear it.
I never thought much about this beyond Ameritrash and Euro which have long ceased to be geographic references.
I think here a lot of what is picked up by publishers is informed by local demand.
Lots of demand here is generated by families picking up SdJ for Christmas or giving games as presents. There is also a strong hesitation to publish war-themed/WWII themed gamesāno surprise there, I have mentioned this many times before.
Overall, I feel that for many regions I only have very superficial knowledge of some of the most popular games / designers. In many cases there are some dominant designers but I probably donāt know that their designs reflect the local markets in any way. The Italian design collective of T-game fame is a good example. There are more designers in Italy I am reasonably sure. But all I know are those few who having worked together so much have developed a somewhat recognizable style. Is that style Italian? Or the collectiveās? CGE and Vlada Chvatil are another example.
I do think that play/gaming culture in many places will differ and have their own distinct idiosyncracies. But I could only describe what I know and even that may not be fully generalizable because my circles are filled with people playing lots of games and weāve influenced each other. I already mentioned the dominance of SdJ.
And then there is the next question: how much does gaming culture influence design? Which direction is the flow? Both ways?
Well, I definitely see specialisation - the modern heavy Euro like Pampero or Galactic Cruise feels as though itās not even trying to appeal to the general hobby gamer, and even some heavy Euro fans are being put off by that. But presumably thereās enough market that itās still worth doing.
I would also add that probably because of the internet, thereās no isolated cultures in the context of the board game world. What I can think of are Korean and Japanese publishers who likes to miniaturise board games into these small boxes. But thatās more production decisions rather than school of designs.
But it still makes me question things: would your average German players prefer MPS like Arnak? Or would they like games like Cosmic Encounter?
As far as i can tell, in my circles, Arnak would appeal more in general. Exceptions apply. Cosmic is too much improvisation andā¦ not enough rules. There is something beyond the rules that makes Cosmic work. at my table it fell completely flat that one timeI attempted it and the only people I know who would get on with that kind of game donāt frequent my table anymore for various geographic (moved away) reasons
I donāt know. Certainly the (affluent) world is globalizing and cultural distinctions are shrinking. But they arenāt gone. And we as consumers can draw from several genres just as we eat out at a myriad of cuisines. But I do think that cultural norms remain, with some level of distinction, and I think the act of creation is going to reflect those norms much more strongly than the act of consumption.
I also agree that we are seeing a subset of any cultureās game production, though, and any conclusions are likely to be confounded by individuals rather than populations.
I think itās interesting to kick around even if I know my conclusions are shakey.