I never liked strategy games. All my live I have been avoiding titles like Ages of Empires, World of Warcraft, League of Legend, etc. But I must admit I actually had a good time playing Catan. The only thing I regret is I realize the importance of first rounds too late. Where and How put your first settlements and bridges is essential in order to fight for victory even so I ended second. So The settler of Catan is a great entrance to the universe of strategy games with its easy learning and friendly rules. The Aesthetics of the game are in first place Competitive (as any board game): you have to raise over your opponents. The game has some of sense pleasure too, every image (from the art on the box to city pieces) were made to give us the sensation of colonizing land. The images on the development cards, the art on the board itself (deserts, oceans, mountains, etc.) and the pictures of cards resources: sheep, clay, wood, stone, every image smell like Colonial Age. Mechanically speaking the game works similar to Monopoly. In this case, the "bank" is the land itself and the money would be the resources cards. We just have to earn and exchange these cards in order to built settlements or cities. The luck tells us how many resources are we going to get from the earth: just roll a dice. Pretty simple, doesn't it? Well, fun appears when dynamics come on the scene. Development cards are a good example of a Dynamic: we can buy these for a certain amount of money *ejem resources* and use them to sabotage our rivals or simply gain a Victory Point. They are like jokers, so their effects can disturb a normal round with unexpected situations. The thief is another specific dynamic which made to promoting competition between players. If you get 7 you can steal resources from other players by putting the thief doll on their territories. Finally, we can build a settlement or city 2 spaces away from each other and trough our owns roads (now this is strategic geographical competition). Although Settler of Catan really tries to make us feel like a Middle Age colonial commander fail because all what we actually do is manage resources as money. I felt like a banker rather than a Commander. So this is a good example how mechanics and dynamics are in conflict with the (supposed) aesthetic. Only the building dynamic (with the roads and settlements) is truly innovative. It is a good board game to learn basics about strategies games in general. But the smell of Monopoly is just too strong.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI want to study Video Games in a theoretical way. Archivos
May 2018
Categories
All
|