Favourite Boardgames Discovered in 2011 (part 1)

It's somewhat strange to think that it was under a year ago when I first played The Settlers of Catan for the first time (whilst we're at it, I'll add that it's weird to think that I've known my two best friends for under a year - going out for food before playing Settlers with them was the third time I'd spent time with either of them). Playing it showed me something I'd not realised: that boardgames could be fun!

I went through that phase most children went through of being made to play boardgames by their parents, the boardgames in question either being dull and poorly designed (Monopoly) or just not very interesting (word games like Scrabble: apologies to Scrabble fans!). I've really enjoyed Chess for quite a few years, but up until recently haven't refered to it as a boardgame (perhaps because I didn't want to associate it with games like Snakes & Ladders that are tedious and based almost entirely on luck).

So playing Settlers was a bit of a revelation. Yes there's still luck involved but you take account of this luck when deciding what you're going to do, and the theme of the game as well as the degree of player interaction makes for a very fun time. Since then I've slowly been trying out a bunch of other games (I've probably tried out 10 or so games for the first time this year, which isn't many but is definitely a start). This post is meant as a kind of summary of my favourite boardgame discoveries this year.

My favourite game that I discovered this year is definitely Agricola. In it you and up to 4 other players play farmers. Your farm starts with just a modest two room house and two family members. Over a period of 14 rounds (and 6 harvests) you attempt to make your farm be worth as much as possible by ploughing fields, sowing and growing crops, building fences, raising animals in said fenced areas, expanding and upgrading your house, breeding new family members, buying improvements (such as ovens or wells) and so on, all the while trying to make sure your family don't starve and trying to hinder other player's progress.

The game has hardly any luck involved (the family version has no luck whatsoever involved, whilst the full version has a tiny bit of luck based on which cards you're dealt at the beginning of the game), and this along with the sheer number of options you have and the ways in which all these options are interlinked makes the game challenging and - particularly considering how pleasing it is to see your farm grow in front of you - rewarding. It's quite a complex game (we accidentally mangled at least a few rules the first time we played it) but once you get the hang of it it's great fun. I've still only played the family version and eagerly await the opportunity to play the more complex version.

Part 2 coming soon