Gaming Unplugged

I love games and I don’t just mean video games. When not sitting in front of the halcyon glow of my TV with a joypad (yes I still prefer that term to controller) surgically grafted to my hand, I regularly enjoy gaming unplugged in the form of card games and board games of all descriptions: Poker, Carcassonne, Magic the Gathering, Shogun, Ticket to Ride, Cribbage, Arkham Horror, Thunderstone etc… I love to discover new games with new mechanics to exploit and tinker with. Just the other week I was proud to sit on the winning side of a cracking game of Battlestar Galactica (no easy feat, as anyone who has played it will know) and recently a friend of a friend managed to dig out his childhood copy of Dune the boardgame (Avalon Hill, circa 1979).

Dirty fracking toaster!

What I particularly enjoy is when the ‘analogue’ world of dice, pencils and intricately decorated pieces of cardboard merges with the more popular digital counterpart we all love so much. This cross fertilisation goes both ways, of course. On the one hand there are the online or XBLA versions of established board games; I’d recommend anyone who enjoyed the masterful Valkyria Chronicles, which like most turn based strategy games is especially close to table-top gaming, to try the new beta of Memoir 44 on the Days of Wonder website. For the even more hardcore there is the Vassal Engine, which is basically an open source emulator for boardgames, featuring fan-created mods of a mind boggling quantity of titles. Automated scoring, zero set-up time FPS inspired lobby systems to match you against players from all over the world are amongst the obvious advantages digitisation can bring to traditional boardgames, although the downside is the loss of that inimitable pleasure of supping a beer whilst making the winning move and, even better, being in the same room to see your opponent’s reaction to it (one of the great tragedies of this generation of consoles is that with very few exceptions – Little Big Planet and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light being the best of them – online multiplayer has completely replaced local multiplayer).

Yes, they're real! Yes, they are worth a small fortune! No, I don't own them! Dammit!

But table-top gaming, far from being dead, has also influenced videogames, a point most obviously seen in Ian Livingstone’s career trajectory from creating Dungeons and Dragons and founding Games Workshop (now the oppressive imperialists of the gaming world) to becoming life president of Eidos. So, on the other side of things I always smile when ‘analogue’ gaming appears in a videogame. Indeed, the thing that sparked this blog was playing Caravan in Fallout New Vegas, an ingenious, highly original game that completely fits in with the lore of the Fallout universe. Each player uses cards to establish three trade routes, aiming for a ‘weight’ of between 21 and 26, with the numeric cards establishing the direction of the caravan and the face cards each having a special strategic function. To make it even more fitting with the game’s world a deck can be made up of any number of tatty cards compiled from different decks scavenged here and there.

It's a little known fact that the trigger for the clone wars was a game of Pazaak between Vader and Yoda. Let's just say the little green man is a really sore loser…

It got me thinking of other great little ‘meta-games’. There was the deceptively simple Pazaak in Knights of the Old Republic, played with futuristic tokens; Triple Triad in Final Fantasy VIII, which really capitalised on the current trend for collectable playground card games; and of course the entire interface of Mario Party, which recast familiar elements of the series into a wonderfully tongue in cheek version of Snakes and Ladders. But my favourite example of this by far is Koi Koi, one of the traditional Japanese gambling games found amidst Yakuza 3’s incredibly generous range of mini games. Thankfully this survived the notorious cull of side-quests deemed ‘too Japanese’ for western release (Go, Mah Jong and hostess bars were not so lucky). Sure I didn’t understand what the hell was going on for the first 3 hours of play, but the cards were so pretty and the formalities of play so delightful that I didn’t really care. Also the realisation that the Japanese gangster underworld not only had the world’s most ludicrous sense of style, but also played games with ‘flower cards’ made me grin from ear to ear. Eventually, with the help of some rules I found on good old Wikipedia that outlined just exactly what ‘staring at the moon’ actually meant, I figured out what was going on and must have played just that mini-game solidly for a whole weekend and then went on eBay and ordered my own deck from some dude in Hong Kong. An interesting fact is that before Mario was even a twinkle in Shigeru Miyamoto’s eye, Nintendo had become famous for manufacturing these decks of cards, which only serves to illustrate my point that the worlds of digital and analogue gaming are closer than you would think.

The beautiful cards that made Nintendo's name

I love games and I don’t just mean video games. When not sitting in front of the halcyon glow of my TV with a joy pad (yes I still prefer that term to controller) surgically grafted to my hand, I regularly enjoy gaming unplugged in the form of card games and board games of all descriptions: Poker, Carcassonne, Magic the Gathering, Shogun, Ticket to Ride, Cribbage, Arkham Horror, Thunderstone etc… I love to discover new games with new mechanics to exploit and tinker with. Just the other week I was proud to sit on the winning side of a cracking game of Battlestar Galactica (no easy feat, as anyone who has played it will know) and recently a friend of a friend managed to dig out his childhood copy of Dune the boardgame (Avalon Hill, circa 1979).

What I particularly enjoy is when the ‘analogue’ world of dice, pencils and intricately decorated pieces of cardboard merges with the more popular digital counterpart we all love so much. This cross fertilisation goes both ways, of course. On the one hand there are the online or XBLA versions of established board games; I’d recommend anyone who enjoyed the masterful Valkyria Chronicles, which like most turn based strategy games is especially close to table-top gaming, to try the new beta of Memoir 44 on the Days of Wonder website. For the even more hardcore there is the Vassal Engine, which is basically an open source emulator for boardgames, featuring fan-created mods of a mind boggling quantity of titles. Automated scoring, zero set-up time FPS inspired lobby systems to match you against players from all over the world are amongst the obvious advantages digitisation can bring to traditional boardgames, although the downside is the loss of that inimitable pleasure of supping a beer whilst making the winning move and, even better, being in the same room to see your opponent’s reaction to it (one of the great tragedies of this generation of consoles is that with very few exceptions – Little Big Planet and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light being the best of them – online multiplayer has completely replaced local multiplayer).

But table-top gaming, far from being dead, has also influenced videogames, a point most obviously seen in Ian Livingstone’s career trajectory from creating Dungeons and Dragons and founding Games Workshop (now the oppressive imperialists of the gaming world) to becoming life president of Eidos. So, on the other side of things I always smile when ‘analogue’ gaming appears in a videogame. Indeed, the thing that sparked this blog was playing Caravan in Fallout New Vegas, an ingenious, highly original game that completely fits in with the lore of the Fallout universe. Each player uses cards to establish three trade routes, aiming for a ‘weight’ of between 21 and 26, with the numeric cards establishing the direction of the caravan and the face cards each having a special strategic function. To make it even more fitting with the game’s world a deck can be made up of any number of tatty cards compiled from different decks scavenged here and there.

It got me thinking of other great little ‘meta-games’. There was the deceptively simple Pazaak in Knights of the Old Republic, played with futuristic tokens; Triple Triad in Final Fantasy VIII, which really capitalised on the current trend for collectable playground card games; and of course the entire interface of Mario Party, which recast familiar elements of the series into a wonderfully tongue in cheek version of Snakes and Ladders. But my favourite example of this by far is Koi Koi, one of the traditional Japanese gambling games found amidst Yakuza 4’s incredibly generous range of mini games. Thankfully this survived the notorious cull of side-quests deemed ‘too Japanese’ for western release (Go, Mah Jong and hostess bars were not so lucky). Sure I didn’t understand what the hell was going on for the first 3 hours of play, but the cards were so pretty and the formalities of play so delightful that I didn’t really care. Also the realisation that the Japanese gangster underworld not only had the world’s most ludicrous sense of style, but also played games with ‘flower cards’ made me grin from ear to ear. Eventually, with the help of some rules I found on good old Wiki-pedia that outlined just exactly what ‘staring at the moon’ actually meant, I figured out what was going on and must have played just that mini-game solidly for a whole weekend and then went on e-bay and ordered my own deck from some dude in Hong Kong. An interesting fact is that before Mario was even a twinkle in Shigeru Miyamoto’s eye, Nintendo had become famous for manufacturing these decks of cards, which only serves to illustrate my point that the worlds of digital and analogue gaming are closer than you would think.


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6 responses to “Gaming Unplugged”

  1. Barry avatar
    Barry

    You can also find Koi-Koi on 42 All Time Classics on the DS ;). Not that I was very good at Koi-Koi, I did manage to grasp the basics of the game.

    I don’t play board games, but I do like a few card games on occassion, Texas Hold’em being my favourite.

  2. Albull avatar
    Albull

    A cool article – I’m actually tending to prefer ‘analogue’ gaming at the moment as far as my RPG gaming goes (WoW not withstanding).

    Small point though – Ian Livingstone only brought D&D to the UK, Gary Gygax created it.

  3. Dean avatar
    Dean

    Thanks for pointing that out Albull. i have to admit that my D&D experience is rather limited – i only tried it for a few nights at college. I much prefer games with tight mechanics and clear aims – D&D is a bit too freeform for my tastes.

    I love Texas Hold ’em. Only card game that comes close is Cribbage.

  4. Thom avatar
    Thom

    Nice feature dean. Although I’ve never been much of a board gamer it’s comforting to know that these things are not totally forgotten, I live in fear of a completely digitised world and relish those games
    that make you write something down. Also, seeing that triple triad deck has changed my life!

  5. Classy pony avatar
    Classy pony

    +1 for new stuff

  6. Backlinks avatar

    I thought this was a fantastic blog, not only great writing but it has a great layout, well done.

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