Random Thoughts on Heavy Games

Thanks in part to a number of videos from Paul Grogan of Gaming Rules! I've had heavier games on my mind a bit lately. Some of that (I'm sure) has been the last 18+ months of not really playing this kind of game. To be sure, there are some heavier games online, but I think normally, heavier games end up (for me) on the table only a couple times a year at best. 

So first, what is a heavy game? I don't mean physically heavy like Gloomhaven, but rather mentally taxing. The rules don't have to be complicated and fiddly or have weird terminology, but for me, heavy means - the game decision tree is opaque. Its like trying to find a path through a forest - you can follow someone else, but that is not going to get you out of the forest first, so you have to pick your own path. Once you pick a path (or at least start down one), it isn't always clear the whole way which way to go and someone could cut down a tree to clear their path, which falls on yours making your choices harder. Ok, enough of the forest analogy - the point being, there is enough going on that it isn't always easy to figure out what to do and trying to figure out other player's paths on top of that? Good luck. That to me is a heavy game - a game where my brain is going full steam the whole time and I may or may not fully see how things will play out. It isn't even that the game is tactical, but rather - understanding a strategy to take is complex enough to give your brain a workout.

On The Boardgame Geek, gamers can rank a game's weight from 1-5. Now, this (by their own admission) is a vague definition, but with enough input, probably has normalized enough to mean something along the lines of what I describe above.

That being said, some games to me are heavy just because they hurt my brain. A great little two-player example of this is Medici vs Strozzi. This is rated right in the middle of the scale at 2.45 - and realistically, the rules and mechanics are simple enough, but for a two-player game that doesn't take but 30 min to play, it hurts my brain - the choices are just hard (to me).

Of course, not being able to grok a game doesn't make it "heavy", it could just means it isn't my thing. I like those games where my brain is going the whole time and I don't really notice how long the game is taking. I like those "ah ha!" moments where something clicks and I pull of something clever - those keep me coming back for more every time.

So what are some of my favorite heavy games? Die Macher came to mind. My one learning game was long, but so interesting the whole time. So far, just about anything I've played from Vital Lacerda (except for Escape Plan, which wasn't as dense as the others I've played). That list includes: CO2, Vinhos, and The Gallerist (Paul Grogan's teaching/playing of Kanban EV started this, so I really want to play that too). A friend says that Lacerda games are complex for complexity's sake, but I still enjoy his games and hope to play more of them at some point.

I like Madeira a good bit (BGA has Madeira online, my only caveat is there is a lack of move confirmation/undo) -  for whatever reason, the mechanics and interplay all clicked and I can "see" this heavy game better than others. The same designer also did Nippon (also on BGA), which is a hair lighter than Madeira, but for whatever reason, I suck at. Both are still interesting games and if you like heavy games, you should give them a couple plays.

My current mild obsession has been with Pax Transhumanity. This little (literally - the box is like 5"x5"x3") game packs a lot into a little. Having had no experience with any Pax game, I didn't know what to expect, but what I found was a lot of videos trying to explain the game (and IMO, not doing a great job). The problem with the explanations is that there is a bit of "clever" terminology for actions (moving cubes from your finance board to anywhere else is called one thing, returning them is called something else rather than just saying "return your cube to wherever). The rulebook itself is dinky (small box) and half the page is taken up with the designer's notes about XYZ - great for flavor, but nothing other than a distraction to understanding or finding information you want. The ONE saving grace of the rules - they do self-reference certain thing well (in order to do ABC, you must first do the DEF action (see C4)), but it still took me 2-3 videos and reading the PDF of the rules online (so I could actually READ the text) before I felt like I could try to play the game. Part of the problem with learning the game is that you do have to understand the terminology of the game as cards have abilities  defined in the game's terms. So even if the card's power means "return all the cubes to the owner's WEALTH box" it might say, "Divest all agents on the card". Now generally, this isn't a big deal because the only markers you have that would be on a card would be cubes, but it doesn't lend itself to learning the game on your own. 

BTW, play it I did - solo. Maybe 1/2 a solo game, then it got late and I got tired. So here is what I discovered: solving the difficult/heavy puzzle solo is boring to me. Pax Transhumanity at least isn't an efficiency puzzle per se (the solo for the Gallerist for instance really does feel like that) - its a race against an "AI". Still, this game is one where it was clear to me after a couple of rounds that it might be glorious with other real people, but only against real people. (I say might, because I'm not sure how I feel about the way you win and the way you go after others - I need to play to know for sure). 

Maybe I just miss those long evenings squinting at a game for hours on end with my friends. Here's to hoping that changes someday soon. I think we all need a little of that. Until next time...

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