Influences

Heroquest
I’d always played boardgames with my family and...

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I'm always a little curious when Dungeons & Dragons, which completely revolutionized table gaming, video gaming, movie making and popular fiction, a multi-billion-dollar market each year, is not a part of a list like this.

Two of the games on your list are direct descendants of it.

Your list is more about influences on you personally, so that's a different story. But the list you link to is almost absurd in nature, requiring a minimum number of buyers to be considered. It's almost as if they were concerned about citing games that readers wouldn't have heard of. Perhaps they were concerned they wouldn’t get linked to?

@sagilarus Yeah it would be a very different article if I was listing 'most influential games ever'. I thought this was more interesting, and also people can't really argue with me, as it shows the kind of games that affect what I play now and why. I'm hoping to get some interesting conversation out of it for sure, and I would love to know what the other writers on the site consider the games that have had the biggest influence on them.

Since 1995? Hmm. For me:

1. Puerto Rico. Popular whipping boy but it is such a tightly-designed game.

2. Dogs in the Vineyard. Every RPG I run tends to turn into this now.

3. Werewolf. As a stand-in for social deduction games generally.

4. No Thanks. A lovely light game that is great for gamers and non-gamers alike.

5. Mutant Year Zero. Where I'm at RPGwise, for the most part. "Trindie" designs (traditional + indie) that blend a tried-and-true structure with a reward cycle that incentivizes the core thematic activity of the game.

I mean it can be over your whole life, but for me my gaming life starts pretty young but starts into what I describe around 1995. Dogs in the Vineyard is great and was one of the early more narrative led games. One of these days I might actually run it as oppose to play. I've been eyeing Mutant Year Zero for a while now as something I might want to run for my regular group.

It is a really, really good game and I'm happy to talk about it if you like. I will say that to my tastes, the core book is best and each one gets progressively less interesting along the way. MYZ is great, Genlab Alpha is good, Mechatron is blah, and I haven't read Elysium or whatever the newest one is.

I'm interested in hearing why you think Heroquest doesn't stand up. I've been eyeing it to play with the kid.

More euro-bias thanks to the hobby overlords at BGG. 1995 seems pretty late in history to start looking for influential games, unless you think that the sun revolves around eurogames. Let's just pretend that Risk, Dungeons & Dragons, Cosmic Encounter, and Magic: the Gathering are irrelevant. Also, it seems like certain post-'95 games were not so much influential as blatantly and shamelessly ripped off, especially since the advent of Kickstarter.

Star Realms' inclusion is definitely an eyebrow raiser, but otherwise I can't really fault the rest of the list given the 1995* or later premise. Not sure if X-COM is influential or just a flash in the pan though. I might look to something like Alchemists when it comes to app integration in a less obtrusive way. For me personally Heroscape was more influential than X-Wing or anything else for that matter.

*Ignoring MtG from 1993 then including Android: Netrunner, 7 Wonders, Dominion, and Star Realms is kinda funny though. They wouldn't exist without the former.

Most influential in my life? That's a long list. RPG-wise, it's D&D (obvsly), Gamma World(!), TORG, and two that I created myself. Those are what taught me to tell stories and, thus, to write. Board games? Well, let's start at the beginning. Panzerblitz taught me about history and strategy. Talisman taught me that you could create stories from more confined areas than what RPGs encouraged. Cosmic Encounter taught me that you can break the rules to good effect. Poker taught me to play people as much as the game.

Since 1995?
Warhammer 40K and Fantasy. Those games taught me patience and that I actually had some creative talent outside the written word (The avatar I use on this site and several others is something I found on the Web for my Space Marine chapter, the Ryujin Legion.)

MTG. I was a serious tournament player for much of the 90s. It taught me both focus and increased my tendency to think outside the box.

Blue Moon. It was a step down from the complexity of MTG, but still had tremendous depth and strategy. I'd played a couple Knizias before that, but that was the one that really opened my eyes to how simple mechanics and direct language could still make a great game. Like...

Neuroshima Hex and its endless variability.

Finally, Chaos in the Old World and the obvious bridge between the not-so-disparate worlds of Euro and Ameritrash. (Plus, Warhammer.) I'd remain a huge Eric Lang fan even if he'd never followed CitOW with other great games.

Kingdom Death Monster. We're just beginning to see the seeds of its influence take root in the likes of Aeon Trespass and Oathsworn but in another ten years people will recognise it for the landmark it truly is.

I think for me Heroquest is one of those things that should stay in childhood. I think if you are playing it with kids there are fewer issues. For me though I played it again recently, admittedly via TTS, and it just really showed the cracks in its design: roll and move for movement is just not great, we ended up getting stuck in corridors and not in a funny way, and it just wasn't that great for me anymore. I still have really fond memories of it and will always treasure those, but my gaming tastes have just moved on.

I think the Dicebreaker list is interesting as I wouldn't definitely tag Settlers as bringing boardgaming to a much wider audience. Sure there are games earlier that influence some of the choices in the list but that wasn't what their list was about. I agree with most of their choices, but yeah there are some noticeable absences like TIcket to Ride, which is probably the closest Settlers follow up in terms of bringing 'hobby games' to the mass market.

KDM is an interesting point. Seen it influence a lot of games recently as you say.

thegiantbrain wrote: I think for me Heroquest is one of those things that should stay in childhood.

Totally agree. Teenage me thought that this and the slew of similar titles that followed at the time were fantastic. Adult me acquired a copy a few years back and had a complete nostalgia fail.