
She Invented a Board Game with Scientific Integrity. It’s Taking Off - andrewl
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/science/wingspan-board-game-elizabeth-hargrave.html
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ntock
The scientific integrity referenced in the title is a spreadsheet she made
classifying 500 birds across 100 different dimensions. Skip this read, the
article is long and goes nowhere.

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bussierem
First, a side note: this article seems to do a lot of lauding of her game on
the basis that she's a woman designing a board game. Granted, this is not an
industry with a large % of women in design roles, but it's definitely not some
revolutionary role she's taking on, and the article definitely makes her seem
like she's taking on the industry alone.

As for the game: It definitely looks interesting enough -- Very similar to
"Evolution", but with a lot more stats that are tracked.

I found some quotes in the article that I took umbrage with as well, pointing
to them overly lauding her:

> [...] some gamers scratched their heads and said, “Birds? Really!?” They
> expressed concern that our feathered friends might not resonate with a
> community usually drawn to zombies, dragons, spaceships, farming,
> civilizations and (of course) trains.

We have board games about some of the most banal possible topics, and they are
some of the best ones out there, and this isn't even the first game like this
(see my comment about Evolution). Also, in that list of "things gamers like",
some of those things are not like the others, and serve as perfect examples
that esoteric or "boring" topics still make gamers play a game if the game
using the topic is a good one. Seems like they cherry picked the few people
who had a negative reaction to subject matter -- After seeing the offerings at
GenCon last year, I can say that most board game enthusiasts care very little
in the end about the topic, and much more about enjoyable gameplay and
interesting mechanics.

> It offers numerous paths to victory (the Holy Grail in game design) without
> inducing “analysis paralysis.”

I am not a board game designer, but I am a very big enthusiast and have played
LOTS of different games. This does not strike me as a "Holy Grail in game
design". This is pretty much an expectation for any reasonably complex board
game coming out these days. I can think of plenty of examples that satisfy
this criteria, and have for years.

In the end, I'm sure it's probably a great game -- it definitely seems to hit
on lots of things popular games use these days, and it seems like it was made
to still be approachable despite its depth behind the scenes, but this article
does a pretty awful job representing the game in favor of trying to elevate
the designer to a status that she really doesn't fit in, let alone need to
succeed. The game is already successful. Let her credentials ride on that, not
on her gender.

[EDIT]: Removed some hyperbole. No need for that.

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mcv
Similar to _Evolution_? A line in the article[0] suggested it would be similar
to _Race for the Galaxy_ , which got me really excited. _Evolution_ is fun
too, though.

> We have board games about some of the most banal possible topics

Absolutely true, but the article is correct that some categories are somewhat
overrepresented. And while those overrepresented categories fit my interests
quite well, I welcome every attempt at diversity.

> This does not strike me as a "Holy Grail in game design".

Maybe not _the_ holy grail, but certainly a laudable goal. Many games have
only a single path to victory, and generally games with multiple balanced
paths to victory are considered more interesting, but also harder to
accomplish (because balance).

[0] I could only read the top of the article because the rest is hidden.

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bussierem
RE: Similar games: Yes, but if you look at Amazon reviews, people also try to
compare it to things like Gloomhaven. The world of board games can be pretty
hard to nail down in terms of similarity of games sometimes. Evolution is also
not as popular as many games, and if the creator doesn't know the game she
wouldn't compare it to the game. The line you're referencing is a semi-quote
from the creator about her inspiration for it.

The article lists a bunch of topics that we DON'T really overrepresent.
"Trains"? We have 1 popular game for that (Ticket to Ride). "Civilizations"?
That's a REALLY broad subject, so that's harder to really make a call on. The
others in the list are not really games that most of the really popular games
focus on. Pandemic, Azul, Carcassone, Settlers of Catan -- These are a lot of
the really popular games right now, and none of them hit on what we normally
call "trendy topics for people". The main example I would have used if I was
the author is _Lovecraft_, which is indeed VERY overrepresented in board
games.

Also, I agree 100% -- I welcome diversity in my games. My beef is not with her
game at all. It looks great. Honestly probably a game my wife and I will pick
up, since it's similar to games we like. My problem is with the article not
focusing at all on things that would better highlight the game, and therefore
the author's success. She made a great game, people love it, and it's doing
well. Focus on that, not on her gender or trying to straw man metrics of why
she's doing well.

RE: Multiple paths to victory. I thought more about this, but I think what
you're mistaking is "multiple PATHS to victory" vs "multiple victory
conditions". Games like Stone Age, Ticket to Ride, Carcassone, and Settlers
have 1 "victory condition" (have the most points"), but have MANY _paths_ to
take to win with that condition. This game seems the same way, which I agree
is a fantastic thing for a game to have, but given how common it is for games
to have this now, I would no longer be comfortable calling it a "holy grail",
since that term implies something that hasn't been achieved (or rarely is
achieved), and that's provably false now.

[EDIT]: Capitalization and grammar

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mcv
Trains not overrepresented? Could it be that you are unfamiliar with the
_18xx_ genre of train investment games? It's an entire genre in itself, with
hundreds of games taking place in every conceivable part of the world. Apart
from that, there's the _Empire Builder_ -type train games, _Trans America_ ,
_Steam_ , not to mention a whole bunch of tile-laying games that use rails as
their theme.

It's possible train games are more visible to me due to my train-nut family,
but there are a lot of excellent train games out there.

"Civilizations" \-- my interpretation of that is, well, the original
_Civilization_ , and the many, many attempts to make a more streamlined game
with a similar feel. If you want to interpret it broader than that, you could
include any kind of game where you build up a society out of nothing,
including even _Catan_ , despite its lack of technological progress. Or it
could include anything involving ancient civilisations, even if it's just as a
theme (we are talking theme here, after all). But if you need to include
technological progress, then I don't think this is overrepresented, it's just
a kind of game that many gamers find really intriguing but is hard to get
right, hence the interest when a new attempt seems to get it right.

I agree Lovecraft is overrepresented.

I'm afraid I can't really comment on the focus of the article, as only the
first few paragraphs are visible to me.

You've got a good point about the use of "Holy Grail". Many games do enable
very different viable strategies, so it's not as unattainable as the phrase
"holy grail" suggests. It is still considered to be an important aspect of
game design, though, and games where one strategy is clearly superior to all
others have failed at it.

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bussierem
I was not aware of those train games, thank you for telling me of them. It's
obviously possible we both have major selection bias towards what we've seen,
but I guess my point was more that the "normal internet fad topics" are not
really as overrepresented in board games. Zombies and Dragons and stuff
_exist_ in board games, but most of the really popular games are touching on
topics that most reasonable people would not immediately associate with the
generation of people ravenously playing those board games now.

Civilizations -- yeah, like I said, a VERY broad genre, so I kinda left that
one alone.

You have a good point too on multiple strategies being important in game
design. I just disagreed with how the author portrays all of this.

In the end, that's what my rant was (not so clearly) about I guess -- Good
game, good design, good designer: Terrible article.

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snazzycalynx
Love this story. What an innovative idea to create a game using American
birds, their habitats and the sources of their feeding . With over 700 species
in the US, the possibilities are incredible, and fun for all ages. It would be
a great teaching device in schools to acquaint American children with the
variety of habitats and birds in this country.

