The New Campaigners

by Moss Scheurkogel

*THE GAME SHOPPER HAS MOVED!*
The new link for this article is:  http://gameshop.com.au/blog/thegameshopper/2012/08/09/the-new-campaigners/

Thanks for your patience.
~Moss

I like serial games, by which I mean games that have a connected arc across several playthroughs and not the games that come on the back of a corn flakes box (that joke works better when you say it aloud.)
Alas, consistency between playthroughs is not something that board games are set up for. It’s simply not part of the established industry. By the end of Settlers of Catan, you may control a burgeoning industrial nation undergoing a cultural renaissance, but the next time you sit down to play you’ll once again just be a silly little man in a lean-to rubbing two sheep together to stay warm. And this is how it needs to be. If one tyrant continued to rule over the other players solely on the strength of past victories, it wouldn’t be much better than the Olympics, now would it? (Ahah!) For the sake of preserving balance, most games need to reset.

Review: Forbidden Island

by Moss Scheurkogel

*THE GAME SHOPPER HAS MOVED!*
The new link for this article is:  http://gameshop.com.au/blog/thegameshopper/2012/07/25/review-forbidden-island/

Thanks for your patience.
~Moss

2-4 Players, Play Time 20-45 mins.

Cooperative gaming is a notion that many people are hesitant about at first glance. Indeed, when I proposed to my parents that we play a game where we all work together to win as a communal group, they must have thought I was one braid away from joining the drum circle that lives down by the beach. But working as a team to overcome a set challenge is actually quite a natural form of gaming. We do it in video games, we do it in roleplaying games, and we even do it in sports. So why do board games need to be head-to-head, territorial fight-for-dominance bloodbaths? There are a number of fantastic cooperative games out there in which the players rely on teamwork to triumph over the game itself, and one of my personal favourites is Forbidden Island.