Board Games and the Software Developer

Dave Redding — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:22:42 GMT

For a developer, the worst thing that can happen is to have the mind dulled. This dulling can occur from a number of places. Like too much heroin or watching reality TV. So how would a developer keep his mind sharp and be entertained at the same time? Flashy lights and bright colors only go so far.

The way I’ve discovered is some good ol' challenging board games. Makes sense, most developers are gamers at heart. And I’m not talking about just your standard fair of Stratego and Monopoly, but European games as well like Settlers of Catan and Power Grid. While these games may not have the most complex rule set (besides, after a hard day of thought, do you really want to spend the evening or weekend having to analyze rules to entertain yourself?) but they have a high fun factor and do lend themselves to analytical thought with strategy.

I've compiled a list here of the board games I play at home, and what my thoughts are on them. typically I play with the Wife, and when time permits, the whole family.

1.) Robo Rally

Robo Rally IS the programmers game. It takes about 35min - 2 hours to play depending. The principal of the game is to race your robot through the flags in ascending order. the first one to touch the last flag, Wins! what makes this game great is the amount of cunning and analysis involved. Each turn your dealt a number of cards. Each card has some kind of movement associated with it. For instance Move Forward 2 or Turn Right. You take these cards and "Program" your robot, that is, place them, face down on 5 separate Registers (see...programmers game). Once everyone has programmed their bot, you all flip the card in the first register and your robot executes that movement. It may mean:

Falling off the edge of the board
Pushing or being pushed
Or, just doing what you planned.

But, unlike in real world development, there is no debugging. My 7 y/o Step son loves this game. He'll take cards and turn them in his hands to figure out which way to go and how he wants to move.

The real gotcha is that your playing on a factory floor with all kinds of other crazy stuff. Like conveyer belts that move you and gears that will spin you. All in all, it's a good time and I’ll keep those analytical skills sharp

2.) Settlers of Catan

Settlers of Catan (SoC) is a classic European game that was made around '95. Since then it's had an explosion in its follwing. It has spawned many other games based on the same premise. The games will last anywhere between 45 min and 2 hours, with the typical being an hour and half.

At first I was leery to pick this one up. I thought that the rules were going to be to complex so that it couldn’t really be enjoyed by someone (me) who was just wanting to get in and play. I was wrong, very very wrong.

SoC is almost non-confrontational (I say almost because you can be passive aggressive) The goal is to get to 10 victory points. You get those points by playing cards that give them to you, building small villages or upgrading the same to cities and gaining a couple of unique achievements during gameplay. The focus of the game is a small hex board that can be re-arranged to change the game each time.

During the course of the game, you build roads and cities, collect resources and buy things like knights or libraries to increase your points. The game is simple to learn, the rules are VERY straight forward. The strategy comes in the form of where to build to maximize your resource input. Trading with other players is also heavily encouraged. I would say this game is great at rewarding the successful marketer. It'll definitely keep those relationship skills sharp.

3.) Power Grid

The wife and I just played this game last night. It was some kind of fun. I would compare it to monopoly, but that would be a gross undestatement. It took us about 5 min to set the game up, and about 2.5 hours to play all the way through for the first time.

This is another European game made in Germany. The premise is simple, buy power plants, buy access to cities, buy resources for the power plants, power the cities. In our game, the first person to power 21 cities wins. The game is engineered so that no one player can completely run away with the game. Basically, whoever's in the lead is at a disadvantage when it comes to buying up resources and power plants. this keeps the games very tight and makes for some interesting outcomes.

The rules are very simple and straight forward, but again, the strategy comes from off the board. Will you pay more than anyone else for a power plant? It follows auction house rules so you could end up paying much more than it's value. Or will you try to snag up all the resources to cut the other players off? All in all, it's a great financial and resource management game, with a built in player driven economy and balancing system.

4.) Killer Bunnies, Quest for the magic Carrot

With a name like that, who can resist the temptation to play.

The excerpt from the back of the box explains it best

Killer Bunnies is a fast paced, action filled card game, in which you must try to keep as many Bunnies alive as possible, while eliminating your opponents' Bunnies. The problem: Your opponents are armed with weapons and will stop at nothing to keep you from winning the game, which can get dreadfully vengeful, horribly nasty, hilariously messy, and just plain fun! Can you keep from being attacked by the whimsical Whisk or the torching Flame Thrower? Defend your Bunnies with the Magic Spatula, or use a Feed The Bunny card to starve out an opponent! It's off-the-wall strategic fun, where the goal is to survive and claim the Magic Carrot to win the game!

Yes, your goal is to achieve the magic carrot. The wife really likes this one, and we typically play it as a pickup game. It takes about 30 min to work through an entire match. This is in the same vein as Munchkins.

5.) Nexus Ops

Nexus Ops is a fantastic tactical game, without all the overhead and rules of games like Axis and Allies or some of the more in-depth war games. The scenario is that you have brought a squad of units (including aliens) to a distant planet to find resources and stake claim to them in the name of your corporation. But your not alone (wouldn’t be much of a challenge that way).

This is another game where you win by accumulation of victory points. You can duke it out or achieve objectives to get your points, and most likely you'll have to do both. The most stunning thing about this game is the pieces, they are fantastically sculpted and look great under a black light.

The rules for the game are fairly simple and straight forward. Once you've played a game or two, you'll have em' down. this game plays in about 45 min or so for a 2 player game. figure about an hour and half for a 3 or 4 player game. Tactical strategy keeps you sharp on your decision making skills. Now Get out there and kill something marines!!!!

6.) Heroscape

Honestly, Heroscape rates on my "Ok" list. If the boys really want to play it, we will. But the setup time is a test in patients and endurance. Once your up and running it can be fun, especially with several people playing.

My favorite is to create a FPS variant and start doing things like capture the flag and double domination. This game doesn’t get as much play as it did around Christmas, but it's still a hoot when the mood strikes us.

7.) Triple Triumph

Crainium typically makes educational games, and this one is no exception. Visualization, Analysis and Strategy all come together when your trying to out build your opponent. With a limited number of spots on the board, you have to try and match your pyramids colors with those around it. You can also build Up, and get extra rewards for doing so.

This is a fast game, about 15 min or so, and is really fun. My wife and I play this a lot, as do our boys. A great multiplayer puzzle game.

8.) Monopoly, Risk, Uno, Trouble and the rest of the standard fair

With the games listed above, the standard fair doesn’t get much play. We'll occasionally break out Risk or Monopoly on a rainy or dreary day. But with games like Catan and Robo Rally, we really don't have much use for those "Other" kind of games.

Uno, trouble and sorry however...those can be pretty fun and fast paced in the electronic versions. We'll typically break those out with the kids when were a little short on time, but want to get some quality family time in. Definitely worth checking out just for their togetherness factor.

Well, that’s not exactly a comprehensive list. There are a number of other games that we play. And at this moment i'm waiting for Ticket to Ride to come in. Looks like it'll be a good one for the wife, myself and the kids to play. At any rate, these games provide the kind of thought processes that will keep us up on our toes as developers. But the best part is the time you get to spend with friends and family while playing. Nothing is able to simulate that.

On the road again...

Dave Redding — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 17:12:23 GMT

Hey everybody (Hi Dr. Dave). I'm confirmed for two speaking engagements this month! Woot! Apparently my XNA talk grew legs and is ready to walk. Next week (Nov. 20th) I'll be out at the West Michigan .Net user group and then I'll be heading down to Detroit for the IDGA user group (a indy, game developer user group...very cool!)

I'll be giving talks similar to the one I gave at DoDN, but this time, i've prepared a special demo. this demo works kinda like the web game Collapse, except it takes advantage of the GHII controller. It's a simple game in principal, and still relies on all the basic XNA stuff (Spritebatches, controller input etc etc) And it should be a little more interesting than the Pong demo. Not that beer pong is un-cool by any stretch of the imagination.

Hello World.

Dave Redding — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 09:53:41 GMT

Well, due to a horrific accident where i thought i had my laptop stolen ( only to have it re-appear a day later) i had to cancel my AACS speaking engagement. But if your all interested in how i built my own Arcade Cab, let me know and i'll post the PPT.

On a better note, I submitted my abstracts for the DoDN (20th' of October) today, I'm hoping they can find room for me to do both talks:

Abstract 1: XNA Introductory talk

Dave Redding: What is XNA (200)

XNA is the new technology introduced by Microsoft to support hobbyist and indy game developers start writing games on their own. So, ditch the WF, C# 3.5, LINQ and all the other Business stuff at the door, were going to talk about writing games for your Xbox. In this session were going to talk about XNA, what it is, what you need to get up and running, how to get started writing games for the Xbox360, and we’ll top it off with a demo of a small 2D application with full support on the Xbox.

Abstract 2: XNA 3D talk

Dave Redding: XNA in the Next Dimension (300)

XNA is the new technology introduced by Microsoft to support hobbyist and indy game developers start writing games on their own. In this session were going to talk about Controller & keyboard input, Xact sound, 3D rendering, Texturing, Basic Effects and we’ll top it off by modifying a Microsoft provided starter kit and pushing it to the Xbox! So, when you get done writing the next thing in CRM widgets, lets talk about writing video games!

Game Dev