Comments on: Methods of Board Game Criticism https://thethoughtfulgamer.com/2022/05/27/methods-of-board-game-criticism/ Board Game Reviews, Analysis, and Strategy Mon, 30 May 2022 19:25:39 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 By: Marc Davis https://thethoughtfulgamer.com/2022/05/27/methods-of-board-game-criticism/#comment-574 Mon, 30 May 2022 19:25:39 +0000 https://thethoughtfulgamer.com/?p=3654#comment-574 In reply to RALF BRECHTEL.

Great thoughts! The emotional element is key. For the critic, being able to communicate those thoughts and emotions to others is a big challenge.

]]> By: RALF BRECHTEL https://thethoughtfulgamer.com/2022/05/27/methods-of-board-game-criticism/#comment-573 Sat, 28 May 2022 06:36:30 +0000 https://thethoughtfulgamer.com/?p=3654#comment-573 Hello, a really interessting article. I am 59 years old, play games, love music hearing and playing and i read a lot. When it comes to review and critize, i think an intellectual approach is wrong. Also the try to overanalyze, looking for a deeper sense or thruth in games or music/books.
First, at least for me, all three have a lot to do with emotions. I still got goosebumps, when i hear a song that touch me. This must not a great or special song, but it have something that rings a bell in me.
Same with games. And it is an absolute thing of personal taste. As hard as you try, you can’t be really objective. And this is right that way.
Otherwise we get “technically” reviews. Like talking about a machine design. Not what i want for games, cds or books.
I admit, i don’t like eurogames. You sit around a table putting meeples here, play a card there, get this for that and in end someone has won with 130 vps. Even the last player, he was bored and has no fun playing today ( he want to look a soccer game but there was a fourth player needed …so he plays ), and he really play as shit, make 45 vps. So no one really lose, no matter what he do orbhow bad he play.
That is not emotional for me. I need the tense feeling of “loosing speak dying ” in a game. That is what i like in games like “Alien legendary encounter”.
But as i say, this truly subjective and personal.

My point in reviews is : If i know a little of the taste of a reviewer, i can read out of a review, it is for me or not. I think i rarely would give an worker placement euro game a high scoring. If a reader know this, he   know if a give such a game a better scoring, this game have something, which touches a sense in me to do that.

And theme of games. Open shown racism, for example, is nothing i want in a game. But shortly was the case, that in a game in Germany that take place in an african setting, the game company use brown meeples for the people. A cry erupts, how racist is that. What a overreacted bullshit. It is pretty en vogue today, to search everything for a secret deeper meaning. And show themselve in a spotlight as fighter for the one and only thruth.

We talking about games. I really have a lot of games with red meeples. It never comes to my mind, that the maker is a communist.

To end this, “Games are an emotional experience”.

And this is the fun.

Ralf

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