Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kuildeous]

I overheard a conversation at work about trying to learn more about students. On question they may ask others is what games they like to play. Then they rattled off Clue, Monopoly, and Battleship. You know, games that really make you think and apply strategy. I quietly wept in my cube. 

[DG]

I feel the same when people talk about thinking puzzles like Sudoko. After you know some deduction rules it is just a matter of spotting where to apply the rules, so they are in fact observation puzzles.

[jsh357]

Board game publishers don't get their games in to chain stores = the average person never sees or hears about them.  How often does a person who knows nothing about board games outside of Monopoly go in to a game shop?  Probably never.

[Kuildeous]

Board game publishers don't get their games in to chain stores = the average person never sees or hears about them.  How often does a person who knows nothing about board games outside of Monopoly go in to a game shop?  Probably never.

Yeah, I know. It's kind of like how someone from a small Midwestern town likely has no idea how good Indian food, Thai food, or sushi can be.

And I suppose I cannot blame someone for wanting to stimulate himself mentally by playing any board game. Even Monopoly has some thinking to do, but it's no Power Grid.

I almost spoke up when they mentioned Clue, because I think Mystery of the Abbey captures that with a better format, but then I got stunned when the list continued and included Monopoly and Battleship. But hey, Clue does involve some deduction, so no hate there.

[KingZog3]

Board game publishers don't get their games in to chain stores = the average person never sees or hears about them.  How often does a person who knows nothing about board games outside of Monopoly go in to a game shop?  Probably never.

Yeah, I know. It's kind of like how someone from a small Midwestern town likely has no idea how good Indian food, Thai food, or sushi can be.

And I suppose I cannot blame someone for wanting to stimulate himself mentally by playing any board game. Even Monopoly has some thinking to do, but it's no Power Grid.

I almost spoke up when they mentioned Clue, because I think Mystery of the Abbey captures that with a better format, but then I got stunned when the list continued and included Monopoly and Battleship. But hey, Clue does involve some deduction, so no hate there.

Yeah, I've been playing Clue with my nine year old cousin, and it does involve deduction and some strategy when it comes to bocking doors as well as pulling people into rooms. It's a good strategy game for kids.

[blueblimp]

I feel the same when people talk about thinking puzzles like Sudoko. After you know some deduction rules it is just a matter of spotting where to apply the rules, so they are in fact observation puzzles.

I think the best approach to such puzzles is to try to work out the play rules yourself, as tempting and easy as it is to spoil yourself. Same principle applies to Rubik's Cube, which is a fun combinatorics puzzle if you create your own solution.

I figure that this kind of puzzle might have been more fun in the pre-internet era, where it's less convenient to spoil yourself.

[DG]

I was assuming that one worked out the rules for oneself We're a cut above the average forum when it comes to logic.

[soulnet]

I have not seen any set of rules that, when applied iteratively, solves any given uniquely solvable instance of Sudoku. Maybe you have a bad source of Sudoku boards. That being said, I agree that Sudoku gets old really fast.

[Ratsia]

Board game publishers don't get their games in to chain stores = the average person never sees or hears about them.

Are things still that bad in where you come from?

In Finland a typical chain store would have at least Ticket to Ride, Catan, Dominion, Carcassonne and then a few games of similar depth published during the last 1-2 year -- the kind of stuff that ranks high in Spiel de Jahres usually ends up in chain stores until the print runs out. That would include stuff like Kingdom builder, Pandemic, etc. Most people would naturally not recognize the newer titles, but they are still buying them as gifts etc, and most seem to recognize Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride as classics almost in the same boat as Monopoly and the likes. Dominion is also rather close to that status. My experience is that the situation is quite similar in most of central Europe.

So, the offering is still classics + subset of newer titles, but the classics already include quite a few proper strategy games and the newer titles are available for limited (but usually sufficiently long) time.

[Davio]

Random people not knowing about good games isn't that bad.

Your family not knowing about good games and giving bad ones to you as a birthday gift is.

[Lekkit]

Your family not knowing about good games and giving bad ones to you as a birthday gift is.

I visited my parents who live across the country. They wanted to give me Dominion as a birthday gift. However, we had brought it with all the expansions available at the time to teach them. They kept their set and now play a couple of times a week.

I guess my point is to brag about how I've never gotten any bad board games from my parents since they are into board games themselves.

[Teproc]

Growing up in Germany in a family playing Settlers of Catan means I don't have this problem either... and Monopoly is less popular in France than in the US I think (the theme maybe ?), but most people still don't know about modern games, aside from a few party games like Jungle Speed or Time's Up that broke through.

[jsh357]

I have seen catan at chain stores and maybe ticket to ride, but not much else.

[Dsell]

I think it depends on the chain store. I've never noticed any decent strategy game at Walmart, though I wouldn't be teeerribly surprised to see Catan anymore. Target has had Catan for years and seems to be expanding their selection: I've seen Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, expansions for Catan...I believe I've seen several more but am not remembering at the moment. Barnes and Noble, the largest bookstore chain in America, has an excellent selection of strategy games that might include Agricola, Dominion + Expansions, Arkham Horror (and several other games in that line), at least a couple Star Wars games including the LCG and X-Wing, and many more in addition to the ones offered at Target.

The thing is, these chain stores will never have the selection or the knowledge of a FLGS, plus their prices are high and by buying there you're not supporting local. The only reason I'd buy a game from one of these places is if I had like a 40% off coupon on a single item or something.

Edit: Their websites also have a stronger selection. Even Walmart offers Dominion, Pandemic, Terra Mystica, King of Tokyo, Puerto Rico, Smallworld, Agricola, Carcassonne, Mage Knight and others on their website. But despite that, the "Strategy Games" category on their website was labelled with Munchkin and Battleship.

Edit 2: Also I discovered years ago (when I had a gift card and before they had so many great options) that their site has dozens of rethemed Monopoly games. Just pages and pages of rethemes. It's pretty amusing to just browse their "classic games" to see what you find. Some good ones:

Over the Hill-opoly, Dog-opoly (as well as Shihtzu-opoly, Mutt-opoly, Westie-opoly, Poodle-opoly, Puppy-opoly), Photo-opoly, Post-office-opoly: Holiday Stamps, DIY-opoly, and -opolies for just about every city and major university in America.

[Davio]

I bought two Days of Wonder games at a local mega toy store: Cleopatra and Mystery of the Abbey.
I was excited to see them there for not much $$$.

Alas, the DoW stock hasn't been refilled since.

Some games that our biggest Dutch publisher 999 Games translates end up there: Dominion, the Village and Stone Age being the most notable ones.

[markusin]

In Montreal and surrounding areas, we have a chain store called Archambault. I think it focuses primarily on selling music related stuff. They're big stores though, and they have a large selection of board games, both for young audiences and for the strategy board game crowd. We're talking 7 Wonders and Descent here. They're all in French though.

I've seen Catan and it's expansions being sold in Chapters, next to some party games. I'm fortunate that there is also another small chain of stores that specializes in board games where I live. If it has a French translation, the store probably has it.

[KingZog3]

In Montreal and surrounding areas, we have a chain store called Archambault. I think it focuses primarily on selling music related stuff. They're big stores though, and they have a large selection of board games, both for young audiences and for the strategy board game crowd. We're talking 7 Wonders and Descent here. They're all in French though.

I've seen Catan and it's expansions being sold in Chapters, next to some party games. I'm fortunate that there is also another small chain of stores that specializes in board games where I live. If it has a French translation, the store probably has it.

I've seen in Dominion is Chapters, Indigo (which is Chapters), and Archambault has it too probably.

And wait, you're in Montreal? Why haven't we played Dominion IRL?

[mail-mi]

I think it depends on the chain store. I've never noticed any decent strategy game at Walmart, though I wouldn't be teeerribly surprised to see Catan anymore. Target has had Catan for years and seems to be expanding their selection: I've seen Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, expansions for Catan...I believe I've seen several more but am not remembering at the moment. Barnes and Noble, the largest bookstore chain in America, has an excellent selection of strategy games that might include Agricola, Dominion + Expansions, Arkham Horror (and several other games in that line), at least a couple Star Wars games including the LCG and X-Wing, and many more in addition to the ones offered at Target.

I've seen Power Grid in Barne's and Noble as well.

[markusin]

In Montreal and surrounding areas, we have a chain store called Archambault. I think it focuses primarily on selling music related stuff. They're big stores though, and they have a large selection of board games, both for young audiences and for the strategy board game crowd. We're talking 7 Wonders and Descent here. They're all in French though.

I've seen Catan and it's expansions being sold in Chapters, next to some party games. I'm fortunate that there is also another small chain of stores that specializes in board games where I live. If it has a French translation, the store probably has it.

I've seen in Dominion is Chapters, Indigo (which is Chapters), and Archambault has it too probably.

And wait, you're in Montreal? Why haven't we played Dominion IRL?

I've mentioned it in a bunch of places where you have. I figured you knew I was in Montreal and that you were just waiting for someone to make a "heading to Montreal. any Dominion players there?" post where we'd ambush the visitor. I think you've responded to some posts of mine where I reveal this information.

I got my hands full with work and stuff this summer, but maybe we can play sometime after September, when school starts.

And for the rest of you: why u no visit Canada?

Edit: Tour De Jeux is the aforementioned game store. You can find it in big shopping malls.

[eHalcyon]

I have not seen any set of rules that, when applied iteratively, solves any given uniquely solvable instance of Sudoku. Maybe you have a bad source of Sudoku boards. That being said, I agree that Sudoku gets old really fast.

Well, I can take a photo of a Sudoku puzzle with the Google Goggles app and it will automatically solve it, so there must be something.

[qmech]

I have not seen any set of rules that, when applied iteratively, solves any given uniquely solvable instance of Sudoku. Maybe you have a bad source of Sudoku boards. That being said, I agree that Sudoku gets old really fast.

Well, I can take a photo of a Sudoku puzzle with the Google Goggles app and it will automatically solve it, so there must be something.

Sudoku are trivial to solve by brute force: I've not come across a "clever" method that works faster than the solver I wrote in C to kick the habit.  (That's also the only program I've ever managed to write in C.)

[eHalcyon]

I have not seen any set of rules that, when applied iteratively, solves any given uniquely solvable instance of Sudoku. Maybe you have a bad source of Sudoku boards. That being said, I agree that Sudoku gets old really fast.

Well, I can take a photo of a Sudoku puzzle with the Google Goggles app and it will automatically solve it, so there must be something.

Sudoku are trivial to solve by brute force: I've not come across a "clever" method that works faster than the solver I wrote in C to kick the habit.  (That's also the only program I've ever managed to write in C.)

Fair enough, but it actually fills in bit by bit in a way that suggests it is using algorithms.

[soulnet]

Fair enough, but it actually fills in bit by bit in a way that suggests it is using algorithms.

Since the problem (generalized) has been shown to be NP-complete, it is doubtful that a greedy approach works. It would have to be particular for the 3x3x3 size. It is possible that good enough heuristic shows all or almost all Sudokus prepared for humans, though.

[sudgy]

And for the rest of you: why u no visit Canada?

I visit Canada at least once a year.  It's over in BC, though.

[Awaclus]

And for the rest of you: why u no visit Canada?

Having acrophobia and living across the ocean is a nombo. I swear, that's the only reason!