I was having dinner with some people a few years ago when a friend of mine, who is actually a well-known role-playing game designer, started making fun of euro games. “It’s just a bunch of abstract concepts wrapped up in gameplay mechanics,” he said, “except that the red cube represents Catholicism.” I bristled at that, because sure you can make a lot of very historical mechanics about Catholicism when you’re playing a role-playing game about being the pope, but how are you going to get enough people to represent all of Europe? Answer me that, smart guy. I went away thinking I was pretty smart, myself.
I’m unclear on what distinguishes this red-cube game from the hypothetical one about the Reformation. The cubes tie into a defcon system? Do the Catholic cubes supposedly not tie into any other systems? I feel like you’re trying to justify why you like this Euro-style game by claiming it’s somehow not a Euro-style game. Still, sounds like an elegant little game!
He’s saying many Euro-games merely coat a theme onto their game with meaningless flavor. Their mechanics don’t actually represent anything special about reed gathering (or whatever). They don’t make you FEEL what the reed farmers felt. It’s just a math problem with arbitrary words representing your variables.
Whereas this game actually embodies the bluff and bluster of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The gameplay creates the same sort of situations and decisions that the Cold War was about.
He’s not saying this isn’t Euro-style. He’s saying games should suit their themes and this one succeeds where many Euro-games fail.
If I ever have a contest where the prize is a copy of 13 Days, @Lizard_Dude automatically wins it for answering @Nightgaunt’s question perfectly. Thanks, @Lizard_Dude!
Fantastic review Tom. I wish everyone wrote opinion pieces on anything with such a layered narrative and analogies. Also makes me want to play the game!
