Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre
On Settlers of Catan
05/19/09
An interesting read on the Settlers of Catan board game and how German game design is beginning to redefine the types of games that Americans are interested in playing.
I must be way ahead of this curve. The article says that Catan has just recently begun to take off in the U.S. My friends and I have been playing it for years. I think I played my first game my sophomore year of college. I won’t say when that was, but it was more than a year or two ago. Haha.
Changing the Game
To me, the most fascinating thing about Settlers (and its compatriot expansion edition: Cities & Knights) is that the game is always different. Between the variable board and card sets it’s virtually impossible to have two identical games. I think that’s what keeps us playing it years later. Sure, certain strategies work well – and if you play with my buddy Trent, chances are that you will lose to him, but there isn’t one way to beat the game every single time.