Boardgames are an often overlooked hobby in the U.S. While party games such as Trivial Pursuit enjoy immense popularity, there is a hidden aspect to gaming that escapes most of America. Once you look beyond the bland and mechanistic favorites such as Monopoly, Clue, and company there is an entire world of boardgames waiting to be discovered - eurogames!

It seems the Germans have a long and exciting history of gaming within the family; a practice that died a horrible death in United States in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Today, the true heart and spirit of boardgaming exists not within the hollow facade of Hasbro but inside the halls of dozens of much smaller companies in the U.S. and Europe such as Rio Grande Games and Mayfair Games. Rio Grande is an American company that was formed by Jay Tummelson for the purpose of publishing English language versions of German or Euro-games. Jay has experienced great success with Rio Grande and several other American companies have been founded recently to focus on this sector of the games market.

Eurogames are tough to nail down. What is a euro-style game? It has a theme that is usually integral to play but not always. A game such as chess, for example, has no real theme. It is an abstract game. Eurogames are playable within an hour or two. This immediately eliminates traditional American wargames. You know, the games with umpteen thousand little cardboard squares or counters and large paper maps used as a playing surface. Also unlike wargames, German games include instruction books of a few pages, instead of an instruction book with 35 pages. Most interestingly, until recently Eurogames were almost always initially published by European (mostly German) publishers. The recent spate of company formations and the incredible success of Rio Grande Games has changed this but the majority of Euro-style boardgames are still published by European publishers.

I expect this to change over the coming years as the boardgaming industry is experiencing a bit of a renassiance. Finally, Euro-style boardgames are published with the author’s name prominently displayed on the box and on the manual. It’s amusing that the Europeans originated this concept. Like successful authors, a successful game designer will general sell a minimum number of copies of his new game based solely on his name. Think Stephen King… but for games.

Eurogames have been around for quite a while but the one thing that kept most Americans at a distance was the fact that the game’s instructions and components where printed in German. Over the past decade, the Eurogames market has grown immensely in English speaking countries such as the U.S. and Britian due primarily to the translations available on the Internet. As these translations became available the market for Eurogames in the English-speaking countries grew by leaps and bounds culminating in the formation of companies such as Rio Grande Games dedicated to delivering English versions of Eurogames to Americans and Brits.

Which brings us to today. Why play games? They are fun… They can be mind expanding or simply fast and fun… They engage the spirit of competition… They bring people closer… And finally, playing a game is certainly better than watching TV. Of course, I write this on my 15th day in France - no games and the only TV I have had is BBC World. I would kill for just one episode of The Simpsons right now.

Before sharing a few resources I have compiled for your gaming pleasure, I would like to take a moment to provide two recommendations for a great introduction to Eurogames:

Lost Cities - Lost Cities was designed by Reiner Knitzia, the most prolific and successful designer of Eurogames, ever. Reiner has dozens of games published each year and everyone agrees that he is a truly great game designer. Lost Cities is a wonderful two player game that is inexpensive and very simple to learn. It is quick and very tense. You never can do everything you want. It leaves you wanting to play just one more game… Read the full rules here.

Settlers of Catan - Settlers is an old favorite among the gaming hordes. It has inpired an entire line of expansions and has sold millions of copies world-wide. The basic premise behind this 3-4 player game is you build cities and then connect them with roads and gather bonuses along the way. Structures are built using various combinations of several elements: wood, ore, sheep, and bricks. The first person to achieve ten victory points wins. Of course, there is the robber… He is nasty.

Web Resources -
1. BoardGameGeek

Where to buy Eurogames -
1. Your local game shop
2. Funagain.com