I want to play games, and like much of the world, the pandemic has limited that. But not stopped it. My opponent for the foreseeable future will be my son, who
is old enough to understand rules and, more importantly, get immersed in a
theme. There is a misconception that children cannot play ‘proper’ games, this
is incorrect. They do not have the experience
of years of tabletop games, they suffer from complex & deep game mechanics
as much as anyone new to the hobby. So long as it can be broken down to a
learning curve any game is suitable for children.
However, immersion is different. Blocky text, games-in-games, inelegant design all shatter immersion, despite their design to create deeper immersion. Too many times I have read rules and applied them in game, with absolutely no idea what that rule is called. GW games are particularly at fault for this, D&D almost comically so. Kings of War oddly embraces this with its generically worded rules yet I find this more immersive.
For me, immersion is all about the miniatures, I love painting miniatures! If I believe in the theme of the miniatures’ I will most likely enjoy the game. For this project I wanted to recapture an element of my early hobby days. As a teenager I enjoyed nothing more than buying the GW kits with hundreds of options and kit bashing as much of an army as I could.
Some keen readers pointed out that I missed out some fantasy games in the last article. For one or more reasons they do not fit into the above brief, but many thanks for pointing them out!
I've had to challenge myself to get to the root of exactly why I'm doing this:
- Rules that can be taught in stages, but not so complex that it would take too many sessions to teach.
- Rules that add to immersion, rather than complexity.
- Miniatures that that can be made unique and challenging to paint.
These three points will be my driving force for the direction I take this project!
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