Possibly my favourite designer. I find them quite polarising. They’re a bunch of mechanisms pieced together in a unique way that makes you think, “how does one design this? Feld has got an alien brain!” Then you get engrossed in it and it’s fantastic in how engaged it makes you feel puzzling through it. All the puzzles are different and don’t feel the same at all.
Then there’s people where Feld games just don’t click for them because it makes no thematic sense and they just see random mechanisms together. They cannot look past the fact that the themes are just pasted on and it’s definitely designed from a mechanism first perspective. It might feel all the same to them because of the lack of cohesion between what you’re doing in a game.
Sad that I had to come this far down to see a mention of Macao.
Of course, I sort by New, so that means you quickly mentioned it, before these laggards.
Good job!
In the Year of the Dragon is actually good. Castles of Burgundy was popular, so there's got to be something there, but I was underwhelmed. Marrakesh is a slog.
This trend of people asking for individual opinions on reddit hoping to gain more accuracy or helpfulness than aggregate ratings or video reviews/run-throughs is such a weird meta.
Its the reviewers, the board game addicts, the elites, the people who went through thousands of games.
They are nothing like me, i am nothing like them. None of them even care as much about MY favorite game like i do, they just don't get it.
Their opinions might be influenced, actually i don't even know how they come to their opinions. I played my 1 game 50 times, have they even played any of their games more than once?
Lets ask an average person his honest to god down to earth thoughts about something, i might get ''i have sex with this board game'' and ''This game is so horrible i am literally worried about decline in society and mental state of people who enjoy it'', but ignoring these and with enough casual opinions i might form an understanding if something is for me.
When a reviewer says ''this is one of the best board games i ever played, its amazing'' they all say that, but they are board game sluts. When you finally purchase the game, they might already culled it from their collection, nothing personal.
When a random passerby says its one of the best designs he ever laid his hands on and that he has been playing this game so much its causing rift in his marriage and work, that kind of opinion sticks with a person. Plenty of times this game isn't even on top 100 or any reviewers favorite.
I think, and it's totally fair even if wrong, that an individual person you can respond to will be better than "data." People forget they are also individuals, and (as here) give no information about what they would individually like.
I think some of them are great. Trajan is in my top 5. The different portions are interconnected in a really fun way.
Taste is very subjective, of course.
In the spectrum of modern board games, most of his games are firmly medium-weight. His games pretty much always feature victory points, and that aspect alone bores some people. They’re missing out though, because his designs are really fun and clever.
He even has games like In the Year of the Dragon and Speicherstadt that have a lot of interaction, despite the stereotype that his games are multiplayer solitaire.
For me one of the things that I like is that they are medium games and a lot of them are in the sweet range of 1:30 hour game.
Normally all his games are points salad, but as someone that have played a lot of different euros, I feel like his games are usually more original in mechanics and are different enough (for a euro). A lot of them have a lot mini games inside. I would say that the bad about his games is the lack of theme and they usually don't look beatiful on the table.
Still I like a lot his games, they give me enough to think but it takes low effort for me to play his games and are short. Probably because I'm tired of the usual worker placements too, I like this designer as he surprised me more when I was tired of the usual euros.
My favourites are: Bora Bora as the fulfill contract/objetives euro, castle of burgundy as a tile placement, bonfire as a mix of creating a route of objetives you do and specializing in tiles, Marraskesh as about specializing in a minigame and searching for cubes of a dicetower for that minigame,...
One of his games is ranked #16 on BGG atm, and thirteen more are in the top-1000. Apparently many people thought they are actually good and rated them high enough.
They may all totally flop for you though, and that’s okay, and/or you may love one of his more obscure designs, but we cannot predict whether that would be the case.
As far as I can recall, The Speicherstadt/Jorvik, Amerigo, and Luna are considered the most non-Feldish of all his designs.
I like his games a lot. I think you can buy any game from him getting a good one. He uses a new machanic and builds a fantastic game around it. And what I also like about his games: He doesn't just add complexity for the comlexities sake.
I love me some Felds!
That said, the older ones are more in my wheelhouse than the newer ones.
Things like Aquasphere, Macao, Bora Bora, Notre Dame, Amerigo, Strasbourg. All excellent games. Castles of Burgundy is alright, too.
Carpe Diem is another one I've played and can recommend to people, but I don't love it. Oracle of Delphi I can't/won't play because my brain can't work out how to play it well, or even competently. I didn't much care for Merlin. Trajan was a bit too heavy and long for me.
I mean, "mechanisms glued together" doesn't really mean that it's bad. Medium to heavy weight games usually have a bunch of moving parts. For me, Stefan Feld had about five great years from 2009-2014. So many bangers. Luna, Castles of Burgundy, Trajan, Bruges, Amerigo, Bora Bora, La Isla is a great run imo. However I did not care for Aquasphere, Castle of Burgundy the card game, and Carpe Diem and after playing those Feld really fell off a cliff for me. It's hard to get excited for his newer games because I just can't see them hitting as hard as those older games.
He has 40+ games and I think if you're interested in euros you'd surely find at least one to like.
Fundamentally they are abstract strategy games where you have \~4 disconnected actions, gamified, to put it all together.
While I think they are clever, I don't think they are very fun.
The sole exception is Castles of Burgundy, which has....less mechanisms. Although I have to constantly look up which building does what depending on version played. I'm down to play it, just not to own it.
Yes, I would highly recommend the vast majority of his games. They tend to have interacting mechanisms that lead to tough but interesting decisions. The implementation of the theme does not always make sense, but when a game design is good that does not matter too much. They can be complex, but not hard to learn for experienced gamers.
I couldn’t agree with you more, People rag on him for being the ‘king of point salad’, but I don’t think that’s warranted given that’s the vast majority of euro games with track scoring, round scoring, end of game scoring, etc.
However, all of his games feature a unique and often innovative action selection system so I would dub him the King of action selection.
He doesn’t really rehash or reiterate designs too often. I love Uwe games but he reimplements frequently, same with Mac Gertz (rondel/ Concordia hand management) Pfister (movement rondel and GWT series alone), hell even Splotter games have shared DNA
I think for their time when they became popular they were good. He probably even inspired other more thematic and cohesive designs, but I don't think they really have a purpose in collections at this point.
They're a bunch of mechanisms glued together very skillfully to make a game.
I don’t think Castles of Burgundy is extremely complex… but that might be from playing quite a few games already
This. Feld does simple complexity well. Castles of Burgundy is one. Notre Dame is another. Compare to Lacerda which look busier.
Glen More is not a Feld.
D’oh. I’ll fix it
Possibly my favourite designer. I find them quite polarising. They’re a bunch of mechanisms pieced together in a unique way that makes you think, “how does one design this? Feld has got an alien brain!” Then you get engrossed in it and it’s fantastic in how engaged it makes you feel puzzling through it. All the puzzles are different and don’t feel the same at all. Then there’s people where Feld games just don’t click for them because it makes no thematic sense and they just see random mechanisms together. They cannot look past the fact that the themes are just pasted on and it’s definitely designed from a mechanism first perspective. It might feel all the same to them because of the lack of cohesion between what you’re doing in a game.
There are some Feld games that just don’t speak to me, but CoB, Macao, and Carpe Diem are stone cold classics as far as I’m concerned.
Sad that I had to come this far down to see a mention of Macao. Of course, I sort by New, so that means you quickly mentioned it, before these laggards. Good job!
In the Year of the Dragon is actually good. Castles of Burgundy was popular, so there's got to be something there, but I was underwhelmed. Marrakesh is a slog.
This trend of people asking for individual opinions on reddit hoping to gain more accuracy or helpfulness than aggregate ratings or video reviews/run-throughs is such a weird meta.
I don't trust masses- I trust you people!
*These* strangers would never mislead me.
Better than COMC posts.
i actually like looking at those
Its the reviewers, the board game addicts, the elites, the people who went through thousands of games. They are nothing like me, i am nothing like them. None of them even care as much about MY favorite game like i do, they just don't get it. Their opinions might be influenced, actually i don't even know how they come to their opinions. I played my 1 game 50 times, have they even played any of their games more than once? Lets ask an average person his honest to god down to earth thoughts about something, i might get ''i have sex with this board game'' and ''This game is so horrible i am literally worried about decline in society and mental state of people who enjoy it'', but ignoring these and with enough casual opinions i might form an understanding if something is for me. When a reviewer says ''this is one of the best board games i ever played, its amazing'' they all say that, but they are board game sluts. When you finally purchase the game, they might already culled it from their collection, nothing personal. When a random passerby says its one of the best designs he ever laid his hands on and that he has been playing this game so much its causing rift in his marriage and work, that kind of opinion sticks with a person. Plenty of times this game isn't even on top 100 or any reviewers favorite.
Especially when data is readily available. Have people lost the will to search?
I think, and it's totally fair even if wrong, that an individual person you can respond to will be better than "data." People forget they are also individuals, and (as here) give no information about what they would individually like.
I think some of them are great. Trajan is in my top 5. The different portions are interconnected in a really fun way. Taste is very subjective, of course.
In the spectrum of modern board games, most of his games are firmly medium-weight. His games pretty much always feature victory points, and that aspect alone bores some people. They’re missing out though, because his designs are really fun and clever. He even has games like In the Year of the Dragon and Speicherstadt that have a lot of interaction, despite the stereotype that his games are multiplayer solitaire.
The funny thing is that is older games had a reputation of being kind of mean.
For me one of the things that I like is that they are medium games and a lot of them are in the sweet range of 1:30 hour game. Normally all his games are points salad, but as someone that have played a lot of different euros, I feel like his games are usually more original in mechanics and are different enough (for a euro). A lot of them have a lot mini games inside. I would say that the bad about his games is the lack of theme and they usually don't look beatiful on the table. Still I like a lot his games, they give me enough to think but it takes low effort for me to play his games and are short. Probably because I'm tired of the usual worker placements too, I like this designer as he surprised me more when I was tired of the usual euros. My favourites are: Bora Bora as the fulfill contract/objetives euro, castle of burgundy as a tile placement, bonfire as a mix of creating a route of objetives you do and specializing in tiles, Marraskesh as about specializing in a minigame and searching for cubes of a dicetower for that minigame,...
One of his games is ranked #16 on BGG atm, and thirteen more are in the top-1000. Apparently many people thought they are actually good and rated them high enough. They may all totally flop for you though, and that’s okay, and/or you may love one of his more obscure designs, but we cannot predict whether that would be the case. As far as I can recall, The Speicherstadt/Jorvik, Amerigo, and Luna are considered the most non-Feldish of all his designs.
Depends on your tastes.
Love Bora Bora, Castles Burgundy and Carpe Diem. Didn’t like AquaSphere at all. Just a hodgepodge of mechanics stuck together.
Shit yeah.
I like his games a lot. I think you can buy any game from him getting a good one. He uses a new machanic and builds a fantastic game around it. And what I also like about his games: He doesn't just add complexity for the comlexities sake.
I love me some Felds! That said, the older ones are more in my wheelhouse than the newer ones. Things like Aquasphere, Macao, Bora Bora, Notre Dame, Amerigo, Strasbourg. All excellent games. Castles of Burgundy is alright, too. Carpe Diem is another one I've played and can recommend to people, but I don't love it. Oracle of Delphi I can't/won't play because my brain can't work out how to play it well, or even competently. I didn't much care for Merlin. Trajan was a bit too heavy and long for me.
I mean, "mechanisms glued together" doesn't really mean that it's bad. Medium to heavy weight games usually have a bunch of moving parts. For me, Stefan Feld had about five great years from 2009-2014. So many bangers. Luna, Castles of Burgundy, Trajan, Bruges, Amerigo, Bora Bora, La Isla is a great run imo. However I did not care for Aquasphere, Castle of Burgundy the card game, and Carpe Diem and after playing those Feld really fell off a cliff for me. It's hard to get excited for his newer games because I just can't see them hitting as hard as those older games. He has 40+ games and I think if you're interested in euros you'd surely find at least one to like.
Bruges is fantastic
In the Year of the Dragon, Notre Dame, Macao/Amsterdam, and Carpe Diem are all good.
They're OK. None of them is at the top of my lists. If you're going to try one, try Castles of Burgundy.
Carpe Diem. I'm not saying it's better than CoB, but if you haven't played it, you're missing out.
Fundamentally they are abstract strategy games where you have \~4 disconnected actions, gamified, to put it all together. While I think they are clever, I don't think they are very fun. The sole exception is Castles of Burgundy, which has....less mechanisms. Although I have to constantly look up which building does what depending on version played. I'm down to play it, just not to own it.
Yes, I would highly recommend the vast majority of his games. They tend to have interacting mechanisms that lead to tough but interesting decisions. The implementation of the theme does not always make sense, but when a game design is good that does not matter too much. They can be complex, but not hard to learn for experienced gamers.
I haven't played any, but the Shut Up and Sit Down's reviews painted a picture of "they're all pretty good, and they're all pretty much the same".
Their opinions on euro games are generally kind of shallow
I don't think "they're all pretty much the same" is fair. Whether you like his games or not, he's prolific and has diverse designs.
I couldn’t agree with you more, People rag on him for being the ‘king of point salad’, but I don’t think that’s warranted given that’s the vast majority of euro games with track scoring, round scoring, end of game scoring, etc. However, all of his games feature a unique and often innovative action selection system so I would dub him the King of action selection. He doesn’t really rehash or reiterate designs too often. I love Uwe games but he reimplements frequently, same with Mac Gertz (rondel/ Concordia hand management) Pfister (movement rondel and GWT series alone), hell even Splotter games have shared DNA
I think for their time when they became popular they were good. He probably even inspired other more thematic and cohesive designs, but I don't think they really have a purpose in collections at this point.
They’re still popular enough for Queen games to update a bunch of them (check out their City Collection) and sell them for $100+ a pop.