In recent years the trend to adapt video games into boardgames is just increasing.
Games like Stardew Valley, Civ, This war of mine and many more coming like Terraria or Call of Duty.
Some of these games like Civ are extremely complex games and I always wondered how well these translate into a boardgame. The production value of these games is often high, but I have my reservation that Stardew Valley the boardgame really captures the same “magic” as the video game did.
What are your thoughts on them? Any really good ones out there worthy checking out (lets exclude Dorfromantik here)?
It’s funny that you mention Civilization. The first game takes a lot of inspiration from the 1980 board game of the same name.
I generally like the trend, gives me something more to immerse myself in.
I’ve played This War of Mine, and it was a fantastic, faithful, soul crushing adaptation.
Recently got my friend the Binding of Isaac collection for his b-day and we both loved it! Surprisingly magic-like in mechanics but more Munchkin in setup. Like no deck building in that sense, but turn structure, stack and interrupts etc, comboing with items.
He sometimes commented on how they adapted specific items and was generally impressed in how thet made it work.
hmmm… Munchkin, at least in my personal opinion, is never a good argument, I find the game terrible.
Maybe I have to give This war of mine a shot at some point, I did enjoy the video game. How well does it play coop?
Usually not. I feel like the randomness and complexity in video games is hard to recreate in the boardgame medium. If you end up simplifying those mechanics the game ends up being a worse version of something that already exists.
Neutral, I look at them on their own merits for both gameplay and art. Don’t care for overproduced stuff, no huge boxes of plastic for me.
One that I enjoy is Super Motherload. Never played the video game, the boardgame is a neat and fairly unique deckbuilder with a spatial puzzle elment and a sensible production. My understanding is that it’s a fairly loose translation of the theme which is totally fine with me if it makes for a better boardgame.
lets exclude Dorfromantik here
Curious, why? Seems like a good example that’s on people’s minds.
I’m skeptical of all game and movie adaptations. The fact is, the IP owner almost always a megacorp that specializes in taking as much as possible while giving as little as possible in return. I know that the games are frequently made by known board game designers, but ultimate power over the projects is held by the IP owner and they aren’t interested in a good game, only a profitable one.
