I've always loved tile-laying games. I like all kinds of games, but there's something about laying down tiles that's inherently satisfying to me. And of the different kinds of tile-laying games, the unrestricted, boundless ones are the ones that I find particularly enjoyable. While I do enjoy tile-laying games with a bounded playing area (as in something likes a game board with edges that restrict the extent of the tile placement), I think the sense of freedom and creativity that comes with an open tile-laying game is what sets them apart; at the start of every game there's just that empty ocean of space, waiting to be filled with whatever you want to create. I think what first got me hooked on the fun of laying tiles was a game called Pipe Mania on the Atari ST. I recall it being pretty big at the time (good reviews in the games magazines, that kind of thing), and when I got my greasy little hands on a copy and booted it up I'd never seen anything like it. Other video games I'd played had provided varying degrees of freedom in terms of how you could interact with the game world, on a spectrum from "you can shoot this bad guy or you can climb up the ladder and go around him" (e.g. Green Beret) to "you can designate this area for these kinds of buildings" (e.g. Sim City), but this felt very different to me: a grid of blank, empty squares, an entry pipe and an exit pipe, with the only instruction to connect the entry to the exit however you like. Sure, there was a time limit and a restriction in terms of which pipe pieces were made available, but with caveats you could place the pieces anywhere - so the pipe system could be as basic or as intricate as you liked. There was no right or wrong way to do it; it was your pipe system. It was that space and freedom to create something unique and personal every time, I think, that stuck with me. Space and freedom are the key words when it comes to tile-laying board games. While games with boards and other spatial limitation do provide plenty of opportunity for unpredictable gameplay, as I settle down to play one of these I can't shake the perception the game is bluntly finite. It's something about the edges of the board, or the predetermined spaces in which the game must take place. By contrast, there's nothing quite like laying down Carcassonne's starting tile and having no idea how the cities, roads, monasteries and farms will cluster, sprawl and tesselate out from it. And the relative levels of freedom available in tile-laying games are what defines my perspective on the entire genre. There are countless different game mechanics and features, but I like to think of these games as falling into one of three different fundamental variants, each determined by the level of freedom that players have. I think of these as "solo competitive", "combined competitive" and "combined co-operative". In "solo competitive" tile laying, the player puts down all the tiles for his or her part of the game without input from any other player (Fruit takes this format, as does another favourite of mine, Patchwork). In this scenario, the player has complete control over which tiles go where, and how the tile structure develops. This is the highest level of freedom, and it provides the player with the opportunity to create exactly what he or she wants to within the boundaries of the game. In the "combined competitive" and "combined co-operative" variants, one or more players take turns in laying tiles to the same shared structure, either to achieve a personal victory (such as Wooly Wars or Medina, which are "combined competitive") or a team victory (see Castellion for an example of a "combined co-operative" game). While individual players have less control over the shape of the structure in these scenarios, building a tile structure either in spite of or in alliance with one or more other players leads to the creation of perhaps even more interesting (or at least, more unpredictable) outcomes. It's always fascinating to me to watch how partners and opponents work either with or against one another, and to view the end result of multiple imaginations at work together or in opposition. As I mentioned in my previous blog, one thing that I've always loved about board games is looking at the board at the end of a game. I think that this stems from a need to be creative - I've written short stories, drawn cartoons, and of course I design games. I play board games with several people who typically play to win at all costs; while of course I don't play to lose, those games that I enjoy the most are those in which winning and losing are not what determines whether I have a good time. When I'm laying down tiles I get to create something new every time, and to me that feels like a win even if I lose.
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