My first German board game.

Josh Bytes

I bought my first German board game ever this weekend. The game I bought was "The Settlers of Catan". The store I bought it at is called Great Hall Games. And it's name wasn't that far from the truth. The place was huge. Also like to point out that the people there were very friendly and the place was very clean and well organized. First section of the store has the traditional board games of chess and checkers and the like. At the center of that area was a chess set laid out for you to play around with. The second area has a very large section of all kinds of puzzles. There was also a small table with a puzzle put out that you could work on if you wanted. Third area had wargaming pieces and stuff like that. Fourthl area has all the Euro games. And finally off to far left at the back of the store there is a very large open area with tables laid out to play all kinds of board games. The area was bustling with gamers playing all sorts of games. I didn't go back there to check out what they were all playing though. The clerk was quick to help me with getting a copy of Catan and after a spending some browsing around the store I left for my cousins house.

That evening we go to set up the game only to find out that it is missing pieces. It didn't have any of the ore hexes or the number tokens. We made due with some extra ocean pieces and pieces of paper for the tokens. We got some things wrong in playing Catan for the first time. But we still had lots of fun nonetheless. The next day we went back to the game store to return the game for one that was complete. The clerk there told us that they had a similar issue with game of Catan missing pieces. So the clerk opened up a brand new game of Cantan in front of us to make sure it had all the pieces.

That game of Catan ended up missing the same exact pieces. The clerk called the store manager. I think he was the owner I'm not sure. So they opened up another game of Catan. It to was missing the same exact pieces. Then they up their last copy of Catan and it to was missing the same exact pieces. They finally just let us have pieces from the store's copy that they use for demos and free play for members and such. I had never seen anything like that before. Talk about quality control. It wasn't the game stores fault and they did everything to make it right with me, still it was very strange that all their board games would have the same pieces missing.

In any rate I'm looking forward to buying more euro type board games from there.

TheWhaleShark

Carcassone is an excellent introductory German board game as well. The rules are simple and the gameplay is quick. It also involves tile laying and piece manipulation, adding tactile elements that make the game viscerally enjoyable.

Just don't play against Rym. You'll weep.