Game review by Emily Ghang
As part of my first game review, I chose to play Catan with three of my friends. I chose to play this game, as I thought it was interesting how this is popular among UChicago students. I have even heard jokes about how you will finally be recognized as a UChicago student after you play Catan.
Now to get into the review, let us first begin with the objective of the game. The ultimate objective of the game is to expand your territory. However, I thought this game would be less competitive than other games, due to the design and the affect it gave me. In addition, the rules that you had to combine certain ingredients to build houses and roads to expand your territory also added to that. It felt less destructive and thus, less competitive than other games that are usually seen as competitive. Although now that I think about it, games related to expanding one’s territory and building houses, including Monopoly, usually are and can get very competitive.
One friend I played this game with had prior experience playing it before our gameplay session, and therefore, she was the one to lead our session. She told me that when she played the game with another group of friends, it was more competitive, as they would choose to utilize the robber very often and would try to negotiate with other players more aggressively. Thus, I thought it was interesting how the temperament of the players could affect gameplay as well.
One of the rules that I found interesting was that the robber can be the wild card of the game. For the whole game, it was very intriguing in that players could either choose to team up with other players or choose to be competitive against each other. They could attack other players, or they could negotiate with them. I thought it was an effective method of creating uncertainty in the game, in that players could freely choose one or the other. The mechanic of moving the robber to a different location was also interesting, as the players could choose to attack by using the robber, or not use the robber at all.
Another rule that I thought was noteworthy was that at the beginning of the game, players were supposed to randomly decide the placement of the tiles, as in which tile should be placed in which location. As there was no intention involved in the action of placing the tiles, such as giving one player the upper hand, it was interesting to see how the placement later affected gameplay.
Furthermore, I noticed a few interesting aspects of the game as I was playing it with my friends. First of all, when we were playing with dice, it was harder to get smaller numbers than bigger numbers. Hence, my friend, who built a house near numbers six and nine, got to take all the hay just because her house was placed in a relatively bigger number.
All in all, I enjoyed how the rules reflected the competitive nature of the game, and how there was a range of mechanics players could choose from. It felt like the rules of the game relied a lot on the components of luck and uncertainty. Where you placed the numbers and how you placed the houses mattered a lot in the long run, as the placement was purely based on randomization according to the rules. At the end of our gameplay session, I thought if I were to play this game again, I would decide to place the houses wider to gain more territory.
