Game series

by Caroline Black

Recently my collection has started to include series of games. Up to now it’s not been really something I’ve been into. Series of games are games that share the same theme and/or the same mechanics. Game series would include Pandemic, Azul, Kingdomino, Ticket to Ride, Great Western Trail, Carcassonne, The Castles of Burgundy and Dune: Imperium.



I guess there’s several reasons that series of games are produced. Maybe it’s because the designer likes exploring the original mechanics, like for example Agricola. One of the first games I bought after Agricola was Caverna: The Cave Farmers because I enjoyed Agricola so much but other players found it too tight and disliked the the misery of feeding your people. Or it’s just the publisher cashing in on a popular game? Doing a dice version or card version. Or a roll and write version. A kids version.



Some games are really campaignable if they feature maps or certain cities or counties. Other, like Kingdomino are just exploring the mechanics. I love Kingdomino. It’s so streamlined. So simple. But with anything simple there’s the temptation to make it more complicated. So we have Queendomino and Kingdomino Origins.



Recently I bought Everdell Farshore and I will back Everdell Silverfrost. I don’t get normally get multiple games from the same series but Everdell is one of my favourite games. Obviously recently we’ve seen Wingspan turning into a series with Finspan and Wyrmspan.



Other game series I own are Dorfromantik: The Board Game. It was so good I had to have a competitive version even though it only plays two. I suppose Res Arcana is technically a series although I only bought Res Arcana Duo for the extra cards. Lately the lines between expansions and another game in a series have become blurred with games like Wingspan Asia, Dune: Imperium – Uprising and Rolling Realms Redux that are stand alone games and expansions. Or stand alone games that an incorporate expansions from other games in the series.



Often other games from the same publisher are banded as sets. Like the games from alea or Garphill Games. The later didn’t really become a series for me until they started issuing campaigns like The West Kingdom Tomesaga. Which brings me to Shipwrights of the North Sea: Redux. This is an updated version of Shipwrights of the North Sea. Now the lines are blurred between an updated version of a game and a completely different game in the same series.



Which bring us to how should BGG categorise these games? When is a second edition a completely different game? Is The Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition different enough to The Castles of Burgundy to warrant a separate entry? Isn’t Carcassonne Second edition with the changes in scoring Cities and farms more different? Certainly the Top One Hundred would look completely different if the multiple Pandemics, Great Western Trail and Agricolas were combined.



I never really go to into the spin off games for Carcassonne although I do own Carcassonne: Winter Edition. The biggest one my friends are into is the Game: Unmatched series. These all have exactly the same basic mechanisms but the game comes with different boards and each Hero has a different set of cards. Obviously the options are unlimited. There’s loads of superheroes and IP they can use for this. I like to see Back to the Future and Scooby Doo.



I can’t really think of any others I like. Maybe Ecosystem: Savanna. I do like the Ecosystem games. Or Blueprints of Mad King Ludwig?



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