I’ve never really had any familiarity with that tradition of specialty board games like Settlers of Catan and its ilk, those games that always seem to have German designers and feature strong economic elements–like a lot of niche hobbies, it’s absolutely huge once you become aware of it, but if somebody involved doesn’t induct you into it, you are extremely unlikely to ever become aware of it.

I took my first (and, so far, only) steps into that world when a friend of mine showed me Alhambra, positing that we, The Guys, who had never played these sorts of games, would enjoy it. He was right. I spent about a month in San Diego earlier this year hanging out with my old high school buddies, and we played that Goddamned game about twice a day every day for weeks straight. It was then that the corruption seen in this post’s headline was spawned.

I remembered that Catan and Carcassonne, games with similar audiences, had been released on Xbox Live, and some quick internet research revealed that–hallelujah!–Alhambra was due for release on the service as well, courtesy of Vivendi Games. Curiously, no developer was listed.

It’s now been a few months since then, and I just bought and played Catan for the first time, against those very same friends, who when we are not converging on our old high school stomping grounds live hundreds of miles apart. I really enjoyed it, but it did fan my flames of intense desire for online Alhambra.

Alas, some searching revealed that Vivendi has dropped the game, with no further news on any other publisher picking up the pieces. What seemed even more surprising was the list of similar projects that had been either cancelled or heavily postponed–the adaptation of Games Workshop’s Talisman (the one game in this segment I had been previously aware of due to my investment in the company’s Warhammer universe) is being “redirected” and heavily delayed, Puerto Rico was expected but apparently may never have been in development after all, and so on.

Relative to developing a new, real-time Live Arcade game, it doesn’t seem that one of these turn-based adaptations would be hugely difficult–I know game development is always a challenge, but it’s hard to imagine the experienced publishers and developers being held back on the technical side here. I wonder if publishers are simply getting cold feet, believing the hardcore audience that spends a lot of money on Live Arcade isn’t going to stay interested in board game adaptations.

On the technical side, though–Catan is great, and plays smoothly, but I have to say the user interface is a complete mess. Absolutely basic video game conventions like showing the player how many resources he has when on the “Build” screen have not been taken into account; sure, it indicates whether you can afford each item, but you can’t easily compare how far you are from having the requisite amount.

There are also, to my memory, no fewer than eight separate informational overlays available by holding down the triggers, the bumpers, and combinations of the triggers and bumbers, and a lot of that information could have been easily and unobtrusively integrated into the default view, including basic information like each player’s one-number score. These and a few other nagging design missteps annoyed me more than they otherwise would, since this was a game in which the actual mechanical design was 100% done from square one, making the team’s own responsibility more with the implementation.

At the end of the day, I now consider myself inducted into the world of what I have learned over the course of writing this article are commonly called “German-style board games,” having greatly enjoyed two of them. They make for great Live Arcade fare, and I enjoy being able to play a video game that is competitive but not combat-oriented.

Someday I hope to use the service to play Alhambra. Somebody make this. Please. My desire for online Alhambra is perhaps only exceeded by my burning need for an online Pikmin 3 with multiplayer. Get on this shit.

Tags: alhambra, board games, burning desire, catan, pikmin, talisman, xbox live arcade

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 10:52 am and is filed under game design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.