Zoo Vadis, or how to breathe new life into a thirty-year-old classic

> While I wish we could satisfy everyone, we ultimately have to follow the most logical branches on the decision tree. And as we all know, that naturally leads to one crowning answer. Indeed, this is the answer to the great mysteries of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The answer? Anthropomorphic animals.

There is a kernel of truth here. Whenever humans are used in board games, it inevitably leads to charges of misrepresentation, cultural appropriation, historical white washing, downplaying colonization, etc. The obvious solution is to not use humans. So, use animals, aliens, fantasy creatures, robots, etc. instead. Or just avoid using agents altogether. In Castles of Mad King Ludwig you are building a castle by adding rooms. No thinking creatures at all.

Reiner Knizia is my favorite game designer of all time. I love how he takes familiar games and "bends" [1] them into new games by applying the right incentives into other games. For example, Lost Cities starts off looking like Solitaire, but when I play it I feel like I am using skills of reading my opponents hands that I learned from my (brief) bridge days.

If you are a gamer, I cannot recommend highly enough Tigris and Euphrates, Ra, Lost Cities, or Samurai

[1] I am trying to make a General Relativity metaphor here.

Old-school euros (sometimes called "Old-school German games" or OGs[1]) are sadly a dying category of game amongst the new crop of narrative-driven games or highly complex and thematic solitaire Euros. Truly a shame, since these games along w/ train games [2] and some economic games (Splotter games [3], auction games like Neu Heimat/The Estates [4], etc.) are some of the most intriguing and interactive games you can play. They are also games that are truly about playing your opponents (choosing actions that encourage them to better your position, learning to play the game well at different player counts or w/ players of different skill levels, etc.).

A recent evolution of the term "Euro" has given it the connotation of describing games that are largely solitaire, but historically it was used to denote games that lacked an element of chance (little to no use of shuffled cards, dice, or other sources of randomness), that were often not thematic or based on a licensed property, but that were often _highly_ interactive. Knizia in particular has designed some of the best interactive multiplayer games of all time.

As much as I appreciate the resurgence of interest in board games, I don't love that the designs seeing the most press are narrative games that don't advance the medium or really lend themselves well to the format of tabletop games, but rather seem to be an attempt to bolt on the strengths of video games in a clumsy way.

[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/guild/3948

[2] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/19/series-18xx https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/65/winsome-game...

[3] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/140/splotter-sp...

[4] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/249381/estates