But like those old PC games I booted up, I think a lot of games now considered obsolete or somehow passé offer a lot more to gamers than anything published by Rio Grande Games. Take for example a game like MAGIC REALM, probably the poster child for the obsolete board game argument. It’s a 1978 design by the unheralded master designer Richard Hamblen, published by Avalon Hill. It was the first attempt to bring DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS fantasy role-playing to a board game setting. By today’s standards, it’s incredibly complicated and it’s definitely not for the faint at heart. The rulebook is legendary for its cryptic prose and it’s very difficult to learn by today’s standards and might even be impossible if not for a huge online community and a great piece of software called REALMSPEAK that runs the game as a Java application.

In real life, it takes about 30 minutes to set up and you have to record everything you do with pen and paper. And frankly, a game like RETURN OF THE HEROES does pretty much the same thing it does, at least on paper. Yet MAGIC REALM provides gamers with a depth of experience that RETURN OF THE HEROES, for all its streamlining and reductive design can’t possibly match. Combat is tactical- you control every swing, duck, dodge, thrust, and block. The game system creates a living world where NPCs interact with you and might even hate you. The mechanics that determine what types of creatures are out there, based on their lair and clues such as smell or smoke that your character encounters, is genius. Sure, it requires a lot of commitment to play but when all is said in done, you’re rewarded with an amazing game unlike anything else. Just like how no fantasy 4x game has ever lived up to the standard MASTER OF MAGIC put forth.

Board game design has, undoubtedly, evolved over the years like any other creative medium. Qualities such as length, complexity, player elimination, and randomness have been isolated as somehow “bad” by a large group of gamers who insist on structure and control so the prevailing idiom over the past decade has reflected that. Yet, I’ve never considered those to be “bad” things, and in fact in a game like TALISMAN they’re actually assets. I do believe that there is game design going on right now that is as good as and even better than the classic design work of the past thanks to this process of evolution but I still think it’s a ridiculous notion that games become obsolete.

In the end, it’s interesting to note that that there are parallels in both the evolution of board game and video game design- particularly that a drive to modernize/replace previous success with “updated” versions tends to yield little innovation and drives the market further toward mediocrity and repetition. Do we need a remake of every great 1970s horror picture to supposedly introduce them to new audiences? Do we need talented designers setting out to make a “CIV that plays in 90 minutes”? Even in board gaming the emphasis on high-gloss, low-depth titles characterized by simplicity and accessibility is growing, fed by a consumer base that values quantity over quality. I’m not really sure how great design work from the past is made obsolete by inferior and much less lasting products, but it seems that a lot of gamers with their high-end video cards or copies of PROPHECY think that way.

Questions or comments for Michael? Send them along to gameshark.feedback@yahoo.com .

Previous Cracked LCDs:

Version 1.0
Version 1.1

Version 1.2
Version 1.3

Version 1.4
Version 1.5
Version 1.6
Version 1.7
Version 1.8
Version 1.9

Version 2.0
Version 2.1
Version 2.2

Version 2.3

Version 2.4

Version 2.5

Version 2.6

Version 2.7

Version 2.8