Catan

Recently, I've been playing Catan on Xbox Live Arcade. The game is the electronic version of the board game "Settlers of Catan".

For those who have never heard of it (and I was one of these unfortunate souls), you can get more info on it here. Basically, its a highly successful board game which according to wikipedia, has now sold over 11 million copies worldwide. Not bad for a board game!

Anyway, the game got translated into an electronic version for XBLA. I downloaded the trial version and had a lot of fun with it (I've always been a fan of board games) so I decided to buy the full version. After all, it is relatively cheap at only approx HK$80.

The game itself is based on a group of people finding a new island with plentiful resources. Naturally, these people immediately settle the island and the game then becomes an interesting mix of luck and skill. As with all good board games, dice rolling is involved hence the element of luck.

However, unlike other board games (such as Talisman), there is a huge element of skill involved in Catan. The reason is that very often, you don't have the resources you need to build stuff. And the only way to get those resources is to trade with the other players (or with the bank if no-one will trade with you - at a much higher rate though of course!).

Unlike other board games, there are limited opportunities to "attack" other players. Most often, damage is done simply by not trading with them thus it becomes hard for that player to get the resources he needs.

Rereading what I wrote above, I just realised that I'm not doing a very good job of describing this game. I would suggest you read the wikipedia article I linked to above - it does a much better job than me.

Anyway, to put this into perspective - this is only the second game on XBLA that I have purchased (the first game is Doom - a bona-fide classic from id Software which I still enjoyed playing even after all this time). Two games purchased - might not sound like much - but bear in mind that 1-2 XBLA games get released each week.

Having played Catan - I am now even more eager for Talisman!