Peer Review: Carcassonne. Original analysys by Max Nordlund.

The second part of the assignment about board games was to exchange games with another group, play their game and write a peer review for a member of the other group’s system analysis.
The person i’m writing a peer review for is Max Nordlund who wrote about Carcassonne, the original analysis can be found here.

http://maxmaekvidya.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/board-game-analysis-carcassonne/

I enjoyed reading your analysis, I found it well put together and well-paced where you don’t mix up the content relating to the different subjects; something that I had issues with when writing my own analysis. Your list of core functions sums up the game’s basic rules nicely but it could use some more focus on the the systems, objects and relationships of the game rather than describing the rules themselves. The first parts of the section is well written but feels a bit spaced out and could probably be comprised into two or three paragraphs to describe the rules of the game. The second half on the other hand could be extended by explaining in deeper detail of the different systems and relations, such as some of the parts about trying to maneuver other players into having to share points with others like you describe later in the analysis. Similarly, you could have mentioned some of the tactical aspects of where to place tiles which is a big part of the game.
Although, with all that being said the segment about core functions is nicely written and does explain the basics of the game in a good way without going into too much detail about the specific rules of every aspect of the game. I also entirely agree with you about how connecting tiles and placing followers in order to gain points are the core systems of the game.

On that note I also definitely agree with you about how the system for connecting opponents’ unfinished structures with your own in order to force your opponent to share their awarded points with you is one of the most interesting systems of the game. Something you explain well with the examples you give, bringing this up at all was a good choice as this is not an obvious strategy and as you theorized, might originally be the result of exploiting the rules of the game. You also mention how specific placement of tiles can be beneficial to your opponent but still are more efficient to yourself in the end; this is an interesting twist of the core mechanics and should definitely be on the list of most interesting mechanics. However this would also have fitted in on the first section of the analysis.

For your section of bad things about the game you mention the name itself. While I agree with you in that the name is foreign and hard to remember I don’t think it’s relevant in an analysis of the game’s systems. The name doesn’t actually affect anything in the game itself. With that said the name is pretty hard to remember and might be part of the reason no one can remember the game.
Your second reason is more relevant however. The random elements of the game can indeed be considered its worst parts as it brings results out of the player’s control and there is nothing more annoying than losing a board game out of nothing else but bad luck. I don’t agree completely however as every board game does require some amount of randomness other than the players’ choices of actions or run the high risk of turning stale and predictable. The argument here is the amount of randomness the game should have which varies on the game and individual preference. Personally I think the amount of random elements of Carcassonne is fine since it adds an element of constantly having to work with what tiles you are given.
Your final negative thing about the game is that it becomes hard to estimate how long a session will take. I can’t really say much about that since we didn’t play the game that much but I can’t imagine playtime varying that much once all players know the rules, assuming the game is played with the same expansion packs each time. The amount of tiles placed is still the same every session but depending on the amount of tactical speculation and player interaction I guess the actual playing time would vary.
Your analysis of the target group interesting and I have to say I agree to what you say about the box’s age recommendation being a bit low. I don’t think that an 8 year old couldn’t play the game but I do doubt that most 8-year-olds would be interested in a game this advanced with this setting. Children in general probably don’t care much about placing followers that doesn’t even fight each other. You have a good point about how placing a knight on the box of a game which has no actual fighting might make younger kids disappointed in the contents of the game. I never would have thought about it that way so it was a refreshing point of view. I also agrees with your final paragraph as well in that most Carcassonne players are probably well over the minimum age recommendation but since the game doesn’t have an upper age limit I assume the creators intended the game to be viable to both adults and children.

Your summary might be my favorite part of your analysis, the first paragraph describes the game and how it’s played by using strategical thinking to take advantage of how the board turns out during the game session. You also describe how the game’s simple rules allow for players to easily grasp how the game works and how the game stay interesting until the end by not having the players calculate their total scores until the end of the game. The way you capture this in practically two paragraphs might in my opinion be the best part of the analysis even if the second paragraph has a strange sentence about the score keeping.

To summarize you have written a good analysis of the game and makes some valid and interesting points even if I don’t completely agree with all of them. You use your earlier personal experience with the game as reference as well as the more recent, something I see no reason not to do and you probably gained a lot from that, just make sure to keep the mentions of past experience neutral in more formal analyses in the future as it’s extremely easy to sound non-objective when mentioning past personal experiences.

All in all, a good analysis. Great job.

-Herman