Designer Collectors: Board games

What do you collect?

I’m a collector of many things (maybe that’s why crows are one of my favourite animals)! However, one of my proudest collections is my collection of board games.

I have a game room in my house complete with a gaming table, two kallax shelves filled to the brim with board games, two display cabinets with Pokémon cards and collectibles and two PS5s with 55" TVs hung side by side. 

Welcome to my nerd house.

When did you start?

I started to collect board games when I got married nine years ago. I’ve always loved to play games of any kind (video games, board games, card games, tabletop games…), but there’s something so beautiful about a board game. 

Board games bring a depth and tangible experience you can’t get from video games or card games. Board games often come with accessories like manuals, miniature figures, detailed artwork and elaborate board designs. This all helps to create an immersive  experience.

I own two very large Kallax shelves that are absolutely packed to the brim! We’re considering adding more shelves to our board game room to accommodate our growing collection.

How does your collection inspire you as a designer?

I love this particular collection because of the variety it has! I own many different types of games, but I never feel like one is just the skin of another. I do not want to harp on video games, but anyone who knows or plays Call of Duty knows exactly what each new release will be. I feel like each board game I’ve purchased has a unique design and experience. For particular companies, like Stonemeir Games, I own most of their games in my collection. I love their attention to detail when it comes to their figurines and also the gameplay mechanics. You can tell the level of thoughtfulness behind each one of their games. 

Board games often inspire me as a designer because so much of my world is spent in a digital format. Thinking about the tangible nature of board games versus designing a website helps me to see design applied through new lenses.

I’m passionate about accessibility, so thinking about accessibility in the form of board game design has always been a way to expand my design thinking. For example, one of my favourite games of all time is Azul. It’s a tile builder game and you score points for building patterns (I highly recommend it to my designer friends). However, one of the things that’s always bothered me about the editions I have is that some tiles have patterns and others don’t. 

Differentiating the tiles on colour alone is not a great solution from an accessibility perspective. Since it’s a tile builder game, the sky's the limit when it comes to creating unique patterns or shapes for each tile. Seeing opportunities like this in a board game format makes me think about my own work and where me and my team can challenge ourselves to think of accessibility at the core.

What is your favourite item in your collection?

This is the HARDEST question to answer. I had to get up from my desk and go look at my collection for a while to understand how to answer this super tough question. After much consideration, I'd say my favourite game right now is Skyrim the Adventure Board Game.

A funny choice, after saying how board games are so different from video games and then picking a board game that’s based on a video game. 

Skyrim is my all-time favourite video game, so naturally, I’m drawn to the elements and story of Skyrim, the board game. The aesthetics and story bring you right back to the world of Skyrim, back to this gritty fantasy adventure filled with dragons and conspiracies against kings.  

However, what makes this such a stand-out game for me is how you play it. This is a cooperative board game where you essentially play against the board to complete adventures, level up your character and take on harder challenges. This is considered a legacy-style board game where you play over multiple sessions and can “save” your progress along the way. 

I have a lot of these types of cooperative games in my collection because of how fun it is to play an adventure together. I’m a fan of group games and love a good ol’ party game like Telestrations, Decrypto, Anomia, etc, but diving into a full-on adventure that’s told over months as opposed to minutes is a way different experience. I love getting to experience this adventure with my friends.

One game that hasn’t even come out yet, but I’m so excited for it when it does is Don’t Starve the Board Game. It’s not even on Kickstarter yet, but I’ve set up notifications so I can purchase it the day it launches (…and then proceed to wait several months actually to receive it). This is another board game that was originally a video game. 

I’m looking forward to this game because I love the unique artwork. I have no idea if this game will be fun to play, but the artwork has already won me over. The juxtaposition of cuteness and macabre has a Tim Burton vibe. The characters and scenery have this sketched illustration style to them, which makes them feel like they are straight out of a sketchbook. 

What board game would you recommend to designers? 

I added this question since I couldn’t write an article about board games without ending with a recommendation for my designer friends!

Here are three games I recommend for designers (even if you don’t play board games):

• Mysterium: One of my all-time favourite games where one person plays a ghost and the rest of the team are mediums trying to guess how the ghost was murdered. You get a series of beautifully-illustrated cards which are clues to finding out details like the murderer, location and weapon. This is a cooperative game.
• Azul: A tile and pattern game where you score points based on playing your tiles and filling up your board. It’s really beautiful, lightly competitive and an easy game for beginners to learn.
• Wingspan (or Wyrmspan if you like dragons more than birds): Collect birds (or dragons) for your sanctuary and score points based on bird cards, secret goals or laying eggs. Again, the artwork is just incredible in this game. Birds come with their own abilities which you can build a strategy to score the most points by the end of the game. It’s a game that’s easy to learn and has many expansions which add new birds with new abilities.