The board gaming world has, like most things, its own jargon. It can be slightly confusing if you’re new to board games. First there’s the easiest: games categorized by their game mechanics. That’s something you’ll learn and reconize quickly. Then there are the acronyms, which you’ll mostly find online, but I often find myself puzzled not knowing which game they’re talking about. The games mentioned in the comic:
ONUW: One Night Ultimate Werewolf
A:NR: Android: Netrunner
KONY: King of New York
TTR: Ticket To Ride
And then there’s this series of abstract games (which can be combined?!)… with rather interesting names: Gipf, Zèrtz, Dvonn, Yinsh, Pünct and Tzaar. These names always remind me of Ikea furniture, so well, just imagine them naming the games in combination with Ikea furniture. 😉
Oh, and for the Shut Up & Sit Down fans – yes, those are the ‘abstract games’ versions of Paul and Quinns, from their video review of Tash-Kalar.
On Instagram we challenged people to build the hightest and/or most impressive tower made out of dice – if you feel like stacking some dice: feel free to join in! It’ll be lovely to see other people their creations.
Gipf is a strategic game in a series of abstract games: Zertz, Dvonn, Tzaar, Yinsh and Punct. Yes, lovely names. Players have to place pieces on the board until achieving four-in-a-row. After that, players keep taking pieces from the board and capture pieces of their opponent. Whenever a player is out of pieces to play, the other player wins!
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Phlip
Most of the times that I use acronyms or dense jargon it is for competitive style card games. OP and broken for over powered. ‘two three for two’ style jargon for magic the gathering when talking about stats on a card which just sounds like are saying a large number. What do you mean you had a ‘2342’?
My favorite thing to do is use nicknames when talking about mechanics and bits though. Flat-lining in AN:R turns into having my house blown up. Any sort of resources turns into nonsense. Credits or coins often turns into ‘money-foods’. Potions or healing things become ‘drugs’. The black jewels from splendor are ‘chocolates’. Any sort of personnel turns into ‘dude-face(s)’. I actually teach a lot of games with these nicknames. All of my friends still think that the fuel from Alien Frontiers is called energons.
Rachel
Haha, thanks so much for sharing. The idea of using nicknames for mechanics and other things gave me a good laugh.
dawnmage
money=energy=resorses=victorypoints= most of them wins the game.
some games realy give weard names to evrything. best excample is netrunner. the draw deck is not the draw deck. your hand is not your hand. but rather headquarters/R&D, etce.
Sean Myers
Pandemic is the one with the most language in my household – Blue is people didn’t wash their hands, Yellow is crabs, when there is an outbreak the city “blows up,” etc…
Brian
Yeah, I can’t talk. My Father-in-law calls the oil barrels from Power Grid “Erl,” and that name has kind of stuck…