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1830 Railways & Robber Barons by Mayfair

Designer: Francis Tresham

Originally released in 1986, Railways & Robber Barons by Francis Tresham is more than just a classic, it’s a game with a Mono Lisa-like legendary status in the board gaming world. That said, for anyone who has ever actually seen the Mona Lisa in person, you were probably surprised to find out it’s actually a tiny painting perhaps not living up entirely to the namesake of one of the most well-known paintings in the art world. Now I’m not saying that 1830 is or isn’t a good game with that statement, I guess what I’m saying is that like the Mona Lisa, a painting like any other, 1830 is a board game like any other. Much of the hype, applauding and mystique surrounding this classic game and the 18XX series it spawned is driven by a kind of mythological stature given to and built up by its fan base. At some point however you sit down to play it and you come to the stark realization that this is an economic train game and though it comes with a lot of hype by the community that adores it giving it that cult classic status, it really is just one game in a sea of games.

For me personally, 1830 falls into the nostalgic classic category as a game, I’m reviewing it now because I have recently introduced it to my gaming group and I like to do reviews when a game is fresh in my mind, but the truth is that I have spent quite a few hours, decades ago, hunched over this one even before the Mayfair reprint (using the old Avalon Hill version). Suffice it to say, back in the day, I loved playing this one and I can understand the communities affection for 1830 Railways & Robber Barons.

As I look at 1830 today however I look at it with decades of board gaming experiences, with a more critical eye and a higher understanding of game design and perhaps more modern expectations. That means this old classic is getting reviewed in the backdrop of the modern board gaming era, so the question here really is, does this classic still hold up today!?

Overview

Final Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star (3.9 out 5) Great Score!

In 1830 Railways & Robber Barons, as the title suggests players take on the roles of fat cats from the 1830’s who are running railway companies in a cut-throat competition to make the most money. Manipulating stock markets, building railways, trains and train stations, players are essentially building up companies so that their stock shares payout, stocks being the primary source of earnings in the game. In this process, players are buying low and selling high, trying to stick it to each other guy through pretty cruelly ruthless methods like stock dumping to make company values drop as they exit investments and seek out new ventures and many other “business transactions” that raise many ethical question marks about the very nature of capitalism.

This is a tough game with quite a few pretty mean-spirited take that moves that are made by players as they maneuver their investments around the stock market trying to leverage their winnings while torpedoing the earnings of others. The game is very much about timing as you can imagine, getting in and out at the right time, often coming down to a kind of game of chicken between players to see who will make the big plays and when. Much of the game is about controlling turn order in the stock round where the really big plays actually take place and trying to control the speed at which new trains enter the game resulting in older trains “rusting” (leaving play) which in turn creates horrific consequences for companies using aging trains. The whole experience is truly brutal, it’s the sort of game that I think really requires a very particular group who can take that cruelty with a light-hearted approach rather than getting upset.

It’s also a very long game and though I would not call the mechanics complicated, the strategies involved most certainly hit that high-level veteran style of game, not for the faint of heart. You can expect a typical game to exceed 6 hours pretty routinely.

The question here however is, does all that translate to being a good game? What I can say is that to me and my friends, games with a sharper edge like this, where we can really stick it to each other tend to make a really great impression with us. This is the sort of gaming we like, betrayal games are always popular in my gaming group, games like Game Of Thrones the board game is a huge hit with us predominantly because of the way you can really screw each other over so yeah, for a group like ours this one fits like a glove. We also have no issue pulling an 8-hour session to play a game, we do it routinely, we make the time for good games and so again, the length here is not an issue for me. I don’t negatively judge games that are intentionally long for being long, it is what it is.

This is a very intimidating looking game, the map is busy, there is a lot going on here but it really is not difficult to get your head around, its far simpler than it looks.

All that said, I would definitely say that this is not a game that will speak to the typical gaming group of the modern era. By modern standards, this game will be seen as “complex” mechanically, way too vicious and way too long even for the most patient of groups. This is, however, my review and I’m judging it based on my own standards here so as you read this review, remember, who the audience is, really matters here. You have to like long, complex and mean-spirited games to like this one, if that doesn’t sound like you, this should be a really hard pass. If that sort of thing is music to your ears, however, you’re in for a real treat because frankly, this is an absolutely astonishingly amazing game and I can fully understand why it has this legendary classic game status, it earns it tenfold!

Components

Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_star

Pros:  Very pretty, big visual improvement over the Avalon Hill version, good quality components typical for GMT games.

Cons:  Misprints & pretty poor manual detract from the experience.  The use of paper money makes the game unplayable requiring you to seek out an alternative.

I remember the Avalon Hill version of this game and all I can say is that I personally, with zero artistic ability and an ink printer, I could create a vastly superior product than Avalon Hill managed back in the day. I mean the Avalon Hill version looked like a really shitty prototype on its best day.

This pretty ugly Avalon Hill version would be outright rejected by modern standards, but surprisingly much of the 18xx community stands behind this old school look and its still a sought after version of the game.

Seeing 1830 by Mayfair bring the production level to modern standards is an absolute delight and they have done a fantastic job with the components here for the most part, both preserving the very important visual queues and functional approach the game needs while offering tons of extras based on years of player feedback and wrapping the whole thing up with beautiful art. Unfortunately there are some chinks in the armor and though no game is perfect, its a tragedy when you have to reference an old version of the game to get the correct information about its deluxe reprint.

The hard-mounted two-sided board is gorgeous with perfectly executed organization and iconography that really helps to both smooth gameplay and initial teaching of the game with the most important information/reminders on the board itself. The mounted board is two-sided because it includes the classic 1830 map of the original game and on the other side an expanded version of the map for a larger and more varied game. This is absolutely fantastic in particular in combination with all the different variants for the game that includes a wide range of unique tiles and alternative setups to give you a tremendous amount to explore and ways you can customize your experience.

The card stock is firm and artistic, with a glossy finish making the handling of stock certificates a pleasure. The tokens and tiles are on firm cardboard made to last. It’s worth noting that the tiles are all two-sided as well with the new Mayfair art on one side and the old Avalon Hill art on the other. I don’t know exactly why they would want to preserve the old Avalon Hill art as it’s really generic and boring, but I imagine perhaps it’s because some old-school fans might be used to it I guess and prefer it. It doesn’t negatively affect the game in any way so it’s a none issue for me. My issue is that there are a number of errors in the reprinted tiles, nothing that ruins the experience, but its hard to imagine when you have a correct version of the games tiles in the original, how you could print the wrong tiles in the reprint, its kind of sloppy especially given this games nearly $100 price tag.

The corporate cards are also of good stock with a nice mat finish and everything fits neatly into the box. Again, I have to complain, two of the corporate cards have misprints that actually mislead you into thinking they have 3 stations when they actually only have 2. A foolish blunder that caused me to have to research why I have 2 station tokens for a corporation that claims to have 3 stations on the card. Turns out its just a misprint, again, very sloppy for such an expensive game.

Finally and it’s a really big one is the use of paper money in the game. This is a game where you manipulate money constantly, making change and making payouts, simply and frankly put you can’t play this game with the paper money included, it’s just, utterly unmanageable. Quite literally with the use of paper money, this game will take 12+ hours to complete and half that time will do nothing but fumble about with paper money. This is a real black mark against the game, but it’s one the community has generally fixed for themselves as it’s an issue with all 18xx games. The community consensus is that Poker Chips should be used and after doing just that I agree whole heartedly. The use of poker chips not only makes exchanging and paying out money very fast and hassle-free, but it feels great at the table. Of course, I can’t give 1830 credit for this as poker chips are not included, but all I can say, either get poker chips with this game or don’t get this game at all. With paper money this game is unplayable. It is not a great look for a $100 dollar game to be completely unplayable with the components included, requiring an upgrade to components on top of your initial purchase.

While their is a classic quality about the use of paper money and it looks nice on the table, in practice this is a very difficult, I would argue unmanageable way to play the game. It sucks up waaaay to much time. You need poker chips!

I could complain about a rulebook here as well because it’s not entirely clear or particularly well written. It makes a lot of sense once you learn the game so in hindsight, it’s a great reference for the rules, but in practical terms even understanding something as simple as the sequence of play is poorly explained. There are also a number of very misleading rules that you will discover are actually quite different from the original game and its unclear whether this is intentional or if it is just poorly worded in the Mayfair version. Research revealed the latter.

I would use an online tutorial or have someone teach you this game because while the rules are actually quite intuitive once you understand them, the rulebook seems to be written with the assumption that you already know how to play, a tragic state that seems to plague all the 18xx games. Its a bit strange, but generally not great even though it’s a nice rulebook in terms of quality of print.

All and all, in terms of quality its a mixed bag here. Generally the components themselves are of very good quality, and very pretty but between some of the very obvious misprints, a rather confusing manual and the paper money this is a game that is going to make you work a lot harder than you should have to, to get to the table, especially for a $100 game, I’m being very generous with 3 stars for this one.

Theme

Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star

Pros: Great execution on the theme combines perfectly with the gameplay.

Cons: The early-mid game excitment is in stark contrast to the slow and almost unbearably boring end game.

If you know anything about economics and in particular about the economics of the 1830’s which I imagine isn’t going to include too many people, this game actually is spot on thematically. I mean it covers all of the really nasty economic tricks pulled by these unscrupulous businessman of the early 19th century as well as the issues of railway construction and company management. It’s all very intuitive from a gameplay perspective however so knowledge of the historical foundation here is completely unnecessary which I consider a major plus but I would imagine anyone with an economics degree is going to do a hell of a lot better in this game than those without one. I would argue that when you play this game, you can take just about any mechanic in the game and explain why its there due to the theme and that just feels great.

Historical relevance aside, thematically this game is about buying and selling stocks, managing railway companies, building railways, and trying to find those perfect train routes and all of these things are not only handled with relatively simple mechanics but there are constant carrots in front of you that are both engaging and exciting. It’s a beautiful thing to see you predict what will happen to a company a few turns from now and leverage that knowledge and watch it payout or dump stock at the right time to watch an opponent’s company unravel at the seams. It’s mean-spirited that is for sure, but this too is part of the theme here, you’re meant to be these rather unethical cut-throat businessmen and this game gives you a real sense of that. In fact, the experience is almost surreal and really makes you question the whole concept of capitalism as many of the nasty activities reflected in 1830 are very much part of modern world economics.

In the 80’s and 90’s you didn’t see very many board games become PC games, but 1830 was just popular enough to get a digital version. Its aged quite poorly, but if you can deal with the graphics, this old dos game version does a decent job of being a near direct translation of the game.

The game makes you feel like greedy businessmen and you are rewarded for your greed, it’s a brutish game, but that is the world 1830 represents and thematically it nails it!

If I have any complaints is that the games exciting core gameplay does not extend to the end game. It starts out as this action packed stock trading, business management game where players are making big plays, taking risks, speculating, just in general fully engaged but the game ends in a rather slow moving and very boring end game where all you do is run train routes until the bank runs out of money. There is a real stark contrast between early to mid game and the end game. The latter being rather anti-climatic to such a degree that the community uses spreadsheets and other aids to help expedite this boring end game. You might think this complaint belongs in the Gameplay section, but it actually hurts the theme a lot more in my opinion. You go from being cut-throat Robber Barons fighting for every dollar you make, to effectively becoming a lifeless administrators managing spreadsheets. It sucks all the energy out of the room.

Gameplay

Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star

Pros: A deep well of strategic gameplay, combined with highly addictive and dynamic mechanics makes this one hard to put down.

Cons: The game slows down over time until it comes to a near grinding a routinely boring halt.

1830’s Gameplay I would categorize as moderately complex and its strategically quite demanding. That said its intuitive and much of the gameplay feels natural, easy to get used to. Still playing the game requires a pretty high level of concentration, a lot of foresight and an intricate understanding of every single mechanic in the game and while there aren’t a lot of mechanics to learn, the impact of these mechanics can be deceptivly important, things that seem very innocent are actually quite crucial and not everyone is going to pick it all up on their first go.

There is good reason why this game and game genre (the 18xx series of games) have become a sort of lifestyle game sub-genre in board gaming because you really can spend an enormous amount of time and energy analyzing what is really going on in this game. There are so many unique and interesting puzzles to unravel here that I don’t think it would be possible for me to really do the game justice in a review while keeping the review reasonably readable to explain it all, but perhaps I can illustrate with some smaller examples of what I mean here.

One of the things you do in this game is buy stock. Each company that someone buys a president share (the first stock in the company) gets to set a price for that company. When 60% of the shares of a company are sold to players the company “floats” and begins to operate in the operating round which is a complex way of saying that it has the potential to start making money (building tracks, buying trains, running trains etc..).

When that first president share is bought it seems like a very simple matter. After all, players are here to buy and sell a stock, it seems like a thing to do. The meaning behind this and the consequences for this action however will echo throughout the game from that point forward. Which company was chosen has an immense impact on how the game will unfold. The price set for that company has an enormous impact on the game, when the company floats and which players buy into it by picking up shares and how those shares are distributed among the players is all of critical importance. Understanding why these things are important would require countless pages of text, but what I’m trying to illustrate here is that the game is afoot almost immediately with what appears to be largely a trivial action. A player buys 1 stock and it triggers countless events in the present and in the future of the game that might very well define the entire direction of that game.

1830 revolves around the stock market and players will give this silly little table a tremendous amount of their attention. Buy low, sell high is a lot more complicated than it sounds.

One good example of what can happen is that a player sets a high price. When a player does that it means that when the company does float it will have a lot of capital to spend on building it up as how much cash a company gets when it launches is based on its initial stock price. If the share price is high however which means that investing in it drains more of player cash, if its low it means more people might see it as a great opportunity creating many investors. But in either case, depending on the circumstances at the table it has the potential for being both a big payout or a big disaster. What if you buy into the company and it doesn’t float. Now you have money invested in a company that is doing nothing for a round, already you are falling behind compared to players who have floated companies that will make money. If the company does float what if that player intentionally tanks the company because he is setting himself up for a different investment down the line, or what if that player uses one of the tricks like selling of a private company to the railroad company to pull cash out and then sells all his shares tanking the share price and leaving you with a company that has no money to spend.

So much can happen from such a little event like buying a stock and this is where the gameplay of the game really shines, where you are rewarded for clever decisions and making smart plays and the wonderful thing is that your reward is more money, fuel for making even bigger plays in the future.

But what if you fall behind, are you out? Not at all and this is the other great thing about 1830. You can go from rags to riches pretty quick, just buy some stock in a new company, build it up and start over. There is a limit to how many times you can really fail, but suffice to say, one setback isn’t the end of the world and inevitably you will suffer some in the course of a game, there are always routes to success you just have to be clever enough to find them.

Stocks are your investment, but they run the risk of being both your path to victory or road to ruin. Cash is king but cash does nothing until you invest it somewhere to make it grow.

I’m sure this is all very confusing when talking about a game you don’t know the rules for, but the main thing I’m trying to illustrate here is that I can talk about the game without explaining the rules and the terminology and the economic concepts are actually quite literal translations of the real thing. Buy low, sell high, invest in good companies, watch for unscrupulous activities in which players intentionally bankrupt companies and try to sink you with them. These things from an economics standpoint, have some universal understanding and when teaching the game you can speak about it in these terms and most players will understand, while the mechanics that govern this are relatively straightforward and naturally intuitive.

The other big play element beyond stock trading and stock market manipulation happens in the operating round. Here players manage companies that have been “floated” (60% of the stock shares bought by players). Each round players lay track, build stations, buy trains and run their trains. This sometimes feels like mini game in 1830 because while its a very critical part of the game, defining which companies are successful and which are failures, its usually not the focus of players attentions. What players are really looking for is to determine what the intentions of a player is with a company.

On the surface, its obvious that the most invested player will want to have a successful company so that dividends pay out and they make money. There is a lot of deception here however because it is not too uncommon for players to build up companies with bigger and more devious plans in mind. Its a funny thing that happens at the table because everyone is watching the person operating a company like a hawk, but they aren’t really watching what he does with the company but trying to read between the lines.

There are also some pretty nasty tricks that can be pulled in the operating round when it comes to laying track and building stations. Companies can block each other with tracks and stations, very rapidly turning a high profit company into a dumpster fire waiting to happen. Even nastier still is the train “rusting”. Each acting company has the opportunity to buy trains, but when certain trains are purchased, old trains become obsolete and are removed from play. This can and often does result in some companies having no trains and because its a requirement for all operating companies to have trains, those that find themselves without must replace them. If a company can’t afford the newly available trains which are always more expensive then the last generation of trains, the CEO (Biggest stock holder in the company) becomes financial responsible to replace the trains, meaning he may have to use their own money.

When this happens their can be terrible consquences, players can even go bankrupt if they can’t afford to replace a train. Suffices to say, avoiding this situation is on everyone’s mind as is trying to force that situation on people. The brutality of such a move is less likely in 2-3 player games, but in 4-6 player games, not only is this likely to happen to people but its almost a certainty. As such, a case can be made that 1830 plays best at 4 to 6 players because you really want this arch in your game, its exciting, its brutal and creates amazing table tension.

There is so much more to say about the gameplay in 1830, what I offer here are just some of the highlights but really this is a game where every action, every bought and sold stock, every lay of a track.. really anything players do changes the lay of the land and has players wrestling with decisions. 1830 has amazing table present once everyone really understands the nuances at the table and though it may take a game or two to get everyone truly vested, when you have a table full of players that all understand the subtleties of this game it really is an absolutely amazing gaming experience.

Now I mentioned the end game issue in 1830 in the theme section so I won’t harp on it too much here, but, yes of course, a slow, boring and rather anti-climatic ending of a game is never a good thing and I’m going to charge 1830 here as well.

There are solutions to this of course, one very obvious one is to play with a smaller sized bank, the less money the bank has the faster this end game will come. My friends and I however have experimented with some of the variants the Mayfair version of 1830 comes with and there are actually quite a few really good ones that help to both expedite the game in general but also make the end game at least a little bit more exciting. Its not exactly a fix, but I would encourage anyone who enjoys the game and finds themselves with the same complain to really take a look at the variants section of the rulebook. There is some really good stuff their and many ways that you can customize your experience.

Replay-ability and Longevity

Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_star

Pros: Endless replayability and longevity proven by over 3 decades of continued “In Print” state, not to mention the spawning of an entire genre of 18xx games.

Cons: The only problem will be your addiction to buying more 18xx games, they aren’t cheap.

I’m going to make this very short and sweet. This game was published in 1986 and its still in print today and has become the founding father of what is effectively an entire genre in board gaming (the 18xx’s series). It would be insane for anyone to claim this game is anything but immortal in terms of replayability and longevity. This is a lifestyle game and while I won’t argue that it’s a lifestyle for everyone, for those that fall into it, it is an unlimited well of experiences expanded by a huge library of offshoots, variants and based on games in the 18xx series. You can’t ask for more longevity then the likes of 1830!

There are many games in the 18xx series and a wide range of guides on how to approach this genre. I say forgo all that and start with 1830, not necessarily because the others aren’t good, because they are.. but 1830 in the end I think is the best of the bunch.

Conclusion

1830 Railways and Robber Barons is a hallmark game, an example of what happens when a brilliant and passionate designer takes their time creating something truly magical. 1830’s status as a cult classic is well deserved and though it is not a flawless beast and certainly is not going to be for everyone, if you fall into this well you aren’t likely ever to claw your way out. 1830 and really the whole 18xx series becomes an addiction and while we are here to review 1830, it really is just the tip of the iceberg into a much larger and fascinating side trek into the world of board gaming.

I’m a fan, I love it and there are already a number of 18xx games on my shelf and each one is as unique and interesting as the next. 1830 is the core of this series however and while the consensus from the community is that 1830 is not a good place to start with the 18xx series I actually disagree. I find this one very palatable and much easier to teach than the rulebook suggests and learning from a teacher worlds apart from trying to do it from the manual. I recommend you find someone who already knows how to play, this makes a world of difference.

Flaws and misprints aside, this is a gem with some rough edges, approach with caution, but from one gamer to another, 1830 Railways & Robber Barons comes highly recommended.

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Top 5 boardGames for Christmas Presents in 2021

While the year is certainly not over, given that everyone is frantically shopping for Christmas presents I thought it prudent to create a list to help potential shoppers out. Here you will find the best games I have played in 2021 and though, I make the disclaimer that some of these games have been released a bit prior to 2021 so it’s not exactly the best of 2021 but more like the best I played in 2021 with Christmas gifts in mind.

In either case, if you are shopping for a boardgame fan, these 5 games come highly recommended!

5. Great Western Trail (2nd edition)

New art, same game, Great Western Trail remains on my “play often” list and for good reason, it’s one of the best Euro games in the market today.

While the 1st edition of this game was released back in 2016 and strictly speaking very little has changed between the 1st and 2nd edition, I still felt it prudent to put this one on this list not only because it remains one of my favorite games to play with my daughter (14) but because it’s such an amazingly unique and fun game.

This new version is largely a cosmetic upgrade, is even prettier than the original if you can imagine that and comes with a few organizational bits that make setup and takedown a little quicker.

Overall Great Western Trail is kind of a uniquely designed game which makes it hard to compare with other games, but it has a very simple to grasp turn progression (you move a little meep each round on a track) so its a very easy game to grasp conceptually while the action spaces, the bread, and butter of the game create a highly cerebral strategic board game that can be played repeatedly with new experiences emerging every time.

Fantastic game that plays up to 4 players, but works great with 2 or 3. It’s just long enough to make an exciting board game evening with the family while short enough to not overstay its welcome. I have had a lot of fun with this one, makes a great Christmas present in the next level family game category, though it should be noted that there are a lot of rules in the game so I would not categorize it as a beginner game, this is more for that board gaming family who is already accustomed to playing modern euro games. Not for the Monopoly-RISK crowd, it’s a notch or two above that.

4. Vampire The Masquerade: Vendetta

In my humble opinion, the single best board game based on the world of darkness franchise and that is saying a lot as their are quite a few contenders.

My gaming group and I discovered this little gem during our yearly board gaming retreat and it stuck the landing like a pro with us. This rather simple card game falls into the “look them in the eyes” category of gaming as it’s really more of a game of bluffing, counter-bluffing and bluffing the bluff… point is there is a lot of bluffing.

Simple rules and premise, this is a game about using little to gain a lot by using human psychology of people against them. Each round players compete in a fictional world in which vampires rule cities as secret societies based on the classic tabletop RPG Vampire The Masquerade.

Naturally being a fan of the tabletop RPG is a huge boon here but even if you have never heard of the World of Darkness this is actually just a fantastic game in its own right and stands on its own. I would argue it actually makes for a great family game because it really is simple to teach and learn, while being very replayable and competitive, while remaining pretty short game, averaging around 30-45 minutes tops.

Great Christmas present if you want to surprise a boardgamer with something really unique this year.

3. Talisman

This stone-cold classic belongs on the shelf of every family board game collection along side Monopoly, RISK and Checkers!

The classic adventure game was released all the way back 1983, yet remains in print today and is every bit as fun as it always has been. I always say that if you have kids between the ages of 8-15 and don’t already own a copy of Talisman, this is a very easy decision. Far more interesting than the Monopolies of the world for a family game night, yet, so simple that rules explanation fits on a napkin.

These ultra-simple rules make this an adventure game that never seems to wear out its welcome with the board gaming world. In its 4th iteration, this latest edition still available today uses most of the original art retaining its retro feel for long-time fans, while still gorgeous laid out on the table for today’s standards.

Inspiring fantasy stories, the recognizable cast of characters with any generation and a sense of ownership and self-built into the game that draws players in as they struggle against the game itself while in competition with each other.

The great thing is that if you find it lands well and becomes a family favorite, it’s infinitely expandable which means every year for Christmas you can by any one of a dozen expansions that can create new experiences.

If you are looking for a great family boardgame this Christmas, Talisman has you covered.

2. Imperial Struggle

Without question my single favorite 2 player historical game knocking out its predecessor Twilight Struggle from the spot.

Ok this one is not for the family, this is a gift you buy for a purist board gamer with a love for history, in particular, if you enjoy games like Twilight Struggle or other 2 player competitive strategy games with a lot of depth.

Imperial Struggle for me personally is the unquestionable king of 2021, it absolutely blew me away and skyrocketed into my top 10 best games of all time like gangbusters!

There is so much to love in this complex strategy game for 2 players based on the historical conflict between Britain and France in the 18th-century colonial period. Yes, it’s heavy, complex, deep and can be quite lengthy (in the 3-4 hour range) but boy do I adore this game.

Of all the games I play this is the one I look forward to the most, it’s a true well of strategy, creating endless opportunities to fine-tune your game while at the same time the game is incredibly dynamic so there are no routines here like their often were in Twilight Struggle its predecessor.

If you have a gamer buddy who loves historical games, this is an auto-buy. It is a modern interpretation of chess if you ask me, the perfect 2 player strategy game.

1. Dune Imperium

No if, and or buts about it, this is the single best board game that came out in 2021!

Before I wrote a single word for this article I knew that Dune Imperium would be my no. 1 on this list and unless you have been living under a board gaming rock you already know that Dune Imperium IS the game of the year in 2021.

Dune is effectively a fine-tuning of 2 core game mechanics that have swept the board gaming space for the last decade, worker placement and dynamic deck building. It marries the two mechanics in a perfect union, layering it with an amazing science-fiction theme just in time to support the newly released feature film.

This infinitely replayable game is tightly woven which means that every game is going to come down to the wire, it requires deep planning, dynamic thinking and calculated risk-taking. Like all good Euro games there is very little luck involved and each time you play this game you will discover new strategies and opportunities that you will want to explore the next time you play.

The game is gorgeous on the table, very easy to teach and learn while offering wildly different experiences depending on how many players are sitting at the table. Weirdly while the experiences are different depending on player count, I can’t say that one is better than the other. Each brings something different to the table, requiring adjustment to strategies and approaches.

Super fun to play, love this one!

Honorable Metions

There were a few games I played this year that easily could have made this list if I expanded it to a top 10 or 15, so as an added bonus here I will throw out a few more gift ideas.

Vampire The Masquerade: Heritage: This was a really great legacy game based on the Vampire The Masquerade tabletop RPG. It requires a dedicated group to play it over time, but mechanically it’s full of surprises and true to its source material tells a great story of the world of darkness. Fantastic game, but definitely requires a regular group to really get the most out of it.

I’m not huge on legacy games but if any game will sell you on the concept it will be this one.

The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine: This cooperative trick-taking game falls into the puzzle category in a weird way. Essentially players are given missions that ask them to clear the board in a certain order and with specific instructions and the trick to the game is that players must communicate non-verbally through their actions while attempting to coordinate. Tricky but super fun game, great for the family.

It comes with 50 missions, each harder than the next and while the game starts out relatively simple, it becomes a real challenge in later stages making it a great game to learn together as a team.

Tapestry: While the rules of this civilization builder are simple, the strategy goes so deep it makes your brain explode all over the table. The paralysis analysis in this game is almost painful, but the game is just so good. I mean I find it difficult to recommend as a family game as it’s just a tad too much and it is a pretty long game, so it definitely falls to the hardened veteran crowd, but I haven’t played a game this good in years and it seems to have largely fallen under the radar. This game belongs in the top 10 board games on the geek, at 242 as of this writing it is criminally underrated.

It’s a civilization-building game but not in the Sid Meiers tradition, but more like a Euro version of the concept.

Best of List, Role-Player Game Reviews

Top 10 Table Top Role-Playing Games

The one thing I always tell people who enter the hobby, people who typically enter the scene through Dungeons and Dragons is that while D&D is an amazing game, it is but a small piece of a much larger world. In today’s list, we explore some of the amazing RPG’s that have been made since Dave and Gary penned the grandaddy of role-playing games decades ago. I have focused this list with advice aimed at Gamemasters looking for great systems, but I think players should find this list entertaining as well. Note also I have only included games I have actually played or run and obviously, I have not played everything that has ever been written. I’ve also tried to focus on games that are actually still available today, obviously giving you a list of RPG’s you cannot buy and play today would probably not be terribly useful.

10. Star Trek Adventures

Star Trek is a franchise that has seen a lot of renditions over the years in the RPG genre and arguably, many of them made a respectable showing, but Star Trek Adventures is the game to beat.

I was a little bit hesitant about adding this game to the list because frankly, it misses the mark a bit with some of my criteria for this list, but I still think for Star Trek fans this is a great game.

The issue with Star Trek Adventures is that the books are poorly organized, written in a narrative style where rules and story are blended into the text making it difficult to use the books as a reference and the rules are, well, kind of complicated with a lot of high-level concepts that aren’t easy to teach. This makes the game difficult to get to the table and it’s a bit of a chore to run as a GM.

That said, if you can get past this difficulty curve, Star Trek Adventures does an amazing job of bringing Star Trek stories to a group ready to take on the intricacies of the final frontier and I think if you are a fan of Star Trek and want to experience it in RPG form, this is your game and it’s worth jumping through the hurdles.

The difficult thing with bringing Star Trek stories to an RPG, in general, is that it requires a lot of setting knowledge on the part of the players to really bring the stories to life. The terminology, Starfleets command structure and how ships and technology work, are all core knowledge that is required to get the most out of the game. The game does teach you all this, but typically players aren’t the ones reading the books and I think sitting down and explaining the Star Trek universe to players who aren’t already fans is going to take a very long time and probably won’t translate well. As such, this game should be approached with assumptions that players are already in the know and it then comes down to explaining how the rules bring all these setting concepts to life.

Being an Origins Award Nominee is indeed an honor, but I think they could have won if the game had better editing. The books writing style and organization is one of the failures of Star Trek Adventures.

Here Star Trek Adventures really shines as the connection between the intricate setting concepts and the rules of the game are in perfect sync and really bring to life the complexities of technology in the Star Trek universe. The intricate relationships of the command structure, the unique skills of the Star Trek universe, the way technology works and all of the history of Star Trek are all embedded into the mechanics in this rather perfect union.

It’s a lot of work to make Star Trek come together at the table, it requires knowledgeable Star Trek fans and a DM willing to study the intricate rules, but when the stars align, this game is a Star Trek fans dream.

For me personally, it was worth the stretch to get this one to the table as I’m a huge Star Trek fan but it comes with the above disclaimer and certainly wasn’t easy, it’s definitely for more advanced players.

9. GURPS (Generic Universal Role-Playing System)

GURPS has been a household name in the RPG community for decades, it’s been around nearly as long as D&D and Steve Jackson is a wonderful designer that makes a lot of really great stuff.

Published in 1986 by Steve Jackson, GURPS is a role-playing system designed to cover every setting and genre imaginable as a universal RPG system for all occasions. It was the first of its kind when it was published in a market where games were always published for specific settings and/or genre and despite decades of role-playing game publishing, it is even today a leading member of a small group of games that take this approach to role-playing.

GURPS is in its 4th edition of the game but unlike so many role-playing games that have many editions/versions, GURPS core mechanic has been largely unchanged and the 4th edition books are backward compatible with all material that goes all the way back to its original 1st edition which is a big plus for fans.

What makes GURPS special and the reason it’s on this list for me personally is that it’s a system that handles settings and stories that most other systems are ill-equipped to do so, the unique stuff typically not covered by other games.

This is the game I pull out when I want to run something really unique or very specific. In the last few decades, I have used this system to run westerns, unique science-fiction time-traveling stories, superhero games and modern police dramas.

GURPS also has amazing source material support, you would be hard-pressed to pick a topic that GURPS doesn’t have a sourcebook to support it, giving you specialized rules coverage for just about anything you can think of which is great for GM’s, in particular those exploring more unusual subjects for role-playing.

GURPS, as it promises, is well equipped to handle a wide range of stories and while it certainly can do the standard stuff like Fantasy for example, I personally find it excels more at times when you want some really specific customization and need a flexible system that can handle it.

If you are a fan of GURPS, this is a system that has coverage of settings and genres that have their own systems, for example, you can play Werewolf the Apocalypse using the GUPRS system. This is a great feature if you just want to stick to one system but try out a lot of different setting material.

Over the years I find I use it less and less often but this is because today there are so many RPG’s that handle so many specific topics that GURPS’s universal approach becomes less and less necessary. For example, I used to use it to run games like Star Trek, Dune or Aliens because games covering such specific genres and settings generally didn’t exist or were handled poorly, but today this is no longer the case and usually, when a game system focuses on telling a specific type of story or describing a specific setting, it will do a much better job of it than a universal system like GURPS can.

It’s still a great tool in a GM’s toolbelt however and I find that on occasion I still find a reason to use it. Don’t let the rumors of its complexity fool you, while GURPS is a very robust system that has great rules coverage, it is a very easy game to run with a very standardized system that is easy to teach. Great game, it earns its place at the tail end of this list.

8. Alien RPG

There really are very few games I recommend as a party game, but if you’re looking for something you can run for non-gamers, this is the one.

Free League Publishing has produced some really amazing role-playing games since their arrival in the role-playing market and Alien the role-playing game certainly qualifies as one of the good ones.

What I really love about Alien the RPG is that the people who wrote the game really understood not only the setting material but the core concept behind the Alien story. In particular, their attention to the structure of a good movie-driven story which is all about horror in space. They really get that concept of drama that rises from the unknown tension of being in a movie about Aliens that will kill everyone, but not really knowing how that story will evolve, what the details of this next iteration of the movie will be. Players that enter this game know that they are likely going to die, the question is how and of course their is always hope that, like in the movies, they will be one of the survivors.

The cinematic mode in the game is a great example of that specific design approach that really lets a GM tap into the heart of an Alien story setup. You have to realize that Alien(s) is based on a series of movies, which if you include all of the Alien movies, the expanded alien flicks like Prometheus and all of the Predator vs. Alien movies, this franchise is all about short, violent stories about humans interacting with these horrific monsters in space.

This cinematic mode is the perfect setup but if you want that tension to be something that rises over the course of many sessions, the campaign mode is a great way to slowly build up that tension to the inevitable clash with these monsters where players have an opportunity to get attached to their characters so that when that final moment comes, the horror is that much closer to home.

It’s a very simple system to learn and teach, there are some really great story modules that bring amazing alien tales to your table if you aren’t into writing one yourself and Free League Publishing games are masters of book organization that makes the whole experience that much better.

My one and only complaint about the game is that they use black gloss pages with white text in the book and I know that this is a design choice, but it’s really hard on the eyes, I wish publishers would stop doing this.

If you love the Alien movies as I do, this game handles the material beautifully and I would argue that in terms of games on this list, Alien the RPG is the king of one-shots. This is a game that is tailor-made for bringing a group of players together for an all-day event and because it’s such a simple system and game, it’s perfect for introducing the concept of role-playing to non-gamers.

Absolutely love this one, fantastic work coming out of Free League Publishing.

7. Star Wars (West End Games Edition)

The West End Games version of Star Wars is a bit more like the books rather than the movie, which is to say it’s a bit more gritty and serious version of the Star Wars Universe.

There have been a lot of games that tried their hand at bringing the Star Wars Universe to an RPG, but there is only one that gave George Lucas the middle finger and showed us what Star Wars should be and that is the West End Games take on the Star Wars.

This edition of the game ignores some of the fuzzy and often hard to swallow concepts that the movies represent like inept Storm Troops who can’t hit the side of a barn with blasters and the ridiculously stupid way the villains of the world behave when heroes come along to try to stop their evil plans.

West End Games allows Star Wars to be a bit more serious, it’s a world where Storm Troopers are elite soldiers not to be trifled with and the Empire is a serious threat that isn’t going collapse because a farmer from Tatooine learned to swing a laser sword around.

This more genuine take on the Star Wars universe is what West End Games was going for and I love it. It turns Star Wars into a more serious science-fiction setting, where a blaster to the face will kill you, where being shot at is actually dangerous and space battles are represented with a sense of realism that satisfies fans of the genre who wish the movies were a little bit less space fantasy and a bit more space reality.

I know it’s not everyone’s bag, but for me, a version of Star Wars that is no PG rated is just what the doctor ordered, this is my favorite version of Star Wars in RPG form. The system is easy to learn and teach and it makes itself far easier to bring to the table than the many efforts that followed like Edge of Empire or the D20 Saga version.

Great game, great system, takes itself a bit more seriously yet manages to nail the Star Wars universe perfectly and despite its age it’s still in print today.

6. Dungeon Crawl Classics

It doesn’t take itself seriously, but DCC has some really innovative mechanics that are easily portable to Dungeons and Dragons, the basis for this one which I consider a classic as its name suggests.

There are many variants of Dungeons and Dragons and though I think most would count Dungeon Crawl Classics among them, I would argue that it’s got its own thing going and really doesn’t quite count as such a variant.

DCC is more than just D&D, it’s Gonzo D&D, a game with some serious wackiness to it designed almost like a spoof of D&D, meant for a fun and silly approach to the fantasy adventure.

Now you can approach this game with some seriousness if you wanted to and really the system itself lends itself to that style of play as well with a great magic system and some really cool concepts for martial classes, but for me personally, I lean into the skid here. The game is written in a style that suggests that you should see it as a kind of comedy show and given how the adventures are designed, the artwork and general wackiness of the premise, everything about DCC makes this the ideal game for a sort of Mighty Python version of Dungeons and Dragons.

This game generates laughs and my friends and I were in stitches when running this one. It’s everything you love about D&D with a comedy twist and it simply asks you to let go of your inhibitions and grognard mentality and accept it for what it is, a light-hearted version of Dungeons and Dragons.

I recognize it’s not for everyone but personally, I love it, it’s a great game in particular in short stints, the funnel concept is amazing for a one-shot and there is plenty of meat on the bones to keep the laughs coming if you want to make a campaign out of it.

A metric ton of fun, yet a really well-designed game, it’s fantastic.

5. Forbidden Lands

If you are the type of GM that thrives on open sandbox and on the fly emergent story and gameplay, Forbidden Lands is the perfect game for you. Everything about this game screams improv.

The second Free League Publishing game on the list, Forbidden Lands is simultaneously an awesome concept, a fantastic take on the classic game of Dungeons and Dragons, while at the same time being a great fantasy setting all in one game.

I can’t say enough positive things about Forbidden Lands. It’s a survival game in a fantasy universe with very deadly mechanics and a really gritty feel to it putting it squarely in the OSR wheelhouse, yet its mechanics are sleek and modern, with an absolutely fantastic dynamic world-building concept at the core of gameplay.

Players are survivors of a world that has gone terribly wrong and they are charged with trying to find a way to not only survive in this harsh environment but to thrive. The world around them is completely unexplored and the players must follow dynamically constructed clues about what is out there and because the game is an open sandbox, every group is going to take its own approach on how to proceed.

Players don’t just contend with the monsters that dwell beyond the borders of their village but they must deal with the harsh realities of weather, basic necessities like food and water and the absence of proper civilization. There are no blacksmith shops to buy everything you need or taverns where you can easily access the basic necessities and comforts of life. Everything in this game is a struggle and players are always on the brink of death no matter where they turn. The only thing they can rely on is each other and this creates amazing table dynamics.

I adore Forbidden Lands and if your fan of Dungeons and Dragons, while this system is certainly wildly different mechanically, everything about it is going to be familiar nonetheless. An amazing experience, in particular in the hands of creative GM’s.

There are a few quirks in the game that I would say require some minor correcting like the Peddler class that has a way of spoiling some of the survival gameplay elements but these are easily house ruled issues that can be solved and there is a great community around this game from which you can get lots of great advice some.

Highly recommend this one if you haven’t tried it.

4. Vampire The Masquerade (5th Edition)

It’s a really well-designed game with a very poorly written book, but playing a vampire in the world of darkness is a gaming experience that is so much fun, its worth overcoming the hurdle of this terrible book.

I love White Wolf games, specifically their world of darkness setting and certainly Vampire The Masquerade has to be my all-time favorite game set in that world. The games 5th edition did a lot of housekeeping in terms of rules to give the game greater balance but really the big strength of this latest edition is how the mechanics of the game and the story of the game are properly connected. The mechanics really bring out the horror of being a blood-sucking monster in this latest edition by implementing the hunger system and trimming the fat off the disciplines to bring them more in line with a game of vampire politics rather than a game about vampires abusing each other with disciplines as was the case in past editions.

I love the new take on the game, I’ve been running this game for a couple of years and it just works to bring that Vampire story to life in all its gory splendor.

This game would be much higher on the list if it was not for the fact that the actual core rulebook for the game is an absolute nightmare to work with. This has to be an example of the worst kind of RPG editing in the history of RPG’s. Simply put, no matter how many times I have read the book and how long I have played this game, I still can never find a single bloody thing in that book. Everything about its layout and editing is completely illogical, the editors of this book should be fired immediately.

That said, it’s a simple enough game that after a few sessions you will have most of the important stuff put to memory and so really, the game has a natural flow and simple system that you can largely get away with running the game just with the storyteller screen in front of you. Being a vampire is a lot of fun and this game really gives that to you in every spectrum and definition of the classic monster.

Love it, if you have never played Vampire The Masquerade, I would argue you are yet to really experience the RPG hobby to its fullest.

3. The Song of Ice and Fire RPG: The Game of Thrones Edition

I’m a huge fan of The Song of Ice and Fire story and world and as such, I have huge expectations and demands from an RPG that tackles this setting. This game not only met those demands bar far exceeded anything I could have hoped this RPG to be. This is one of the best interpretations of a setting into an RPG I have ever had the pleasure to experience.

In the last decade, I have had a really wide range of gaming experiences, but without question one of my absolute favorites is a short six-session campaign I ran in the seven kingdoms using the Song of Ice and Fire RPG (The Game of Thrones Edition) <- Yes that is a mouthful.

The Song of Ice and Fire RPG has got to be one of the best translations of a setting into an RPG I have ever experienced, Green Ronin Publishing knocks it out of the park with this game.

All of the intricate relationships between characters, the house building and politics mechanics, the absolutely fantastic social combat rules, the gritty and really brutal combat mechanic and of course just the setting writing all come together perfectly in a game that conjures up the TV show and makes you feel like your part of it.

There is so much great writing in these books, the organization and GM advice you get really helps tremendously in bringing The Game of Thrones to life at the table. I especially love the character creation building that has the players working together to not just form an adventuring group but a sort of dysfunctional family.

As a huge fan of the books and the TV show, I had an absolute blast with this one and I’m certain I’m going to run it again in the future. Our game only lasted six sessions but it was one of the most memorable six sessions of my gaming career. In our story three brothers struggled against each other for control of the house the players built together and in that short period of time they were engaged in a Knights tournament, they fought The Mountain in combat, they fought alongside The Starks in war, they betrayed each other in cunning political games and ultimately destroyed themselves. It had absolutely everything you could possibly ask from a Game of Thrones story and this system helped bring it all to the table.

I love this RPG, it really is a work of art.

2. Alternity

Bill S. and Richard B. create magic in what is the unquestionable king of Science-Fiction RPG’s, Alternity. This is not only one of the best sci-fi RPG’s, it may very well be one of the best RPG’s ever made.

While all the games on this list I consider personal favorites I would happily play or run at any time, at this point in the list we are getting into the games that really define me as a GM and as a role-player and Alternity is certainly such a game.

There are a lot of science-fiction games out there but in my humble opinion Alternity is worlds apart, this is the single best science-fiction RPG ever written, period. The work of the super team (Bill S. and Richard B.), it is a combination of brilliant design and inspired writing.

Alternity covers all forms of science-fiction genres from X-Files style conspiracy, Near Earth, Post-Apocalypse to hard science-fiction and science-fiction opera. It does all of that under a single, flawless system that makes use of 4 core classes, yet is distinctively skill-driven.

I adore this game and have used it countless times in everything from time-traveling games to space exploration games and everything in between. It’s a very simple system, yet so robust that even though there are only 4 classes you will never make the same character twice.

The game’s handling of technological eras, concepts like mutations and cybernetics, ship combat from hard science reality style to Star Wars space opera style, is all handled with perfection in this one game.

As if this wasn’t enough, Alternatiy has some of the best supplements for an RPG I have ever read including the absolutely astonishingly awesome StarDrive campaign which I say without reservation is the single best RPG setting ever written, period. The fact that it’s supported by this fantastic system is just icing on the cake of perfection.

I know that availability on this one might not quite hit the criteria for the list, but this is a game that was over-printed so finding books in the 3rd party market is actually quite easy, you can find it on Amazon or Ebay at very reasonable prices. There is a new edition of the game that was put out, I don’t know anything about that one so it should not be confused with the original TSR version.

I have not a single negative word to say about this game, it’s perfect. If you want science-fiction, it begins and ends with this game.

1. Dungeons and Dragons

The one and only Dungeons and Dragons makes the top of the list which should come to the surprise of no one!

While my desire with this list was to expose my readers to other RPG’s for their consideration, this list would be a bald-faced lie if I did not put Dungeons and Dragons in the number one spot.

D&D has had many editions over the years, but in each era in which it appeared whether it was 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 5th edition, Dungeons and Dragons was always my number one, favorite game to play. The only exception in the last 30+ years of my gaming life when that wasn’t true was during the brief period when 4th edition D&D was the current version of the game. I really didn’t like that version and it was the only time that I would not have put D&D as my number one choice of RPG.

I consider all of the editions as members of my D&D toolbox and as a DM, I’m more than happy to run any edition (except 4th) and I would typically do so for different reasons. I will very soon create a top 10 versions of D&D list which would include various retro-clones, spin-offs and re-imagining into this category and certainly if pressed I could put the editions of D&D in order from favorite to least favorite, but all and all I have enjoyed all of these games and I consider every one of them excellent RPG’s.

I’m certain however if I was pressed today to pick my favorite version of Dungeons and Dragons, the one I reach for when a fantasy story pops into my head that I want to explore there is no doubt that “my” preferred version of the game is 1st edition BECMI (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master and Immortal). Typically I would use a modern retro clone like Old School Essentials if we want to get strictly down to the specifics, but ultimately 1st edition Basic D&D for me personally is the simplest game to run, the one that sticks to the D&D concept the best and is the most fun for my players. It’s fast, challenging, easy to learn and teach and above all, fun as hell. It’s D&D in its purest form.

Some Honorable Mentions

There were quite a few games that were cut from this list and though I would argue for good reason, I do think they deserve a courtesy nod for being in contention.

Star Wars Edge of the Empire is a game that teases me with one of my favorite franchises of all time and it certainly was a contender, but in the end the narrative dice system, while clever is just too fussy and demands far too much from a gaming table. I like the ingenuity of it, but it misses the mark for me personally and certainly doesn’t compete with my favorite take on the Star Wars universe.

Warhammer Fantasy Role-play 3rd edition like Star Wars Edge of the Empire has a clever take on role-playing with its narrative dice, but I find it has the same issue as its Star Wars follow up. Too much fucking about with translating these dice to make something useful out of them at the table. I want to love the concept because conceptually it’s really good, but it’s just too impractical at a gaming table and its board game approach to RPG management distances itself too much from the hobbies traditions and assumptions. It was a good effort with a lot of really great writing and I use the game for inspiration, but it’s just not something I’m interested in running.

Pathfinder 2nd edition is another take on Dungeons and Dragons and the truth is that I actually like this one as a player quite a bit. Lots of great options for character building, a fantastic game world built into the system and a really fun combat mechanic that really gets to the heart of modern D&D gameplay. As a DM however I find the 600+ page rulebook is just severe overkill, it’s just too much, there is waaay to much to juggle as a DM and really the payout is kind of limited. Anything as a DM I could do with Pathfinder 2nd edition, I can do with D&D 1st edition, yet it will be a 10th of the complexity, for me it’s just a hard pass. I think a good, dedicated GM can make it work, but it’s too mechanized for my tastes, I could never run a game that is this codified. That said I think it’s actually an amazing design achievement, it’s a really clever game and those with the patience for this much crunch will find a lot to like.

Gaming Articles, Project Arcade

Project: Arcade – Day 1

I couldn’t wait to get my hands dirty with my Arcade project, but thankfully age has taught me to be patient and so rather than rushing to the store to buy wood and electronics for my dream machine living in my head, I opted to sit down in front of my computer and contend with the reality of this project.

I thought it prudent to create some goals for the project which I hope in turn will help me stay organized, give me an idea where to start, and perhaps guide at least some of the decisions I would have to make. It may not seem like it but there are actually quite a few practical considerations to be made here.

I’m an IT guy, solution architect to be exact and creating goals for projects before you start is as much a habit for me as it is the single most important step to the success of any project. 2 decades of experience teaches me that skipping this step leads to disaster!

The Goals

When I was thinking about the goals for this project, by the time I got halfway through the list, I already knew that this was actually extremely helpful and I strongly suggest you do the same if you are considering building your own arcade. This list I think will become the key to getting this project does successfully.

Goal 1: Modular, Portable, and Versatile
The door to my office has a 70-centimeter width worth of clearance and I have had trouble getting certain types of furniture in and out of this room before. I want the arcade unit to be something that can be disassembled and reassembled into smaller pieces.

Furthermore, I don’t want the arcade unit to be limited to being plugged into the monitor and cabinet for which it’s built. What I mean is that I want the controller board to be something I can remove and take upstairs and plug it into my TV for example and still function exactly as it does when plugged into the cabinet. There are a lot of kids in my family, we are always having lots of events at my house and I want to be able to set this up for the kids during these events so they can play video games together without having to pack them into my office.

This is a self contained arcade controller that plugs directly into a TV, its construction will be the inspiration for the custom one I will build.

Also in the future, if I decide to upgrade the cabinet (bigger monitor for example), I don’t want to have to rebuild an entire cabinet to do this.

This thing will also take the place of an entire bookshelf in my office and arcade cabinets kind of have a habit of being large pieces of furniture that take up space from what I can see. I want at least some part of this cabinet to be a functional storage space.

Bar Top units like this one can easily be turned into a stand up unit just by building something for it to sit on. The difference in my design is that the controller will be removable from what will effectively be a bar top unit sitting on top of a cabinet stand.

As such the cabinet should be 3 pieces. The top unit will house the Marquee, Monitor, and speakers. The controller unit (Joysticks, buttons etc..) will be a self-contained entertainment system that can be removed from the cabinet and plugged into a TV (so it needs to have some portability), and the stand which I want to double as a storage space with shelves.

Goal 2: Furniture, Not Arcade Look
Ok so this might sound strange but while I definitely want this thing to be a good and proper arcade cabinet, I don’t want to turn my office into something from the movie BIG. What I mean is that I have a motif in my office where there is an effort to make the room coordinated (a bit sophisticated like grown-up lives here) and despite all the board games and miniatures everywhere, it very clearly is an office and not a playroom. I’ve gone to great lengths to keep it that way and I want the arcade unit to meld into this room so it looks like it belongs in here as if it’s a piece of furniture like everything else in the room.

We will be avoiding bright colors or a bunch of arcade art. The Marquee for example should be subtle, I might even avoid art altogether on the sides of the arcade. I want this cabinet to almost be invisible when you walk in here as if it was a bookshelf and only under closer inspection do you realize, ok wow, there is an Arcade Cabinet in here.

Don’t get me wrong, the kid inside me wants one, but my wife will divorce me if I bring something this bright into my office. I’m a grown-up (for the most part), my arcade cabinet will be a “grown up” arcade cabinet with a lot more subtlety.

Achieving that look will be part of the thought going into this construction of the Cabinet.

Goal 3: Versatile Controller
A lot of energy will go into creating the most versatile controller possible to allow for the widest range of games to be played with the original controller schemes. The controller board itself will need to be relatively large and spacious and while I need it to be as portable and light as possible, I want to make sure this versatility takes precedence. I don’t mind it being bulky, I don’t think I will be detaching/attaching it often enough for it to be an issue. Far more important to me is functionality.

This means the following list of items need to be part of the controller

  • 2 Player setup in the center with a 8-way controller and 8 button setup
  • 2 additional player setups with an 8-way controller and 6 button setup (Making this a 4 player controller).
  • 1 player setup for a 4-way controller
  • 1 player setup for a trackball
  • 1 player setup for a Spinner
  • 1, 2, 3 & 4 player buttons
  • 4 Function buttons (for things like reseting the unit, volume control and stuff like that)

I don’t doubt this will be a challenge, everything from choosing materials to wiring. It’s a long list of demands but I believe with some clever consideration I will be able to achieve this goal.

This is pretty close to the layout that I’m going for, though I think this might be a bit over-designed and too big, so I may need to make some cuts here, however, this has everything I’m looking for.

Since the controller needs to be a self-contained entertainment system, I will need to ensure that the computer that runs this arcade lives inside this controller, as such, it will have to be something small and compact. The most likely candidate for this is going to be a Raspberry Pi.

Goal 4: Testing the System
While of course, I want to be able to play the most diverse list of games on this arcade cabinet I can muster, I want this to be a “classic” arcade system and I don’t really care about its ability to replicate a bunch of consoles. That said I considered the “era” of arcade games here as well as obviously what performance I can get out of the unit is going to dictate what games I can play on it. All considerations aside, I doubt anything post-’90s will be played on this thing, it will be for the most part a Mame Arcade unit to play games I doubt would have any trouble running on a Raspberry Pi.

The Raspberry Pi is a tight, compact, mini PC and seems to be generally what goes into Arcade Cabinets. It can be done with actual PC’s and there are some good reasons to do so, but given my design, it seems the decision to use a Raspberry Pi is all but made for me.

I will of course need to test everything none the less, no reason to leave anything up to chance. One of the goals in the early part of the project will be to create a temporary setup for testing the functionality of the Pi and setup that will go into the final unit and use that as a guide for adjustments.

For example are 8 buttons really necessary for the 2 player setup? How many games actually use a 4-way controller or a spinner? Stuff like that I hope will be revealed by testing everything in advance. Other considerations like overclocking, heat generation (do I need a fan), the weight of components, and cabling complications. All of these things I want to test so that I get some self-reflective guidance for the final product. After all, I have no experience building arcade cabinets or arcade systems and while there are plenty of great guides online, I can see that most of these projects have varied goals that don’t necessarily line up with mine.

Goal 5: A Guide To Future Projects
I can’t say for certain but I suspect that this will be the first but not the last arcade cabinet I will build. There are a few young kids in my family who will want one the moment they see what I have created and I foresee some Bar Top builds in my future as Birthday and Christmas presents.

As such, I will be creating some alternative designs as I go, so while I will only build one cabinet, for now, I will be designing some variations for future builds and documenting them so that when I pick those projects up in the future, hopefully, this process will feel less like a “start from scratch” thing.

Conclusion

I’m not sure the first day of my project was all that productive, I didn’t actually do anything, mostly I just thought about the project and made a list of goals. This has certainly given me a lot to think about from a design perspective and I think over the next week I will be putting pen to paper and mocking up some designs for the cabinet.

Not entirely sure how helpful this article has been if you are like me, getting ready to build your cabinet, but I can say that for me, making a list of goals like this was actually extremely helpful. It has given me a rough vision and some targets I want to hit and that in turn will help me to make decisions on how to proceed.

In my next article, I will post some of the designs I will be working on in the coming days and hopefully that will lead me to some initial decisions. I want to get this project into my workshop as I’m eager to turn this dream into a reality.

Project Arcade

PROJECT: ARCADE

I have been a gamer of one type or another since I was 10 years old and my father bought me an 8 bit Nintendo. There is no question in my mind that video games have not only inspired me to be a creative and imaginative individual, but it is certainly the reason I ultimately become an IT professional and a writer (of sorts). I owe a lot to my dad, he had an uncanny ability to see past what I was doing and recognize how it affected me in the long run. He understood that while video games were just that, games, there was a whole world of people behind them and it was his way of tricking me into an interest in computers, programming and reading books, all things that would become a driving force behind the success of my life.

Of all the many types of gaming experiences I have had the pleasure to enjoy which included everything from video/PC games, miniature and board games, RPG’s and more, there is one memory that sticks out above them all. That memory is of me walking into a Bowling Alley for the first time in my life (I was about 12) and discovering the Arcade section.

This was a magical place to me, the sounds, the visual overload, and the sheer selection of games that were often not available anywhere, were now all in one very special place. All you needed was some quarters and you were rewarded with one of the most exciting gaming experiences of a 12 years life.

From that point forward I always had a special fondness for Arcades that would remain with me for the rest of my life. Even today when I see an arcade unit somewhere, I can’t resist dropping a few quarters into the machine to get a moment of that nostalgic feeling of being a kid.

As I grew older I always had a very specific dream and desire. I wanted to have an arcade unit in my house so that I could enjoy that nostalgic feeling of being a kid whenever I wanted. For years I considered buying a unit, perhaps refurbishing one or building one from scratch. There was of course always something in the way. College, marriage, kids… life.

When you turn 45 years old, however, something very interesting and unexpected happens. After a whole life spent being overwhelmed by planning, studying, working, raising kids, etc.. etc suddenly everything slows down. You suddenly have more time and more money, in a way, all your hard work starts to really payout.

I realized recently that, it’s not actually too late to fulfill some of my little mini dreams, that I can actually fit some me-time into life’s equation.

This brings me to this little article. Starting today I will begin work on creating my very own, stand-up arcade unit from scratch. I plan to document this project on this site, filling it with pictures and updates on my progress, and perhaps it may even become a sort of step-by-step process to inspire your own do-it-yourself project.

You will find on the top of this site there is now a new menu link called Project: Arcade. All of the articles I write for this project will appear here in a list and whenever I do any work on the Arcade unit, I will add it here.

I don’t know how many people are going to be interested in this sideshow, but I swore when I created this blog that I would document all of my gaming experience and while building an arcade unit is certainly a bit of a stretch of that definition, I say close enough!

DAY 1: Comming Soon!