I’ve always been slightly envious of Warren Spector, Harvey Smith, Marc LeBlanc and the other game design gurus who would play hardcore board games at GDC. They’d basically bail on all the parties/events, and go up and play games like The Settlers of Catan. I could just never bring myself to break into their circle of board gaming geekness… Oh well.

Well, I just picked up a somewhat less hardcore board game called Reiner Knizia’s Samurai!. There was a post on the Gizmodo gadget blog about online casual games that were fun/quick to play. They pointed to Klear Game’s digital interpretation of Samurai (which interestingly enough was an IGF winner a few years back).

Anyway, I downloaded the trial version of the game and played for a while (never really knowing it was based on a physical board game). As it had a multiplayer option, I convinced my wife to play a few rounds (this was quite a coup as she never plays video games). When we finished playing, she commented that it was “fun, but would be better if there was a board game version”. So, some quick googling led to me the online store Rainy Day Games, where I bought the board game version.

(Big sorry to Klear Games for missing out on a sale of their digital version.)

Anyway, I’ll probably never have the confidence to challenge Warren, but at least I’m winning against my wife ;)