Game Pile: Viticulture
Game companies are rarely so easy to write about as Stonemaier Games. There’s a narrative of the company’s lifespan and the central vision of the person positioned making decisions about it, and about expressing its values. It feels like just being aware of modern board games involves, at least in part, being aware of Stonemaier Games. What they did most recently, what your favourite game of theirs is, and what you remember of where they started. What’s more, helpfully, the games are extraordinarily well made, even if the game system itself isn’t to anyone’s taste.
For me, I was aware of Scythe, but then confused by what I heard of it. It was a big expensive game in a space where I couldn’t afford to engage with those. Then we saw permutations like My Little Scythe and then Wingspan and then digital editions and I started reading the blog and watching the Youtube channel and dangit, there I am, now formulating opinions on the ‘corpus’ of Stonemaier games.
Viticulture is now the ‘oldest’ Stonemaier game I’ve played, first being released in 2013. I didn’t use my own copy for this, I am confident expansions were added, and I didn’t pay for it. I also didn’t play the game a lot, and I don’t think you should buy the game based on this article. Instead, I want to talk about the idea of a game that expresses an ideology, and how it communicates values.
Consider this a description of philosophy engines.
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https://press.invincible.ink/game-pile-viticulture/ #StonemeierGames #Viticulture
Jörgen Vistbacka
press.exe