Patrick Filler

Game Time

Sunday, the NFL is bringing us some great playoff match-ups. On paper, neither game looks like a blowout and there are some genuinely likable teams and players involved (well, except for that evil team from Minnesota). Under normal circumstances, I’d be stocking my snack cabinet for an epic day of couch potato-ing. Instead, I’m going to be schlepping into Manhattan for my first “Settlers of Catan” tournament.

“The Settlers of Catan” may be the most popular game you’ve never heard of. Though more than 15 million copies have been sold worldwide since its release in 1995, it has been slower to catch on in the United States. Americans are coming around in a big way, though. Early last year, Wired ran an article on how the game may be changing the way people in the U.S. think about board games:

Most impressive of all, though, Settlers is actually inducting board-game-averse Americans into the cult of German-style gaming. Last year, Settlers doubled its sales on this side of the Atlantic, moving 200,000 copies in the US and Canada—almost unheard-of performance for a new strategy game with nothing but word-of-mouth marketing. It has become the first German-style title to make the leap from game-geek specialty stores to major retailers like Barnes & Noble and Toys “R” Us.

Settlers is now poised to become the biggest hit in the US since Risk. Along the way, it’s teaching Americans that board games don’t have to be either predictable fluff aimed at kids or competitive, hyperintellectual pastimes for eggheads. Through the complex, artful dance of algorithms and probabilities lurking at its core, Settlers manages to be effortlessly fun, intuitively enjoyable, and still intellectually rewarding, a potent combination that’s changing the American idea of what a board game can be.

If you’re a fan of board games, I definitely recommend picking up a copy of “Settlers” (About 30 bones on Amazon.com) and giving it a shot. And no, you don’t have to dress as one of the tiles to play…

Photo by nickgraywfu