We have now written about the 60s, 70s and 80s board game landscapes. The trend is that over time board games slowly got better and better. So, this being said, the board games in the 90s should, in theory, be the best of the series. Certainly, games like Catan published in 1995 are still incredibly popular today. However, we will not go into detail into Catan specifically because we have already spoken about it at length in previous articles. Instead, we are hoping that you will discover a few new 90s board games on this list that you have not heard of before.
Table of Contents
- El Grande (1995)
- Ra (1999)
- Chinatown (1999)
- Modern Art (1992)
- Tikal (1999)
- Honourable Mention – Catan (1995)
- Conclusion: How Did 90s Board Games Perform?
El Grande (1995)
Starting with a big one (pardon the pun), El Grande is an incredibly well received and popular board game in the tabletop world. Winner of the coveted German game of the year award in 1996 this game created waves when it was released.
The game is set in Medieval Spain and the King’s power is weakening. It is time for powerful lords, Grandes, to capitalize on this and take control of the regions of Spain. There are a total of nine rounds and every three rounds the points are calculated for the number of regions held. After the ninth round the player with the highest total score wins.
The game focuses on area control as a key mechanic. You gain control of the region when you have the most number of cubes in that area. These cubes are called Caballeros or can more simply be treated as troops. Power cards allow you to move and change position of your cubes adding strategy into the game. In addition there is a secret tower called the Castillo. Whereas normally you can see how many troops you may need to get a majority in any given area, the secret tower is covered so you must remember how many troops both you and your opponents have placed there in order to gain control.
Ra (1999)
Ra is an auction driven game based on ancient Egyptian artefacts and mythology. Each round, players are able to bid on artefact tiles using their currency, suns – as is fitting for Ra, the God of the Sun. If you use up all your suns in a round you are out and play continues with the other players still in the game. There may be a point where all players are out except one, in this case that player can claim the current artefact in bidding for the cheapest possible price. Therefore, as is typical with auctioning type games, it is the art of paying exactly what an item is worth, no more. As simple as that sounds, it is a very difficult art to master.
Some artefact tiles will give you points at the end of the round; others at the end of the game; and lastly, some artefacts have other prerequisite tiles to give you points. It adds some variety to the scoring mechanism and also means that you never really know who is leading the game until the third, final round.
Chinatown (1999)
Chinatown sneaks in at the very tail end of the millennium in 1999. What is most interesting is that Chinatowns – areas of Chinese culture in urban areas outside Europe – began to spread rapidly post 1970. The game coincides conveniently with the proliferation of these business as it takes time, 20-25 years as a fair estimate, for urban areas to establish themselves.
The game is all about securing your business empire in the new Chinatown. You do this thorough negotiation and careful money management. Players buy sections of city blocks then place businesses onto the block-sections. At the end of your turn, businesses you have laid gives you some cash flow. The real aim is to complete a business row using three to six connected tiles of the same type. At this point the business is at its most profitable and so you get greater cash bonuses.
Modern Art (1992)
Modern Art is similar to Ra in the sense that they are both games driven by auctioning mechanics. However, that is where the similarities end. This is because in different rounds you will be both the auctioneer and the buyer. Each turn, the player puts up a card from their hand for auction. If another player at the table buys it, the selling player gets the money. If the selling player also decides to buy it, the money goes to the bank. At the end of the game, the player with the most money wins.
A greater layer of complexity is added through different auction types:
- Free for all – the typical bidding format you might see on TV, where anyone can bid progressively greater values.
- Once around – each player can only bid once. This works best for the player closest to the seller, they can essentially set a price for the whole table or decide to pass.
- Set price – the selling player sets a price, other players than accept to buy it at that price or pass, if all players pass the selling player must buy the card from the bank.
- Simultaneous bid – everyone does a hidden bid at once, revealing at the same time. This is by far the most chaotic bidding method.
Tikal (1999)
Tikal takes on a completely different theme to all the other games on this list. In an Indiana Jones-esque fashion, players explore Central American jungles searching for hidden temples and lost treasure. Tikal actually beat the other 1999 game on our list, Chinatown, to the game of the year award, so at least it has got the critics rooting for it! Ironically, Wolfgang Kramer, the game’s designer, designed another game of the year winner on this list, El Grande.
It’s a classic game in which the player who has the most points wins. Victory points are only scored on scoring rounds. Points can be scored in a number of ways: uncovering temples, recovering treasure, trading treasure with other players, establishing camp on sought after tiles, or placing a guard on a temple – this gives you permanent control of that temple.
The choice of environment and the theme of the game are both refreshing. Kramer is truly an artist when it comes to area control games.
Honourable Mention – Catan (1995)
We did promise that we would not go into detail about Catan, but it is worth giving the game a small footnote on this list. Having sold over 30 million copies it helped to define the board game industry moving forward into the 2000s and beyond.
As is typical with this list, these games have been around a long time, as such, there have been many Catan strategies published to help you get that step up against opponents.
Conclusion: How Did 90s Board Games Perform?
The 90s have produced some people’s all-time favourite games notably, Catan, Tikal and El Grande. Area control was exceedingly popular at this time, a break away from the war games that had been typically played and published in the decades after WW2. The themes of the games on this list are more varied too. In the 60s and 70s, games were dominated by the politics of the time. 90s board games seem to have a lot more freedom. The 90s also saw the birth of one of the greatest designer partnerships of all time between Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling with Tikal. The pair went on to design a further eight games together many having game of the year nominations or outright winning the award.
