Welcome adventurers, to the tabletop – where deck building has nothing to do with the patio, and worker placement isn’t part of a recruitment agency. If the terminology used to describe the games we know and love can feel like trying to learn a new language, let our glossary demystify the terminology, and have you speaking tabletop in no time at all Words by Emma Garrett Gateway Ga m e
A game that is easy to learn, fun to play, and gets new players hooked on the hobby.
orrowing a term from the world of narcotics is a little on the nose for many gamers. Much like gateway drugs, gateway games can change your life. Your social circle dwindles in part, and expands in new directions, as does the way your mind works. Both cut a sizeable chunk out of your bank balance. Taking the metaphor back to its origin, these are the games that draw you in. The ones that you take off the shelf for a little fun and find it wasn’t just a shelf, it was one of those doors in glamorous libraries. Suddenly you find yourself through the gateway, wading into a wonderland of possibilities you could never before have imagined. An important quality of a gateway game is that the explanation doesn’t take very long. Whilst reading rulebooks might have become a beloved part of the hobby for us - in the same way as popping out tokens and smelling the new pack of cards straight from the packet - I hear that many people find it a drag. They just want to get playing, they don’t want
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to hear any rules. Another is simplicity, ideally a new player won’t feel overwhelmed by the experience. Rather, they’ll be enthused by how much more sense it makes by the end of one play and eager to try again. Gateway games are the games your non-gaming friends have sometimes heard of. They can be a blessing and a curse, if someone doesn’t enjoy their experience playing one of these, they may be turned off gaming forever. Many people in the hobby can look back and talk fondly of which games were their gateway. The games that friends showed them that lit a spark inside them. Some of us still think of them fondly, some feel they’ve outgrown the thing they used to love, their tastes having blossomed, refined and branched out. They can be games that stand the test of time and become modern classics, like Catan or Ticket to Ride. Or they can be more short term. I wonder how many people’s real first gateway game was something in the Marvel or Star Wars franchise. *
GATEWAY GAMES
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August 2024