Making Friends with Commerce

Here's the first in my list of the Top Ten Games That Make Me Love Games. I'll be updating each of these articles with links to the later ones in the future, so if you're reading this in the future, just click through the links at the bottom of each page. For us losers in the present, we just get one article for now.

#10 - Jaipur

Jaipur is not the deepest strategy game ever. You're not going to see Jaipur tournaments, or pages-long threads on BoardGameGeek.com discussing its tactical nuances. I don't care. Not every game needs to be Go or Twilight Struggle. Great games – and great game designers – set out to accomplish something specific and hone in on that goal with everything they've got. As long as the goal is admirable and well accomplished, the game should be praised. I'll never stop praising Jaipur, because it fills an extremely useful role for me and all gamers: it's a ready-made social facilitator.