I swear I’m smart and have pretty ok reading comprehension…but when I pick up a new game I have the hardest time understanding the rules and mechanics by just reading the instructions. Watching videos is helpful but I still really only pick it up while playing the game and going through the motions.

So I’m slowly collecting games that I can’t play until I find people who know how to play.

How easily do you pick up new games?

  • donio@feddit.deEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    It depends, I get some games right away, others can be a struggle. It’s such a great feeling when a difficult one finally “clicks” though!
    In general I try to take advantage of all available tools:

    • Rulebooks of course, both printed and PDFs. I have about 15GB of rulebook PDFs at this point. Being able to do a text search in the rulebook can be invaluable so when a PDF is image-only with no searchable text I run it through an OCR tool like ocrmypdf to (hopefully) fix it up.
    • How-to-play videos. We had a thread listing some good channels earlier.
    • A good digital implementation can be extremely helpful, especially the ones that preserve the “interface” of the game like BGA and Yucata usually do. When available I always try these even if I plan to play mostly in person because it’s a great way to make sure that I got the rules right. With new games I take it slow and make sure that I understand everything that happes. When I want to experiment I sometimes play hotseat with myself.
    • That reminds me, playing a game against myself on the table can be very helpful too to make sure that I am solid before I try to teach it.
    • Also, this might sound obvious but just unboxing and organizing the game and getting familiar with the components can give a great headstart before getting started with the rules.
    • BGG forums for the game, especially the rules sub-forums. The Files section can have helpful extra material too like FAQs, teaching guides or player aids.
    • A good podcast episode like the Decision Space deep dives can be helpful too or at least get me excited about learning the game.
    • I sometimes make setup and rule summaries. Just writing these down can help to clear things up in my head. Wrote about this in another thread earlier today.