It was a typical Tuesday game night, the kind that often becomes more about conversation than the game itself. We sat down with Madeira, a sprawling Euro that Jake adores, and Kevin happily joined in. I was less certain. I tend to approach games like this with low expectations, as my tastes do not always align with the modern Euro ethos of interlocking mechanisms and multiple paths to victory. Yet, much to my surprise, Madeira engaged me in ways I had not anticipated.
The key was not in its structure of countless ways to earn points, which usually leaves me unsatisfied, but in its shared board that fostered interaction. I do not crave direct take-that mechanics, but I thrive on the subtle ways players collide—blocking access, seizing opportunities, forcing difficult decisions by acting first. Madeira allowed for that tension without resorting to heavy confrontation. Even the dice, which I often view with suspicion in this genre, did not break the experience for me. They added a measure of uncertainty that kept the game brisk and alive.
I would not call Madeira a game I love, nor one I would ever request myself. Yet it occupies a curious middle ground. If others suggest it, I will gladly take a seat at the table. That alone tells me something about my evolving tastes, and about the broader question Kevin raised after our play: what recent games do I actually like?
The Challenge of Defining Taste
That question sent me spiraling into reflection. I realized that I do not sit down to write simply to clarify a position I already hold. Instead, I write because the act of putting thoughts into words illuminates my own uncertainties. Writing, for me, is a way of uncovering what was hidden beneath half-formed instincts.
When I think about my history with games, it is littered with strange detours and bursts of obsession. I cut my teeth on mass market titles of the eighties, endured the flimsy plastic spinners, and built a foundation through Chess and Stratego. Heroquest was a revelation, and Magic: The Gathering became a life-altering obsession. Wargames tempted me with their gravitas, even if I often approached them more as abstract systems than historical simulations.
Each stage of my gaming life reveals a different facet of what I search for in play. Sometimes it is immersion, sometimes drama, sometimes the purity of abstract challenge. Rarely is it the mechanical interlocking that so many modern Euros champion. I crave games where rules give way to emergent experiences, where interaction and timing are more important than calculating points through a web of efficiency.
German Games and Their Discontents
Looking back, I thought of myself as leaning toward the German tradition. Simplicity of rules, clarity of actions, and emergent conflict born out of shared spaces are elements I hold dear. Yet even here, the label proves slippery. Many of the games I love—Tigris & Euphrates, Tikal, others in that era of design—do not fit neatly into Oliver’s description of German family priorities.
They may be accessible and approachable, but they are far from pacific. Tigris & Euphrates thrives on violent clashes of influence, temples being seized, kingdoms collapsing in sudden upheaval. Tikal is a knife fight in the jungle, players constantly wrestling for position, hoping to cut rivals off from scoring. These are confrontational, even ruthless games, far removed from the calm and balanced picture often painted of German designs.
It leaves me wondering: do I belong under that label at all? Perhaps what I love about these games is not their nationality or even their category, but their reliance on tension, clarity, and emergent interaction.
Ameritrash and Wargame Ambivalence
On the opposite side, I am hard pressed to find Ameritrash games that I want to revisit frequently. Their strengths are clear—drama, immersion, big stories that unfold—but they often run long. Star Wars: Rebellion and Chaos in the Old World are thrilling in the moment, yet when the session ends, I rarely feel the pull to set them up again. The commitment of time outweighs the richness of their narrative.
Wargames, too, have a double-edged quality for me. I do not dive deep into historical accuracy, nor do I obsess over order of battle minutiae. For me, they shine when they become vehicles for drama or frameworks for emergent tactical puzzles. Combat Commander, for example, does not resonate because it simulates reality, but because it creates wild, memorable stories that players relive long after the game ends. In those moments, I realize that perhaps wargames function as my version of Ameritrash, delivering narrative and drama without needing fantasy trappings.
The Burnout Years and Their Lessons
Between 2012 and 2014, I felt a strange burnout. I played fewer games, and my presence in the broader community waned. Ironically, these years were fertile ones on BGG, with personal blogs and guilds flourishing. But I missed much of that, caught in my own disconnection.
Looking back, that period was not a waste. It gave me distance. It let me return with fresh eyes, able to appreciate how varied the world of gaming had become. When I began meeting regularly with old friends again, renting cabins and playing games into the night, I rediscovered the joy of simply being with people, of laughing and scheming and immersing ourselves in play without caring about categories.
That rekindling of energy led me to form the Binghamton Area Tabletop Society, which opened doors to a diverse community of gamers. Each brought their own tastes, and in that collision of preferences, I discovered new clarity about my own.
Schools of Design and My Place Among Them
Oliver’s framework of schools—Ameritrash as drama, German as engagement, Euro as challenge, wargames as realism, abstracts as minimalism—provides a useful map. Yet I do not feel at home in any one school. My preferences wander. Some nights I long for the stark clarity of an abstract like Go. Other nights I want the tension of a German-style clash. Rarely do I want the puzzle-heavy machinery of the modern Euro, though even there I sometimes find gems.
The truth is, my tastes resist pigeonholing. I draw from each school, weaving together a personal patchwork that refuses easy classification. When pressed, I might describe myself as a framework gamer, drawn to systems that create emergent play and unexpected depth through simplicity. These games may not always dazzle, but when they succeed, they create lasting impressions that more polished designs cannot replicate.
The Role of RPGs and Drafting Games
An important omission from most classifications is the role of role-playing games and games like Magic when played in draft form. These do not fit neatly into Ameritrash or Euro categories, and yet they embody many of the qualities I love. A well-run RPG thrives on engagement, cooperation, and shared creativity. Magic in draft form emphasizes immediacy, interaction, and the thrill of adapting with limited information. Both bypass heavy structures to allow players themselves to shape the experience.
This, perhaps, is the essence of what I crave: games that give enough structure to guide but leave enough openness to let players fill in the space with their own creativity, interaction, and timing.
Toward a Self-Understanding
After all this reflection, I see that I am not a Euro gamer, nor an Ameritrash devotee, nor a pure wargamer. I am not even fully aligned with the German school, though I have affection for it. My heart lies closest to the abstract and the emergent. Simple rules, emergent depth. Frameworks that invite players to create something larger than the sum of the mechanics.
I still enjoy testing new releases, though I often approach them with caution. Buzz rarely excites me, but discovery sometimes does. The games that last for me are the ones that encourage engagement, interaction, and moments of brilliance born not from clever mechanisms but from the shared space of play.
And so, when asked what recent games I like, the answer is complicated. It stretches across genres, defies neat labels, and ultimately points to an identity that is a beautiful mess. If I am to claim a pigeonhole, perhaps it is the one reserved for those who refuse pigeonholes altogether.
It was a typical Tuesday game night, the kind that often becomes more about conversation than the game itself. We sat down with Madeira, a sprawling Euro that Jake adores, and Kevin happily joined in. I was less certain. I tend to approach games like this with low expectations, as my tastes do not always align with the modern Euro ethos of interlocking mechanisms and multiple paths to victory. Yet, much to my surprise, Madeira engaged me in ways I had not anticipated.
The key was not in its structure of countless ways to earn points, which usually leaves me unsatisfied, but in its shared board that fostered interaction. I do not crave direct take-that mechanics, but I thrive on the subtle ways players collide—blocking access, seizing opportunities, forcing difficult decisions by acting first. Madeira allowed for that tension without resorting to heavy confrontation. Even the dice, which I often view with suspicion in this genre, did not break the experience for me. They added a measure of uncertainty that kept the game brisk and alive.
I would not call Madeira a game I love, nor one I would ever request myself. Yet it occupies a curious middle ground. If others suggest it, I will gladly take a seat at the table. That alone tells me something about my evolving tastes, and about the broader question Kevin raised after our play: what recent games do I actually like?
The Challenge of Defining Taste
That question sent me spiraling into reflection. I realized that I do not sit down to write simply to clarify a position I already hold. Instead, I write because the act of putting thoughts into words illuminates my own uncertainties. Writing, for me, is a way of uncovering what was hidden beneath half-formed instincts.
When I think about my history with games, it is littered with strange detours and bursts of obsession. I cut my teeth on mass market titles of the eighties, endured the flimsy plastic spinners, and built a foundation through Chess and Stratego. Heroquest was a revelation, and Magic: The Gathering became a life-altering obsession. Wargames tempted me with their gravitas, even if I often approached them more as abstract systems than historical simulations.
Each stage of my gaming life reveals a different facet of what I search for in play. Sometimes it is immersion, sometimes drama, sometimes the purity of abstract challenge. Rarely is it the mechanical interlocking that so many modern Euros champion. I crave games where rules give way to emergent experiences, where interaction and timing are more important than calculating points through a web of efficiency.
German Games and Their Discontents
Looking back, I thought of myself as leaning toward the German tradition. Simplicity of rules, clarity of actions, and emergent conflict born out of shared spaces are elements I hold dear. Yet even here, the label proves slippery. Many of the games I love—Tigris & Euphrates, Tikal, others in that era of design—do not fit neatly into Oliver’s description of German family priorities.
They may be accessible and approachable, but they are far from pacific. Tigris & Euphrates thrives on violent clashes of influence, temples being seized, kingdoms collapsing in sudden upheaval. Tikal is a knife fight in the jungle, players constantly wrestling for position, hoping to cut rivals off from scoring. These are confrontational, even ruthless games, far removed from the calm and balanced picture often painted of German designs.
It leaves me wondering: do I belong under that label at all? Perhaps what I love about these games is not their nationality or even their category, but their reliance on tension, clarity, and emergent interaction.
Ameritrash and Wargame Ambivalence
On the opposite side, I am hard pressed to find Ameritrash games that I want to revisit frequently. Their strengths are clear—drama, immersion, big stories that unfold—but they often run long. Star Wars: Rebellion and Chaos in the Old World are thrilling in the moment, yet when the session ends, I rarely feel the pull to set them up again. The commitment of time outweighs the richness of their narrative.
Wargames, too, have a double-edged quality for me. I do not dive deep into historical accuracy, nor do I obsess over order of battle minutiae. For me, they shine when they become vehicles for drama or frameworks for emergent tactical puzzles. Combat Commander, for example, does not resonate because it simulates reality, but because it creates wild, memorable stories that players relive long after the game ends. In those moments, I realize that perhaps wargames function as my version of Ameritrash, delivering narrative and drama without needing fantasy trappings.
The Burnout Years and Their Lessons
Between 2012 and 2014, I felt a strange burnout. I played fewer games, and my presence in the broader community waned. Ironically, these years were fertile ones on BGG, with personal blogs and guilds flourishing. But I missed much of that, caught in my own disconnection.
Looking back, that period was not a waste. It gave me distance. It let me return with fresh eyes, able to appreciate how varied the world of gaming had become. When I began meeting regularly with old friends again, renting cabins and playing games into the night, I rediscovered the joy of simply being with people, of laughing and scheming and immersing ourselves in play without caring about categories.
That rekindling of energy led me to form the Binghamton Area Tabletop Society, which opened doors to a diverse community of gamers. Each brought their own tastes, and in that collision of preferences, I discovered new clarity about my own.
Schools of Design and My Place Among Them
Oliver’s framework of schools—Ameritrash as drama, German as engagement, Euro as challenge, wargames as realism, abstracts as minimalism—provides a useful map. Yet I do not feel at home in any one school. My preferences wander. Some nights I long for the stark clarity of an abstract like Go. Other nights I want the tension of a German-style clash. Rarely do I want the puzzle-heavy machinery of the modern Euro, though even there I sometimes find gems.
The truth is, my tastes resist pigeonholing. I draw from each school, weaving together a personal patchwork that refuses easy classification. When pressed, I might describe myself as a framework gamer, drawn to systems that create emergent play and unexpected depth through simplicity. These games may not always dazzle, but when they succeed, they create lasting impressions that more polished designs cannot replicate.
The Role of RPGs and Drafting Games
An important omission from most classifications is the role of role-playing games and games like Magic when played in draft form. These do not fit neatly into Ameritrash or Euro categories, and yet they embody many of the qualities I love. A well-run RPG thrives on engagement, cooperation, and shared creativity. Magic in draft form emphasizes immediacy, interaction, and the thrill of adapting with limited information. Both bypass heavy structures to allow players themselves to shape the experience.
This, perhaps, is the essence of what I crave: games that give enough structure to guide but leave enough openness to let players fill in the space with their own creativity, interaction, and timing.
Toward a Self-Understanding
After all this reflection, I see that I am not a Euro gamer, nor an Ameritrash devotee, nor a pure wargamer. I am not even fully aligned with the German school, though I have affection for it. My heart lies closest to the abstract and the emergent. Simple rules, emergent depth. Frameworks that invite players to create something larger than the sum of the mechanics.
I still enjoy testing new releases, though I often approach them with caution. Buzz rarely excites me, but discovery sometimes does. The games that last for me are the ones that encourage engagement, interaction, and moments of brilliance born not from clever mechanisms but from the shared space of play.
And so, when asked what recent games I like, the answer is complicated. It stretches across genres, defies neat labels, and ultimately points to an identity that is a beautiful mess. If I am to claim a pigeonhole, perhaps it is the one reserved for those who refuse pigeonholes altogether.
Beyond Categories and Labels
As the years passed and my shelves filled with games from every school of design, I began to realize how unsatisfying the traditional labels were. Euro, Ameritrash, wargame, abstract—these words capture something, but they always feel incomplete. Each time I tried to slot myself into one of those pigeonholes, something slipped out the sides.
It was not that I disliked the qualities those schools represented. In fact, I admired them all in different ways. What unsettled me was the insistence that one must choose. The great Euro–Ameritrash wars of the 2000s had drilled this dualism into the culture, but by the 2010s I felt ready to move beyond it. The truth was simpler and more complicated at once: my tastes were not about categories, but about experiences.
And the experience I treasured above all else was engagement.
The Core of Engagement
When I describe myself as an “Engagement Gamer,” what I mean is that I look for games that keep all participants involved, alert, and invested from start to finish. Engagement is not a single mechanic, nor is it a matter of theme or length. It is an energy, a flow that emerges when no player feels left behind and when every action reverberates across the table.
Some games achieve this through elegant rulesets that leave no room for downtime. Others do it by creating constant tension between players, where every choice matters not just to you but to the group as a whole. Still others achieve it through shared storytelling, where the joy is in the co-creation of a narrative rather than in mechanical mastery.
Engagement is the invisible thread that ties together the games I love, whether they are abstract duels, sandbox wargames, or chaotic drafting sessions. Without it, even the most finely tuned design feels lifeless to me.
Framework Games as a Home
Framework games exemplify engagement better than any other category I know. These are games where the designer provides structure but leaves the content of play to emerge from player interaction. The rules are not exhaustive scripts but broad strokes that create space for improvisation and surprise.
In a framework game, depth comes not from memorizing optimal strategies but from responding creatively to the evolving situation. Players must adapt, negotiate, and build their own stories within the scaffolding of the design. No two plays are alike, and the most memorable moments are often those that no one could have foreseen.
Examples abound, though I hesitate to lock the concept into a fixed canon. What unites them is not genre but ethos: they trust players to co-create meaning.
The Beauty of Emergent Depth
Emergent depth is the heartbeat of frameworks. It is the phenomenon where simple rules generate complex and unpredictable outcomes. Classic abstracts like Go embody this principle: a few rules give rise to infinite possibility. But the same spirit can be found in modern designs that embrace openness, asymmetry, or sandbox structure.
Emergence is what keeps me coming back to a game long after the novelty has worn off. With puzzle-heavy Euros, once I have solved the system, my interest wanes. With narrative-driven epics, once the story beats have played out, I rarely feel the urge to repeat them. But with emergent systems, the game remains alive, because its possibilities are inexhaustible.
This is why even games I do not love outright can still feel worthwhile to explore. Their messiness, their unpredictability, their refusal to resolve into clean optimization keeps them interesting. They may not always sparkle, but they breathe.
Chaos, Drama, and the “Beautiful Mess”
One of the paradoxes of my taste is that I often gravitate toward games others dismiss as chaotic or unbalanced. For many players, balance is a sacred ideal. They want every strategy to feel viable, every choice to be equally rewarding. I respect that, but it does not ignite me.
For me, the beauty of a game lies in its capacity to surprise. Wild swings of fortune, unexpected alliances, sudden reversals—these are not flaws but features. They create drama, they generate stories, they keep everyone engaged.
A “beautiful mess” is a game that refuses to be neat and polished, but in its rough edges and unpredictability, it achieves something more valuable: life. It is not about fairness, but about the thrill of not knowing what will happen next.
Why Interaction Matters
Underlying all of this is the conviction that interaction is essential. Solitaire-style optimization bores me, no matter how clever the puzzle. I want my decisions to matter because they affect others, and I want their decisions to matter because they affect me.
This does not mean I crave aggression for its own sake. I do not need constant take-that mechanics or endless combat. But I need the sense that we are sharing a space, shaping it together, and that my presence at the table matters to your experience.
This is why shared boards and contested resources resonate with me more than private player mats and personal engines. The game becomes a living arena rather than a collection of parallel puzzles.
The Role of Storytelling
Storytelling is another dimension of engagement. Not every game tells a story in the narrative sense, but every engaging game generates stories in the broad sense of memorable experiences. Whether it is the sudden collapse of a kingdom in Tigris & Euphrates, the improbable victory of a single squad in Combat Commander, or the last-minute deck that comes together in a Magic draft, the stories that arise from play are what linger.
These stories are not pre-written scripts but emergent narratives. They come from the interaction of rules, players, and chance. And because they cannot be repeated exactly, they feel precious.
The Misfit Among Schools
Looking back at Oliver’s schools—drama, engagement, challenge, realism, minimalism—I see pieces of myself in each but not a home in any. I love drama, but not in isolation. I love challenge, but not when it becomes a dry calculation. I appreciate realism, but only insofar as it generates drama. I revere minimalism, but only when it leads to emergent richness.
Engagement, then, becomes my compass. It is the quality that cuts across schools, the thread that ties together the disparate elements of my taste. It is why I can enjoy a chaotic Ameritrash romp one night, a German knife-fight the next, and an abstract duel after that. What matters is not the school but the engagement it fosters.
Toward a Personal Philosophy of Play
All of this reflection has led me toward a personal philosophy of play. Games are not ends in themselves but frameworks for human interaction. They are excuses to gather, to think, to laugh, to compete, to tell stories together. The best games are those that facilitate this most effectively, not through complexity or balance, but through openness and engagement.
This does not mean I dismiss polish or design elegance. I admire them greatly. But I will always take a messy, emergent, interactive game over a finely tuned puzzle that leaves players isolated. For me, the purpose of gaming is not mastery but connection.
Embracing the Identity of an Engagement Gamer
So if I must choose a label, let it be “Engagement Gamer.” It is not an official school, nor is it a category recognized on any taxonomy chart. But it captures what matters most to me. It reminds me that I do not need to fit neatly into Euro, Ameritrash, wargame, or abstract. I can draw from all of them, taking what engages me and leaving the rest.
This identity allows me to embrace the contradictions in my taste. It lets me appreciate the beauty of Go and the drama of Combat Commander, the tension of Tigris & Euphrates and the chaos of a messy framework game. It allows me to value storytelling without demanding narrative, and to value interaction without demanding aggression.
At the end of the day, engagement is the glue that binds all of these together. And as long as I find games that keep me engaged, I will continue to explore, to reflect, and to play.
Looking Back on the Journey
When I think back to my earliest years in board gaming, I see not just stacks of boxes and faded score sheets but also the path I have walked to understand myself through play. Five years have passed since I first dipped my toes into this hobby, and in that time I have purchased, traded, played, and backed more games than I can neatly count. Eighteen new arrivals this year alone, three more waiting on Kickstarter’s slow tides, and countless hours reading rules, arranging pieces, and losing myself in cardboard worlds.
Yet behind the numbers lies a deeper truth. This was never about amassing a collection, though the shelves might suggest otherwise. Nor was it about belonging to a tribe, whether Eurogamer, Ameritrash devotee, wargamer, or abstract purist. What drove me forward, what still drives me, is the search for engagement—the moments when the table feels alive, when every player is locked in, when laughter, tension, and surprise intermingle in ways no solitary puzzle could match.
The Games That Stayed With Me
Certain titles rise above the churn of acquisitions and trades, not because they are flawless, but because they embody what I seek.
Tigris & Euphrates remains a lodestar. Its elegance conceals an undercurrent of chaos, where fragile kingdoms rise and fall in sudden, brutal clashes. Every move carries weight, every conflict reshapes the map, and the drama emerges not from theme but from the human struggle etched into the board.
Combat Commander is another anchor. Its card-driven system produces war stories richer than many scripted campaigns. Squads hold impossible ground, leaders fall at crucial moments, reinforcements arrive by chance, and through it all players narrate their own version of history. What begins as mechanics becomes memory—tales retold long after the session ends.
Magic: The Gathering draft represents yet another side of engagement. Here, the joy lies in improvisation, in shaping a deck from scraps, in adapting to the shifting signals of a draft pod. No two sessions are alike, and the drama of competition is balanced by the creativity of construction.
Each of these games thrives on emergent depth, on player interaction, and on the refusal to settle into predictability. They are messy, dramatic, and alive—the qualities that keep me coming back.
The Shelf as Mirror
Owning so many games sometimes feels like a burden, yet it also serves as a mirror of my exploration. Each box represents a question I once asked: Would I enjoy the austerity of an abstract? Could I embrace the maximalism of a sprawling epic? Was I searching for story, for puzzle, for drama, or for challenge?
The answers are rarely simple. Some games I outgrew, others I admired but did not love, and still others revealed qualities I had never expected. The act of collecting was less about consumption and more about discovery—a way to map my own tastes by trial and error.
If I were forced to reduce my shelves tomorrow, I would keep those titles that best embody engagement, those that still make my pulse quicken as the game unfolds. The rest could go, and I would not mourn them. Because the shelf is not the point. The table is.
Lessons From the Pigeonholes
Oliver’s pigeonholes, and the many taxonomies that came before and after, taught me something important: categories are useful, but they can also be traps. They help us make sense of a sprawling hobby, but they can never capture the full truth of a player’s heart.
For years I tried to fit myself into one of them. Am I a Eurogamer, with a love of efficiency and elegance? An Ameritrash player, craving theme and narrative? A wargamer, enthralled by history and simulation? An abstract devotee, drawn to minimalism and purity? The answer was always yes and no. I could not choose, because what united my love of games was not a school but a quality—engagement—that cut across them all.
In the end, I stopped worrying about which pigeonhole was mine. Instead, I embraced the identity of an “Engagement Gamer,” even if the term exists only in my own reflection.
Why Engagement Endures
Engagement, unlike theme or mechanics, is not bound to a single form. It can arise from a tense battle over scarce resources, a desperate alliance in a semi-cooperative epic, or a sudden twist in a card-driven narrative. It can come from elegance or from chaos, from minimalism or from baroque complexity.
What matters is that players are present, involved, and connected. A disengaged player, no matter how clever the system, diminishes the experience for everyone. An engaged table, even in a flawed design, can transform an evening into something unforgettable.
This truth makes me less concerned with the perfection of individual games and more attuned to the energy of play itself. I seek out designs that facilitate engagement, but I also recognize that much depends on the people at the table, their willingness to invest, to banter, to care.
The Value of Messiness
The longer I play, the more I treasure messiness. Polished systems can be admirable, but they rarely surprise me. Messy games, with their swings of fortune, their asymmetries, their rough edges, often feel more alive. They generate stories worth retelling, they invite improvisation, and they keep everyone leaning forward.
This does not mean I reject elegance altogether. I love a clean ruleset, but only if it leads to emergent depth rather than solved puzzles. For me, the sweet spot lies in games that are simple enough to grasp but unpredictable enough to stay fresh.
A little chaos, a little unfairness, a little noise in the system—these are the sparks that ignite drama. And drama is what keeps me engaged.
Toward a Philosophy of Play
If I were to articulate a personal philosophy of play, it would be this: games are engines of engagement, frameworks for shared experience. They are not about victory points or win percentages, but about the stories that unfold when humans gather around a table.
A good game does not merely entertain; it connects. It makes us aware of each other, of the choices we make and the consequences they bring. It reminds us that play is not escape from life but a reflection of it, compressed and distilled into a form we can explore safely.
This philosophy frees me from the anxiety of collection. I no longer need to chase every new release or cling to every game I own. What matters is not the size of the shelf but the vibrancy of the play. As long as I have a handful of games that can ignite engagement, I have enough.
The Continuing Search
Still, I know myself well enough to admit that I will keep searching. New games will arrive, Kickstarters will tempt me, and the cycle of acquisition and culling will continue. But now I approach it with more clarity. I am not buying games to fill a hole in a collection or to align with a school. I am buying them in the hope that they will spark engagement, that they will add to the repertoire of experiences I can share with others.
Some will stay, others will go, and that is fine. The point is not permanence but play.
The Table as Horizon
As I write this, I imagine the table as a horizon stretching forward. Around it gather friends, rivals, family, sometimes strangers who will become companions for a night. The boxes open, the pieces scatter, and the air hums with anticipation. We do not know yet what stories will emerge, what laughter or frustration will rise, what unexpected turns will etch themselves into memory.
That uncertainty is the gift of gaming. Each session is a promise of something unrepeatable. And when it ends, when the pieces are packed away, what remains is not just a score but a shared moment, a fragment of engagement that lingers in the mind.
Closing the Circle
From the early days of chasing categories to the present moment of embracing engagement, my journey in games has been less about defining taste and more about learning how I connect with others. I began by poking at pigeonholes, trying to see where I belonged. I end by realizing that belonging was never the point.
The point was the lark’s song at break of day, the rising from sullen earth, the spark of life that comes when play begins. Engagement is that spark, and as long as it glimmers at the table, I will keep returning, box after box, game after game, moment after moment.
Because in the end, I am not a Eurogamer, an Ameritrash devotee, a wargamer, or an abstract purist. I am an Engagement Gamer. And that is more than enough.