Introducing "The Twentieth Century Project"

And -- I suppose -- myself.

Hello! I’m Tao, from the Tao of Gaming. It’s not strictly a pseudonym — its not hard to figure out who I am — but I’ve used it online for so long I see no reason to give it up. Even in the pre-WWW Ur-internet (Urnternet?) I sometimes got recognized as “a board game guy,” and during one job hunt an interviewer brought it up, and not in a good way.

SO … I’ve kept my real name slightly detached from my writings. Now that I’m retired, its more habit than anything.

Most of my writings are at my wordpress blog, which is off-the-cuff, stream of consciousness, poorly edited (if at all). A first draft about whatever catches my eye.

I’ve toyed with eyes for doing more polished essays, but nothing grabbed my attention. I rant against the “Cult of the New” in board-gaming (which shows up in other parts of the culture as Fear of Missing Out or FOMO). For game reviewers, this shows up in the “Best of the Year” lists from reviewers who play as many new games as possible.

If you are monetizing that, follow that money. Frankly it seems exhausting. Most new culture — TV, movies, books … or games — is crap. Why wade through it? And to declare “The best” after a few months; well just look at the Oscars to see that it’s tough. It’s even more difficult with games, which can take much longer to explore. The first game may be fun but the second reveals its just the same old. Some games only reveal their considerable charms after after multiple games.

So a few years ago I started thinking — Instead of trying to pick the best game of last year, Discuss the best games from the 20th century! (In this I was influenced by Fifty Years of Text Games).

Hence “The Best Games of the Twentieth Century Project” or simply. “The 20th Century Project.”

Which went nowhere. But now …. I have time. BoardGameGeek just this week announced a Hall of Fame and I remembered that project, so why not?

“What games are included?” I hear you ask.

For simplicity: Anything. 1900 to 2000 (I don’t want to argue about when centuries start and end, deal with it).

Board game. Word Game. Card Game. Party Game. Computer Game. Pinball. Perhaps I should stick to board games (and I mostly will) but I’d rather be inclusive. Initially I will try to publish an article or two a week. Consider the first few years as “Nominations.”

There’s no rush.

For now, I am going to rank games as:

• “First Ballot” — One of the Top 20 or 25 games of The 20th Century, and easily in the Top 100.

• “On the List” —In the Top 100 of the Century, but not First Ballot and above the Borderline.

• “Borderline Yes” — Will probably make the cut, but maybe not.

• “Borderline No” — The opposite. Will probably miss the cut, but maybe it will squeak in.

• “Missed the Cut” — A good game (otherwise why talk about it?), but not Top 100 material.

Feel free to chime in the comments.

Update — Quickly after I wrote this I realized I was more interested in discussing “The Most Influential” games of the 20th Century. There were massive innovations in games (such as the invention of computer games) but often the new influences were not (strictly speaking) good games, much less the best. So I’ve been asking “Is X One of the 100 Most Influential Games of the 20th Century.” I have left the above post unchanged, but added this addendum.