Hi, I’m Rob Herman.  I’m a software developer not too long out of college, and I’ve been playing games of all kinds since I was about 3.  Probably the first game I played was called Alphabet Zoo—it was a computer game for what was then a quite modern computer system, the Commodore 64.

22 years later, I still enjoy computer games, but I see those more as a consumable product—an item to download or buy, play through once or several times, and put away.  Board games seem more dynamic to me, more interesting to study for.   I also include card games—Euchre, Bridge, Poker, and so on—in this category.  I also love roleplaying games, but that hobby could fill a blog all on its own, and there are already several of those.

I plan to cover many aspects of board games: What makes them fun, or not fun?  How are they different or similar?  How have they evolved over time?  Why are all the good ones from Germany?  In the course of this, I’ll naturally end up talking about a lot of specific games.  Sometimes I’ll be talking about games that should be familiar to most game-players—Monopoly, Risk, Poker, Euchre, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Yachtzee.  Others might be familiar only to more serious hobbyists, like Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Fluxx, and Chez Geek.  The more unfamiliar I think a game might be, the more effort I’ll put into describing it for the possibly-unfamiliar.

I don’t intend to make this a review-based blog, but I’ll certainly write about what I like and don’t like.  Please feel free to leave comments about all the articles.  Knowing people care and are interested will keep me energized and writing week after week.  Feel free to disagree with me, and although I reserve the right to moderate with the Iron Fist of Justice, I hope to attract a circumspect and thoughtful readership that will not to make me bring it out.

Oh, yeah.  I’m also an amateur board game designer who hopes to see his work be published someday.  Eventually, I’ll probably write about my experiences with design, and when/if I get published, you’ll definitely hear about it.