Ken Levine’s Other Games

Stealing from Robert Ashley makes kittens cry.

Carlos Vieyra

Oooh he has Arkham and Heroscape ... I love both of those.

and yet, no sign of Risk. I don't care if it's nothing like the other games there, it's Risk and everyone needs Risk to live.

@KirePDX: Yeah. Kotaku WTF dawg? Need hook our boy Robert Ashley up. Brian I see you got the pet project thing going, but Robert's page doesn't just have that one pic. These screen grab things aren't very nice. lol. Pic compared to Freelancer Robert Ashley recently sat down with Ken Levine as part of a series called "Stuff I Can't Live Without".
*do that little quote box thing you guys do*
"In this ongoing series, generous videogame makers give us a peek into their civilian lives by playing show and tell with a few possessions near and dear to them. Today's "Stuff I Can't Live Without" comes from 2k Boston's Ken Levine, creative director of Bioshock and, from the looks of his living space, true-blue nerd"

*comment about how you think this is pretty interesting and how we should check out the rest on his page* *comment about your own pet project and how we should also check that out as well*

READ MORE: Robert Ashley, Ken Levine, Screen Grab

Didn't take me very long, man. Just saying. You don't have to heed my advice. This is your site. It'd just be nicer.

@ParadeDC:

I've never heard anything good about it.

Lucas Hamel

@LanciePants:

Tomb = tome :\

LanciePants

NERDGASM NERDGASM NERDGASM!

My buddies and I love overly complex, rules book the size of an ancient tomb, style board games. Envy thy name is LanciePants.

LanciePants

@dancemonkey: Uhhh, what?

Steve is still very much alive, as is his game company. Are you confusing him with Gary Gygax, by way of Knights of the Dinner Table's amalgam character, Gary Jackson?

[en.wikipedia.org])

WizarDru

@Mr. Tambourine Man: I had that game. One of SJG's pocket games from around 1980 (duh). It wasn't a very good game. duh.

WizarDru

@Spaceboy: Monica Geller?

D-K, Came for the punch, stayed for the band-aid

@ludwigk: You seem to have mastered multi-syllabel words. Now it's off to "adding 101" and your probably good to go.

D-K, Came for the punch, stayed for the band-aid

@Jonax:
... I was about to ask the same thing about Risk. Doesn't anyone play Risk anymore? (or does it have another name outside of Europe?)

@savetherobot: Well, the "Pic" does link to that, but it should've been more prominent, yeh.

On a not completely unrelated note, whenever I read "A Life Well Wasted" I hear Ashley say it.. It's so weird..

@Ken: Same. Just played it for the first time a couple weeks ago and love it. We all had a blast.

Smidget

Shamelessly stolen from Robert Ashley from A Life Well Wasted without credit. Here's the real source: http://alifewellwasted.com/2009/05/01/ken-levine-stuff-i-cant-live-without.../

JasonMeleager

@Lucas Hamel: Last Night on Earth is the best zombie game, beats all the others.

©Robert Ashley

loud

@moofrank: I'm guessing the second table top's for people who are unable to play the real WoW?:O

BarbeQueQ

Raid on Iran, great little game. RIP Steve Jackson.

I see Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear. Epic win for that one.

KaneBaker

Weird, I don't see the link to where this photo was originally posted, over at Robert Ashley's A Life Well Wasted blog: http://alifewellwasted.com/blog/ Am I missing something? Shouldn't that be credited?

GalinaBarba

@ludwigk: This photo is also taken from Robert Ashley's 'A Life Well Wasted' site, as part of a series looking at the game designers' "Stuff I can't Live Without."

Ken Levine provides more photos and commentary about the images on the site itself: [alifewellwasted.com]

I'm disappointed that Kotaku wouldn't give Robert Ashley (or Ken Levine) any credit for this image.

KirePDX

This picture was taken from Robert Ashley's blog for his podcast, "A Life Well Wasted" - he should've gotten credit for soliciting it from Ken. See more pics and Ken's comments here:

[alifewellwasted.com]

@HighSpeedIndeed: You vastly underestimate the complexity of Scrabble. That game is horrendously complex. Far too complex for me to find enjoyable.

ludwigk

@Jonax:
I thought exactly the same thing.

Although that's the first thing I looked for in his collection, and that's very bad and judgmental of me to do.

@jared11889: Don't worry... it can't be his whole collection. If you look you can see that a lo of the items on that shelf are expansions, like the two Descent boxes and the one for Tide of Iron. Those games, and TI all have HUGE base game boxes, so he could have them stashed elsewhere. Definitely needs a better organization system though.

tayaya

@gerrylum: And far superior to Shadows Over Camelot.

MrPsycohed

Also...why does he have the Tide of Iron expansion without the main game? Something seems amiss.

moofrank

@lojer: No, the problem is that the title does not give enough information, unless there was perhaps a first picture from which to draw context.

This 'format' demands that the description be as short as possible, but no shorter! This is too short.

The description "_____'s other games" only works in the context of someone who would only be involved in games in 1 way. For instance, "LeBron James' other games" would be perfect. He's got a main game, which he's competitive at, and other games he enjoys. It paints an unambiguous dichotomy between his professional and personal life, whilst also rhyming.

Since many video game developers have a background in tabletop, this is not unambiguous.

ludwigk

@Jonax: It's all Ameritrash and wargames (with the exception of Lost Cities).

Settlers is a Euro (and a terribly bad one, albeit one that is the standard gateway game, much like the similarly bad Carcassone).

emag

@BarbeQueQ:
There are two. The cheaper one is called The Adventure Game and it is like a wonky Talisman clone.

The more expensive one divides you into two parties, gives you very WoW quests and takes 4 or 5 hours. I like it quite a bit.

moofrank

@Sean MacLean:

But he has Arkham Horror on the bottom left.

Lucas Hamel

Can anyone who knows Ken petition him to make an Asteroid computer game?

(Although System Shock might have some inspiration there.)

moofrank

Dungeon Twister up in this bitch! My Telekineticist floats over some kudos.

Conflict of Heroes plus a GTA4 lock box?

Very nice. It's almost as if he's trying to tell a story.

@zibby: It's not a collection without Arkham Horror in my books.

Sean MacLean

Ken Levine looks kinda poor.

Max Paolucci

@sadisticfreak432: Yeah, and Conflict of Heroes, Memoir '44 (ugh) and Tide of Iron but no Combat Commander? Not so good. Lost Cities and Arkham Horror work, though.

zibby

YES, Shadows Over Camelot, you are the most depressing board game ever!

tcdohl

no zombies!?

You should try the Battlestar Galactica board game too. That game is addicting!

gerrylum

@Cerabret100: The lack of knowledge pertaining to ground/game rules to both Chess and Poker can be countered my impeccable knowledge of the opponent's traits/expressions/posture. I like games where the underdog needs but one redeeming move for victory.

Eye movement is the key!

D-K, Came for the punch, stayed for the band-aid

@soap_box: I love the SoC card game but never liked the boardgame, at least in the "vanilla" version (no expansions). Owned it for a brief while, sold it right away - the card game, anyway, is great (and cheap in the Mayfair edition that bundles expansions...)

lachinay

@UberScytheLord: Ha, damn. I'm an Ash Can Pete man myself.

zibby

@KichiGuy: Indeed.. The fun/rage ratio is entirely dependent on the collective IQ. No need to mention that "in these regions" CIQ is frustratingly saddening.

"Every now and again" i find myself in the ol' headshaking facepalm position when people play strategic games -for the fun of it-.. -__- sigh..

I spiked my post with some incredibly obscure ref's. Enjoy.

D-K, Came for the punch, stayed for the band-aid

@Gemini-Phoenix: I think the idea is that the title gives enough information to provide it's own caption. I inferred that "Ken Levine's Other Games" meant that this was his game shelf.

I know it's blasphemy, but I couldn't remember what Ken Levine had made. A quick wikipedia search revealed that was born in New York to a Jewish family.. oh and he designed BioShock.

Anyway, I like the format. It reminds me of the Daily Show's "Moment of Zen".

lojer

Sorry, I am not a fucking dork, so I don't know what those are.

;)

scaught78

what's in the GTA IV steel lockbox?

also who's Ken Levine?

@BarbeQueQ: Yeah, a couple actually.

@OriginalGman: I loved Talisman. Ain't been able to find a group for it in years.

lulfas

GTA lockbox? odd one out...

Descent is a game i only just started playing with my gf and best friend. it's alot of fun. you have alot of great games on there.

@BarbeQueQ: for those tough Tuesdays.

@Ir0nM0nkey: And Puerto Rico??

kill02

@Ken: My friends and I love Arkham Horror as well. It is certainly a game you need to invest a lot of time to in order to enjoy it.
And.. Monterey Jack > All. Fear the CHEESE

Yea def missin Zombies and Settlers of Catan .... but no Munchkin either those are awesome games :)

@Lucas Hamel: He has Marvel Heroes, which is pretty much HeroQuest.

sadisticfreak432

@Gyaruson: I realy think these screen grab's should be correctly annotated, as most of us haven't a clue what it is we're looking at or why, so they have no significance to many of us - Something which could easily be corrected by a simple description

Seto Kaiba FTW! "Screw the Rules, I have Dynamite AND a Tommy Gun!" ....*The Game Passes* "Oh, so that's what the hands on the cards mean..."

PaxtonAstypalaea

@BarbeQueQ: Yes, but fuck that. Talisman!!

I see Heroscape! Someone has good taste!

@Jonax: I think we should assume that he lost the box, and all the pieces are in that GTA4 Safety Deposit box he has on the upper left of the middle shelf.

He has Arkham Horror! Hell yah. We share the same first name and board game taste. Hats off, sir.

Ken

@Simon Jester: Really? My friends and I love it :D Ash Can Pete, FTW :D

Ken

:( I see several Fantasy Flight games in there, but no Twilight Imperium.

This makes me a sad, sad panda.

Also, no Settlers of Catan, Zombies!, or Joan of Arc?
I'm so very disappointed.

LOL, he still plays DnD BASIC. n00b.

Seriously though, I think a solid background in strategic and pen and paper games is crucial for a video game developer. The detailed mechanics of a video game are often shrouded from the player, whereas traditional games highlight such things in that they use... "human processors"; meaning the players must be aware of the underlying rules that determine the outcomes to their actions. There is much more awareness of things like probabilities and statistics in these sorts of games and it's much easier for players to tweak and adjust the rules to see what scenarios would play out. Thus, I think it benefits developers to be adept with such knowledge so they can apply different aspects of it to the design of their own game.

Raid on Iran? ith Khomeyni as the final boss? Sold.

er Ken

Ghostwise

@n00b_pwner: I did, unfortunately all the adults i played with when i was little always said i cheated at boardgames.

I didn't cheat, but on the other hand i was often the one explaining the rules so if i forgot something and brought it up later, it was cheating.

And chess is great, except for the part where my dad always kicks my ass no matter what. which is proof book smarts isn't everything because he barely passed high school, i'm in college and play a bunch of strategic shit and he still is undefeated.

Cerabret100

Wait just a damn minute. He has a pic of a little girl. Do better next time Kevin! You make it as if you are a pedo kidnapper man!

Ghostwise

Arkham Horror looked so good and ended up playing so bad. I love Lovecraft and all things Cthulhu but that game sucks. It took me so long to set up only to have a boring, 2 hour yawn-a-thon ending with my wife wanting to jump in front of traffic out of boredom and not fear. Damn you Arkham Horror, damn you straight to hell!

I have to agree where is the Chess?

smeloa

Needs more Pandemic.

@HighSpeedIndeed: Monopoly is terrible. Scrabble on the other hand IS a thinking man's/woman's game. It's funny when you can find people more willing to play Arkham Horror than play Scrabble.

niledeltadisco

Just ribbing him lol. Didn't even click on the other links. Guess he had to put it in there to offset all the tabletop goodies lol.

Ghostwise

@soap_box: Or Carcassonne...

smeloa

Ugh, he bought Tannhauser. Poor sap; I was really excited for that until I heard from every single person that played it that it was awful.

Props for Shadows over Camelot and Talisman though.

the-hypnotoad

World of Warcraft board game? Ffffff....

Does anyone else REALLY want to organize that shelf?

Spaceboy

No Agricola ??

@HighSpeedIndeed: Monopoly is a horrible horrible game.

@HighSpeedIndeed: After slaying dozens of dragons, hundreds of aliens, and thousands of zombies, I can tell you that there is not a more daunting task in the world than property management.

@NeoStarr: She's one of the androids.

Cold...lonely...scared...losing sanity...

Ken Levine's basement...the inspiration for bioshock?

@Ghostwise: I lol'd, but the link has a picture of his wife whom he talks about adoringly.

@Jonax: I was going to say that! Started playing that this year, drunken 4 player games last us about 2-3 hours and it's still awesome. Not a fan of the XBL version though, doesn't feel right!

Only table-top games I need are chess and Mouse Trap.

Even though nobody actually played Mouse Trap >______>

@Jonax: I play that shit on XBL Morning, night, and dinner!

Lucas Hamel

@Jonax: Settlers of Catan is the shit, yo.

I'd still play it, if I had it. :(

That game never gets old.

BarbeQueQ

I wish I had friends that have the patience to play tabletop games with me :[

I was the only kid that actually wanted to finish monopoly when I was 10 :[

Now on to the epic quest to find a girlfriend!

Ghostwise

These are the games of a thinking man... unfortuneately no one I hang out with will play anything more complicated than Monopoly or Scrabble.

Not even a single word to let us know what we're looking at. Someone may think it's other games he assisted in development with, or anything really.

I don't see a copy of ZOMBIES!!!, HeroQuest, or Betrayal at House on the Hill.

SON, I AM DISAPPOINT.

Lucas Hamel

Wait, there's a WoW table top game?

BarbeQueQ

...So many games, and no Settlers of Catan? :O

Quite a collection of table top games you got there.

Coolux

@Coolux: One is a video game, can you find it?

Only one shelf? lol
My uncles collection puts yours to shame.

@emag: Board game elitist. Who knew?

BigMoose

This can't be them all though, I see a Tide of Iron expansion but no Tide of Iron. Same goes for those Descent expansions, and Battlelore.

I also see TITAN hasn't been punched yet.

Plus everything here except Raid on Iran is new, and RoI is very very old, that's suspicious ;)

John Fairley

Sweet Levine! I've got Arkham Horror, Last Night on Earth, Shadows Over Camelot, the GTA lockbox, and a boardgame stack about half that size.

Needs more bad VHS board games. Atmosfear or Nightmare anyone?

CaptLtrl

I totally want to play Raid on Iran! :P

confirmed: GTA4 table top

charisma of 7 needed to get a hooker

ithyphallus

@emag: Settlers is widely regarded as one of the best-crafted tabletop games out there.

I'm not going to claim to have more refined taste than you, but if you're going to call Settlers "terribly bad," you'd best enlighten the rest of us on the games you call "good." Because if there's a better board game out there, I'll buy it.

@zibby: Go Ashcan Pete!

@ParadeDC: It's okay, but not fantastic.

@the-hypnotoad:

I'm with you. I saw Memoir '44 and the expansion up at the top and I felt a little sad. Then I saw Tannhauser and I just felt sorry for him.

He's got some good ones in there, but ugh, it's hard to get over those two. They're both horrible.

acceptablerisk

Give Robert Ashley some credit.

trevorb

THe thing i alwase hated about table top games is....U acctully need friends who like playing those games to play them

@D-K, Came for the punch, stayed for the band-aid: If you weigh the complicatedness of Scrabble against any game up there in terms of number of possible outcomes and available player choices, I would wager that it eclipses all of them by orders of magnitude.

The rules of Scrabble are simple, but the gameplay is complicated.

Take for example, Axis and Allies. The rules are complicated, but the gameplay is significantly more limited. There are only a few hundred combinations of possible purchases in the buy phase, with only a few dozen non-trivial choices, maybe a few thousand possible moves, and a similar number of possible attack permutations.

With Scrabble, things like tile distribution, word choice, and placement create millions of valid and relevant choices and possible outcomes each turn. As I said, OP has vastly underestimated its complexity. I guess my real point would be that the choice of the word "complicated" is inappropriate, when a better would be one that reflects some aspect of gameplay that is relevant to his enjoyment, that games like Monopoly and Scrabble to not meet.

If OP wants complicated, he should just play Go.

ludwigk

@Trygle12 is procrastinating. He should probably get to work...: i hear you... i always loved monopoly but my parents would beat me when i wanted to play it -sigh-

Wilky_McBadass

I am definitely echoing the Conflict of Heroes FTW line. It's a great game.

He's obviously a Command and Colour fan as well because he's packing Memoir '44 and I see a Battlelore expansion as well.

Nice.

brickrock121

Kind of a bunch of crappy games there.. D&D beginner set? I can't vouch for the Memoir games cuz I haven't played em. I agree you need some Catan and Carcassone in there.

Zombies is a stinker, no need for that one.

everyonesmom

@Hedgeson, Now with Brain: GTA4

@Juicemytang: Last Night on Earth is like zombies but i like it better.

No Axis and Allies?

Descent is so awesome!

Kill-Face

Tomb, nice.

No Carcassonne? BOOOOOOOO

holmcross

@infamyRISE: Play with some expansion packs, the game is awesome with them.

Lucas Hamel

no axies and allies?

@KichiGuy: The irony being that practically every boardgame requires face-to-face play, as opposed to sitting on your couch face deep in any just about any videogame, since they usually all have single player.

No, XBox Live doesn't count.

infamyRISE

@Lucas Hamel: Its certainly better than that horrid Zombies!!!....

infamyRISE

@Lucas Hamel: No, no its not.

infamyRISE

Where's Key to the Kingdom??

i ave a lot of those.

dechire

I'll pass on Zombies and Last Night On Earth. I prefer games that are more than wander, roll a die, do nothing, wander.

He has a pretty solid collection.

@infamyRISE: hahah...board games require extra players...or so you thought.

Too many bad wargames and not nearly enough excellent Euros like Carcassonne or Puerto Rico.

atomicstrawberry

@Spike-Strife:

Isn't that true with ANY type of game?

gerrylum

@MrPsycohed:
Indeed!

gerrylum

Eh... Arkham Horror is there, so that's good enough for me..

Krytha

@jesterspawn:
Puerto Rico, Caylus, and Power Grid are all games that, imo, better than Catan.

nemesiscw

@atomicstrawberry:

Do go back to boardgamegeek with the rest of your kind. Ta.

WoozyB

@everyonesmom:

There's some good ones; just because they're not some Eurotrash that everyone and their dog has played doesn't make them crappy.

Carcassone is lame because everyone just places tiles for themselves and everyone's always holding out for the one good tile they need.

Catan rules until everyone forms the same strategies and counterstrategies and each game turns into the exact same thing.

WoozyB

@Ghostwise:

This may surprise a lot of nerds, but girls are usually more more willing to play board games with guys than they are to playing video games with them.

You know, social interaction and all that.

WoozyB

No Munchkin?

@ulix:

I would generally agree with the assumption though, that Ken Levine defnitely needs more European (German) games, because, in general, they are just so much better then American games.

ulix

@BarbeQueQ:

Or for people who actually enjoy some real social interaction of people sitting next to each other.

ulix

@nemesiscw:

Also:
Through the Ages, Tigris & Euphratis (as well as everything else by Rainer Knizia), Game of Thrones, etc.

Although they all cater to a different crowd then Settlers.
Settlers is the PopCap of Boardgames, catering to the hardcore as well as the casual. It is much to luck-dependent for my tastes, though.

ulix

@emag:

You clearly have no idea of boardgames.
While most of these games may be American in origin, many of them are from Fantasy Flight Games, the best Boardgame-Developing company outside of Germany/Europe.
To call Battlelore, Memoir, Arham Horror and Talisman "Ameritrash" is, excuse me, just plainly stupid.

ulix

D&D Basic? Oh Levine... I'm so disappointed.

Project Thanatos

@Simon Jester:
That's too bad. Arkham Horror is one of our game night favorites, loved by all.

MightyCow

@Ir0nM0nkey: Yeah no kidding best board game of the past couple years hands down!

bklooster

Where's Dark Tower? I'm actually beginning to miss that game after selling it about 2 years ago..... :(

That it? pfa