I was once a member of a gaming group where the host would play this track whenever there was a head-to-head conflict. It was kind of funny the first time, but got old pretty quick and Star Trek just didn’t match those games with, say, an agricultural theme. But now I approve of the arbitrary inclusion of music when tied to specific in-game activities.
And of course I have the perfect music-game combo to bring in this new era:
Stone Age!
Go ahead, click on the link above and let your ears experience the auditory massage that is Love Shack. Actually, keep your eyes open too- the music video is sublime. It strikes a balance between unadulterated good-time vibes and the inescapable wonder of how we ever landed on the moon as a species.
So, from hereover and henceforth, whenever someone places their Stone Age meeples in the love hut, the table is required to listen to Love Shack... the whole thing. If you need a thematic rationale just think of it as prehistoric birth control.
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Stone Age is one of my favorite games. It hits that sweet spot between presenting you with interesting decisions while also remaining accessible to all types of gamers. Yes, I would use the word “gamers” here. Stone Age is what I would consider a “next-step” game, which is one that you pull out when someone new to the hobby finishes playing Ticket to Ride or Catan, and asks “So, what other games are there?”
In Stone Age you are a leader of a prehistoric tribe, trying to survive. You send your tribesmen out to collect food, wood, clay, stone and gold. Each of these require an increasing amount of cumulative dice pips in order to collect that specific good. For example, you need 2 pips to gather a single food, whereas you need 6 pips to get a single gold.
That pretty much covers the top third of the board. The middle part of the board is the town, which has a bunch of useful stuff. Just think of it as Q’s lab in the James Bond films. It has the farm, which gives you a recurring source of food and the love hut (queue Love Shack music), which gives you an additional worker (two go in and three come out!). The last spot is the tool maker shed, which gives you tools (duh) that allow you to add pips to your dice rolls, which is really, really nice to have when you’re 5/6 of the way to collect a gold. The bottom of the board has building tiles and civilization cards, both of which are purchased with your collected resources and contribute to your score.The game ends when one of the building stacks (bottom left) or the civilization cards (bottom right) run out.
In order to understand why this game is fun (simply experiencing fun isn’t enough anymore), we need to discuss output randomness. This is a term that I think was coined by Geoff and Ryan in one of the first episodes of the Ludology podcast. Basically, there are two flavors of randomness- input and output. We’ll cover input randomness in a different post, but basically the type of randomness is determined by the player’s agency relative to the random event. The what where? On a player’s turn he/she will perform some action that will affect the game state. Assuming the player doesn’t act randomly (again, another post!), the random event will happen before, after, or before and after the player’s action. Output randomness is when the random event follows the player’s action. Stone Age has this in spades.
Each round of Stone Age has two phases: the Caveman Regional Assignment Phase (CRAP) and the Collect Yer Sh*t Phase (SH*T). Yes, those are the official names- why do you ask?
CRAP
Each player assigns one or more tribal workers to an area on the board. Each one must be placed on one of the little circles for that given area. The exception is the hunting ground, where there isn’t a limit. Just like any worker placement games, it’s first come, first serve. So your first decision each round can really be onerous: That hut really looks enticing... did I just see Frank glance over at it?? Buuut it requires 2 clay to build, which I don’t have any right now. Joe’s been hitting the clay pit pretty hard all game (by the way, what’s with that?). Maybe I should grab the hut now and try for the clay later.... Waitaminute, the love shack, um “hut” is available. But that’ll use up two of my workers this round and I had BIG plans to do... stuff. Which was what, exactly? This Love Shack song is making it so hard to think!
There you have it. Luckily, as spaces become increasingly occupied your decision space continues to shrink, with your plan hopefully clicking into place.
SH*T
Now that we’re done with the CRAP phase, it’s time for us to collect our sh*t. In the CRAP phase, we all took turns placing our tribefolk in piecemeal fashion. Now we collect them, all at once, in whatever order we choose. And yes, the resources we collect are available for immediate use. Stone Age is great for those one-two, collect-spend combinations.
But this phase is also named after where your carefully laid plans can quickly end up- in the sh*tter. This is where Lady Luck and output randomness decide your fate. And get to find out where Trevor worked that day*. The lowest die roll, especially when you really needed higher, of the round is always Trevor’s fault. He probably fell asleep... again. But you better hope you have some tools to offset Trevor’s negative influence, otherwise you might miss out on that beautiful combination you set up in the CRAP phase.
DAMMIT
Welcome to the Dammit Phase. Surprise! No acronym here, but rather this is what you’ll be saying when you realize that you forgot to collect food for your workers while you were pursuing other ambitions.
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