50 Games in 50 Weeks: Giants (board game)

Giants board game

This is a fascinating game, both for its historical perspective and its mechanics.

Giants simulates the behaviors of Easter Island’s inhabitants. You control the population, consuming the island’s resources and building giant stone statues. You have to quarry the stone, then move it to the coast for carving and erection.

A few interesting mechanics: you need logs to move your statues, and there need to be people on all the game board spaces leading from one place to another. But they don’t need to be your people. So you’re paying attention to other players, and may do them favors by adding players to certain spaces.

More interesting, though, the game requires depleting the island’s resources. By the end of the game, there’s practically nothing left on the island but statues. And there’s no stopping that if you want to win the game.

It’s a fairly long game–several hours–with a lot of room for strategy.