Cathedral | Board Games
2 Players; Suggested Ages: 8 and Up
The pieces are wooden and the saw-marks are quite visible. The board is a lined but otherwise empty space reminiscent of a Cartesian plane. Cathedral is the game I gave my parents when I wanted to share my love of gaming, and the set I gave them 25 years ago is still in use. Frequently.
In essence, Cathedral is a territory or geometry game, like Othello, go, or draughts. It features a large cathedral-shaped piece, which was inspired by Christchurch in New Zealand. In fact, designer Robert Moore was a pilot with the Royal New Zealand Air Force and saw the cathedral from the air frequently.
That large cross-shaped cathedral piece is put down on the 10 by 10 square board to start the game, and the players take turns trying to enclose sections of the board using smaller buildings all around the cathedral. The shapes are Ls and Ts, straight sections and zigzags, rather much like the Tetris pieces. You try to secure enough space to place all your pieces while preventing your opponent from doing the same.
A bit of a digression on the game pieces, if you’ll indulge me. Being made of varnished wood, they are much more beautiful than Tetris. And more than that, putting the beautiful little pieces on the board creates the illusion of building a tiny little medieval city. It’s clear that it would not be as wondrous a game if you were building a tiny little strip mall, but really, the pieces have battlements and crenellations and they’re perfect for the mood of the game. Especially if you’re the kind of game player who appreciates words like battlement and crenellation.
A simple board and little buildings. That’s really about all there is to the game.
Except that it’s perfectly balanced and totally addictive, and short. You can play a game in 10 minutes or 20, and that makes it both good design — few family games run for hours and hours, after all — and easy to say, “Just one more game.” It’s board gaming nirvana.
The rules are so simple they seem inevitable, and the simplicity plays into the game’s sense of timelessness. You’d think Cathedral has been around for centuries, when really it’s relatively new as classics go. It just feels like a cathedral does, as something inevitable and permanent.
Simple designs like this are very rare, but very durable. Othello, go, and chess are classics, after all, but they don’t require dice or cards or moving pieces around a track. It’s elegant. This is an overused bit of praise among family game and board game designers, but for a game this stripped down, it’s the right word.
Cathedral’s elegance shines from those first few pieces you put down, and if you have a head for spatial relationships at all — such as those found in jigsaw puzzles, car engines, or sewing patterns — you’ll soon see how things might develop. If the plan doesn’t work out, the next game beckons. If you grow tired, someone who has been watching may want to take his or her turn. There’s an easy flow to the game, and there are no dice or cards to distract you. Pure geometry. The ancient Greeks probably would have gotten a kick out of it.
Despite all my talk of geometry and space, Cathedral is actually not an intimi-dating game to look at or play. There’s a sense that it could easily be enjoyed over a pint at any pub — or even after several pints. It’s less complex than go because the board is smaller. Plus, it has high replay value. The variable starting position of the cathedral piece throws a curve ball at the start of every game, keeping it novel.
Oh, and did I mention that there are more pieces than can possibly fit on the board? Cathedral often winds up with a bit of musical chairs to it. All you need to do on your turn is put down one piece. If you can’t, you’ve lost. It seems so easy, but there are tricks. Clever shark tricks, such as where the cathedral starts and whether your strategy is to seize one big chunk, or deny space to your opponent, or take several smaller chunks.
If I just put this piece here, you’ll think, I can still pull this off. Okay, there’s a fair bit of wishful thinking sometimes, as it becomes clear that you have stretched for “a cloister too far.” But if you have a competitive spirit at all, that means it’s time for — say it with me — “Just one more game.”
And this is the other great joy of Cathedral: it evens the playing field a bit between various levels of skill, since even risky strategies can pay off if your opponent is dozing. And unlike many family games, it’s a two-player design, so it has an element of direct competition. There are no side-deals, not enough rules to argue over, and no chance that someone else might play kingmaker even though they themselves will surely not win. Two-player games have that sense of pure competition about them, and that’s definitely a strength for Cathedral.
My father plays chess, and has always been a bit of a shark. My mother doesn’t, but has a competitive streak. Both enjoy Cathedral. I enjoy the fact that, though I suspect they were always puzzled by my love of game design, they both understand the appeal of family board games. There are really only about six or seven of them at their house that see a good deal of use. Cathedral has remained one of them because of its speed, its simplicity, and the sheer joy of placing that one, perfect piece that seals your opponent’s doom.
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