Direct Conflict and Ameritrash

Another week begins, and another great user-submitted article to kick things off.  This week, Jorge Arroyo gives thoughts on conflict, theme, and Ameritrash.

I find I'm attracted to boardgames in mainly two different ways. Either the game has some puzzle like quality that intrigues me (this set of games is composed mainly of strange abstracts and the occasional euro) or the game has an interesting theme and manages to integrate its mechanics with its theme (this set is composed mainly of AT games).

There is a reason I usually refer to this last group as "Heavily Themed Games" instead of just AT, and that is because there are games in this group that lack some of the main aspects of AT games, especially direct conflict.