
Unsettling Catan
Detached Design in Eurogames
J. Rey Lee(Author)
The University of Michigan Press
Published on 3. November 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
218 pages
978-0-472-03998-2 (ISBN)
Description
Most revolutions don't start with nineteen cardboard hexagons, but Klaus Teuber's game about settling a hexagonal island quietly revolutionized boardgaming. Catan's commercial success selling over 40 million copies certainly catalyzed a modern boardgaming boom. More importantly, its playful experiments set a new tone for game design. By making its cutthroat gameplay feel peaceful and pastoral, Catan helped a fledgling eurogame tradition forge its distinctive style and was heralded by Wired for "changing the American idea of what a board game can be."
Although peaceful revolutions are usually the best kind, it's worth questioning how these games cultivate peaceful feelings. Today, peaceful-feeling eurogames often settle into detached design-a mindset of making conflict feel peaceful by dampening conflicted feelings. Unsettling Catan questions how peaceful-feeling eurogames can make implicitly imperialist themes palatable by cultivating a detached mindset that imagines power as peaceful, neutral, and abstract. To ask the hard questions that eurogames often look away from, the book walks through each aspect of Catan's gameplay (placing hexes, rolling the dice, robbing and trading, collecting resources, building and scoring) to explore how simple design decisions can play out, or play with, cultural ideas and ideals. As the first entry in the Tabletop Games book series, Unsettling Catan introduces key concepts for thinking about board games as a medium and offers accessible game analyses and personal reflections to help players, creators, and scholars reimagine what board games can be and become.
Although peaceful revolutions are usually the best kind, it's worth questioning how these games cultivate peaceful feelings. Today, peaceful-feeling eurogames often settle into detached design-a mindset of making conflict feel peaceful by dampening conflicted feelings. Unsettling Catan questions how peaceful-feeling eurogames can make implicitly imperialist themes palatable by cultivating a detached mindset that imagines power as peaceful, neutral, and abstract. To ask the hard questions that eurogames often look away from, the book walks through each aspect of Catan's gameplay (placing hexes, rolling the dice, robbing and trading, collecting resources, building and scoring) to explore how simple design decisions can play out, or play with, cultural ideas and ideals. As the first entry in the Tabletop Games book series, Unsettling Catan introduces key concepts for thinking about board games as a medium and offers accessible game analyses and personal reflections to help players, creators, and scholars reimagine what board games can be and become.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Ann Arbor
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
18 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 177 mm
Width: 125 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
238 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-472-03998-2 (9780472039982)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
J. Rey Lee is the author of Deconstructing LEGO: The Medium and Messages of LEGO Play (2020) and several articles on board games. He teaches at the University of Washington, Bothell.
Content
List of Figures
Credits
Note to the Reader
Introduction: Unsettling Eurogames
Chapter 1: How to Play
Chapter 2: Placing Hexes
Chapter 3: Rolling the Dice
Chapter 4: Robbing and Trading
Chapter 5: Collecting Resources
Chapter 6: Building and Scoring
Chapter 7: Variants
Glossary
Note on Game Editions
Notes
References
Index
Credits
Note to the Reader
Introduction: Unsettling Eurogames
Chapter 1: How to Play
Chapter 2: Placing Hexes
Chapter 3: Rolling the Dice
Chapter 4: Robbing and Trading
Chapter 5: Collecting Resources
Chapter 6: Building and Scoring
Chapter 7: Variants
Glossary
Note on Game Editions
Notes
References
Index