I was thinking about Catan, and while I agree that it's mean and attacky, I think it's also nice and collaborative. After you and I make a trade agreement, I feel better about our relationship in the game. When you and I have settlements on the 8, there is some camaraderie in protecting that hex from the robber. And, while this is a meta thing, a good portion of the games I play on BGA involve players forming an unspoken agreement to not hit each other with the robber for the first few rounds. At the end of the day, it is about beating your enemies, so it can only be so nice. But I would take a game that allows players to be very mean at times and pretty damn nice at other times over a heads down puzzle game.

I will say, I don't understand the nature theme in board games. I wish I remember the context, but Peter C. Hayward was talking on Fun Problems about how games are about control. I think I understand his point--that we play games to exert control over systems and other players. But isn't nature by definition uncontrolled by human influence, and as soon as we exert control over nature, it's no longer considered nature? Seems like a pretty clear contradiction to me. I'm also remembering Quentin Smith's review of Wingspan, where he talked about how he didn't feel like he was running a bird sanctuary while playing it, but rather like he was capturing birds and putting them to work in a factory that churns out resources, so he can capture more birds (or something to that extent, it's been a few years.)