Over the last year we started playing a lot more board games at home. As a kid it was common during parties and gatherings to play boardgames but for whatever reason it sort of fell out of favor. At the time Risk, Monopoly, Uno, Sorry, Game of Life, Snakes and Ladders were all played at home with Risk and Monopoly being the favorites, certainly when I was a teenager.
I played a number of RPG pen and paper games in my late teens in high school. D&D, Rifts, Car Wars, TMNT and so forth but it was difficult to get everyone together, have someone cobble together a story and run as DM or game master. I enjoyed the supplemental books, certainly D&D had a lot of great artwork that went a long with their books and guides so it was probably as fun collecting all the ‘junk’ that came along with pen and paper games as it was playing them.
As an adult though I never really played any games. Video games, movies and simply socializing were a lot more common in my adult life than sitting down and playing board games. Recently though this has changed. My girlfriend picked up Catan at one of the local shops here in Calgary. (I’ll post more on that shortly) The rules are fairly involved (certainly a lot more than any of the board games I played in my teens) but not so complicated that the game isn’t fun. Initially getting in to adult oriented board games is daunting simply because of the rules and reading the manual but you’re no longer stuck reading the manual and ‘hoping’ you got things right. Youtube and the myriad of other gaming specific sites offer a lot of insights how the game is played, how the rules are applied and if you dig into it, strategies on playing the game effectively. Catan is fun, though does take some time investment but still follows the rules of games that I’m familiar with from my youth.. in that “every man (or woman) for themselves”… There can only be one real winner.
When you realize that there is no way you’re going to win this game of Catan
That leads me to the most recent board game I have played. Dead of Winter. One evening, after playing a game of Catan with my sister and husband we decided to take a look at some of the other board games out there and by chance stumbled upon a pretty cool video of Wil Wheaton and friends (yes that Wil Wheaton) playing Dead of Winter. It looked fun and offered a co-op experience, which I hadn’t really played since pen and paper games. We went by our local shop and found out that sadly the game was no longer in print (the company that owned Catan actually bought the developers of Dead of Winter) but as usual some googling showed that I could pick up the game online which we did. The rules are really daunting, there are so many different variables to keep track of, the order of operations is imperative and the amount of details required to play the game effectively is staggering. BUT… if you take your time, follow the rulebook and watch a few ‘how to play’ videos on Youtube you’ll find it’s an excellent experience. The game can be completed with multiple winners, and conversely everyone can lose as well (with no winners at all). The games are pretty long (2-3 hours usually) but are a ton of fun and a lot of camaraderie occurs when everyone is working towards a common goal. The game does have a lot of pieces and a fair bit of setup to get started but the game also has a story (depending on what game mode you choose) which also gives a similar pen and paper vibe that RPGs do.
A game of Dead of Winter
If you are dreading the long winter and would rather spend time with friends enjoying a cocktail or 3 and socializing I would seriously recommend picking up an adult board game to help consume the long winter nights at home or at friends houses.
In Calgary we are lucky to have one of the largest gaming stores in Canada, and likely North America. Sentry Box has a ton of games, not only board games but RPGs, Warhammer and the myriad of other gaming trends popular these days. Everyone I talked to was really friendly and even if you aren’t interested in some of the more ‘hardcore’ type games like RPGs it’s worth going to visit just to see the place.
You can find the Sentry Box here
Sentry Box
