Disconnected
I’m old enough to remember a time when the kids in my neighborhood would decide where to meet that evening on the bus ride home. Maybe we would all get together at the local baseball diamond, or meet up at my place to play pond hockey in the winter. Sometimes just a couple of us would go to a friend’s house to play video games, or board games. You see we weren’t all connected to one another by Smart phones. We didn’t have Facebook, or Instagram to immediately find out what everyone else was up to. You couldn’t just sign in to your cellphone Game account, Xbox account, or Playstation account to play a game over the internet with a friend. You had to go out of your way to see a friend, play a game together, or just find out what they were up to. The irony of it all is that the more we try to become connected through technology. The more disconnected we have become. The art of conversation has suffered. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well we as a digital society have begun to rely on it. Why take the time to describe something that happened to you. When you can just snap a picture or shoot a short video of it. It’s all so very convenient, but there’s something missing. Something each and every one of us naturally craves.
A sense of sharing and togetherness
The most fun I’ve ever had playing a video game is with three friends offline. The game was called Champions: Return to Arms for the PS2. If you are unfamiliar with the game, it’s very similar to Diablo. The graphics weren’t especially great. Like Diablo it was basically a loot and character advancement style of game. What made it great wasn’t the game. It was the shared experience, and teamwork it required to succeed. All four of us together in my living room enjoying the game as a team. If one of us made a hilarious mistake. We all laughed together. If we beat a level boss. We all celebrated the victory together. I didn’t snap a picture, or shoot a short video so my friends could laugh, or celebrate after the fact. You see that’s what is missing. The shared moment. Outside of Sports, there isn’t much that we need to do together anymore. It’s for this reason that there has been such a huge resurgence in Board Games.
Innovation
How different are today’s video games from the ones we played 5 years ago? The graphics are a little bit better, and more people can play together online than before, but that’s about it. There aren’t too many video games these days that really surprise me. That isn’t the case with Board Games. Every year a new take on an old genre pops up. Board Games used to be very linear. Every time you played the game, how it progressed was the same. Now you have games that randomly create the board as you play it. Some games require you to build a card deck before you begin, while others have you build a deck during the game. There are even games that are played with each other cooperatively, as opposed to against each other competitively. It doesn’t matter what your interests are, there is a Board Game for everyone. Even if you aren’t much of a Gamer. Chances are that you will really enjoy yourself the next time you get together to play a Board Game. You know why? It’s because you will be with friends sharing the experience.
2 replies on “Boardgames are back The Gamer in me GL-11”
Great read buddy. I too have found that in this modern society the inclusion, the cooperativeness, the slowed pace, the sometimes tediousness of resetting boards as a great counter weight to the fast paced technological world we live in today where every decision is made in matter of nanoseconds. With that being said – how can one write a board game article as a life-improvement piece without actually recommending any board games to indulge oneself in?
To get it started I’ll recommend a board game by the name of “Pandemic” . You play in a cooperative setup 2-4 players (can also be played alone once you get a hang of the mechanics) Speaking of said mechanics, now this is the singlemost important and impressive thing about this game. It has an in-built game engine and you are playing against it as a team. How cool is that? The gameplay is basically this: The board is a world map and before you start you randomly select which cities are gonna be infected by different kind of virusses and its up to your team to travel around the world curing and controlling these threats from spreading and ending mankind as we know it. After each players turn one selects up to 4 new random cities which are to be infected thus making this game incredibly hard to beat at times (not to mention the “epidemic” eventcards. These Ba***rds will have even the most composed thinkers scrambling and stunned ). Often have I myself been in a situation where victory seemingly was only a round or 2 away only to be left with utter astonishment over how my board suddenly seemed to “explode” with deadly outbreaks all over the world.
The game comes with a lot of different expansion packs which can all be linked together to complete an even more immersive board game experience.
Also maybe the coolest thing of all is, that there is a version of this game that can only be played once sort of like a “campaign mode” on a video game. The game is currently ranked #1 on boardgamesgeek.com – I have yet to try that myself but I can’t wait.
I recommended a game, can you recommend one back?
I’m a fan of Pandemic as well. Probably one of the best games you can play with 3 or 4 people is Betrayal at House on the Hill. What makes this game unique is that it begins as a cooperative Game. Then at a random point one of the Players becomes an opponent to the others. It’s easily one of the most enjoyable games I’ve ever played. The Game includes 50 possible outcomes so replayability isn’t a problem. If you haven’t tried it I suggest you do. I give you my guarantee that you won’t be disappointed.