Hey there, I’m Andrew; game industry professional, reviewer, gamer, fellow Boardgaming.com member and the host of BoardGaming.com’s new discussion series called “Your Turn.”
This is your chance to let us know what YOU think about a variety of topics related to hobby gaming. I’ll start the conversation and then it’s “your turn” to chime in and add to the discussion. Each Your Turn discussion will have a new topic, and we may even have some special guests make a surprise visit down the road. In the meantime…
Gaming for the Holidays
It’s the Holiday season and it’s the chance to play some games with family and friends!
Or to be incredibly disappointed that no one wants to play Clash of Cultures.
Look, I’m an idealist. I feel like every game has a person who will want to play it. That may be true, but they may just not be in my family or even in my general vicinity. Every year I have to tamp down that feeling that there is an opportunity to introduce my family to some of the best games that came out in the past year. But every year, I don’t get to play most of the games I envision in my little sugar-plum head.
Don’t get me wrong I grew up playing games; board games, card games, dice games, video games. My family played those games as well. We loved them. It’s what helped foster a love of many different types of games. Every year Christmas was a time of hanging out and playing games. My favorites were Rack-O!, Dark Tower, Carrier Strike, The Great Dalmuti, (My Dad was the champion – he even has a custom made hat to mark his accomplishment!) and a cool game called Gambler which strangely made all of us gambling fiends for a few hours on some nights. My mother was the master of word games. She killed. One of my sisters was (and still is) the “rules lawyer,” making sure each game was played to its most potential and by the book. Me, I loved adventure (of course having recently returned from seeing Star Wars at the cinema for the 12th time). You name it we played it. Back then I guess I didn’t really have a game collection, or tracked the best games of the year. I just… played!
Now, life and gaming is a bit more complicated. There are games I have that I desperately want to play this year and I know that I won’t play half of them. What’s on my game play wish list this year? Betrayal at House on the Hill, Space Cadets, Tokaido, Steam Park, Hanabi, Mice and Mystics, Firefly, Mythic Battles, X-wing, and please.. please… someone play Pathfinder Adventure Card game with me?
Ok that’s my list for games I wish to play. And what usually happens with wish lists is that you get to a point – the spirit of the season takes you away – you actually believe that you will play all these games and EVEN that all the folks around you will love them! It won’t happen.
It’s ok.
As I grow older I have realized that’s not what the season is about. It’s not the games that I get to play, it’s the fact that I am lucky enough to have them, to have people around me who actually do show interest in what I love and want to try to join in. When I was a boy growing up, I joined in playing Boggle with my Mom, always lost, and well, didn’t seem to care. The experience is even a pleasant memory for me and an ongoing joke with my now 83 year old Mom. So then I remember that this year, I may play one or two, but the fact that I get to share them at all is a blessing. This year, I will just try to just hang back and no matter what games are played, look around and enjoy the time and the season where social interaction with friends and family has that special cinnamon, evergreen aroma. It’s the season to game with a child’s heart.
And oh yeah, Mom? Boggle…I’m coming for ya.
What’s on your wish list this holiday for games you want to play? What are your holiday plans that might give you a chance to play them? And what is one game from your childhood that you wish you could play again?
Your turn…
(and Happy Holidays!)
I’m just getting into the hobby and have have put some games at the top of my Christmas wish list so they will probably be opened at my family gathering at my moms. They are Pandemic and Flash Point: Fire Rescue. I’m anxious to see how my five year old will take to Flash Point. I also hope to wow some of my close relatives with Pandemic. I’m sure they have seen nothing like it.
My Game to play wish list will include FORTUNE AND GLORY and trying out WITS AND WAGERS during Christmas Day festivities.
For myself Christmas was about the only time our family would get together. When I was a wee lad I used to watch my uncles play countless hours of Cribbage while chain smoking and drinking whiskey. Once we got a little older my brother and sister began to organize Charades to play an ever since that is all we have ever played at Christmas.
Now with my own three kids growing up in my home surrounded by board games Christmas gaming has shifted in a new direction and I am able to get my parents and relatives to try new games. My 8 year old is so full of wonder and excitement when seeing and playing a new game it is wonderful to experience and that excitement seems to drive a new feeling for games around this great holiday.
This year I am lucky to have 11 days off for Christmas and will try to have some great times with my family doing some sledding/Skating and of course gaming. This is a special time for us as a family as my kids are now old enough to get wrapped up into the wonder that is Christmas.
Games from my childhood will of course include a game of Cribbage (Where I learned how to bridge shuffle when I was 7.) and some Charades. Perhaps a game of Trivial Pursuit. :). Something my dad is still the mastermind of.
Cheers and Happy Holidays all :P.
Derek
Ah, the holidays! When I was growing up, it seemed that was the only time my family would play games. As though we waited all year and then we’d get all our gaming urges out of our system over the course of just a handful of visits. Those were some of my favorite memories though – sitting around the table as a kid playing Scattergories, Trivial Pursuit, Taboo, Outburst, and the occasional game of Pictionary. These days, my holiday list is growing: Mice and Mystics tops the chart, but I’m also eagerly awaiting Rivet Wars and Sentinels of the Multiverse. I’ll be taking some extra time off of work, so I’ll be free to play the games, if only I get them on time! As to that one game from childhood I wish I could play again, it would have to be Scattergories – sitting around the dining room table with the whole family as we all cringe in dreaded anticipation waiting for this horrible buzzer to go off (noting the end of the round). Sounds awful, perhaps, but to me it still epitomizes the holidays!