Life's a Game.
Using games to escape the craziness of the world
I’ve been playing games for years. As a teenager I started playing Dungeons & Dragons and some war games. I recall playing a bunch of stuff by Steve Jackson Games- OGRE, Car Wars, Melee & Wizard. I remember first hearing about Gen Con around this time and trying to convince my parents to go to Geneva, Wisconsin for a vacation… they never acquiesced. I continued to play some games throughout college, and when I became a teacher I started to focus on games I could use in my classroom. Gen Con moved to Indianapolis and except for it being the first week of school, I attempted to attend and even go to the “Trade Day” event. Trade Day is for Stores, Teachers, and Librarians with sessions on how to use games as a learning tool. I would come home with a bunch of games for my classroom. Some were hits, others, not so much.
What Made a Game Successful for Classroom Use
When teachers were allowed to teach, and manage their own time we could do things like spend time learning a game, and even playing it. As consultants and people who had never or not recently been in a classroom interfered it became harder. I started to realize that games had to be quick to learn, and understand. If they had two levels of play that made it even better. One for beginners and then as they learned the basics you could add more rules. Recess was maybe 15 minutes, so these had to be fast games, with simple instructions. Unfortunately, when I retired I donated a bunch of my games to classroom teachers who remained at the school, hoping that they would involve play in their rooms. (many actually left the school for greener pastures the next year- go figure!) I’m guessing most just left them on the shelf, and pointed to them when someone came in and asked about indoor recess. 🙄
Game rules in a classroom can be fluid for many games. I always would tell kids- I will teach you how to play the game, if you can all agree on rule changes (House Rules) play that way, but don’t ask me to be the rules arbitrator, I will only follow the actual rules as printed.
Games and Retirement
I still like games, but I also know that I don’t have an opportunity to play them. You see, Sue isn’t as into games as I am. We will buy a game, but then it just sits in the box. I’ve been part of some gaming groups, but they either become irregular or (silly me) I want to spend time with Sue, who doesn’t want to play games. I decided last year to stop buying games and just play them at places like Gen Con. A lot of the games in my current library are now either out of print or considered “classics.” I do have a number of role playing games and still buy some books so keep up with rules. Finding a group to regularly play a long Role Playing Campaign can be almost impossible. My last three attempts ended badly. Two just stopped when the DM didn’t schedule the next session. The third, it just was a system I didn’t like, so once the adventure was over, I stopped.
Game Night
For the longest time I’m been looking at hosting a game night locally. It seemed that the Geocaching community has regularly scheduled events for a bunch of reasons, but no one had put together a game night. I had been burned by the caching community years ago, along with being an introvert, it has taken a lot for me to decide to try it. Figuring the right night was hard as well as location. I asked the local game store about a space… They had maybe a table, and other things already on the schedule. I checked with a local micro-brewery and they closed before I could decide on a date or time. I asked my local pizza place and they said Saturday would work great… Geocachers tend to cache all day Saturday and aren’t as interested in events on those days. I decided to try again with my local pizza place and just asked to have their backroom on a Wednesday- I have Wednesdays off from work and most of the other regular events don’t happen on Wednesdays.
Only time will tell if this will work or not.
What’s your Favorite Game?
As you can tell from this I’ve played a bunch of Role playing games and do enjoy putting on the persona of a different character. I tend to be the guy who finally just dives right in because I get tired of the group constantly debating options- like the monster can’t hear us chatting about what to do next. Of the board games I currently have each has their plusses and minuses. Some I’ve had a chance to play, others, I purchased and have never played.
As a recess game I’d have to say Oshi (no longer in print) is one of my favorites. I actually made a second game board and pieces so more kids could play it. It’s a two player game in which the objective is to get 7 points. You gain points by pushing your opponents pieces off the board. It can be played quickly and the rules are simple to understand. The kids think of it as Chess, but it isn’t at all that complicated.
For longer play I like King of Tokyo, but having played with elementary students I try to avoid the expansion rules. In this game you are a Kaiju and attacking Tokyo. The objective is to get 20 victory points (also called fame) you gain points by staying in Tokyo or by cards you can purchase using energy. The kids like this because you are a monster destroying a city, and who would like destroying a city?
The LEGO Group sets aside a day each year for their employees to play. Denmark is the second happiest country in the world… coincidence? In the time of doomscrolling we all need to break- embrace your inner child and play.