Board Games – working together vs working apart.
There’s a funny things about the board games I used to play in my youth. If you can picture it: a group of friends and family that generally like each other, maybe even love each other, gather around a table to play a game. During this game they are forced to subvert, conspire, dominate, hinder, bankrupt, surpress and (metaphorically speaking) kill each other.
Monopoly. The very definition of ruthless capitalism. Oops, you landed on my Boardwalk. There’s a hotel? How did that get there? Looks like you’re going to have to mortage off any property you own just to pay your debt to me.
Scrabble. This one felt like the unforgiving environment in a college course. A battle of the mind where the smartest, brainiest kids set the curve and the rest of us are destined to linger in 3rd or 4th place for the rest of the game (er… lives?)
Risk. World domination and death at a global scale… all at the hands of chance. Defending Poland? Better have twice as many men as your attacker because dice rolls that end in ties favor the aggressor.
Chess. By far the most viceral and harrowing. Two armys of equal size and shape. No dice. No chance. Just your intelect and someone else in a smackdown fight to the death. I cried more than once over a game of chess.
I was never really a competitive person. Yet even still these board games would put me in a gloomy mood. Why is my sister trying to eradicate my armys? I owe my friend how much money? How did my dad, who took my queen, both of my knights and half my pawns, turn into such an unrelenting killing machine?
And to tell the truth, even winning a board game like this would make me a little sour. I felt like I had gotten away with murder. Lied, stole, and decieved just to get ahead.
So you can imagine the joy I felt when a friend told me about a new board game. A board game where you and your friends work together and thus win or lose together. A co-op board game!
The name of the game is Pandemic. It tasks the players with stemming the tide of 4 viruses world wide and ultimately finding a cure for all of them. It’s tense to say the least, but playing with friends… relying on them, trusting them and cooperating with them is something I’ve never experienced in a board game. As a result, regardless if we won or lost, I felt that much closer to the people I’ve played with. And really that’s how it should be shouldn’t it? These are your friends and family after all.
I’ve been borderline obsessed with the game since I’ve bought it.
But I think that’s just making up for the years of emotional scarring from playing Chess with my dad. (who I’ve still never beaten).
