Growing up, I was very much a games nerd. I still am, really.
I played everything, from role playing games, like AD&D and Harnmaster, to the classics, like Risk and Monopoly, to complex simulation games, like Rise and Decline of the Third Reich and Squad Leader. I played a lot of Warhammer 40K and Blood Bowl too. These days Settlers of Catan is the go-to choice.
I was such a games nerd that I often bought games I didn’t expect to play because I enjoyed learning the rules. Sometimes, after reading the rules of a game, I decided the game wasn’t worth playing, even if I had paid money for it.
From one perspective, it seems like my life up to this point can be characterized as an effort to learn, consider, and understand the rules of the game of living. The decision I face, now that I’ve learned the rules, is whether or not the game is worth playing.
Are there any other game nerds out there? How do you think games have impacted your life?
Board games and card games were a huge part of my childhood. Every holiday was marked with epic battles of kaiser, rummy, canasta and cribbage. Friday “Family” Nights were spent trying to beat my parents at Monopoly (when we were young) and Trivial Pursuit (when we got older). Games on both my mother’s and father’s sides of the family are crucial, fun, competitive and lively.
My partner, on the other hand, came from a quiet, non-game playing family. He likes computer games and video games, and the occasional game of chess. He’s perplexed by card games, can’t shuffle a deck, doesn’t understand what “trick taking” means and sometimes it’s really, really frustrating. How will we bond with our future children? What will we do when Alberta’s snowstorms hit?
On the counter side, I have extremely limited interest in computer games.
We’ve found some common ground with Carcassone, chess and Civilization, but that’s about it.
I guess I’ll have to count on my game-playing friends and family to teach my kids how to beat their mom at Cranium…
Thanks for you reply, Meg!
Ahh, Civilization both great as a board game and as a computer game.
Perhaps, when the kids arrive, it will be the perfect excuse to slowly indoctrinate him into the way of the game. Gateway game: Candyland!
Your reply got me to think about my own dating history and I can’t recall a single girlfriend who was into games in the same way I was. There was often a compromise game, like Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, or a childhood family favorite, but, even then, it wasn’t really about the game for them and they certainly didn’t have a breadth of interest.
Hmm, maybe that should be the target market for my next online dating campaign: single game nerd seeks the same.
Hmmm… the claim here *seems* to be a syllogism gone horrible; a bit like Monty Python’s witch that weighs the same as a duck, since ducks (and wood) float, she must be made of wood – wood burns, so do witches therefore she’s a witch and must be burned
A. Games have rules ( and learning them gives you the option to play or not)
B. LIfe has rules too (or so it is claimed, though they are not listed).
C. Therefore, life is a game (and learning its rules gives you the option to play or not)
But humans already have the agency to opt out of living, whether they’ve learned rules, ignored all reference to rules, or even acknowledged that there *are* rules. (Leaving aside for the moment that we probably need to know what the author’s rules of life are, since there is a claim that they exist.)
For an individual to be in that place where such a stark and irrevocable decision is being considered, of itself, confers the agency to make a choice, surely without any need to describe the nature of the choice as a tidy analogy to, of all things, something as banal as board games.(Much as I love board games – but you know what I mean.)
My 2 cents!
E
For me, the transgression here is that I compare games to something as banal as life.
I’m offering a statement of “fact”, rather than an argument.
A. Games have been an important part of my life.
B. My outlook on life has been deeply influenced by my relationship to games.
C. Here is an interpretation of my life up to this point, derived from that outlook.
I put fact in quotes because I’m also fully embracing perspectivalism. This is one interpretation of the text of my life and by no means the only one — stay tuned for another very soon.
I think my love of video games is also the most pleasing way to explain why I “played” my 20s three times. You always get three chances to clear the level.
I’ve loved board games all my life. Growing up, we did have family game nights from time to time, but I wanted to play far more frequently than my parents’ leisure time would allow.
Since I didn’t have siblings, I often played by myself. Sometimes it was lonely, but I often preferred solitary rounds of Scrabble, chess and Perquackey. No player was more evenly matched to me than me. And sometimes I would make the game into a mini-production by wearing different accessories from my dress-up trunk for each turn. It was all about Flowered Hat Nadine trying to outsmart Mom’s Old Pearls Nadine. And the fact that each version of me knew what the other was up to made the game all the sweeter.
As an adult I still love games. The lessons that linger from my childhood gaming are:
1. I enjoy being with people, but left to my own devices I can make my own fun.
2. I like to compete…against myself.
3. Dressing up is fun!
You should come by and play Settlers soon. It’s been far too long!
Thanks for your reply, Nadine.:)
Every time I played a game against myself I would grow frustrated because there was no way to outfox myself and that meant the outcome was wholly determined by luck. I would lose interest.
It has been! but to play, I’d need to stay up waaaay past my bedtime!