Yesterday we hit a local antique shop. A lot of old media tie-in games, but we were really looking for a carpenter’s box to store Wendy supplies.
I’ve been mulling over a conversation I had with a friend of mine years ago. He hates boardgames. They make him want to run away screaming, he says, when anyone mentions them. He says he just wants to make stuff up on his own. As do I, but I don’t mind the more constrained structures of play and creativity. In doing research for this blog and project, I ran across an interesting post on Old Is the New New suggesting a spectrum of play. At one end, ludus, at the other, paidia. Boardgames tend toward the ludus end of the spectrum—especially the eurogames/designer games we tend to favor—but we have some games that move toward paidia. Once Upon a Time comes to mind. I’m still considering our various engagements with this spectrum of play—at least when it comes to games.
Last night Dana and I sat down to an actual Cheapass Game. Dana had it in her mind to play one of the white envelope games after our play with the re-released Titanic games box of Kill Doctor Lucky. Her sweet tooth was pinging, so we pulled Enemy Chocolatier out and assembled the pieces (picture by BGG user Dannysland). The schtick for Cheapass Games is that they provide you with the very least bit of stuff you need for a game.
A couple of sheets for a board. Maybe some speciality cards for you to slice up and shuffle. And a rule book. You might needs pawns, tokens, money, dice, playing cards…but these things should be stuff you have in other games or just floating around the house. Their concept is interesting, and it lets them put out a lot of material. And it suggests a certain kind of environmental friendliness, though that’s not really on their agenda, at least not in the way that it is for Blue Orange Games.
But we’re talking about Enemy Chocolatier. It’s a pretty good little game with a fun theme that’s a bit awkwardly pasted onto the rules. You pay money to buy parts of neighborhoods that double as resources for a candy factory. As you control neighborhoods, you get money and victory points that move you toward buying more resources and winning the game. No randomness, a bit of area control/area enclosure, and an economic engine. You can play it cutthroat by thwarting obvious attempts to take over neighborhoods, but the game plays pretty tamely with two. Nevertheless, I won easily. And again, this did not leave Dana feeling real good about the experience.
So what to do? We dissected the game a bit, noting where an early check on my expansionist tendencies would have helped her. We talked about how the game had some good structures that kept me from stomping entirely when she saw that her cause was lost. In this game, we couldn’t blame dice or cards. There was a moment early on when her face brightened and then darkened as she realized what I was doing and why, and she immediately could project the implications of that moment into the future. It’s not an easy discussion to have with your spouse/partner, this talk about strategy and insight. Because the talk goes to places about choices they make, and it’s a strong temptation to use that to point to other choices they might make—or have made—away from the gaming table.
So we’re thinking about cooperative games tonight.
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