Not Too Bored of Board Games

It’s been a couple years since Game Fanatic started playing Dungeons and Dragons and it’s pretty amazing he is still playing. He tends to get bored of just about everything after some time. It’s not so much that he’s still enjoying it but it is his one social outlet during the week. He has lost interest in the game and started looking for some alternatives. Through his favorite website, he found recommendations for a couple games and was very keen to get at least one or the other. The game he really wanted is called Small World and is apparently sort of like Risk, but different. Game Fanatic checked the website of the best games shop in the area and discovered it cost $100. On the same website was advertised Arkham Horror, a game based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthullu Mythos,  which also interested him. That was listed for half the price so he was leaning towards that one due to lower cost.

We went into Perth to the shop, discovered Small World had sold out, then looked at Arkham Horror, which  showed a price of $110, considerably higher than what he’d seen online. I hadn’t seen the website so decided not to pursue it at that point in case Game Fanatic had misunderstood what was listed online. After browsing the hundreds of board games, we left it for that day. When we returned home I confirmed that Game Fanatic had been correct about the price discrepancy. The following week we happened to be near Perth again, so we stopped at the shop again. We’d been told Small World would be in that week (on the previous visit) but apparently it had sold out quite quickly again. I queried someone in charge about the price discrepancy on Arkham Horror. The guy checked the website and said that the picture and price were correct but it supposed to be for an expansion pack rather than the original and the wrong text had been listed. I suggested they might want to fix that error and left it at that.

Game Fanatic had done research on more games during the week so we browsed several other games of interest. But I felt he really would only have been satisfied with the Arkham Horror so we got that despite the much higher price. When I went up to pay, the shop person gave us a generous discount of $30, which was much appreciated. So it worked out quite nicely for us on that one.

It took some time to work out how to play the game. It has heaps of pieces, a fairly large game board, and it takes considerable time to set up. It’s targeted to ages 12+ but Lego Lover did join in for a while when we  started out. His interested waned, though, and  he hasn’t played again. We really enjoyed this game once we got going with it. I think up to eight players can join in so I could imagine the game play being different, depending on the number of players and how well they handle cooperative play.

Soon after playing Arkham Horror, Lego Lover asked to play Monopoly. A couple years ago we bought a wooden box which contained Monopoly, Cluedo (Clue), checkers, chess and dominoes. We’d not used it much at all. I think we played Cluedo once and perhaps dominoes but nothing else. The Monopoly pieces were still in bags and shrink wrap. We finally played this one night while we were in Margaret River on holidays a few weeks ago. Lego Lover had a great time with it and we played for what seemed like forever. We eventually quit playing for the night because it was so late. The next day, we started again but it seemed obvious the game was nowhere near being finished. So the game was called and I turned out to be the winner, having collected a fair bit of cash along the way.

Also while on holiday, we found a little games shop in Busselton and found a copy of the Settlers of Catan at a much better price than any shops around Perth. So I bought that game, too, and we played that the following night. That went reasonably well, even though we weren’t quite sure of some of the rules. We didn’t have access to the Internet so couldn’t get more information to help us play. The Scientist won quite convincingly at that one. We’ve played once more since we were home and the Scientist won that time too. I think I’m not so good at that one but I can see Game Fanatic might be good with some practice. Lego Lover misunderstood something at some point, got upset and quit playing well before the end of the game. But he really likes this game despite having trouble on that occasion.

More recently, I found another game of interest, called Carcassone, at a good price and bought that one too. This one involves using tiles to build up cities, roads, cloisters and farms. Each player has follower pieces used to claim parts of the maps as they are completed. This one was particularly enjoyable because it has really simple game play, is short and plays well with just two players.  I’m pretty sure we’ll eventually be adding several expansions to the base game. Lego Lover seems to like this one best, possibly because he managed to win both the games he’s played.

Lego Lover has declared that he prefers board games to video games because they are more interactive. He’s been wanting to play more and more board games recently. We’ve also played checkers and dominoes and he’s just told me he wants to play chess with me. That should be interesting since I’m not very good at the game.