Educational games
A while ago I posted a rather uncharitable thing about board games, in which I confessed to the world that I hated them, and ever since then the world has been queuing up to tell me why I’m wrong. I’ve missed a fair few playdates since, but today I finally had the first lesson in my much-needed re-education, courtesy of Lost Cities. There could hardly have been a better candidate for helping change my mind, since it takes less than 3 hours (a lot less) to play, doesn’t involve batteries or any cheap bits of plastic, isn’t stupidly dice dependent, and takes all of 20 seconds to set up. So today turned out not just to be the first time I played a board game and liked it, it turned out to be the first time I played a board game three times in a row and liked it. I could explain to you how it plays, but it would be entirely redundant - partly because it’s dementedly simple, but mostly because you can just go and download it on Xbox Live and find out for yourselves.
There’s an irony there, of course - that my new favourite board game is actually also a videogame - but I’m going to ignore that for now, just as I’m going to ignore my nagging worry that Lost Cities is really a card game not a board game, so I haven’t broken my jinx at all. Instead, I’m going to revel in the discovery that board games have brilliant stories. Who knew? Lost Cities tells its across the glorious time-lapse pictures that decorate its cards, but my new Favourite Game Story Ever (taking over from New Zealand Story’s ‘Drat! A walrus has stolen my friends!’) is that of Lost Cities stable-mate, Igloo Pop:
The young ice giant has a big problem: he wants to buy fishsticks, but he cannot remember how many and he has nine shopping lists in his basket. So he goes from igloo to igloo and shakes each. In each he listens to the delicious fishsticks bouncing off the igloo walls. When he thinks that the igloo in his hand has the same number of fishsticks as one of his shopping lists, he takes it home. When he gets home, there are no fishsticks in the igloo. Instead, wild and laughing Eskimo children tumble out of the igloo. Excitedly they shout, “Shake us again!” “That was great fun!” “This is super”, thinks the young ice giant. “Now, I have found some new friends to play with!” And, he promptly forgets all about his shopping lists.
What could beat that? Well, I’m hoping 1960: The Making of a President will, since it’s the game I’ve been most frequently recommended since I ‘fessed up to my board game humbug last year. But 1960 won’t be my next piece of gaming re-education. Tomorrow I’m heading down to the South Bank to see if the Hide and Seek festival can cure me of the cripplingly British self-consciousness which tends to ruin pervasive games for me. Jane McGonigal will be running a session of Cruel 2 B Kind, and bunch of other games will give you - if you come along, and why wouldn’t you? - a chance to be a freemason, a beachcomber or a bee. Kazoos, I’m assured, will be provided.
[Photo credit: Library Gamer]
