The Game of Life. Do not play this game when you are drunk and angry!
This past week I spent a lovely vacation with some friends on the outer banks of North Carolina. It was a fantastic time spent lazing the days away on the beach, in the hot tub, in the pool, etc. However, the very first day we arrived there was rain drizzling down and a bit of wind blowing. Not such great beach weather, so I suggested that we play some games.
Of course, I took way too many games along. I knew this would happen… if I didn’t take games, it would rain all weekend and I would really miss them. If I did take games, we would end up not playing them. I erred on the side of caution and package a small plastic box with the following:
- Attribute
- Barbarossa
- Bohnanza
- Carrousel
- Diamant
- Elk Fest
- Exxtra
- Felix: The Cat in the Sack
- Mamma Mia!
- No Thanks!
- Shanghaien
- Sushizock im Gockelwok
- Ticket to Ride
Ok, maybe it was a big plastic box of games.
So what did we end up playing? Two games of Exxtra and one long game of the Game of Life.
Exxtra
Exxtra was a blast, as always. I love the fact that it is a simple roll and move game featuring a ton of interesting decisions and tension. The press your luck element keeps the excitement high on every turn. I have seen (and pulled off) many come from behind victories by rolling over and over again when someone else is close to the win. It doesn’t always work but does enough to keep me trying it!
I managed to win the first game, which bothered one of my friends enough that she declared she would play specifically to screw me over in the second game! An interesting strategy which is hard to do over and over again without damaging your board position pretty heavily. I actually pulled a come from behind miracle in the second game. I ended up being 3 away from the finish, with the next player 1 away ready to win on her turn. I rolled eight or nine times without getting an X until I finally got the double threes that would give me immediate victory! A total crap shoot, but it did work.
Exxtra is an excellent press your luck dice game. The version I have is out of print, but a newer edition called Excape was released this year and is available for purchase now (Amazon).
The Game of Life
After playing a German board game, the consensus of the group was to play something that we already knew. This lead us to go through the board games that came with the house we rented, and ended up with us playing The Game of Life. I was hesitant to do so but swallowed my designer game snootiness and got ready to play. And we played! And played… and played…
There were a few problems with this game. The first is that no one could remember the rules. We ended up stumbling over them repeatedly… I found the irony in this quite wonderful. The second is that we were all getting fairly intoxicated by this point, which lead to goofiness and slow turns. And finally, we are all quite terrible to each other, and used the almost complete random nature of the game events that unfolded as excuses to berate each other!
By the time our three hour game of life finished, we all agreed (or at least I think we did) that it was way too long and mind numbing. The thing that surprised me about the game is that most of my friends were not bothered at all by the very few actual decisions present in this board game. They were quite content to see the events unfold with very limited control on their part. This was interesting to me, although not unsurprising. This group of friends seems to enjoy simple games (Exxtra has been a big hit), but no one is anywhere close to a gamer and collector like me.
I realize now that they were enjoying the game experience over the game mechanics. This is totally valid and understandable. I do this with games as well, just with more defined criteria. For them a game is a game; for me a game is a pick up and deliver game, a snowball economic game, a press your luck game, etc. Within each of those categories, I may make the same decision of playing the game with a more interesting theme or experience, rather than one with more “designer” mechanics.
This experience playing Life with my non gamer friends showed me that I have a lot more to learn about how people think about games. Fortunately, we could all agree that Life takes way too long, and won’t be playing it again!
Discussion
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