The 40-Year-Old Geek

What's wrong with me?

Last night I was in a coffee shop playing a board game. Not just any board game. Take a look at that photo to the right. That's a game called Nexus Ops. My 12-year-old son loves it, and why wouldn't he? It has little gummy armies fighting for control of a thin cardboard monolith. You roll lots of dice. There are fungoids and lava leapers and you go on secret missions. Perfectly understandable what a 12-year-old would see in this.

But I'm 40.

Nexus Ops is really just an excuse to play with toys. Surely, a man of my age should be playing something more mature like Bridge or Chess. Right?

As I sat at the table last night it occurred to me that I was at least 11 years older than everyone else at the table. I had to keep reminding myself -- I don't still live with my parents and I haven't for twenty years. I've kissed lots of girls (okay, nine). I've never seen an episode of Star Trek that didn't have Captain Kirk in it, and I've only seen that Holy Grail movie once. I can't stand They Might Be Giants and I could give two squirts for any sci-fi/fantasy show that isn't aired on a major network. I have my standards.

But when it comes to boardgames, you might as well just paint a 'G' on my chest and strap on the red cape. I even have a boardgame blog (don't tell anyone). I have to be honest, I felt really out of place last night, surrounded by twenty-somethings and blue hair and nose rings and nervous attempts at wit which were really just excuses to be loud. Of course, these infractions weren't occurring at our gaming tables, but I just wanted to give you an idea of the atmosphere of the coffee shop where we play. Hell, I don't think I would have been cool enough for this place when I was twenty-five. At forty, I wouldn't have been surprised if an archeologist grabbed me by the arm and shouted, "I found one! Dust him. Careful, his arm might snap off."

So, there I sat. While other, responsible adults were out doing responsible adult things (like reading bedtime stories, paying bills, snuggling with a loved one, getting drunk, surfing porn, considering plastic surgery, drowning kittens, planning terrorist attacks, etc.) I was pushing my fake little armies around fighting pretend battles.

What a goob.

Mille Bournes

Mille Bournes is a game I played quite a bit of in my youth. Thinking back on it, it's hard to remember why we played this so much, as it was such a frustrating game.

Recently I was going through some old-school games with my kids, to see if they might enjoy the kinds of games I had enjoyed when I was young. I probably should have skipped Mille Bournes since I don't have any specific recollections of particularly enjoying it.

For those who have never played, Mille Bournes is a racing game with cards. Mille Bournes is French for 1000 miles, or something. The basic way to put distance between you and the starting gate is to play mileage cards. The first player whose mileage cards add up to or exceed 1000 wins the race. Points are calculated and several races are run until one player hits 5000 pts.

There are, of course, several ways to punish your opponents, and that's where all the hair-tearing "fun" comes in. First of all, you have to play a ROLL card in order to play mileage cards. Don't have a ROLL card in your hand? Good luck. You get to draw one card per turn, and if it's not a ROLL card, too bad. Several fun-filled turns can be exhausted trying to draw a ROLL card.

Oh, so you've finally drawn a ROLL card? Yea! Go ahead, play it. I dare ya. Because as soon as you play a ROLL card, someone can come along and play a HAZARD card on top of you. For instance: flat tire, accident, out of gas, etc. You get the idea. Of course, there are REMEDY cards you can play (spare tire, repair, gas, etc) but you have to either have the specific card in your hand or (and this is so much fun!) you have to draw it from the deck. Oh, and once you've drawn it from the deck, you then have to play a ROLL card. If you have one...and so on.

Naturally, once you finally play that ROLL card and can get back on your way, your opponent sticks it to you and you get to start all over again. Sound fun?

Well, guess what kiddies, it's not. It's just as frustrating as I remembered playing as a kid.

You have been warned.

Recent Gaming With the Kids

Been playing alot of games with the kids lately.

Shear Panic
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This is the game that blew everyone away last year at Essen. What can
I say -- it's a decent, mostly tactical little game, with incredible
bits. Certainly not worthy of the drum-banging folks were doing last
year. I think sometimes people are just in the mood to get excited
about something, and last year they picked Shear Panic.

Ex & Hopp
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Played this two player with Alec. Pretty simple, and really made me
think of Balloon Cup. I hadn't played it in years, but it must have
subconsciously inspired me. Basically, if you made the cubes/cards in
Balloon Cup all one color, and the object of the game was to collect
the most cubes (vs. winning trophies), you'd have Ex & Hopp. Alec
kicked my butt.

Monopoly (Star Wars)
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Yes, really. I don't think my kids had ever played Monopoly -- at
least they hadn't played it with me. I mostly chose it for nostalgia
value, having not played it in over a decade. But I remember really
loving it when I was a kid, so I figured my kids would love it too.
And you know what? They did. The interesting thing about Monopoly is
that it's REALLY easy to teach. For a game with so many rules, you can
really teach as you play. I suppose that's because your decisions are
frequently limited and/or obvious. Another thing was -- we played with
the rules in the box. No house rules -- and the game only lasted about
90 minutes. I was shocked. I remember this game taking hours and hours
when I was a boy. But that was when we filled up Free Parking with
every bonus known to man and made hundreds of side deals that
prolonged the game. When you play by the rules, the game really
doesn't take that long. After we finished I told them that there was a
Sponge Bob version available, at which point my daughter Valori BEGGED
for a copy. So...

Monopoly (Sponge Bob)
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Okay, so maybe I spoil my kids a little. But now, as a "single" Dad,
it's hard to say no. Especially when it involves a game of any kind. I
picked up a copy of this the next day and it was a smash success. Both
of my kids are now Monopoly lovers. Please don't call child services
on me.

Survive
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Okay, so I was in the mood for old school Parker Bros. games. A few
years ago I found an incomplete copy of this at a thrift store. About
a year later I found ANOTHER incomplete copy, this time in French, no
less. I combined the two to make one good copy, with some French
tiles. This is a recent favorite of the kids. I couldn't play it with
Valori when she was younger because she would get upset when the
sharks and monsters would eat her swimmers. These days she understands
it's eat or be eaten. Why don't they republish games like this? Seems
like kids would go nuts for them.

Parcheesi
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Can you tell I was in an old school mood? I'm a big fan of games like
Sorry! and Parcheesi, because they're really just multi-player
backgammon. Actually, Parcheesi is a much better game than Sorry!, but
Sorry! will do in a pinch. It's just fun and there's always an
exciting finish. Valori won this time, beating me by one space. She
was delighted!

Risk
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I figured I'd give this a try with Alec, since he likes fighting
games. Valori opted out when she saw the map. I guess it looked too
complicated for her. I must say I've really raised a great little
Euro-gamer, because after awhile Alec started complaining about the
luck. So I asked him why he liked a game like Verflixxt that also had
alot of luck. He replied, "well that's a short game so it's okay." I
was so proud. He ended up forfeiting the game after I had him
surrounded in Europe. Heh. There are still some things a Dad can teach
his son -- even in a game with so much "luck"

Fluxx
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Boy, you can see I was really pulling out some doozies. Basically I
was cleaning out some space in the old garage and I found all my third
tier games. What the heck, right? Some games are so stupid they're
fun. I found that to be the case with Fluxx. Boy, this game is stupid.
But Alec really liked it and I think the fact that it was absurd is
how we extracted so much entertainment from it. It didn't hurt that he
won FOUR GAMES IN A ROW. For a game with almost no thinking required,
I was having a really unlucky run. Pretty silly stuff -- but if you're
going to play a silly game, I guess Fluxx will do.