If You’re Not, You Should Be–Board Games

This series is designed as a way to call attention to things, practices, places, activities, or anything else you might not be aware of that I think are worth checking out. I try to cover as wide a variety of topics as I can.

One of the ways I enjoy passing the time, especially on rainy days, is to play board games. Or at least it is when I can convince someone else to play with me, since this activity seems to be marching towards obscurity. Before I begin, I should point out that I don’t partake in any of the “hardcore” board games, the kind that you have to go to a specialty shop to find and have a rule book as thick as the YellowPages. I’m sure there are plenty I’d enjoy, but I have a hard enough time convincing people to play the simple ones; I wouldn’t have any luck handing them the manual with a “read this in the next two hours and then we can start the 6 hours game.” With that in mind, here are a few of my favourite games.

Quarto

This is a simple game my brother had when we were growing up that I recently stumbled upon in a store. It’s played on a four by four grid with 16 pieces. Each piece has four attributes – colour, height, shape, and fill. Players alternate placing pieces on the grid with the goal of placing four in a row that share one of the four attributes. The twist is the piece a player will place is chosen by their opponent.

Abalone

In this game, each player has 14 marbles that they can move on a hexagonal board. marbles can be moved in lines of two or three and can push an opponents marbles provided the marbles in your line outnumber those of the opponent. The object is to push six of your opponents marbles off of the board.

The aMAZEing Labyrinth

The board is constructed of tiles depicting pathways, randomly placed to create a maze. Each player is given 6 cards with items on them that correspond to items on specific tiles making up the maze. Players take turns sliding the tiles in the maze to attempt to make a path for their piece to reach the item displayed on their current card. Because each player is working at creating a different path, what initially seems like a simple game quickly requires a fair amount of strategy.

Sleep well,

DTE