Focus on: The New Board Games

We’ve all got memories from our childhood surrounding board games – all sitting around with Ma and Pa, grinning like mindless zombie drones enjoying moving coloured bits of plastic around a printed cardboard square... Right?

This much domestic bliss is just creepy... Photograph: Lambert/Getty Images

found at the Guardian Online

 

Well, maybe not quite like that, but board games are a common factor in most of our childhoods - everyone had a shelf of dusty boxes that would get dragged out in the summer holidays or over the Christmas break.

Hungry Hippos. What the hell were they meant to be eating anyway, Xanax?

One of my favourites as a child was Hungry Hungry Hippos, although those slippery little marbles always seemed to escape and disappear into the ether quite quickly.  In fact this happened to most of the board game pieces in my household.  Somewhere in another dimension there is a place filled with stray dice, puzzle pieces, marbles, odd socks and pens.  A sort of final resting place for the essential small pieces of daily living without which Operation would simply be called “Who can make the most buzzing noises” and everyone has a cold left foot.

Pick Up Sticks - or as I like to call it, the Stabby Game

Another favourite childhood game of mine with a million easily lost pieces was called Pick Up Sticks.  A game of deftness and concentration in which players must carefully remove coloured skewers from a pile without disturbing the others. 

A game full of fun for all the family, and I have many happy memories of spending summer afternoons testing my skills against my younger sister. Well until the fateful afternoon when after a particularly tense match descended into a heated discussion about what exactly constituted cheating.  In the absence of any referee the argument was swiftly settled by my 5 year old sister grabbing one of the brightly coloured and questionably sharp skewers and inserting it at high velocity into my arm. Good times...

 

And who doesn’t remember playing Guess Who? or Connect 4 or indulging your inner capitalist pig tycoon with a good old round of Monopoly?  

The old joke goes that board games are for the terminally bored, to be broken out only when trapped inside a bunker with the inlaws amidst an interminable nuclear winter.  But no more!

Board games are experiencing a recent revival with champions such as Chris Hardwick of The Nerdist and all round geek extraordinaire Wil Wheaton being at the forefront of championing what is actually a rather enjoyable way to spend time with friends and family.

With games such as Zombie Dice, Munchkin and Pandemic shooting to the top of the game charts board games are cool again.  No longer the preserve of children, family afternoons and the stuffy middle classes, board games are edgy, they are different and they are a perfect recession friendly way to spend a night in with mates.

This week I’ll be looking at some of my favourite games out at the moment and giving you some handy hints and tips for making your games night more fun than the tired old Saturday night car keys in the fishbowl affair!