Bored Gaming

boredgaming1Videogames are great, right? Fancy graphics with more pixels per gnat’s bollock than you can shake a stick at. Let’s not even get on to the wonders of the cloud and the myriad of online-multiplayer options. I can play games with my friends and not actually have to look at their horrible faces you say?! Fuck yes! Yeah videogames are bloody great. However, despite this magical smorgasbord of wonderful entertainment available at my fingertips, my PC lies mostly dormant, my control pads are uncharged and gathering dust, and the last big sale on Steam (for once) didn’t empty my bank account. So what’s happened? Have I fallen out of love with gaming? Am I finally fed up of getting beaten by pre-teens at a game they’re not even legally able to buy? Has the arrival of my first-born child forced me to finally give up those “childish things” (Never). No, it’s not any of these things, this is much more serious…

…I’ve gotten into Board Gaming.

I’m not quite sure now how it all started, but it had something to do with trying to find an activity my wife and I could enjoy together (behave) that wasn’t computer game or TV related. She has never really been much of a video gamer and, despite my best endeavours, she never will be. Sure, we go out to the cinema and all the usual couples stuff like that, but I wanted something more, something new. It was around this time that I noticed that a friend on Facebook kept banging on about a board game called Pandemic, so I decided to look into it…

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My first surprise was to learn that Pandemic is a cooperative game. Players win or lose together in Pandemic as they rush around the globe trying to prevent the four deadly viruses (which are spreading at an alarming rate) from killing everybody. Shit, that sounds pretty exciting.

boredgaming3I bought the game very soon afterwards. My wife thought I was mad when I got it out, and once I put my pants back on she wasn’t impressed by the game at first either… but she eventually agreed to give Pandemic a go and once we got past the rulebook we were hooked. From then on it was like I was Alice and I’d just fallen the fuck into the rabbit hole. I’ve spent hours browsing the net, reading about games, old and new, that I might want to try. To further fuel my addiction I’ve joined a local board-gaming club, which meets weekly in a pub to discuss and play games that I didn’t even know existed. I’ve even started introducing board games to some of my video-gaming friends. Where will it end? I’m currently obsessed with the X-Wing miniatures game and am busy filling my house with small plastic spaceships.

It’s safe to say that I’ve fallen in love with board games. Things have come a long, long way since the days of Monopoly and Guess bloody Who! With new and exciting games coming out all the time, the hobby is currently booming in popularity as families and groups of friends look to spend quality time away from their screens. It might seem like a step backwards for some but I think it’s awesome and I’m going to try and take as many of you bastards down with me as I can.




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