Take your board game beyond Monopoly and Yahtzee
Board games come in a wide variety of themes and strategies for all ages
Collen Hatcher and his family had always enjoyed gathering around the kitchen table for a game of crib, or a classic board game, like Monopoly.
But a fateful trip to the annual Hal-con Sci-fi, Fantasy and Comic Convention eight years ago tuned Hatcher into the true art and complexity of the board game.
“(There was) a room devoted strictly to board games,” he said. “A massive library of games, and volunteers who’d teach the game to you.”
The event stoked a passion for games in Hatcher.
“I guess, more of an addiction,” he said. “It opened up a new world for me — now, I own over 130 games.”
Step outside the influence of iconic games like Monopoly, Clue or Scrabble and the world of the board — or tabletop — game bursts with creativity, imagination and fun gameplay.
Hatcher gives the example of one of his favourite games, Carcassonne, a tile-placement game set in medieval-era France where players achieve points by building roads, castles, monasteries and other landmarks.
“The theme is important (as well as) the artwork,” Hatcher says regarding games of this nature. “The people that build these games spent a lifetime creating the artwork and mechanics; some of them are extremely in-depth.”
Hatcher admits an irony in this COVID-19 age regarding another all-time favourite: Pandemic. Players work together to deal with several plagues hitting the world’s population in an example of a cooperative game.
“You’re assigned different roles (such as a medic), and you have to work together and make decisions together,” he said. “It gets fun; you can get into super-heated arguments.”
Hatcher enjoys discovering the multiple possible scenarios during game play.
“Some of these games you never play the same way twice,” he said.
Patricio Garcia of Halifax, who has collected games since 2012, is also an unbridled board game enthusiast.
“I used to deliver food, before the days of Uber Eats or Skip the Dishes, as a side job,” Garcia said. “I used to call it my board game job as it helped pay for games.”
Garcia’s favourite games include Bus, in which players buy up bus routes and transport as many passengers as possible, in what Garcia calls “a heavy strategy game.” Another favourite is Scythe, set in an alternate-history version of the 1920s where people co-exist with high-tech machinery.
Garcia has amassed 542 games so far, but that doesn’t include expansions, which are available for some games and which allow one to add items like game pieces, additional board space or extended game play.
“When you include expansions, I top out at 1,030,” he said.
In Stratford, Prince Edward Island, Samantha and Logan Mills don’t simply enjoy setting up a tabletop game, they’re also behind the counter recommending the best games to people of all ages at Owl’s Hollow in Charlottetown.
The husband-and-wife team are part-time employees there and have a keen understanding of what makes a game both fun and aesthetically pleasing. The themes run the gamut from card games to elaborate concepts involving sci-fi and fantasy and even vineyards, the coffee industry and art.
“Almost any theme you can think of, there’s a board game for it,” Logan said.
Some of Logan and Samantha’s favourites include Canvas, a card game where the goal is to create an artistic piece by building a stack of transparent cards.
“It’s so pretty, you can hang it on a wall like art,” Samantha said.
Logan and Samantha also enjoy games like Circadians: First Light and Root, both of which involve unique worlds and characters and have something closer to a storyline. The Board Game Geek website describes Root, for example, as a game of adventure and war where players battle for control of a vast wilderness.
“A good theme is fun,” Logan said. “It’s a fun story — you can make a fun story as you go.”
Such adventure-oriented games make for strong replay value as well. As Samantha said: “I want to play it a bunch of different times and not have it be the same.”
While many of these games are geared more for older children and adults, Logan and Samantha point to the many family-oriented games that are well-designed and have cool concepts. There are also junior versions of some of these same games.
One particular game has fallen out of fashion … and that’s Pandemic.
“Nobody buys it anymore,” Samantha said. “It’s actually a really good game, but I think it’s a little too real.”
The last two years greatly disrupted how the board game community operates, but most people found ways to keep the excitement alive, whether by simply playing with their housemates or going online. And businesses that cater to the community also adjusted to the changes.
Dan Morton, manager of Midgard Gaming in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland and Labrador, said the pandemic forced him to pivot his business in a different direction. PRE-COVID, Midgard was more like a board game cafe where you could play a tabletop game or use one of 10 computers and six X-boxes. But pandemic restrictions closed off those options.
“We didn’t know how much longer it would be before we could let people come back in,” he said.
What he ended up doing was selling off all the computers and X-boxes and built up the retail side.
“A tangible thing people can take home and experience on their table,” he said.
He said the pandemic forced people to interact more with those they live with, and board games were a perfect way to do that. It was also a needed break from the computer screens during lengthy lockdowns and with work and school moving online.
Morton compares falling into the hobby of board games to getting involved in the Marvel Universe series of films, or finding out about new musicians and songs you hadn’t heard before.
Just as enjoying a movie like Iron Man, for example, can open your eyes to the whole Marvel Universe, or a cover song may direct you to the artists who performed the original, playing a so-called gateway game can uncover a new world of fun tabletop games.
“It doesn’t have to be two hours of Monopoly before you flip the board because someone bankrupted you,” Morton said, adding the typical gateway games are usually ones like The Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride.
Morton said the pandemic, plus higher costs for going out, has shown “it’s OK to be at home and hanging out with people there. You still want to go out, but you don’t necessarily want to do it all the time.”
In Newfoundland and Labrador, Morton said he wants to see a growth of the community locally. He hopes to set up more regular monthly events and even a version of retreats held by some American game communities.
“We’re trying not to step on the toes on weekly get-to-* gethers with friends,” he said.
In Nova Scotia, Hatcher says he’s missed gathering with other gamers over the past couple of years. He said it was once possible to set up gaming events at his home through social media.
“We met complete strangers this way — we don’t do that anymore,” Hatcher said. “As a family, we’re not bringing anyone new into our home, which is a shame.”
He hopes this year’s Halcon — which will run at full capacity for the first time since 2019 — will be the trigger to get people in the board game scene excited again.
“People that love board games, we’re addicted.”
Samantha and Logan Mills said the board game community is extremely welcoming to newcomers and it’s never been easier to learn how to play any game thanks to social media.
“If you get a new game and start to feel overwhelmed, you can watch a Youtube video that will take you through it step by step,” Samantha said.
For some, however, the classic games remain the best. Suzanne Milner of Windsor, Nova Scotia, said, before the pandemic, she’d host international students at her home with a game night once a week, complete with pizza and snacks.
“We always started with Yahtzee and then moved on to Clue and Scrabble,” she said.
But the international students stopped coming due to the pandemic. It was months later when she decided to restart game night with a group of friends.
Milner enjoys the familiarity of old favourites like Monopoly and Yahtzee.
“Yahtzee can get pretty friggin’ competitive,” she said.
And, about Monopoly: “There’s something about being a land baron in a game you can never do in life, and you have bragging rights if you do well.”
Milner is happy to once again play her favourite games with her friends.
“You don’t have to go out and spend money to have fun. You don’t have to do hair and makeup to play a board game.”