MY FAVOURITE GAME
Annie Norman is planning to survive and escape from Atlantis
Ever heard of an Atlantean Swirler? Ha, that got your attention. Games can and do impact us long after that first or last play, so it doesn’t come as much of a surprise to you that the game I have chosen to talk about is one from my childhood. Combine nostalgia, simpler times and no crushing weight of adulthood and you have that wonderful, wonderful warm feeling.
Escape from Atlantis has been remade in various forms over the years, and my childhood memories involve the original, oh yes, with the Swirler. Though I no longer have this exact copy, I have made sure there is one on the shelf. Swirler and all.
Like many games that burrow their way into your heart, it’s simple, yet the player has enough agency to make some decisions, so that it doesn’t get boring. And also like many classics, there are lots of opportunities to screw over the other players, traditionally your nearest and dearest. Instead of bickering over something trivial, surely sending a sea monster to eat their people is far healthier?
I love a game that has ‘stuff’. Sod little cardboard chits, I want cool plastic accessories I can make noises with – like the dreaded sea monster (rargh!) or the friendly helper dolphin (eek eek!). It was probably an early indicator that tabletop wargaming would come to engulf my life like I could never have foreseen. Imagine how excited I was when I first discovered Warhammer and not only is there “cool plastic stuff” but you can paint it too. MIND. BLOWN. I never found myself drawn to card games, so that personal desire for micro scale goodies is certainly powerful.
As the boardgame industry has grown to be an unstoppable behemoth, I mostly find myself drawn back to these simpler games. For me, a huge part of gaming is the social aspect and an excuse to spend time with people, so the less nosing in rule books and more chanting “SWIRLER, SWIRLER!” with friends and family, while drinking a nice cocoa and reaching across for the biscuits is what I’m here for.
The artwork on the box also gives me a huge boost of nostalgia – back when film posters, pulp comics and boardgames art were hard to distinguish from each other. It’s like a painted representation of what you see in your head when you’re moving the little bits of plastic around. They’re not figures, they’re terrified Atlanteans wanting to find new land, they’re cliffs crumbling and smashing into the ravaging ocean, the mighty octopus coming to rip your boat to shreds. Imagination is something the world seems to be encouraging less of as more and more things are possible, but there is a wholesome excitement in using basic objects to set off these epic events inside your head. And the best bit about this is that it is purely for fun. Fun! Who else remembers that? Imagination purely for the sake of imagination, not to be ‘productive’ or as part of a larger goal.
It’s funny how taking a break from the world and relaxing can be in the form of imagining some horrific life or death situation and the loss of everything you once held dear but, hey that’s humans, I wouldn’t even want to imagine how big the FAQ and errata section on humanity is. “Who wants to pretend they’re drowning this evening? Yay!”
As an old friend said, “It’s not the games you play, it’s who you play them with.”
Instead of bickering over something trivial, surely sending a sea monster to eat their people is far healthier?