The Ever Growing Board Gaming Hobby

Board gaming is becoming more and more popular. It is a hobby that now spans every age, background and interest. Whether you're looking for a game that last 10 minutes or wanting a game that lasts 10 hours, both are easily found within the gaming world and the options just keep on growing.

My keen interest (okay, okay… obsession) in board gaming is fairly new having properly gotten into it about a year ago. So, what got me started, why do I love it so much and why should you give it a try?

Where to start?

I'd say that my keen interest in board gaming started when I was introduced to Catan but in reality, it was before that. We visited my friends house for dinner and her two kids wanted to show us exploding kittens. Now, we already loved a standard card game but this is totally
different. For those of you that don't know it, it's a card game for 2 to 5 players that takes approximately 15 minutes to play. It's fast paced, wild (if you have seen the peculiar cards you know what I mean!) and very tense. Essentially, the premise of the game is to not get blown up and the more cards that are left in the deck to pick up, the higher chance you have of that happening. The last one standing wins! After purchasing a copy ourselves we delved into the world of Exploding Kittens. When they had a sale on we purchased a number of their wacky games including Throw Throw Burrito (and it's partner and expansion Throw Throw Avocado), Poetry for Neanderthals, A Little Wordy and Bears Vs Babies. Games nights were now afoot and when family and friends came for dinner hours of fun was had. I mean, who doesn't want to throw squashy burritos and avocados at their uncle?!

A little while later we visited our friends and stayed the weekend. They had recently purchased Catan, the extremely popular settlement building game. The downside? There's only two of them and you require three plus players. And so we learnt Catan for the first time (this is where the gin and chocolates come out) and we really enjoyed it!

After returning home, my husband and I decided that we wanted to play some more board games ourselves. We were fed up with watching loads of TV on those dark wintery nights when you couldn't go out and fancied a change. The hunt started for some good two player games and that is when we got completely hooked on the hobby.

Date night elevated

Hours of strategical, brain teasing fun began. Not to mention nights of competition. Engine builders fast became a favourite of ours after we started on Wingspan, a relaxing point scoring, bird collecting game. Everdell came next after capturing our attention with its beautiful Everdell
tree and adorable resources. Now that we'd gotten the hang of how engine building games worked we ventured into Terraforming Mars - a more complicated and longer game consisting of strategic card collecting and resource gathering much like its predecessors despite their varying themes. We'd spend hours playing and replaying these games. Trying to beat eachother but also trying to beat our previous scores. ‘Best of 3!’ has become a much more commonly used phrase.

Essentially, games night draws people together. You're not all staring at a screen not talking to eachother. Rather you're discussing your play options, laughing and joking about what an awesome ‘engine’ you've built and how you're gonna win and just generally chatting with your friends and family.

Vs or Co-op?

Now the above mentioned engine builders, although competitive, are not overly so. Yes there's a winner but you're working on your own score, cards and resources so there's very little ‘take that!’ action happening.

There are of course much more competitive games out there and then there are cooperative games. You can choose how friendly or unfriendly you're feeling with your choice of games (and fellow players).

Pandemic was our first cooperative board game and we were instantly impressed. Playing against the game rather than against eachother made for a great team vibe. It's a game we taught to family and friends easily as working together means you can teach them the game and still win together. You know when you learn a new game but you don't win for the first few goes because everyone's done this before except you? Well that doesn't happen here. It's a good way to improve communication and see how well you work as a team.

So many options!!!

Now, I've only mentioned a few games here. Our collection is fast growing and consists now of games like Takenoko (a tile placing, objective achieving adorable panda game); Targi (great two player strategy); Earth (another fabulous engine builder which is new to our collection); High
Frontier 4 All (an extremely heavy rocket scientist game that we are STILL yet to properly delve into); Rummikub (a group favourite); Jaipur (quick and easy 2 player card and resource collecting game); and more.

I cannot state this enough - there is something out there for everyone! It doesn't matter who your gaming group consists of, whether it's you and your other half, all the kids included, your gaming friends (hard-core gamers or those just up for a laugh) or even your grandma. There is literally a game to suit everyone. It doesn't matter if you like wildlife, sci-fi, music, dragons, or anything else, there's a game out there for it. It's unbelievable how fast the hobby is growing, how many people are taking to it, and how many games are being created and released. It's a never ending and always growing joy.

Now you're hooked…

Okay. So now you're hooked. You've started playing and researching as many games as you can. What next?

For us it was the UK Games Expo at the NEC and let me tell you, it does not disappoint! Albeit a little overwhelming you can learn games that have been out for a while, have just been released or that haven't even been printed yet. With designers and gamers left right and center there are loads of people to play games with and loads of people there ready to teach you something new. There's loads of games for kids to try too with a massive family section. Why not compete in a tournament or go to the bring and buy to find second hand games at a discounted rate? It's a fantastic day out (or two, or three). I'd highly recommend it and hey, we even met WALL-E and the Daleks.