Sometimes you just have to go old school with your gaming and I’m not talking Pac Man, I’m talking analog. Lately as I have been teaching more games courses I find myself drawn to playing more analog games. Not that I didn’t already, but the pull is strong of these cardboard behemoths. I love good board games with deep narratives (go figure) and good gameplay. I really don’t mind spending 5 hours playing Firefly and spending an hour or so punching out new game pieces and giving them the once over is kind of a joy.
What I do find is that I am becoming more and more of a board game snob. Monopoly holds little interest for me, but I can still deal with Clue as long as I am playing with folks who are willing to amp up the narrative a bit. Nothing like a good mystery to get the blood pumping. Unfortunately for me (in the gaming sense), I have a wonderful, persuasive 6 year old who loves games like Catan Junior, Mice and Mystics, and The Labyrinth, but still regularly want to play games like Candy Land and Life which both make me want to curl up in the fetal position and cry.
Oddly, games like Candy Land, Life, Don’t Break the Ice, and their ilk have made me a better games scholar and teacher. Because they make me ask “Why the hell would anyone want to play these games?”. What is it about these games that makes them so engaging to children? Why does it seem that kids know how to play these games out of the box sans instruction? What did the folks at Milton Bradley know about games that so many other short-lived game developers did not? I mean heck I remember playing Candy Land and Don’t Break the Ice four decades ago and now I am buying these same games for my daughter. Don’t get me wrong I try to sway her toward more complex options at each turn, but these still win out on the occasional rainy afternoon.
The rabbit hole of these games is deep and now I can hear the call of D&D again. It’s a kind of nostalgia. Back in the days when every parent of a role playing child in 
the state of Michigan was afraid that their child would disappear into a hidden tunnel on a college campus and never be seen again. I remember learning to play D&D on the cold black speckled slate countertops in the Physics classroom in the 1980s. Ironically, a black slate table is my primary gaming surface today. Maybe that is why my heart skipped a beat when I saw that table. It called to me. “Take me home, fill me with food, friends, and games”. And I am not one to ignore that call. I will satisfy it and it will satisfy me (and my spawn).
