Let's face it: gaming is not about winning and losing (despite what Scotty Sore-loser-pants says when you try to console him). It's about the common experience of bringing people together. So this Friday's Friday question addresses just that: what game has produced the most (or fondest) memories for you or your group? Feel free to answer (and share some of those memories) in the comments.
@FarmerLenny answers:
I've probably spent the most time with Monopoly or Risk, but strangely enough, those memories have (for the most part) been repressed. The game for me that carries some of the fondest memories is Kill Dr. Lucky. My brother-in-law introduced me to this game on one of my summer visits, and I promptly ordered a copy from the publisher (whose name on the shipping box produced raised eyebrows when it arrived in the mail). This was before the fancier version came out, but after the original edition. I bought the director's cut, the version with all the creative modes of failure ("The doctor vanishes inexplicably in a cloud of feathers," etc.). When I introduced it to my friends at college, they were skeptical at first, but it soon became a Family Game Night staple (along with Pit, Bang, and Silent Football). Kill Dr. Lucky was always a good time--even when someone else did the doctor in. Runners up in the fond memories category are Dutch Blitz, Pinochle, and Rook, memories of which I've described elsewhere.
@Futurewolfie answers:
Oh man. Despite my relatively recent foray into the deeper world of quality board games, I actually do have a lot of memories of playing board-and-card games with family and friends. We would play Pit very loudly around the dining room table, and the hit French road-racing game Mille Bornes (which I recently discovered is absolutely not fun at all with only 2 players). When it was just me, my sister, and my parents, we would play Sequence, very competitively. I remember playing The Game of Life with my sisters and from what i recall never actually playing with all the rules correctly intact by the end of the game. My mom, who gave me my creativity and love of writing, bought me UpWords and we would play together. My friend Bryan introduced me to Heroclix and I dumped boatloads of my allowance towards that collection. We even built a custom 3D heroclix map with skyscrapers and a truck, which is probably the most productive thing we ever voluntarily did in high school. I realize I kind of broke the "favorite memory" shtick by listing off a dozen memories, but as I didn't really get into board-gaming until recently, all these little memories flow together in the melting-pot of my memories.
Oh yeah, and The Omega Virus.
Your turn. :-)
"Magic the Gathering" has easily produced the most memories for me. It was one of the first games I remember playing with my older brother and when he got bored with it I inherited his cards. I played on and off through middle school, high school, and college, and my collection reflects that. With a huge gap between the very early editions when I was just playing with my older brother's cards to Onslaught and then sporadic smaller gaps.
ReplyDeleteJust picking up those old cards and looking at them makes me want to see what the new editions have and see if I can't wrangle a legacy game with anyone.