Sometime last year I re-discovered a fun childhood past-time, playing board games. My re-discovery (in fact this was my second re-discovery, but that is a topic for another day) unearthed something I did not think I would find: there are board games for adults! Like most Americans my age I grew up playing the usual Milton Bradley games, and I had a blast, but as I got older they lost their appeal. To my joy I found there are games that appeal to my adult mind, offering complex strategies, intriguing mechanics, and above all fun.

Thanks to BoardGameGeek we have been exploring games we didn't know existed, and we have been having a blast. We have had a few game parties at our house, and we've invited many friends over for an evening of playing some of our games. One of my goals this year is to start up a regular gaming group among our friends (including family, for if family is not friend then it's not much of a family).

Games are a fun and rather curious thing. One thing I like about playing these table-top games over computer games is the social aspect. More than just following a list of rules and trying to reach some goal I have found that our gaming parties have been times of laughter, smiles, and friendly chatter. The last time we had one of our parties we spent a full half of the time talking and sharing before even pulling out a game. For me, this more than anything else is what makes playing games fun; spending time with people I care about and enjoying that time is why I play games.

I also have another side to me, the geeky side, the side that likes to look at mechanics and how things work together. There are some fun games out there with great dynamics brought about by some rather fun mechanics or setting. To that end I'll probably spend some time on occasion talking about a new game we just purchased, or a game I want to buy, or an old favourite and why it's still so good.

That said, I'm really excited about a couple of games I picked up this weekend with some of my Christmas money. I bought myself a copy of Shadows over Camelot, which is a cooperative game where in one player might be a traitor (but not always) and all the players work together to either all win or all lose. I've really been enjoying the few games we own that are built to be cooperative rather than competitive, as it almost invariably builds relationships with people, which can be a welcome change, and quite fun. Teamwork in these games is usual fun and offers for some fantastic tactics. We have not played it yet (it's a 3-7 player game), but I hope to rectify that soon.

I also picked up Carcassonne, a game I have heard much about. It's a German game, and involves “building” a city/town/area by placing down tiles and building roads/walls/places. I'm not entirely clear about all the mechanics just yet (I have not read the rules) but I played a game similar to it, but found I did not like it due to some randomness of a die roll, and I have been told that people who felt the same way about that particular game (Settlers of Catan) will like Carcassonne.

This year will hopefully be a good year for playing games, especially with some of the additions we hope to make to our group and our library.