Game on / Happy Holidays!

Game On!

I've always been a gamer. From as early as I can remember, if there was a game being played, I was interested. Board games, card games, you name it—if it could be played, I liked to play it. I wasn't always playing to win, but I was always having fun. What's better than a night of fun games with friends or family?

As a little kid, I absolutely loved Monopoly nights, even though I hadn't the slightest clue what was going on. Backgammon, checkers, chess, Mancala—you name it. After board games, video games were introduced when I was a kid, and much stayed the same. I loved playing Tetris, Zelda, or Mario, but I had no idea that games were meant to be played linearly and towards an end goal (who remembers Duck Hunt?!). Still, I enjoyed them. Our family always played Gin Rummy at gatherings, and that was my go-to card game growing up as well.

 

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Fast forward to college and young adulthood, when video games took over and board games took a backseat. I remember in college, our baseball buddies in the dorms would hook up our console to the LAN and have Halo multiplayer battles (this was early 2000s, showing my age a bit here). We would play until the early hours of the morning, often to the detriment of my GPA.

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Fast forward to adulthood, and things seem to be circling back to the roots. While I have PCs and consoles, my interest in them seems to be waning a bit. Sure, I still get on and play a little bit here and there, but I simply don't have time to dump hours into games like I was able to as a younger adult. Often, when I'm console or computer gaming, I feel like I'm taking away from family time, so the only time I have to do that is late at night. And getting older, I hate to admit, I like my sleep, lol. Sure, I can stay up and play something after everyone hits the hay, but I'm definitely feeling it the next day. Some of our best friends and neighbors at our first house introduced us to Spades, and the strategy and challenge of team games sparked an interest in myself and my wife.

By Ron Maijen - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15300536

 

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My interest in console/PC games seems to be shifting back to the origin story—back to the basics, you could say. If there are people around to play, I love to spread out a game we could play or grab a deck of cards to deal out. One thing I've never played, though, is Dominoes. Yep, hard to believe, right? But the only thing I've ever accomplished with dominoes was stacking them up and knocking them down in long lines as a kid. So I said, "What the heck?" And Browse the grocery store the other day, I stumbled into the games section and decided to look around. I picked up a set of double-six dominoes, partly because they were the cheapest. I didn't even know where to start, so as I often do, I journeyed to Reddit to find some ideas and rules. I stumbled upon this Reddit post which gave some ideas and basics of the game. The only thing I've had time to learn so far has been "Muggins" or "All-Fives," and I must say, we've been having so much fun! From the Reddit post above, I stumbled upon this website explaining the rules in a way even a rookie could understand. Old-school internet media to the rescue!

 

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So all of that to say, well, I don't know really. Do what you enjoy. Do what you can that brightens the time spent together as a family. For myself and my family, that revolves around playing games together. I look back at the fond memories I had as a kid watching the adults in my family shoot the breeze and play cards. I enjoy the time I spent with my parents playing board games. I enjoy the time now that we spend at family gatherings playing games. I want to set an example and pass that interest down to my child as well.

I hope you have a happy 4th of July. If you're hanging with family this weekend, dust off a game that you played as a child or as a family in the past. If you're bored with the games you've always played, look around and learn a new one. The laughs you share will be memorable, and in life, finding those moments is really what it's about. Stay safe and have fun!

Drop a comment below if you have any fun family game recommendations, or any must play variations of dominoes we should try. 

Until next time, BourbonDad