A Long Ramble About Board Games

It's Friday, and the week is almost over. Hurrah! Hurrah! Only three more sessions tomorrow and then it will all be over until the end of next week! Between now and then, there will be study and a trip to a board game shop... Good grief, these weeks of endless game reviews will finally come to fruition as the wish list on Board Game Geek reduces to something almost manageable. It is very difficult to work out what to buy when the individual items are so expensive, potentially complex and you have practically no-one to play with. It's so tempting to buy the most tempting and intriguing games instead of ones you might actually get to play. As a result, such magnificent ideas as 'Vast: The Crystal Caverns', 'Castles Of Mad King Ludwig', 'Paradox' and 'Kingsburg' will sadly lose out in favour of things compatible with the parents, and the students who end up caught in the board game trap. What to look out for? It's difficult, and most interesting games are out of print including some of the following: 'Scotten Totten', 'Pueblo', 'Keythedral', 'Baseball Highlights: 2045', 'Medieval Academy', 'Of Mice And Mystics' and 'Kahuna'. It's a ridiculous world of board games out there, people, full of diverse themes and mechanics. It's almost impossible to know where to begin. Oh, it is impossible. Totally impossible!

What does it all mean? What does it mean that 'Math Fluxx' is coming out this year and could become instantly indispensable? What does it mean that most of the games listed above are utterly dissimilar to each other? Oh, the wonder of it all. Time travel, baseball, modern abstracts, deranged castle architecture, mice adventures and more are all to be found! There are also piles upon piles of dice combat if you're interested in that sort of thing. Fortunately, the Quirky Muffin is devoutly pacifist, although 'Ghost Stories' might eventually win its way into the mix thanks to colour matching. Colour matching? It's too much. How can all these things exist and where will it all end? Will we all vanish into a black hole of board games?

Perhaps it's not a good idea to go to the board game shop. Perhaps it would be better to hide in a misers' hole until the compulsion has gone away. Madness could set in, and a pile of utterly wonderful but futile games could end up here. Such wonders as 'Thunderbirds', 'Through The Ages', 'The World Of Smog', 'Watson and Holmes' and 'Dice City' are not safe.

Please, board game shop chaperones, where are you?

O.

Note: Trip cancelled. Sigh.