I've been sucked into a Kickstarter rabbit hole. A couple companies I like to support were set to launch Kickstarters and people in my game groups were like, "while we're waiting, there's this other thing I found..." and then once you click through to that cool thing, almost inevitably another cool thing pops up and then you're just down that rabbit hole, y'all.
Some projects were an absolute given--like Nite Team 4, of course. Because, let's face it, I spend a LOT of time alone (even though I know I often complain about not having enough alone time) so video games > table top games. But then, these table top games ('board games' for you olds) crept in. And some of them look AH-MAZING. And because table-topping is back in vogue for the general nerdpublic, there's gameplay videos. I've watched a lot of gameplay videos lately.
The thing is, these games are complicated. Like, Cones of Dunshire complicated. And I have trouble imagining how that would play out with my fam. I hate to tip my hand and reveal quite how nerdy I can be, but for example, Victoriana. I think it looks fun (and maybe a little stressful) but I feel like presenting it to my family would go over like a lead dirigible. "So there's these cards, and these cards, and these cards, and then this die, and this die, and these markers, and those markers, and then these little cubes?" I think my kids would flip the table and walk off. I know it usually takes a round or two to really get into it, and then it doesn't seem all that complicated, but my tabletop skill level is about at Candyland -- and I mean the old school one with just the cards and little gingerbread people and like 5 'special' spaces. For Victoriana, I'd have to make up a little task list crib sheet and check every turn to make sure we were actually doing all the things. Other games I've checked out, I can't even get through the gameplay video because I'm just like, whaaaat? And, these games are kind of expensive, and they take up space that I don't have to spare in my house.
And then there's the fact that the idea of having a family game night is super-appealing to me, and it looks great in my head, but in reality... the last time we tried to play a game, Marv literally got pissed and walked away, mid-Sorry (oh, the irony!!). There's always someone who's not really into it, but we needed another player, or something happens and someone gets distracted or we decide we're hungry, or whatever. I tried to start a game night with friends last summer (and by tried, I mean, I brought it up and my friend was like "YES!" and I texted like, one or two other people about it and didn't hear back and that's fine because really, who wants to organize that anyway?) but it never took off, and it can be tough to play games with people you're not really close to. Or maybe we just play mean games? IDK, I was just thinking about when we play Exploding Kittens with n00bs, and we're all, like, on our best, most passive behaviour because we don't want to make our guests feel bad or discouraged. And then the game sort of sucks because the whole goal is to blow each other up.
Anyway, I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, other than: my interest in board games is renewed, but I lack the funding and space to pursue this interest, plus games are really complicated nowadays. I tried to explain games like Victoriana and Illimat and Thornwatch to El Nate-o and I think he turned into a petrified muppet-mummy creature because it was exhausting just hearing the overview. He was like, "Y THO" and just fell over and desiccated.
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