A bookworm's adventures in boardgame land.

In the last few months, I've found myself with a new hobby that might actually be my second favorite, after reading: playing boardgames. Although I've only recently started thinking of it as a hobby of mine, when I look back, games have been there all along - a quiet force that drew me together with people and made our interactions more memorable and fun.

Like most people, the first time I was introduced to boardgames was as a kid. My dad taught me to play chess and gave me exercise books about different stages of the game. Around this same time, my mom taught rummy to my dad and I. The three of us would also play Scrabble in the evenings - games that would get increasingly hilarious as we broke through rule after rule in our efforts to fill up the board.

The second time I was introduced to boardgames was in early 2014. A few friends and I decided to stop by our library's game night, having no idea what exactly it was. As soon as we entered the room, one of the older gamers there immediately sat down with us and opened a quaint-looking box titled "Dominion", and began teaching us the game. I couldn't make sense of it at first, and started to regret my decision to come. But noticing that one of my friends was being sincerely patient and attentive, I made an effort too. Eventually, the game started clicking. And unexpectedly, we had fun.

In the time since then, my patient and attentive friend became my boyfriend and when his birthday rolled around, I decided to get him a boardgame in honor of that early experience together. I wanted to get him the perfect game but realized that I had a lot to learn, and this is when I got my third introduction: reading numerous reviews and articles, watching a youtube play-through for every candidate game, and swapping items in and out of my Amazon cart until I settled on Race for the Galaxy. Thankfully, we both liked it and we've had fun trying out more games since then.

I'm still learning about what specific qualities I like or dislike, so I'm trying to catalog the pros and cons of the things I've played so far. I've found that I like games where the actions and decisions emerge naturally from the world in which the game takes place, whether it's a futuristic galactic empire or an arena of ethereal magic. I like seeing just enough of that world for my imagination to fill in the blanks and create a story. I like developing strategies, and I like having to navigate those strategies through obstacles presented by opponents or by the game itself. Most of all, I like how games reconnect me to the old joy of make-believe, enabling my heart and brain to escape into another place for a little while, knowing that the people around me are getting to do that too.