Thursday, December 3, 2009

Boardgames and Cults and Stuff


Settlers
Originally uploaded by Ruthie Marie
by Ruth
It is my belief that anyone should be a little leery of a game with a 20 page instruction manual. Nevertheless, for whatever reason (there was probably some cult brainwashing involved) we sat down tonight to figure out Cities and Knights, a more complex version of Settlers of Catan. An hour later, we had set up the game and read through the rules. I think there are about 167 of them, though I lost count at page 9. As we went through the rules I wondered who in the world came up with all of these. “Hey, let's make it so if you get three of these cards you can trade them in and flip this other card and then every time one of these three numbers are rolled along with this picture, you can get this third kind of card.” Somebody had to have been the first one to think of this. Probably a computer or mathematical genius with OCD tenancies and a twitch.

The game itself then lasted for about two hours, leaving me wondering, “How in the world did I ever get sucked into this? I hate long games. I boycott Monopoly.” Part of the length was probably due to looking back at the rule book every other turn. Who can honestly remember 167 rules? Kevin won, 13-12, so now we have each won the game once. Because yes, we have played this crazy game before and then decided to buy it for ourselves. That time I had a quick, decisive victory, so of course I liked the game.

You may have never heard of the game but get into the right circle and--bam--everyone you know is obsessed with it. Our dear friend Matt was introduced to the game over the summer and lost it about 10 times in a row...and then asked for it for his birthday. See - I ask you, is that a normal response? This is why I think there must be some kind of cult/brainwashing involved. That and the fact that after hating the game and refusing to play for two years, I unaccountably started playing it all the time. I'm not sure who is the mastermind behind this whole cult/conspiracy, but I strongly suspect that a certain former team leader of mine (*cough* Andy) is high up in the chain of command.

Tomorrow night some students are coming over to play games with us. I think we'll probably choose something a little bit simpler to play.

2 comments:

Nate and Molly said...

I can't IMAGINE trying to explain that game to people who are still trying to master English. YIKES. Yeah, SofC is one of those games that grows on you. The 1st time I thought it was stupid, then the next time I started liking it. It's not fun when you don't know the rules well. Nate and I played it for 5 hours once until 3 AM. It was crazy!

wynd said...

Ugh. Games of strategy.

Give me games of words! You SO want me on your team during Catch Phrase!!