Playing games is essential for a healthy development of someone's personality. We start experimenting with them from a very early age, and a lot of people won't stop until they're 99 (according to a lot of the boardgame-boxes at least). Games come in all shapes and forms. Videogames, boardgames, cardgames or games like tag or hide-and-seek where we only need enough space to be able to enjoy ourselves. In this day and age, do we still play enough?
I remember a time when I was about six years old and we were on family vacation in the Provence, in France. The weather was great, and we stayed in a little bed-and-breakfast with my parents neighbours and their kids and another friendly couple. Vacation was always the time for us to lay at the swimming pool, go for a walk, ingest some culture, and play some games when the day came to a close. It was on this vacation that my parents thought I would be old enough to learn me how to play cards. They always played the same game called "wiezen". It's a pretty easy card game to play, but if you know that tactics and the more advanced ideas behind the game it gets a little more complex and difficult. Although I wasn't very good in the beginning, I was proud that I finally was allowed to play "the adult game" and I quickly wanted to become better and learn how to win. I was hooked.
That same vacation my neighbour thought my how to play chess. Again, you can't expect from a six-year old to be the next prodigy in chess, but my competitve spirit wanted to beat the adult in front of me. I wanted to play all day, and I remember taking the chess board with me to bed to play against myself to get better at the game. I never beat my parents that vacation though, that honor was reserved for a moment a couple years later.
As an adolescent I kept my love for games, but as adolescents tend to do I didn't want to share them anymore with my loved ones. I wanted more individual time and I started to play videogames. I started out with Silkroad, an online MMORPG which kept me addicted to it for almost 3 years. After that I found the great game of League of Legends which I played until last year. Although I really loved my time playing videogames, I don't do it anymore now. I recognized after a while that I wanted to share my excitement again with friends and family. I wanted to connect to them by sharing the things I love. And since it's a hard feat to get my parents or siblings to play League of Legends with me, I went back to the oldschool games. Nowadays we try to play a boardgame once in a while. It's a nice change. It offers a great way to have some fun together, and that makes me an extremely happy person once again.
A few months ago I started dating with my now girlfriend. On our first date we talked about a variety of topics, and we talked about our love for boardgames. The second date I brought the cardgame of "The Settlers of Catan" with which we had a great time. It was something different, and it offered a great way to get to know eachother. It's different way to connect with people. You can share the excitement or competitiveness of a game and bond over that. There's no need for hour-long talks or in-dept discussions, it's just about sharing a fun moment together. We still play almost daily.
So, what about you? Do you still take time to play a game once in a while? Let me know in the comments below, and don't forget to mention your favourite game as well!
Thanks for reading,
See you next time.
