The thing is this: I really enjoy playing board game, but most of them are two players or more, and for a long time, it was really hard finding people to play with. My friends and family are either super-busy, or they don’t like playing board games. Playing was a special occasions thing: for example; my mother and I bought each other Tickets to Ride on Christmas a couple of years ago, and we’ve been playing after Christmas dinner every year since, and that was pretty much it.

But then, last Christmas, I saw that there were a copies of Pandemic at my local big box bookstore. I heard a lot of good things about that game, so I grabbed a couple of copies* to give out as presents, hoping that I would then be invited to play the game with the people I gave the game to. And it worked! One of the people I gave a copy to was my mom, and we’ve played almost every week-end since Christmas. And then this really cool game shop opened a block away from my apartment, just last month. I stumbled upon it the other day, and I am so happy! I dragged my mom to the grand opening, and we had a really good time.

My favorite part about playing games is the solving of the puzzle. There is a thing that you have to do, and using your brain to logically deduce how to do the thing is what, in my opinion, makes the game fun. The element of luck is what makes it possible to play the game more then once and still have fun. When I was first playing game, I didn’t think much about how the game works, I just played it. Now that I’m rediscovering them as a critically-minded adult, I am spending a lot of time thinking about them games; and how they work, or don’t, and how to make then better if I can.

These reflections lead to many ideas, the first of which is now well on it’s way to become a physical thing. To help make the transition from theoretical to concrete as smooth as possible, Renaissance as launched a Kickstarter campaign, which will last until June 17th. Check it out here.

If you are in the Ottawa region, and you want to try a physical version of the game, someone who looks a lot like me will be conducting a playtest at CanGames, a local convention of gamers. You can check out the CanGames website here. The playtest is scheduled for Sunday, at 2 PM.

And that pretty much catches everyone up on what happened during the hiatus. Next week, I’ll be talking about my CanGames experience, and then, who knows?

*along with plenty of books, because I took a bookstore vow.