Not So Bored Games

By Kabir Bhargava

I love playing board games, but I usually have trouble finding a companion to play with. I like playing long games like Monopoly and Life, and they scare off people!

Most of the games I like have been given to me as gifts. Sometimes I call a few of my friends over and we play for a few hours, or when my cousins come to spend the night at my house, we play together. The only games I can convince my parents to play with me are Word games – Boggle being a special favourite since it finishes fast.   

The word games I’ve got are Pictionary (the senior one), Boggle, Scrabble and Hangman. I like playing Pictionary even though my drawing skills aren’t great. It is a bit tough like once the word on my card was the Wembley Stadium! Hangman is actually called Countdown and is an unknown brand but even then it has given us many hours of pleasure while pouring over its letters.

My collection of games is huge but I don’t use some of them because they offer no challenge anymore. But removing them from my library is not an option. I like to build on my collection without breaking it. The ones that continue to hold my attention are: Mad, which is a really funny game; something called Go to the Head of the Class, which is a general knowledge game; Scotland Yard is a detective game; Monopoly Original and Football version, Pictionary, Life, Cluedo and more. All these games require two or more players so they get used less and less. The games that I can play on my own and I like are Kaleidoscope, Solitaire (Brain Vita), and other games mainly by Dr. Woods, a company that makes mentally stimulating games. Although not a board game, I have Mechanix Senior and something called Mechanix Motorized, which is the same thing just that there is a motor given along which you have to attach and the vehicle can move on its own! I also have the usual games like checkers, chess, snakes and ladders, ludo. Even now I do enjoy playing something like Checkers but I have played them all so much that I find them uninspiring.

Out of this really long list of games my favourite is Mad. It is really funny. For example, the person who loses all his money first is the winner of the game. If you roll the die with your right hand and you are a righty, you win a thousand dollars, so always roll it with the opposite hand. It is a game that must be owned, so put it on your shopping cart. Currently, my shopping cart contains two games by Dr. Woods that are Railroads and Kogworks. Among the old games, I still don’t own a decent Chinese Checkers and have been longing to own one.

Other than these games, I would love to own a Robot that would play any game I want without questioning me.