Back On Board

Now that the nights are drawing in at a rate of knots, and RAR is sleeping much, much better than he used to, I’m starting to get a bit of my old life back. Soon I’ll be back to training, but while I’m at home in the dark at the moment I’ve been able to resort to some of my old favourite pastimes.

First up, I can play video games again. I’ve been playing a lot of GTA V, which is an absolutely fantastic game. It’s fun, huge and has an exceptionally well-told story for a game. I’ve sunk a lot of time into it now and still only finished about 80% of the game, despite having finished the main game. Buy it. It’s as simple as that, you won’t regret it. Oh, and Trevor is the best character in a game that I can remember.

Secondly, and more excitingly to me, I’ve been able to get some board games out. Dark nights with nothing on the TV (which are most of them) are perfect for a game or two, and so before I buy any more I’m going back through the ones I bought last year to remind myself how good they are. The one I’ve enjoyed most so far is Stone Age.

stone age board game

A game of Stone Age set up ready for play. Click for a bigger version.

Stone Age is a great worker placement game, with gorgeous components and a great deal of depth and replayability. If you’re looking for a step-up from ‘roll and move’ games like Monopoly and want to get into what are known as Designer games (and this one falls into the ‘Euro’ category), I’d highly recommend it.

Board games are a great way to spend an hour or two without zoning-out in front of the TV, get you talking, competing and interacting. There’s something about physically moving the pieces and having that tangible link that really separates it from playing a video game. I’ve got Kingdom Builder on the way (it’s 33% off on Amazon at the moment) and am looking forward to getting Castles of Burgundy, Last Will and Macao back on the table soon.

Good times.

Leave a Reply