November 15, 2024

I’m going into the new year with family, board games and a new focus on balance

January 1, 2022 f_admin Game News 0

My people are board game people. And when I’m fortunate enough to end the year at a slower pace and surrounded by family, I realize the extra gifts that come from sitting around a table and working toward — and competing toward — a common goal.

There are important reasons to raise your children with Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders, graduating to Trouble and Monopoly. Learning how to follow directions, take turns, display sportsmanship — these are skills that need to be modeled and practiced from a young age. It doesn’t hurt for us adults to sharpen our skills, too.

Over break, as we celebrated Christmas and readied to welcome the new year, our family continued our tradition of playing a few games. We broke in some new-to-us puzzle games — The Genius Square and The Uzzle, both of which test spatial awareness skills under the pressure of competition. We revisited some classics — backgammon and mancala, both of which rely on counting and strategy. And we tackled Castles of Mad King Ludwig — a complex game with enough variables and tricky rules to keep the whole crew engaged for an hour or two.

Those screen-free hours offer a low-risk, high-reward reminder of how to tiptoe into 2022.

First of all, there are moments in life when you can wing it, and there are moments when your only option is to follow precise steps.

You can’t possibly play a game like Castles without reading directions. The object of this game is to build the most successful castle and earn the most points, using tiles that you purchase each round. If you fail to pay attention to specific details, you’ll probably leave points on the board.

In addition, when you’re playing a complex game with a competitive crowd, there are bound to be conflicts. How you solve them — the words, body language and tone you use — determines the mood of the whole experience.

For example, if your turn has passed when you realize that the bank owes you $10,000, will the group allow you to claim your coins? Will the group agree to one such mistake per player per game, or will everyone extend grace from start to finish?

Because there is only one winner per game, playing is more enjoyable when everyone is a good sport — winning and, yes, losing with respect and dignity. (Ask any kindergarten teacher: They want a room full of students who have been allowed to lose Hi Ho! Cherry-O and Hungry Hungry Hippos.)

When you’re behind on the board and all hope seems lost, do you walk away or push through? Do you pout when the points don’t add up in your favor? We all want to celebrate a victory, of course, but so much more character is revealed in defeat.

And when the final game is over, you’ve got to clean up the mess before you move on — not only to make room for the next activity but so that your future self will thank your past self for tidiness and organization.

Castle includes tiny wooden tokens, cards and tiles of varying sizes, and a board that gets pieced together. Players must invest a few minutes at the end to pack it all away neatly so that the next game doesn’t start out in chaos — a lesson not lost on me as it’s time to take down and pack away every ornament from the tree and every framed photo of the kids and Santa from the shelf.

As the new year begins, with tangible reminders of Christmas stashed away, I’m not declaring any big resolutions. Instead, I’ve chosen my one word of intention, a practice I’ve kept for the past few years.

This year’s word is balance, chosen as a reminder that there’s room for both improvising and following rules, for compromising, for finding peace with wins and losses, for making messes that can be cleaned up. It’s a reminder to play games more often, to balance the inevitable challenges of 2022 with restorative downtime with my people.

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. She can be reached at tyradamm@gmail.com.