Take board game beyond Monopoly, Yahtzee
Collen Hatcher and his family had always enjoyed gathering around the kitchen table for a game of crib or a classic board game like Monopoly.
But a fateful trip to the annual Hal-Con Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Comic Convention eight years ago tuned Hatcher into the true art and complexity of the board game.
“(There was) a room devoted strictly to board games,” he said about a massive library of games and volunteers 'who'd teach the game to you.'
The event stoked a passion for games in Hatcher.
“I guess more of an addiction … now, I own over 130 games,” he said.
Step outside the influence of iconic games like Monopoly, Clue or Scrabble and the world of the board — or tabletop — game bursts with creativity, imagination and fun.
One of Hatcher's favourite games is Carcassonne, a tileplacement game set in medieval-era France where players achieve points by building roads, castles, monasteries and other landmarks.
Hatcher admits an irony in this COVID-19 age regarding another all-time favourite: Pandemic. Players working together to deal with several plagues hitting the world's population is an example of a co-operative game.
“You're assigned different roles (such as a medic) and you have to work together and make decisions together,” he said. “It gets fun; you can get into super-heated arguments.”
Patricio Garcia of Halifax, who has collected games since 2012, is also an unbridled board game enthusiast.
Garcia's favourite games include Bus, in which players buy bus routes and transport as many passengers as possible, in what Garcia calls “a heavy strategy game.” Another favourite is Scythe, set in an alternate-history version of the 1920s where people co-exist with hightech machinery.
Garcia has amassed 542 games but that doesn't include expansions, which are available for some games to add items like game pieces, additional board space or extended gameplay.
“When you include expansions, I top out at 1,030,” he said.
Dan Morton, manager of Midgard Gaming in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland and Labrador, said the pandemic forced him to pivot his business in a different direction. Pre-COVID, Midgard was more like a board game cafe where you could play a tabletop game or use one of 10 computers and six X-Boxes. But pandemic restrictions closed those options.
He ended up selling all the computers and X-Boxes and built up the retail side.
“A tangible thing people can take home and experience on their table,” he said.
He said the pandemic forced people to interact more with those they live with and board games were a perfect way to do that. It was also a needed break from the computer screens during lengthy lockdowns and with work and school moving online.
Morton said the pandemic, plus higher costs for going out, has shown, that “it's OK to be at home and hanging out with people there. You still want to go out, but you don't necessarily want to do it all the time.”
Morton hopes to set up more regular monthly events and even a version of retreats held by some American game communities.
Back in Nova Scotia, Hatcher says he's missed gathering with other gamers during the past couple of years. He hopes this year's Hal-Con — which will run at full capacity for the first time since 2019 and is slated for October — will get people in the board game scene excited again.
“People that love board games, we're addicted.”