Sunday 10 August 2014

Growing Up With Games

BF's mom and her partner have been out visiting. Friday night, BF's brother and his girlfriend also came over after we had all gone out to dinner and we decided to play some games. I was actually shocked at how little game experience they had. Neither of them had ever played played Yahtzee before!

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So this all got me thinking about growing up with games. I grew up with lots of games and I'm sure it has affected me in the way I view games, and other things besides. We did play a few board games; I distincting remember Monopoly, The Farming Game, Risky Business, Risk and Trouble. However, we played a lot of cards growing up. Every family event, the cards were brought out after dinner. Every family reunion, we have a Smear tournament! I remember starting out with Go Fish, then endless games of War, Cheat and Speed with my cousins. A family favourite is Presidents and Janitors (aka Asshole). We played lots of Rummy and 31 with camping (along with Trouble). In more recent years, my mom has fallen in love with poker and will play it any chance she gets (including in Vegas tournaments) or even just watch it on TV. In short, I grew up playing board and card games from a young age. Maybe this was because I grew up with 4 television channels right up until I was in high school.

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So what about BF? He is a very savvy gamer, despite his mom not being into games at all. Well, one story she told is that he would all but force her and his brother to play Monopoly with him. One other major thing in that BF played a lot of chess as a kid, thanks to his dad. He even went in tournaments. He also learned poker from his dad.
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What about you? Did you grow up with games or did your family do other things together? Do you think this affected how you feel about games now? Also, any board or card game recommendations would not go amiss!

2 comments:

  1. We played games all the time! We played Monopoly, Risk, Connect Four, Scrabble, and card games! It was always a blast!

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  2. I remember playing Monopoly with my sister, who always won. Very annoying. And then she continued to be far more financially savvy than I was until we were both in our 30's and I caught up... who'd have guessed? ;) So as an adult, I never really played any games. I don't think my parents were into them.

    My husband loves the games, though, so he's been winning me over, especially when there are games we can play with our 7 year old that are good enough we all have fun but simple enough for him to learn the rules. We like Love Letter, Hanabi, Blokus, Zombie Dice, Qwirkle, and Uno so far.

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