I am very lucky.

I have a partner who enjoys gaming. A partner who will delay eating dinner, put aside other interests and concerns, sit across a table with me, and play board games for hours. It took about 15 years to get here, and yeah...it's a blessing and a curse because I created a monster!

I grew up with board games. When we got married I tried to get him into games. He played sometimes, and I thought I was winning him over, but he never latched onto it. I understood only recently that his idea of board games was party games; and honestly, I hadn't Eurogamed myself until a couple years back now, so I wasn't helping disavow him of this, not realizing where his head was at. Being a shy guy, he hated the requirement of bigger groups and especially hated feeling put on the spot. Being very social and outgoing, these are games that I got excited about, and I didn't realize how uncomfortable he was as he struggled to play them with me and even good friends.

So when we discovered Pandemic and the world of co-op board games (our preference is co-op play on every platform we share), it blew the top off of games immediately. Then we discovered Dominion and Carcassonne, and other mechanics of deck builder, tableau building, and worker-placement which didn't require 'take that!' tactics and attacking each other directly. Instead we discovered there was a world of games where we could focus on our individual strengths/personal best, and it literally changed our life. I personally like that, barring some rare and painful experiences (usually me! LOL), our scores in these competitive games tend to be really close--there are so many paths to victory and everyone focuses on what appeals to them, so no one gets utterly smashed or humiliated.

This slow-build to a fully participating gaming household has become an explosion of manic acquisition of ALL THE GAMES in 2016. Which brings us to our Wall of Shame. In gaming parlance, your Wall of Shame is the collection of games you have purchased but not yet played. It is not uncommon for casual gamers to have a few untouched titles, and for more avid players (and flush players), the Wall of Shame may include a...well...shameful number of games still in plastic from the factory. Why, you may ask?

Wall of Shame - An Explanation

Above & Below by Ryan Laukat, PAX 2016

In general, board gamers tend to revel in their senses, enchanted by piles of little plastic coins, the tinkling sound as they are poured into a bowl in preparation for a game, the weight and sound of tumbling dice on a tabletop, the sight of a colorful board and the unique shapes of player pieces. It’s not just the playing of the game that appeals; it is the having of a game that is also joyful. The boxes on display are like art on a wall to gamers, and they will spend almost as much time and money on finding the perfect shelving to display their games as they do on procuring the games themselves. There is a thrill in simply touching game components, or perusing well-designed rulebooks like a favorite novel...or maybe it’s more akin to a catalog of fun stories and worlds yet to be discovered.

A common simple pleasure among gamers is the delightful act of unboxing. Unboxing is the visceral experience of stripping off the shrink-wrap plastic seal and being the first to see, smell, touch, or otherwise experience a fresh board game. The unique bouquet of pristine cardboard, the little scritching-pop sound of punching out game pieces, opening the rule book for the first time...sooooo glossy... Opening new board games is like opening presents on Christmas morning! While the play(ing) is the thing, there is a certain exhilaration in the delayed gratification represented by a game still wrapped in plastic.

(Aside: Hell, we gamers even get excited about games that we don’t own yet! When new games are added to Kickstarter, or will soon be available for purchase online or in a FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store), the hype train pulls out of the station. The hype train is just another word for “buzz”. It’s the exponentially expanding banter, online and around gaming tables, about the latest games: what the game mechanics are, the quality of the components, how balanced the gameplay is, who has created a video play-through in advance of the release. And the more people talk about it, the more people talk about it. The train picks up speed, and with it the sense of urgency in being one of the first to own the best new titles increases with every forum discussion or YouTube review. Pretty soon, some gamers are pretty sure they will simply die if they can’t snag one of the first copies of New Game X as soon as it is available! But I digress...)

Ahem. So about those games still in their plastic...

The Rise of The Wall

Burgle Bros. by Tim Fowers

Given the aforementioned flurry of acquisition in the last year, we already had a healthy Wall of Shame to contend with. We would occasionally take a stab at diminishing the volume of said WoS, but we have discovered some real gems among our collection, which make frequent appearances and take precedence over cracking a new game. Sometimes our choice of game is driven by simplicity--swiftness to set-up and tear-down, as well as length of gameplay, will determine if we can play on a given weeknight. Ease of teaching/learning is a motivator when we invite friends over to try something new to them. The desire to stage a comeback from a bad loss in a previous session may drive us back to a co-op to try to wrest victory from the jaws of defeat. And just the general mood of one or both of us will be the limitor on other cases. And so The Wall grew...

And here we find ourselves in fall of 2016. Since the gaming revolution has come to our home, September is a game-tastic month now. My birthday is near the beginning of the month, and has traditionally included at least some form of game gifted by my well-meaning husband as a nod to my love of them. Many years were console games for our PS3, but most include at least a card game or some light party game he found at Target. The past two years, however, have included an influx of co-op and Eurogames.<

That same weekend of my birthday happens to be PAX Prime (aka PAX West) in my hometown; which, while ostensibly a convention surrounding video games, has a strong showing of board games in the form of a whole booth dedicated to indie game designers, multiple prolific publishers and vendors of board games with wares for sale, and a large lending library with rooms of empty tables inviting all-comers to borrow any game of your choosing and play it at your leisure. Last year we were ill-prepared to make best use of this library, but this year...we came with a list! Over the year, yours truly cross-referenced my BoardGameGeek.com “want to own” list with the current list of available games in the lending library. Some games fell off the list over the year as we either played a game and decided it was not for us, or we ended up being gifted or purchasing said game in the intervening time. But when the weekend began, we had a list of about 10 games we hoped to get our hands on (at least some of them), and consider for purchase.

What was unexpected was the Barnes & Noble 40% off customer appreciation coupon...that same week. Oops, and we pre-ordered Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu earlier this summer from CoolStuffInc, and of course we HAD to buy enough to get free shipping, so tacked on three. other. games. And Chris and I had long ago backed some Kickstarter games, as long ago as last year, which are coincidentally slated to ship this month as well (which doesn’t take into account another six he has backed which all coincidentally due to ship in November?!). Thus, as a result of birthday acquisitions, coupon-drive purchases, the back-ordered games, Kickstarters, and the inevitable PAX purchases...um... The Wall of Shame is bigger than ever, by...like...a lot. *hanging head* So we instituted Shametember!

Shametember In Shaytown

Dead of Winter in the heat of summer

We instituted the concept of Shametember to motivate us to tear into those as-of-yet-unplayed games and get them to the table. The goal is to play a new game every day of September, come hell or high water, preferably from our own collection, though not strictly required. It is our challenge to choose games we can play each day, even on “school nights”, to knock back the encroaching Wall of Shame. It doesn’t preclude playing favorites, but it has to be in addition to a new game in that 24 hour period, and significant expansions count. A “significant expansion” is defined as a measurable alteration of existing gameplay. So for instance, Five Tribes: The Artisans of Naqala counts because it includes entirely new tile types and tribe powers to the game, but Marvel Legendary: Paint the Town Red doesn’t count because it is essentially the same mechanics skinned with different heroes. Leave it to gamers to gameify gaming, amirite?!

We came up with this idea on September 2nd, so we started a day behind, but we are making up for it by making a gaming date with friends on October 1st, essentially adapting our goal to “30 New Games in 30 Days”. And full disclosure, we further gave ourselves a “pass” one day over this past weekend when a MMORPG game in which we have collectively clocked ~1500 game hours dropped a new update we have been waiting for since spring and we devoted most of the afternoon and evening to a deep dive together, nearly forgetting to eat or sleep let alone get to the table to try and wrap our brain around a new game. We did at least pinky-swear that one day this month we will play two new games in one day to make up for it, maintaining our adapted 30-in-30 goal. Hey, it’s our game, we get to decide how to play it.

At any rate, the moral of the story is that it has been going great! It’s been a lot of fun to finally get to some games which have been staring at us for a long time (I’m looking at you, The Swarm, the game that had been longest member of our unplayed list at 10 months--no more!), games which one of us has been wanting to play while the other continues demurring (no more excuses, Sherlock Holmes-Consulting Detective), as well as immediately crack some of the brand-spanking-new birthday/PAX week goodies (finally, Machi Koro is mine!). We have spent a significant portion of our free time together away from screens of any kind, exercising our minds and interacting with one another directly through the medium of game. Gaming has brought us closer than ever in 2016, and this challenge together continues to connect us joyfully as a couple. With a month as fun as the one we’re having now, I am excited to see what the rest of this gaming year brings.

Day 1: Go to PAX, wheel around, playtest a few indie-designed board and computer games, play games in the game library, go home. Open first couple birthday presents. Sleep.Day 2: Mostly repeat, but with birthday tiara and sparkly-glitter-light-up scepter, end up having the first full, real meal since surgery consisting of ribs, baked potato, salad, and wine. Open two more birthday presents. Crash hard.

Day 3: PAX again, bring a friend and his 9 year old daughter to their first PAX. Watch them both wide-eyed and insanely happy all day. Play board games with them until they need to go home. Play more board games, meet new friends who introduce us to a whole new deck building game, have happy hour at local pub and have entire bill paid for by next table over, give away a free PAX ticket to our server and blow his mind, go home insanely happy.

Day 4: PAX one last time, tying up loose ends. Make some game purchases we were waiting on, try some more indie games, get to meet Rand Miller at the Obduction booth and sob uncontrollably, get filmed for Myst/Cyan documentary as a result, play a few more game demos, grocery shop before heading home to play two more games before bed.

Day 5: Sleep in. Cuddle puppies. Play Obduction, find out computer is lacking necessary RAM to play well, but AHA! Chris coincidentally bought be 16G more RAM for my birthday. He installs it for me in minutes, and I play Obduction until Chris gets off work, then play three new board games from birthday haul and PAX.

Day 6: Sleep in again. Do some digital housekeeping, play Obduction until Chris gets off work then he sets up our inaugural Mice & Mystics game. We lose, but much fun is had. Watch TV until sleep.

Day 7: Have girlie date plans. While updating my BGG profile, am pinged to see if we want to get together even earlier. Hop onto my knee wheelie, get dressed, and we are day-drinking and gaming at Cafe Mox before you know it. Eat delicious food, drink way too much wine, play many games, meet a Swiss here on walkabout and invite him to play with us, much laughter ensues. Arrive home to hubby having Orleans set up, complete with lit candles and wine ready to pour, in hopes I would get home early enough to play. No such luck, but we watch some Dice Tower and Rahdo before bed in preparation...

Day 8: Cuddle puppy in bed while I FB and reddit on my iPad. Sunshine makes an appearance, play with puppies in yard. Obduction now, Orleans later. And I have officially gamed every day of my birthday week, plus one!

I may be laid up and experiencing some pain/discomfort with my foot surgery recovery, but it sure made this a fun birthday week regardless! And I don't have to feel guilty about any of it because *pointing* FOOT!

Bernie supporters/disillusioned Dems who say they are voting third party because they "refuse to vote against their conscience" are admitting:

a) they don't understand how voting works in America
and/or
b) they honestly feel their personal comfort in knowing they "voted their conscience" is more important than the greater good of their fellow citizens.

Newsflash: Trump is far far worse than Hillary--whatever your personal collection of progressive issues may be, I promise you Trump has it covered in spades and WORSE:

• War? Worse, including killing innocent women and children, and bragging about being willing to commit war crimes against allies, check.
• LGBTQ issues? Worse, wants to overturn Obergefell/rights to marry, check.
• Income equality? Not even on his radar and wants to gut social programs to boot, check.
• Racial equality? Do I even have to spell it out for you?
• Want a Supreme Court which will represent your values? Justices outlive presidencies, friends, and you don't want who the GOP will put into the office deciding our law for 10+ years do you?
• Shall we get into his bigoted, women's-rights-hating VP running-mate while we're at it...?

The list goes on.
And because Spoiler Effect* is a real thing, if you don't vote one of the two major parties, you are actually empowering the candidate you agree with the least. If you believe as I do that Trump is the worst danger to America and the planet (yes, not hyperbole from an environmental and anti-war standpoint), then voting third party is shooting yourself and your country in the foot.

(*Here is what is wrong with how voting works in America, and I have linked you in at 5 minutes where you can see why voting third party creates the spoiler effect and is basically a vote for the worst for your values. https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?t=300 )

Voting third party does not "send a message" to the Dems. Believe me, the two party system is working as intended, and as anyone who saw the votes split by Perot and Nader in their respective races, it doesn't send any message or change the system to vote third party. I encourage you to read more about it from FairVote, an organization devoted to changing the system:
http://www.fairvote.org/third-parties-and-the-spoiler-effect-in-the-2012-election

If you really want to change the world, start by holding your nose and vote Dem--vote strategically, not emotionally; vote the platform, if not the person--to control the blast radius of this shit show of an election. Trump would be far far worse. Unconvinced? Read more at this link with some of Trump's Greatest Hits. https://www.facebook.com/notes/shay-moore/stop-trump-the-facts-part-1-war-and-human-rights-violations/10153920359189195

Then turn all your indignant energy (which believe you me, I share with you!) to changing from the ground up. That means election reform at your local level, voting for true progressives at every viable opportunity, pressuring your representatives for election reform, demanding third party organizations to get their shit together (Green Party, I'm looking at you and your lack of ANY respectable cohesiveness across the nation), and many other options that will actually make a difference.
( http://www.fairvote.com has you covered with ways to get involved.)

Why do you think Bernie, a man who has been in politics longer than some of us have been alive, has endorsed Hillary/the Democratic nominee? Because he already knows what every progressive needs to understand: the GOP nominee is a death sentence for all the values we hold dear. Bernie has put his energy behind the only other viable alternative at this time, because he understands how politics work, and he is doing what he must--what we *all* must--to do the most damage control. He knows endorsing anyone else or running third party will actually divide the vote, creating the spoiler effect, and get Trump into office.

If you ever believed in Bernie--his clear heart, his keen mind, and extensive experience in the real world of politics--you need to listen to him now. Our future depends on it.


Some links for further reading:
A three part series of Trump's Greatest Hits (ie why we need to keep this monster out at all cost, shared above but worth linking again in case you missed it)

Hillary is Fundamentally Honest & Trustworthy (despite what the rest of the media has been feeding you)

And don't miss this handy chart showing the most truthful and least truthful candidates. You won't be surprised who is the worst, but did you know who's among the best?

I have been musing lately about why it is I enjoy games so much. The simple answer is that games were always a big part of my life. But more than that, it was a connection and expression of love to buy them, play them, and share them among people close to me.


We gamed as a family from my earliest memories. We would have a family game night periodically and sit around the dining table playing cards. My Dad would always play board games with us when Mom was off doing Mom stuff. Risk, Monopoly, Life, Chinese Checkers, and other standards abounded there. My Mom would buy a new board game every year at Thanksgiving, and we would learn it and play it over pie and tea after dinner--typically party and trivia games, like Balderdash, Pictionary, Scattergories, Crack the Case, and the ubiquitous Trivial Pursuit. She would also teach us Pass the Pigs, Waterworks, and Pit. Both my parents had regular cribbage nights with my old auntie and uncle, and they taught us patiently at their knee when we were little. My older brothers and sister would play all kinds of games with me, like Sorry!, Trouble, Clue, Connect Four, Mastermind, Stratego, and Scrabble. My grandparents taught us other classics, like checkers and chess, and on trailer camping trips would play "new classics" with us in the evenings like Uno and Skip-Bo. With friends when I was little, of course Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, Operation, and High Ho Cherry-O loom large in my mind. As a teen it was hosting Murder Mystery parties, and endless Yahtzee with my bestie.

A little Pandemic action while on a snowy cabin weekend getaway.

There was also an entire world of video games and computer games throughout my young life, which my Dad got my brother Brian and I into. We had Pong (yes, not when it was retro), Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Nintendo, and later Sega Gensis and Super Nintendo. We had the latest computers in the house as well because my father ran a computer consulting business as a side hobby to being a commercial airline pilot. He flew around the world, including a regular route to Hong Kong which exposed him to some of the latest technologies coming out of Asia at the time: Apple IIc (I still have Dad's, signed by Steve Wozniak), TI-99 (Alpiner, anyone?), Commodore 64, and on through PC evolution and all the games that came with it (Zork! Lode Runner! Wishbringer! Leisure Suit Larry!).

As a college student working on my own collection, I played a lot of party games like Catch Phrase, Taboo, Apples to Apples, and Cranium; or would rock some geeky RPG games like HeroQuest or actual pen n' paper D&D and its offshoots. I had my Super Nintendo in my room--pre-internet, kids--and would gather groups of friends for play sessions (sometimes instead of going to class. Ooops!) In my years in the SCA there was a lot of historical games, among which fox & geese, mancala, and *ahem* Toblero stand out.

There was a long dry spell of board gaming in there, wherein I married a shy man who didn't like the social games as much as I did. He would buy me games, but most were for 3+ players and he rarely wanted to invite people over to play them. There weren’t a ton of two-player games on the market either of us would be madly in love with. We did end up playing a lot of PC and console games, though. He was the one who introduced me to UO, my first MMORPG experience. We played lots of Playstation games and other co-op and P2P games like Diablo, Gauntlet, and Unreal Tournament. But since we also enjoy a shared love of television and movies as our preferred entertainment, it was a lot of screen-time. I was getting really restless and unhappy.

I tried to institute a “screen-free” night a few times, but it never stuck because we were at a loss as to what to do together at home outside of house work or hobbies we didn’t share. For instance I could knit, then what would he be doing? One of his main hobbies is building computers, which would necessitate another screen so that was out. We would go for long walks with the dogs in warmer months, but that didn’t work when the rains came. I liked biking a lot, but he didn’t fall for it the way I did. We went out to a lot of dinners, but that ended up costing money we didn’t want to be spending. It was confounding!

Date Night: King of Tokyo (not great for 2 players, it turns out!)

Only recently have I had a chance to re-discover board games thanks to a board gaming revolution that has been taking place in the new millennium right under my nose. A world of themes, mechanics, artwork, and experiences that weren’t around when I was younger. The idea of a co-operative board game was fairly foreign until recently--you had to have a third player be a DM/GM at least, which meant a 3-player minimum on some of my favorite role playing or strategic games. Not so today with cooperative games like Pandemic (and the episodic Pandemic LEGACY!), Flash Point: Fire Rescue, Dead of Winter, Elder Sign, and Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert. The craft of gaming has improved exponentially, with the gorgeous gaming experiences in Patchwork, Lanterns, Mysterium, and Dixit. This era has introduced concepts perfect for both new gamers and veterans alike, such as Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Camel Up, and 7 Wonders. Eurogaming brings in themes and mechanics previously unexplored--you can live whole lives through a game. The range of these game themes reach back into the past, like in Agricola; and into an imagined new age, as with Android: Netrunner and Galaxy Trucker.

Lords of Waterdeep, looking sexay in the Broken Token box insert!

Since discovering the panoply of options before me, my game collection has grown. Better yet, my husband’s voracious appetite is matching my own! We had to rearrange our living room recently to make room for a new table for gaming, and rework the book shelves to replace books and tchotchkes with game boxes. Our time at home together is no longer dominated entirely by screen time (TV/movies, or television or desktop gaming), but instead may include a debate about which game to set up...and which game we want to play after that.


This week was an incredibly trying week for reasons I won’t bore you with here. But suffice to say, by the end of a terrible week and weekend, we were emotionally and physically drained. A lot of Bad Shit went down, we had to cancel social plans with people we love and miss due to adulting, the sunny day was waning and we just wanted to hibernate. What did we do? We took a couple beers onto our back deck with some games, and in no time we were smiling and laughing. Gaming was a welcome respite and mental distraction from the terrible week, and a way to connect with one another, face to face, playing together. Not looking at a screen. Looking at each other. Sharing in something joyful.

Forbidden Island - the closest call we ever had, but we got out alive!

It was a long time coming back around to the game-filled life I remember loving as a child. Gaming with another person or group of people is an act of connection, engagement, being present, challenge, exploration, and laughter. I am enthusiastic about sharing games with others because it makes me feel closer to those around me, even people I don’t know very well. In musing about it all I realize that for me, thanks to a lifetime of amazing people and making memories together around a console or table, gaming has always been synonymous with love.