Games People Play

The board game obsession is starting to get out of control.

Over the weekend, my girlfriend Helen and I took a trip to Royal Oak and visited Dice Goblin, a custom venue in the Royal Oak mall that does two things - hosts games of Dungeons & Dragons, and provides a space and board games where you can sit and play for the day. We spent almost five hours there, primarily playing a handful of games from our playtest list. We don’t just have a library of games at home; we have them catalogued, and we have a list of games we’re interested in but want to play first. Step in, Dice Goblin.

We started off with a game called Planet, a cute tile placement game where you have a 12-sided orb on which to place magnetic tiles, creating continents and scoring points based on combinations of biomes. I’d played it before - my kids love it - but Helen had not; I think she is a fan now too.

Next up was Patchwork, another tile placement game: with a sewing theme, you choose tiles and place them on a personal board. In addition to board games, Helen is into cross-stitch and knitting, so I thought this would have been a slam dunk, but it turned out both of us weren’t too interested.

The biggest game - in terms of physical space - was Ticket To Ride: Europe, the second entry in the mega-popular Ticket To Ride franchise in which you collect and play sets of cards to claim train routes between major cities; my biggest goal was to create a train line from Lisboa to Danzic (the game is set in the industrial period; nowadays we call them Lisbon and Gdańsk).

I don’t think either of us were expecting to like it as much as we did; it is a ridiculous easy to learn game and there is something fun about putting little train carriages on a board. Honestly, I think I’d be keen to buy a copy for our library at home. Well, maybe a second hand copy. $50 tops.

The fourth and final game of the day was Harmonies, currently the #69 game of all time on BoardGameGeek, about selecting tiles, placing them on a board to create nice patterns, and scoring points based on them. We enjoyed it so much that we ended up stopping on the way home and buying our own copy.

And then we ended up buying two other games: Twisted Cryptids and Command Of Nature, both from the creators of the Tee Turtle art style. They’re both a bloody good time as well, honestly.

These are the only games Helen and I play with or against each other.

I remember, back when I was in my early twenties, the dating culture was such that there was constant drama between my friends and their partners. There was hardly a day went by that something didn’t happen. And I got caught up in my fair share of it too. In a weird way, we get a hit of dopamine when a bit of interpersonal drama lands in our general vicinity. Even better when we’re the centre of it all. Attention sought. Attention found.

Some people don’t grow out of it, like the early thirtysomethings who were charged with indecent exposure on an Air New Zealand flight from Auckland to Nelson. “The court heard that as the flight neared Nelson and began its descent, the pair started to kiss each other ‘excessively’. One of the flight attendants asked them to stop what they were doing as other passengers were disturbed,” this report tells us, before later describing their behaviour as “heavy petting” because apparently this might have happened in the mid-1950s.

Attention sought. Attention found.

By the time I was entering my 30s, I’d like to believe I was past all the interpersonal drama, all the attention seeking behaviours. I met my soon-to-be wife when I was 30; I think we had a good marriage, and none of it was based on attention seeking or based on drama, just love and respect, as best we could. The end has played out how it did (and has) as an extension of that love and respect.

Nowadays I try to avoid drama as much as I can. If I hear a conversation headed that way, I tune out entirely - to the point that I’m constantly asking questions like “who is that again” and “what did they do before” to catch up.

There are no games between me and Helen. Except the board games.

Its actually kind of funny going back into a serious relationship at my age, and especially after a marriage that resulted in three beautiful kids. There are no surprises. I feel like I know the end (cue the Phoebe Bridgers track) and there is nothing before or after that point that I don’t feel ready for. I know how hard this stuff can be, and I know I can get through it fine. Bring it.

I guess that could sound cynical, but it actually manifests as confidence. At least for me. ‘Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space,’ Maya Angelou often said. ‘Invite one to stay.’ I know the end. But I also know the beginning and the middle. And I can recognise happiness and love when it is given. I can’t control much in this world, but I can control my own response. I can choose to respond in hope. And in love, and in respect, and in honesty. No games.

Next up: Terraforming Mars.

Listening: I was bouncing back and forth between the latest Deftones record, Private Music, and Wednesday’s newest offering, Bleeds. I don’t know that frontwoman Karly Hartzman has ever sounded better. And I have a hearty chuckle every time I hear the line ‘we watched a Phish concert and Human Centipede / two things I now wish I had never seen’. But then the copy of Jimmy Eat World’s Futures that I ordered on vinyl arrived from the States, and that was that. One day I might write a definitive Favourite Albums Ever list; I think Futures might be somewhere in the Top Ten.

Reading: Did you know Sam Bankman-Fried - during the heyday of FTX and Alameda Research, back in late 2022 - tried to pay Donald Trump not to run in the 2024 election? According to Michael Lewis’ book, that happened (and apparently Trump said the number was $5 billion) - Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon was researched and written as everything started falling apart, and makes a decent case that SBF was simply an idiot as opposed to a criminal. Interesting read. Next up is The Crewe Murders: Inside New Zealand’s Most Infamous Cold Case by Kirsty Johnston and James Hollings.

Watching: I blew through Marvel Zombies in a single afternoon last week and it was … well, fine. Just fine. Not fine? Peacemaker’s second season - it isn’t fine; it’s bloody incredible. John Cena and Jennifer Holland have been phenomenal, the short season has meant that the story is tight, and the reveal in Episode 6 was handled perfectly. Oh, and the new The Naked Gun movie isn’t as bad as you might be expecting, even if Liam Neeson is older now than Leslie Nielsen was when he filmed his final Naked Gun movie.

Mā te wā, fam.
Chris xo