As most of us are locked down at home with our families, many will soon realise they have precious little to keep them occupied. They have been too busy up to now, working, coming home, preparing a meal, and going to bed, and had little time to invest in proper hobbies or pastimes.
Allow me this opportunity to suggest to you table-top hobby board gaming!
It needs to be understood that the whole stigma against board games is that they are boring, old-fashioned, and extremely ‘uncool’. This is mainly because the only board games people are really aware of, are old fare like Monopoly, Cluedo, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, Uno, Pictionary, Snakes and Ladders, Ludo, etc. These are mainstream games pushed on everyone since childhood, and it is easy to understand why they no longer hold any fascination, as they have been done to death by now.
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But, and I cannot emphasise this enough, there exists whole worlds of board games, unbeknownst to the public at large, that are brand new, innovative, compelling, and exciting. These are not mainstream games, but ‘hobby’ games. You may have heard of titles like Catan, Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride? These are just some of the hits in the board gaming world that have taken it by storm, yet many more, varying, thrilling titles exist!
Board games serve to bring family and friends together for a couple of hours, and unite them together in an activity unlike any other hobby or sport. They bring children away from the TV, computer, Playstation, and their mobile phones, and compel them in a novel way to learn new ideas and improve rudimentary skills like reading and arithmetic. They are a romantic date for couples, they replace the boring old crossword puzzle for the elderly, and they excel at allowing families to spend quality time together without noticing the time flying.
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The beauty of the whole thing is that no one at all needs to be an experienced board gamer. Rules are written clearly and straightforward, and are easy to pick up. For the more complicated minutiae, hundreds of easy-to-follow YouTube tutorials and how-to-plays exist.
Board games allow players to mix and match, meet new people with similar interests, and possibly make new friends.
This is certainly an exciting, novel and unusual concept. Board gaming shops are just now beginning to make headway into the larger city centres of South Africa, but remain for the most part an unheard-of idea. It is a ground-breaking worldwide movement. Board gaming definitely deserves to be promoted, especially as a very healthy alternative to technological traps like the cellphone and the Internet.
