I believe that you can have much more fun with a group of people playing a board game than sitting in front of an XBox, Playstation or a solitary time with a Nintendo DS.
A few weeks ago, I had a highly entertaining supper party with three close friends playing a board game that K had found in a second hand shop. It is no longer in the shops but I found it can be bought for the pricey sum of £30 on Ebay. The game? It was The Archers – Ambridge version.
We were not surprised it didn’t catch on, the rules were complicated to say the least. The idea is to work your way around the board on the throw of a dice. You collect cards telling you which Archers character you are, and as you land on a known property, such as The Bull, another player gives you something off the list to talk about. Got it so far? Try talking about slurry in the voice of Linda Snell before the egg timer runs out! If you are now thinking you don’t listen to the Archers and who the hell is Linda Snell, spare a thought for the fourth member of our group who, several years younger than the rest of us, doesn’t listen to the Archers either. It made the evening all the more hilarious.
Fun times can also be had across the generations. My grandchildren, four and eight, came to stay last weekend and before they arrived I pulled out the toy box only to realize that they were outgrowing ‘grannie’s toys’. I quickly ordered a reversible snakes and ladders and ludo game. – thank goodness for Amazon.
When it arrived I had to read the ludo rules because I couldn’t for the life of me remember how it was played. Armed with the rules, the three of us sat down and had a most enjoyable time going up the ladders and down the snakes, followed by moving our coloured counters around the ludo board. My four year old granddaughter took it in her stride when someone’s counter landed on hers and she had to go back to the beginning,
Board games teach children that there are winners and losers and you can’t always be first. A valuable lesson in life.
What family board games do you still play?
