I have a very busy family of five, three of whom are getting ready to launch into the world. But for now, they all still live under our roof. Weeks consist of varied schedules, everyone floating in and out and sometimes passing one another in the driveway. Sundays, however, we are normally able to find time to sit down as a family and play a few games. The day is a veritable marathon of board games, and what’s amazing about each of the games that we have in our arsenal is that almost every single one of them has some form of worldbuilding. As such, this dovetails right into my worldbuilding blog series.
This week’s gameday started with 7 Wonders. It tends to be our “quick” game, clocking in at about an hour each time we play. This might give an indication of exactly how dedicated to gaming we really are. Though it’s quick, it can become rather cutthroat in an instant. The battle this week was between Mom and Dad. Much to my chagrin, Dad won handily, beating my measly score by more than thirty points.
The worldbuilding elements in 7 Wonders revolve around trade, education, war, wealth and resources, and players, each controlling one city, build their wonders along the way. It’s played with city boards and cards that are passed around the table. This is one of my favorites, though I so rarely win!
Our second game of the day, running about 2.5 hours, was this cooperative game where everyone works together until “the haunt” begins, and one of the team betrays the rest. As of Christmas, this is a new game for our family, and we’re still learning. But, similarly to table top role playing games such as D&D, each player gets a character that has statistics for certain skills. In Betrayal, as we call it for short, you have might, knowledge, sanity, and speed, then to test these skills based on the stories included, you roll dice. My daughter became the villain this time around, and we managed to overcome her evil ways.
Third up on Sunday, we played the other game we received from Santa. This one is a cross between Eldrich Horror and Gloomhaven. It has tiles for building the mansion much like Gloomhaven when building a dungeon. The unique aspect of this game is the mobile app that provides some storytelling. And, as dedicated gamers, we have overtaken our dining room and turned it into our game room. Complete with a television for displaying the mobile app’s interaction and watching YouTube videos that instruct us on how to play these complicated games, it’s where we spend our family Sundays.
Back to the game itself, like Eldrich Horror, this is based on the monsters from H.P. Lovecraft. Playing this and Eldrich Horror, while we have yet to win one of these games, I’m motivated to do a bit of reading. Is anyone really surprised that this is the case? Look for a story spotlight to come in the future.
Charterstone is how we rounded out the day. Though everyone in our family has played Dungeons & Dragons in addition to other dice and story-based role playing games, this game is where our mutual addiction and now Sunday tradition began. We have fallen so in love with story driven games that allow all five of us to play rather than one having to be the storyteller (e.g. Dungeon Master). Don’t get me wrong, we circle back to these from time to time, but our board game collection has given us a slightly different way to have some of the same experiences.
After playing two new games, Charterstone felt like coming home. It’s one that can easily last four hours in our family, but we have also learned how to speed through when it needs to be wrapped up for bed. In the game, each player is in charge of one territory, and you build buildings that you hope others will visit to collect resources or money, and then you work together or against the other players to build the story as you go. We are on our second campaign, and still loving every minute!
Before I close here, I’ll speak to one more. We weren’t able to fit this one in on Sunday, and when we do, it can easily take four or more hours. But if you’re a D&D player and don’t have a DM, this is a really good way to play a D&D style game without sacrificing one of the players to the role of storyteller and game master. I think this is what we should focus on Next Sunday!
Family…Thoughts?