By Rachel Hickingbotham
In a world where the idea of playing games immediately conjures up images of tablets, phones and gaming devices, it is encouraging to hear that there are still families who play board games together.
Lisa Bowen-Salce has five children ranging in ages from 9 up to 36, all of who play board, card and dice games together.
“It’s not like the Monopoly, Battleship and Scrabble of old,” explained Lisa. “Games have evolved so much now days.“
Lisa’s eldest son Jake is an expert when it comes to games that suit different ages.
He recommends starting out with a dice-based game such as the game called ‘Bang!’, a fun Wild West inspired game with goodies (sheriffs) vs baddies (outlaws).
“Even though it involves shooting, it’s all a bit of fun,” said Jake.
Another family favourite is called ‘King of Tokyo’, a game where you play monsters, robots and aliens, all of whom are destroying Tokyo and whacking each other in order to become ’The King of Tokyo’.
Once you start looking for new games to test out at home, it seems you can uncover a whole new world of family fun that will have you putting your Monopoly and Game of Life away for a while.
“There are many more games to try. When you go to specialty game stores you will find so many to choose from,“ says Jake. “There are heaps out there once you start looking.“
Jake also suggests card games in addition to board games. “One of our favourites is ‘Sushi Go!’, where you have to ’eat’ the most sushi, getting bonus points if you get the wasabi!”
A board game that is well-loved in Lisa’s house is what she calls the ‘car racing game’. Jake explains it in more detail, calling it ‘Formula D’, a game where you are Formula One drivers and have to decide how you navigate the racetrack course on the board, making choices at each dice roll while trying to avoid collisions with other drivers and blowing up your engine.
Board games are more popular than you would think.
“A lot of high schools now have ‘table top gaming clubs’ otherwise known as Role Playing Games (RPG)“, said Jake.
And it is not just kids and teens enjoying non-digital games, there are adult groups that meet up for games nights all around Melbourne. Jake says that specialty game shops such as Gas Games in Pakenham have facilities for games nights and often have events listed on their Facebook page.
It is inspiring to think that there are device-free games available right under our noses. Not only can we get our kids off screens, we can get our family together around the table like we did in the good old days. And you know what they say- ‘families that play together stay together’.
