Monday, January 2, 2012

Gaming History 3 - The Morph of the College Group


When we last left my personal history series, we finished my Sophomore year and what was essentially
the end of the Cosmic heyday, though I didn't know it at the time.  At this point, if you haven't read the history series, parts 1 and 2, I ask you to go back and read them.

That summer I decided to start watching BGG auctions to try to find some new games at lower prices.  Life as a college student didn't make me dirt poor, but it wasn't bringing in tons of money either so I needed to find deals where I could.  This lead to procuring Battlestar Galactica and a couple of other games.  I leave the others as a group since I really don't remember which ones they were, but BSG sticks out because it changed the way we did game nights.  As the group started to split, living in different dorms, our game times became more sporadic and less spontaneous.  Sure, we still had Cosmic, but it was BSG that kept people together.  We brought a new one into the fold, a guy who lived across the hall from me and would wander by stopped and watched.  The interesting thing with my subsequent purchases was a shift towards story and theme.  Dominion was also a big help in giving us a change of pace game, something a bit shorter but still fun.  My junior year was also the start of having my sister on campus, which lead to a lot more Ticket to Ride.  On my drive down to campus I listened exclusively to old Dice Tower episodes, and it stuck with me. I've been a dedicated listener ever since.

Unfortunately for me, my last two years of games at school kinda blur together.  That's to say that there was a lot of game playing, a lot of repeats of games, and a lot of the same people.  My senior year had a lot more games played because we were playing shorter ones, and followed a pattern where Friday or Saturday was a guys game night, meaning BSG or Cosmic and then the other night was an everybody, typically meaning Ticket, Dominion, Catacombs, Smallworld and a lot of Dixit.

Dixit was the price I paid for having friends who were very well read and often English majors.  Not to say that Dixit is a bad game, it just would never be my first choice in games, yet I find myself wanting to play it again.

It started with 4 of us playing Catan.  By the end of my time, we were up to 20 different people who played with us at some point, though usually 4-8.  It wasn't a huge legacy, but it was a lot of fun.
 People who made a lifetime of memories.

I was blessed with a total of 3 roommates who enjoyed playing boardgames.  Not nearly as much as I did, but it was a great place to start and they didn't mind the storage space being taken over by boxes of games.  I know that games will never be like they were at Westmont, but we can only try to keep things going.  Sure the game plays are more sporadic, but the ones that do happen are always enjoyable.

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