Board games

need to be played with other people. I have played a few in my time - mostly with young friends. 

When I was a mere kitten my maternal grandmother had a "games compendium". It was old fashioned even then. I don't remember all the games in it but, if we were "very good", we were permitted to play Ludo or Snakes and Ladders,  and Chinese checkers. There was also a chess board but no chess men. We played "draughts" instead with pieces she had cut from cereal boxes and paper. 

As we had a chess board at home with proper draught pieces we rarely used the latter. We played the other games more out of a sense of duty than anything else. We were supposed to "like" them although in reality we found them rather dull compared with the somewhat greater complexities of draughts and dominoes. 

And then, at some point, our grandmother splashed out and bought first a "Monopoly" set...and then a Scrabble set. We were now expected to sit and play with her whenever we visited. 

Monopoly was interesting enough the first few times we played it but we knew our grandmother was cheating. That made the game no fun at all. We complained. Of course we were told off for this, indeed punished for it. Quite why my grandmother felt such a strong need to win puzzled me back then. As an adult and knowing something of her history I find it a little easier to understand but, as children, we were simply expected to accept something we had been told was wrong.

It was much harder for our grandmother to cheat at Scrabble. She would try to tell us that a word existed, that it was simply a word we did not know. If we could not find it in the dictionary...? Well not all words were in the dictionary.  Our parents put a stop to that - and that put a stop to the games of Scrabble with our grandmother. 

Our paternal grandmother played Bridge and probably some other card games. She knew about "noughts and crosses" and "draughts" but we were expected to play them with each other - not with her. She was always busy doing something else. Nevertheless she found time to teach us "kitchen things" and "garden things" and other "useful things". (Brother Cat can sew as well as woodwork because of her efforts.)  

Our paternal grandfather knew the basics of chess and showed me the moves but he did not really have time for that sort of thing. He had no time for card games or any other sort of board game. If he had been that way inclined I think he might have enjoyed something like "Go". It would need to have been that level of complexity to challenge him.

Yesterday there was an email to me late in the afternoon. A friend asked me if I could still find the link to a game I had once given her for her two children. I tried to remember what it was and she was rather vague about it but told me it was a board game they had been able to make for themselves and she thought it might have been "Japanese and sort of like X's and O's". In the end I suggested "Look up "Four Field Kono" - it's Korean".

If you are curious look it up - and don't be fooled. It is more challenging than you might think.