Understandably trepidatious about visiting us when 2-3 other households were already here, Audrey's sister Vera finally made it up to see us this past weekend.
It was a great visit - she and Audrey made a pile of wontons for soup and I made barbacoa beef for our burritos last night. but the real highlight for me was the games.
Like all too many of our friends and family, she circulates with fewer people these days, largely out of fear of infecting them with omicron, as she works in a health care facility. And not a lot of those people are into board games, especially unfamiliar ones to them, like Ticket to Ride or Settlers of Catan.
Catan is one of Vera's favourite games though, so I can always count on getting a game in when she is here. And because Bobby was over on Saturday too, it meant I got to play my first-ever six-person game of Catan, which Glory won handily.
She almost blew it when she announced she was going to win next turn. I mentioned how much I wanted to thwart her by taking her longest road award but was short a few cards, at which point EVERY OTHER PERSON at the table offered to trade me the wood and brick needed to push me to the four additional roads I needed to usurp those two points from her. This roiled her up to no end, but also taught her a valuable lesson - namely, the Catan victory chant:
Watching a competitive game momentarily devolve into something collaborative (or at least mostly collaborative) is always entertaining, and happens in almost every corner in Formula Dé. It is difficult to find these moments outside of games, frankly, where the competition is far healthier and rule-bound than many other examples in our lives.
Before Vera joined us, we journeyed out to Rocky Mountain House to visit Audrey's other sister Betty, and her family, including my two nieces, nephew, one niece's husband and another's fiancé. The latter is a nice young fellow hoping to become a conservation officer in B.C., and is also a board game fan. Blake introduced Bobby and I to a much-loved vintage game of his called The Farming Game. I have little interest in farming and almost as little in games from 1979 that look like off-brand Monopoly, but was compelled by Blake's ardour and gave it a shot.
I am very glad I did. and for two reasons. The first that The Farming Game's poor production values and limited graphic appeal concealed a tremendously fun and competitive game. Like Monopoly, players go around a square board, but instead of buying property, they attempt to expand the farm they start out with (which, tragically and appropriately enough, begins in debt).
One side of the board lets players prepare for a variety of harvests and paying a variety of expenses, while the other three sides detail a series of harvests, organized similarly to the colour groups in Monopoly. once per group, you can earn profits from the particular harvest, but only if you have invested in it previously. Your hayfields can produce 2-3 times for each go-round, but gamble on cattle or fruit and you will be praying to land in a strip only 3-4 squares long.
More importantly was watching Blake run us through our paces in the game. He was highly conversant in the rules, but also keen on answering questions, and to offer earnest advice to players who might be lagging behind. When Bobby ended up winning due to a bumper fruit harvest, Blake was tickled pink, and gratified that we enjoyed a game that he has enjoyed so much since he was 12 that he used to play it by himself to see how long it would take him to exhaust the bank of $10,000 bills.
When I flew out to my job interview for Games Workshop way back in 1995, they actually scheduled time for me to play a game with the warehouse staff. It was a new game at the time that I was completely unfamiliar with, but it turns out that my knowledge was not why I was playing it. A small part was to see how quickly I could pick up on new rules and mechanics, but a larger part was to see if I was a good sport, a team player and fun to play with.
At Betty's table in Rocky, I was unsure if I was the interviewer or the interviewee, but I was glad we played, and that I came away with very favourable impressions of both The Farming Game and Blake. And playing Catan, Jackbox and Ticket to Ride with Vera made me reflect on how lucky we are to have people in our lives to share the things we enjoy.
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