As is usual when my family gets together, this afternoon was full of playing board games. We played a couple rounds of a game call Betrayal of the House on the Hill. It’s a game about exploring a haunted house and the spooky things that happen. You start the game by moving your character around the house and flipping tiles to reveal the different rooms. You read cards and roll dice to create different actions that add mystery and challenges to the game. At some point in the game a dice roll will start something called the “haunt”. There are many different scenarios of what the haunt could be (determined by the room you’re in and what item you have when the haunt was started) but it usually involves someone’s character teaming up with a monster and betraying everyone else by trying to kill them. Although it’s a game that doesn’t take much skill, it’s a lot of fun. In the spirit of board games, and why I spent so much time explaining just one, I’m thankful today for the variety of board games that have been created.

My love of board games was instilled in my by my dad. He loves to play games and always wants to play when we’re together. I’m pretty sure every time I’ve seen him the past 5 years he’s had a new game for us to try. We play games a lot when we get together as a family, much to my mom’s frustration (she has a hard time playing them for hours on end), and it’s something that helps me connect with my dad so I love it. But how boring would it be if we played the same game over and over again? Or if every game had the same kind of cards, the same kind of actions you could take, and the same goal at the end of the game? I would’ve gotten tired of playing games before I’d started high school! It’s really cool to me that there are so many different concepts put into games. They have different goals, actions, themes, cards, pieces, etc. Of course there are similar overlying aspects of games, but I love that there are hundreds of games in the world and no two are exactly the same. I’m grateful that the creativity of board game creators has led to my biggest hobby and a way for me to continually spend time with my family.