boardgamegirl

I have always liked board games. I’ve always wanted to play them. But through some cruel twist of fate - or maybe just a suppressed masochistic streak in my personality - I somehow managed for the longest time to surround myself with people who didn’t like them. My family - didn’t like them. My grade school friends - didn’t like them. The first three of my four serious boyfriends - didn’t like them either. Sure, I managed to get the occasional party game in, because teens everywhere use them as an excuse to act silly in front of the opposite sex. For example, to this day I remember kneeling on my classmate’s living room floor, alternating hand gestures between a praying motion and outlining huge  boobs on my chest to make my 16-year-old peers guess the word “nun” (”MONK!”, they screemed. “FAT MONK!” Pause. “Oh, I know: KNEELING HOOKER!”).

But I never had the chance to *really* game: I wanted to be competitive. I wanted to win. I wanted to destroy my opponents. Simply put, I wanted to be the best. And if- and when!- I lost, I wanted to try again, and do better - with (HA! Didn’t count on that, suckaaaa!!!) a different strategy. But finally, I started dating someone who felt similarly about competition, and the rest is legend.

Hey, talk about a long introduction! Let’s get to the point now. Ever since I seriously got into board gaming about 3 years ago, I remember Puerto Rico inhabiting the throne of boardgame honour: the number one spot as rated by thousands of game nerd users on boardgamegeek.com. After some quick research, it turns out it had been inhabiting that number one spot for more than five years! And not only was Puerto Rico firmly established in the board game, uh, establishment, I happened to share the establishment’s view: Puerto Rico is an awe-inspiring game on absolutely every level ( and I’m certain to expand on why that is in a future post on this blog).

In any case, it came as a huge shock to me that Puerto Rico was booted from the number one spot some time on August 2008 of this year. In the board game world, an upset like this is the equivalent of whatever football team it was that won all those games and then screwed up the Superbowl this year (please don’t tell me in the comment section. I couldn’t care less). So, of course, I was bursting to get my hands on a copy. But on August 18th, I happened to be on a cross-country road trip, and I think I was somewhere in Iowa, gazing at ripe corn fields. Then, of course, Agricola was sold out all over the place, and I ended up ordering it from my old friend John at boardgames.ca. Finally, at the beginning of last week, I played my first game.

What did I think, you ask? Well, that’s for tomorrow’s post. I’ve had a long day here in the Maritimes. Sleep tight,

Boardgamegirl out.

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