Thursday, April 30, 2009

A new passion: "Settlers of Catan" board game

The alternate title for this post is "How a board game might have changed my life."

I was reading Wired magazine the other day when I came across an article titled "Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre," which piqued my intrest to say the least. I love games of all kinds and I am always interested in playing new ones. Board games have traditionally played a supporting role to videogames but ever since I tried and loved Cranium, I have been open to trying a greater variety of board games. I was very excited to hear that there was a "perfect" one now available and I sought to try it out immediately after reading the aforementioned article.

Long story short: Holy cow! I love Settlers. It is simple to play and offers more opportunities for strategy than any other board game I have ever played. The game is literally different every time you play and is always surprising me. It is so much fun that I have recently been putting off playing video games just to play more of it. Needless to say, I am finding the gameplay richly rewarding and deeply satisfying, even when I loose.

My experience with Settlers has taught me something that applies more broadly to my life which is this:
"One must not hold on too tightly to an idea of what one would like the world to be like. Constantly take stock of the current situation and try to accept it and use it to find a path to success. Always stay focused on the positive goals and figure out a way to get there from where you are right now."

Not bad for a board game, and I am not even very good at it!
My hope is that you try this board game and have enriching experiences just like I did. Good luck everybody!

13 comments:

M said...

it IS lots of fun. i recommend it, as well. i'm not a board game person, but Settlers is addictive.

SailorPeg said...

I heart Settlers too! And I am ready to take you down!

Brad C. said...

Just letting you know I read this and decided to do some more research on the game. Sounds like it would be a fun thing for the family to do on the weekends when the nephew comes out here. I found a pretty good deal on Amazon for this, so I just ordered it off of there. Hopefully it will get here before the weekend.

Brad C. said...

Settlers is SWEET! I must get the word out about how great this game is now. I can't believe more people don't know about it.

Elliot said...

I feel the same way Brad. And it's like 14 years old or something! Amazing. If you want to play online, let me know.

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