Game It Out

Inspirational song: White Russian (Marillion)

There could be no better game to play on a week like this as Pandemic. We met next door as we do on most Sundays, ready to pass the time with our closest friends. There were a handful of games stacked on the table, and in the blink of an eye, they were narrowed to two: Pandemic and Code Names. We jumped right in.

To be honest, there were too many of us for Pandemic. It’s best with four, and we were six. We ran out of cards and virus markers on the same round, and doing either of those things loses the game. None of us had played this game in months, and with alcohol flowing freely (as happens often on game night) it was a slow, plodding process for us to remember how to structure the turns properly. Pandemic is a cooperative game, that is only won by everyone supporting each other (my favorite sort of game). I think we should try it again soon, but only if we are playing it as a board game, not navigating this sort of scenario in real life. The way things sound on the news, I’m not sure we will have as much say in the matter.

We switched to Code Names, which had gone very well the first time we tried it a few weeks ago. The makeup of the group was slightly different, so we had to work on different wavelengths. It was a little harder this time, but still a ton of fun. And when two people in our group skipped out because of work demands, the four of us who remained kept playing with different rules. One person was the mastermind, and the rest of us had to try to get all tiles guessed in a random number of turns (based on the roll of a die). I think we won two and lost two that way. Pretty sure I failed to place all my tiles as the mastermind, but I only missed by one.

I’ve been doing regular games with people for years. The games change, and the circle of friends changed with each place I’ve lived. But the desire for this activity has never faded. I treasure this more than I could express. Now if I could just get enough people in one place to play bunco again. Maybe after the real life pandemic comes and goes.