For as long as I can remember, I have been a gaming enthusiast.
As a child, I played Snakes and Ladders, Book Cricket and Pen Fights, before progressing to The Game of Life, Monopoly, Othello and Uno. School bus rides buzzed with Atlas and Rock Paper Scissors. Chess was fun until my brother began defeating me. For two years, an Xbox 360 ruled my world – until my parents confiscated it before class 10.
Somewhere along the way, my enthusiasm for gaming waned, although it never left me completely.
It got rekindled when I was introduced in 2018 to Catan – the popular multiplayer boardgame that serves as a gateway to complex Euro-style boardgames.
Rather serendipitously, some other friends were also hooked on to the game at that time. Since then, we meet almost every Saturday evening to play board games. We have progressed from Catan to newer and more complex titles.
In late 2023, I discovered a vibrant board gaming community in Delhi. Now I have a wider pool of fellow gaming enthusiasts as well as an astonishing array of games available to play more often.
What I love about board gaming is the immersive experience it offers. You can run competing corporations to terraform Mars, establish the most diverse avian habitats, embellish the walls of the Royal Palace of Evora or search for the lost continent of Mu. During that time, you are transferred into a different world: one you are co-creating and navigating with the other players.
The tactile pleasure of moving beautifully crafted components across colourful boards, the racking of brains against others, the planning and strategising, and the incredible satisfaction when you successfully perform a game-changing or high-scoring manoeuvre – is there anything else in the world that packs all that into a few delightful hours?
When I’m board gaming, I forget about my phone and the news cycle. Not only does it keep brain rot at bay, but it has given me a new community.
