Board games have undergone something of a renaissance in the past few years. You may have noticed it yourself: rather than rolling your eyes and preparing to unleash that anecdote about an intensely frustrating fifteen hour game of Monopoly you played with your sister in 1987, you may be grinning with delight and preparing to tell us about how you became a Carcassonne evangelist or a Pandemic obsessive.
Or you may be chuckling at all us johnny-come-latelies, like my French friend who has a specially-reinforced gaming shelf, and has been luxuriating in Euro-style games for decades.
Here’s how my colleague Owen Duffy put it, in an article last year:
Online retailers have made games far more easily available than in the past, when many could only be procured from a small number of specialist shops. At the same time, the power of blogs, online video and social networks has created word-of-mouth buzz for an industry that, until recently, has been largely ignored by mainstream, non-gaming media.
But players and designers are keen to suggest another reason for the hobby’s resurgence. Games are simply getting better. Publishers are turning out products with elegant mechanics and impressive artwork as fast as their customers can snap them up. Board games are going through a golden age.
So now it’s over to you. What’s your favourite board game? Are you a recent convert, or have you been playing them for many a moon? Do you stick to the classics, or do you have an obsession with a lesser-known title? Share your stories and - if it tickles your fancy - images of you, your friends and family playing your favourite games, and we’ll post the best stories and pictures (and videos, if you’re that way inclined) in an article on the Guardian site.
Honestly, we don’t even mind if it’s Monopoly.
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