Bonding Through Games
July 2008 Issue
Features
- From the Editors
- Craft Check: Make Your Own Mounts
- Gaming in the Media: Nintendo Learns It Ain’t Easy Being Green
Interviews
- Interview: Lady Fireez [The Guild of Gaming Women]
Articles
- Girls Just Want to Make Fun
Author: Mara Poulsen
- Game with Your Family
Author: Robyn Fleming
- Learning to Roll with 4th Ed.
Author: Carla Lee
Mara talks about how Microsoft is revolutionizing video game development.
Robyn has some tips on what kind of games are ones that the whole family can enjoy.
Carla shares her experience playing D&D at Worldwide D&D Game Day.
Gamer Stories
Reviews
Odds 'n Ends
Families bond in many different ways: gathering together for meals, going out to social events, helping each other out… The list goes on and on. In my case, one of the ways that my family has bonded has been through games. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a “gamer family” or anything like that. It just happens that some games, especially board games, have offered us an opportunity to spend time together while having lots of fun.
When I was younger, my family would gather together once a week for “game night,” where we played board games (typically Monopoly or Risk) with each other. Outside of “game night,” my father taught me and my sister chess (although we didn’t end up with his love of the game) and my mother and I would play video games together until the wee hours of the night1. Heck, although I had been playing various computer games (mostly edutainment) since my first cognizant thought, it was one of my cousins who introduced me to console games through the original Dragon Warrior.
Games have also been a safe haven. During birthdays, holidays such as Passover and other important events, my extended family (those who lived in the same state, anyway) would often get together. It was at those dreaded events that my younger cousin and I bonded. As soon as we were allowed to leave the table (there’s probably an in-joke about Jews and food in there somewhere), he and I would rush to the console. If we were at my house, we would play Street Fighter II or The King of Dragons. If we were at his, it was a Sonic game. It wasn’t uncommon for one of us to refuse to go home once the “dreaded event” was over.
While I was in university, I played games with another one of my cousins practically every day. Sometimes it was just the two of us playing Resident Evil Zero or the RPG of the month, while other times it was a whole group of us testing out the newest board game (Settlers of Catan was a classic, but my personal favorite was Betrayal at House on the Hill) that we bought from the local gaming shop. Even when we went out, we still played games; a favorite pastime for my cousin and our friends was spending the evening at a bubble tea cafe playing Big Two or other card games (also bought from the local gaming shop).
Although I’m now in Japan, goodness knows how many miles away from my family, my current project is getting my mom hooked on Final Fantasy XI so we can play together on the weekends. Hopefully by now she’s no longer pissed off at me for getting her into World of Warcraft (an addiction that would take her about a year to break) and then leaving the game less than a month later. I’m planning a trip home in the summer, which is a perfect time to execute my plan…
1 To be fair, my dad tried to play Final Fantasy 2 (American) with me. While he enjoyed it, he was often too busy to play so I had to finish it on my own.
