Back to the gameboard for some old-style fun

While traditional board games like ludo, snakes and ladders, carom and chess are mostly considered a pastime and a part of childhood memories, groups of enthusiasts across the country are hooked to advanced versions of these games and are meeting up regularly to develop a “growing community” of gamers.

What appealed to 29-year-old Arun Prabu about board gaming was its “interactive, engaging and ice-breaking approach” that one hardly witnesses in social engagements. That is how he started board gaming two years back. “It looked like a good idea to meet new people and play new board games every week (Tuesdays) in a local cafe,” Bengaluru-based Prabu tells Metrolife.

Looking at the “enthusiastic appeal” of board gaming and “animated interaction”, he consequently opened a cafe, ‘Dice n Dine’. “It’s a drab activity when people move in and move out of a restaurant with their mobile phones and do not wholly engage with their company. Board gaming was the ideal platform for them to enjoy their time, and for us to keep them engaged besides the food,” elucidates Prabu.

Mumbai-based Aniceto Pereira was looking to find a group to play such games as he was interested to play them since childhood. He started playing with the Mumbai Board Gamers group, and then several members of the group came together to start a not-for-profit group called Tabletop India to promote all sorts of tabletop gaming. Through it, he got introduced to more advanced games. “We grew up with a handful of games in India, but there are several hundred thousand games that have been designed over the years. Most of these games will never be seen in India, but there is a huge community of gamers throughout Europe, the US, Japan, Singapore, Canada, Australia, and a smaller yet growing community in other countries,” says the 35-year-old college professor.

Around the world, board games are best known as “tabletop” games and other than the regular games, they also include card, dice, role playing and tile games. “For me, until then, all games were board games but I was exposed to the bigger universe of games in the USA,” says Karan Kalra who got hooked to gaming after a PAX gaming show in Boston where there was a beginner’s session on tabletop gaming.

Gaming is not only about fun, it also requires patience and concentration. And many of these new games allow gamers to exercise their grey cells and they learn to negotiate, strategise, bluff and memorise. Some of the ideal games for beginners are ‘Carcassone’, ‘Lords of Waterdeep’, Ticket to Ride’. There are also advanced ones like ‘Giants’, ‘Thurn and Taxis’, ‘Hyperborea’, ‘Cyclades’, ‘Stone age’ and ‘Settlers of Catan’.

“Some of these games can be finished in 20 minutes and some can go for as long as 12 hours or even weeks,” informs Joseph Varghese who joined a gaming group in Delhi in November last year but quit two months back as they “imposed a membership fee”.

One of the reasons why there aren’t many such gaming groups in India could be the investment one has to make, especially when it comes to playing advanced games.

“Most games are priced between Rs 500-2,500 (10-50 dollars). They’re expensive in that way, but if you if you pay Rs 2,500 for a game, and your group plays it 50 times and is not bored of it. The overall cost is Rs 50 per game and divided by four or five players is Rs 10 to Rs 12.50 per play,” says Pereira.