As a child, I played board games a lot with my brother and my cousins. Back then the only games I knew were Monopoly, Cluedo, and Hotel.
As the years passed and I was entering adolescence, I discovered Chess. I loved it!
It was the kind of game I was looking for at the time. A heavy strategy, abstract game. I didn't know the term "abstract" back then, though.
A few years ago, I was in a kids' play store with my wife shopping for some presents for our niece, and I told her to pick up some board games for us. The next scene is me, frustrated in front of the shelf with the board games. The same board games I played as a kid as well as some new ones, but they seemed boring as if they were meant for small children. We only bought one game, Scrabble.
But four years ago I discovered that there are a lot more modern games, in terms of the rules. The first board game I bought was The Settlers of Catan. I was excited after we finished our first game. Then I bought my second, which was Puerto Rico and the rest is history.
Today, I have a decent collection of over 100 games from party games to war games and heavy economic games like 1830 in the picture above. Because of this hobby, I've made new friends with the same interests as me, and now we have our own place to meet and play every Friday night. We call it B.G.A.C. (Board Game Athens Club) and a YouTube channel in Greek about board games.
The reason I love board gaming is that because of it, I've made new, interesting friends, I can share quality time with my kids over a game and have fun, and I started learning English because the most interesting and complex games are in English only.
My favorites are the 18xx games. In these games, we're investors buying and selling railroad company stocks and trying to make as much money as possible. These games take 4 to 6 hours and sometimes even more.
Thank you for reading and don't hesitate to ask me anything about board games. I'm more than happy to help :)
* Friday night playing "1830 Railways & Robber Barons" at our Board Game Club
What a cool hobby! Great story)))
Thank you! :)
I also love board games too. I feel like it's a great way to spend time with our family and friends without the likes of screens.
@Fronk you're absolutely right. What games have you played so far?
I've played Cluedo, Pandemic, Survive, I'm the Boss, Codenames and more!
Hey Dimitris. I'm new on Journaly and have just discovered your fun article on board games. I discovered modern board games in 2015. The first game we bought was Carcassonne. Since then, we've gone on to buy many more games, like Pandemic, Takenoko and more. Thanks for the great post!
Hi @James. I really love love love board gaming. I have a gaming group here in Greece and we play every Friday night, all night long. I have played over 1000 different games. My favorite category is 18xx. Heavy economy games. You should try maybe one of them.