What’s your favorite game (card, board, video, etc.)? Why?

I don’t play games anymore. Except for Family Games Night, then I play games. I can’t say that I have a favourite though, just whichever is the flavour of the day and that gets played to death, until we get bored and never touch it again.

At the moment, that game would be Cluedo, or Clue, for my American friends. We’ve got two versions. The modern one, and the classic.

We also play Soggy Doggy, but that involves water and batteries. For a long time though Monopoly was my all time favourite, but it goes on for so long, and ruins friendships, so that went into storage long ago.

I was always more of a video game player. My first computer was the zx spectrum and for the first week it was set up on the TV in the living room, and the whole family got involved. We played such games as Harrier Attack, Oh Mummy, and Treasure Island into the small hours.

There were thousands of games, but the one that captures my imagination most was Dizzy, and all of its clones and spin-offs. It kept me entertained for years.

Dizzy was a boxing glove wearing egg that bounced around the screen solving puzzles. The setting didn’t matter, the main interest was exploring the world, collecting objects and finding their purpose to unlock new parts of the game. It was almost as good as going outside.

They don’t make games like this anymore, and the more the graphics have improved the visuals, the less the imagination is fired. In a modern game, what you see is what there is, but in a low resolution game the world implied by visual prompts is way richer.

It didn’t matter that the graphics were simple or that the colours clashed. There’s long grass here and you can smell it, hear the insects beating their wings. The tree is old, the wind rustles its leaves and its branches sway and creak, this tree could tell a tale or two. But that gravestone, it’s been there for a while and it’s started to sink, soon it will topple and disappear in to the ground, taking it’s secrets with it. Could there be something buried here? Treasure? A secret entrance?

I picked up this game on a trip to the seaside in the eighties. I read the packaging, consumed its treasure island themed art work with the sun on my face and the sea air in my lungs interwoven with the anticipation of playing the game when I got home, 3 long hours later. Memories like that can carry you from childhood to deathbed in a way that instant downloads never will.

I’ve played many games since. Blood, Grand Theft Auto, Bendy and the Ink Machine. There are good games but they don’t have the simplistic beauty or the imagination of the classics.

I can’t name an all-time favourite, there are just too many, but many have left an indelible soft spot.