Becoming an Accidental Gamer

Then one night I gave a family friend of ours who is in his mid twenties – a game of Cards Against Humanity (and the 3 expansions) for his birthday – and it was during his birthday party that we played with a group of about 14 people.  I laughed for 2 hours straight and my face actually hurt.  It was so much fun and really relaxing in so many ways to laugh like that.   Anyway- I almost won (which counts to me) and I felt that misguided, proud sense of accomplishment when pairing my very cool answers to the posed black card questions. Of course – the CAH guys already knew that people like me and everyone else who plays – would feel that way – and that’s why the game works so well.

Then I went to Gen Con and was a part of the Tabletop Deathmatch (for those of you who are not immediately knowing what that is – Cards Against Humanity ran a game design contest and received 500 entries. They asked the 16 finalists to come to GenCon 2013 and pitch their games to a panel of judges (I was one of those judges – proof of me being a judge is shown here in this Teaser for the Tabletop Deathmatch – which was filmed by Loading Ready Run – an awesome production company full of very nice people out of Canada and organized in general by Max Temkin and Dammit Liz Productions.More about the very hospitable, multi-tasking, informative and did I mention extraordinarily capable Liz in a future blog. As a judge in the Death Match – I was lucky enough to meet some very smart, clever and generally excellent game inventors – developers – and publishers, and I learned some pretty cool and detailed game design lingo that makes me feel very good about myself.

Anyway – then I was quoting a nice guy named Aerjen Tamminga from Aerjen Games  for his very unique (and beautifully illustrated) game Pleasant Dreams – and he told me about his involvement in the Boston FIG- and that’s how Ad Magic would up becoming a sponsor for the Boston Festival of Indie Games – I was actually there as an exhibitor and we sponsored as well –

(Ad Magic donated a $1000 check to the winner of the best table top game to Ore: The Mining Game By: Jason Lyle Steingisser, Joseph W. McClintock)

but instead I left my associate Amy all alone at the booth and started playing the games.  She actually had a nice time – (we took a bigger blacker box we made for Cards Against Humanity and turned it upright on the table whenever we wanted attention – then put it back down when we go tired of talking to people)  We are having maybe just a tad too much fun at times with the Cards Against Humanity stuff – but CAH fans are so adoring (and obsessive – what is it with making spreadsheets about the game?) it was hard to resist.

I think it happened as soon as I sat down to play – but maybe it was really when I pulled ahead for a minute while playing Penny Press – (well I was definitely not aggressive enough in the end – and on my behalf I was still learning the game although, of course, so was everyone else – but some of them were actual gamers so they caught on much quicker than I did) – But Penny Press is an excellent game where you are publishing your own newspaper and scoop articles and interact on many levels at once with the other players and with different underlying strategies.  It is an excellent game -and exciting to the end. I enjoyed playing it immensely.

So during game play several things happened at once –

I realized I didn’t have my iphone with me – I left it back at the Ad Magic booth –  and I didn’t care.  Then I realized I was having fun.

Then I wanted to win. Not in a cutthroat way  – but in a competitive way – I am after all very competitive in all other things if nothing else is true about me.

On the second game – The Game of 49 – which I also loved –  I  got hooked on the team aspect of playing and found myself really liking the personalities (well their gaming personalities) of the people I was playing with. It was fun – it was stress relieving and best of all – I was actually doing my job.  How lucky am I?  I just realized that I am supposed to be playing these games – otherwise I am really doing a disservice to my less seasoned clients whose dream it is to put out a successful game!! Right?

Then I went and bought more than one dice ring.  I admit it.

So as you can see this all happened in a very roundabout way – but now – I think I would have to consider myself

a part time,

casual,

very competitive,

marginally obsessive,

overly enthusiastic,

and pretty much…

an accidental gamer.