Parlour games are “en vogue”. There are new ones all the time, and each year one game is awarded the title “game of the year”.
When I was a child, we played “aggravation or frustration”, “nine men’s morns”, “checkers”, “Chinese checkers” and chess. There were also really stupid board games (car and horse races) with really nice figures but they were so boring that we only ever played them once.
And we had the classics, such as monopoly, later risk or clue. Those are really emotional games, requiring stamina and patience, sometimes even combinatory talent. Then came the huge inflation by entertainment games. I opted out and refused to play those new games.
In our family, a lot of playing games is going on. My children’s friends often join in. Mostly, they play without me, because I boycott the games. Currently, one of their favourites is “The Settlers of Catan”, which I also refused to learn.
It seems to be great fun. Regardless of considerable pressure from my family, however, I remained stubborn in my refusal, although I enjoy watching the others play. It seems to be a really nice game, but after what I have seen of it, I doubt that there is a strategic dimension to it.
It also seems that it is not necessary to concentrate too intensely while playing it. A certain degree of attention will do. But everybody who plays it seems to really enjoy it. On the other hand, some already consider it boring.
Once in a while, I let myself be persuaded to play a new game with my family (well, a game that is new for me might actually be quite old-fashioned for anybody else). These games have names like “Sixes Takes” or “Bluff”. They are plenty of fun and you can speculate a lot while playing, but they do not really require a lot of thinking. When I play “Sixes Takes”, I often get the impression that – apart from a few trivialities – it really does not make any difference which card you put down.
In order to humour my “small” daughter, I sometimes play the “Game of Life”. The motto of the game is: “Every life is different! What will your life be like?“. Basically, it is quite interesting to learn as you play how your life in the game will end. For instance if you end up highly indebted but as a compensation get plenty of life points. In the game, you earn the life points by consuming a lot – but also by marrying, having children and being socially active.
We have both the old and new version. The new version is called “Generation now!”. There is no longer any thinking involved. The motto is: “The electronic life planner registers everything that happens in your life!”.
Everything is done electronically (most simple). You have a computer, you insert a card, and all the rest happens automatically: dice are thrown by pressing a button, money and life points are subtracted or added – all you have to do is type them into the keyboard. Eventually, the computer does the sum and comes up with the players’ life balance.
This development is in accordance with the spirit of the time. Games that require concentration and where you first have to do some learning and practicing are “out of fashion”. New games will be a success if you can learn them fast and if they have a certain degree of originality. Above all, they have to have a high adventure value. That is what counts.
I no longer have a chance to persuade my kids to play a round of nine-men’s-morns, checkers or Chinese-checkers with me. They say that requires too much thinking. Besides, they say they always end up losing against me. And making an effort by practicing in order to maybe win once in a while is boring.
I used to play a lot of nine-men’s-morn or checkers or chess with my father. It took quite some time before I first ever won against him. Especially with chess, it took years. That is too long for my children.
When I started grammar school, I was a doing rather poorly academically. I had concentration deficit. Then I discovered chess and enrolled in a chess club. My capacity to concentrate improved drastically and my marks at school along with it. So I became a passionate chess player and also tried making my children enthusiastic about it, even using considerable pedagogical skill.
However, none of them went beyond the rudimentary learning of rules. It is too strenuous to concentrate really hard and take the time to think longer before a move. And it is no longer fashionable among young people to “sit on your hands”, e.g. mentally think through various options and weigh them up against each other, rather than run on impulse after the first idea that comes to mind.
Instead, now we have “junior games”, such as “monopoly junior”. They are light games, simplified copies of the classics. They do not take much time, which is a huge advantage, because nowadays every game that takes a little longer is considered “boring”.
All these fun and delight games might be one of the reasons we have such as catastrophic educational situation (along with the consumption of far too much TV and computer games). If you no longer learn to concentrate and work towards a goal using your brains through playing, then how are these skills supposed to develop? At school? – I don’t think so!
RMD
P.S.
I just heard about a group of school children in Munich. Students with a socially difficult background learn and play chess in an extra workshop held in addition to the normal teaching hours (German Hauptschule: Secondary Public School). After one year, the students in this class had improved their marks by 1.3 grades (!).
(Translated by EG)
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