Sunday, November 27, 2016

Game Night

Maura, left, and I with the Enterprise before & after playing the tabletop game Star Trek Panic last night. 
The ship's not supposed to catch on fire and fall apart like that.

I'd bought the game at the Star Trek 50th anniversary event downtown in August, and finally got around to playing it last night. 
I usually hate games (I only bought it because it was Star Trek), so I was surprised how much I enjoyed this one. 
It's a collaborative game---everyone plays, one at a time, to guide the ship through threats, in pursuit of some goal––and it involves some thinking and strategy (lightweight--this isn't chess). It's very satisfying to navigate correctly through the dangers.

But even if you get it wrong, the game rewards you--things blow up, which is satisfying even if it's just cardboard cut-outs of explosions. It taps into that thing I've been saying about violence: 
we like to feel our power, our effect on things––after all, I know I exist if I can pop bubble wrap... 

We didn't accomplish all our missions before we lost the ship. But it was our first time playing.

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