Frequent readers of my strange column will recall I have been struggling with burnout lately. I decided to finally fix this by taking a small vacation away from most of my devices. I left all of my devices (except my phone in case of emergency or if my dog got in trouble where she was staying) back in Ohio and left towards a nice vacation with friends in Maryland.
It was my first time in Maryland, and I was fortunate enough to be invited to a beautiful cabin by a lake where I could spend some time with friends. In addition to just admiring the amazing beauty that Maryland offers and participating in some really relaxing activities like sitting by a blazing firepit under the stars, playing board games was the centerpiece activity.
Board games are really fun because you get to interact with people sitting around a table, playing cooperatively or competitively without a screen separating you from your friends and the rest of the world. Here are some of the best board games that I played and enjoyed over my break.
EYETOONS
Eyetoons is a simple game that is really fun to play with friends. And like many of the games I played this weekend, it’s cooperative, which is pretty amazing.
The goal with Eyetoons is to look at a card with a cartoon and try to guess the song title and artist represented. A lot of us struggled with the cards as they featured a lot of songs from English bands (where the game is manufactured). Even when they featured popular, modern artists, the song choices were obtuse, which I guess makes it more of a challenge. For example, Madonna was featured, and while it was pretty easy guessing who she was based on the cartoon, her song Holiday was the one we were supposed to guess. Billboard lists Holiday as her 37th most popular song.
I had fun with Eyetoons, but that was mostly because of the company. However, unless you are really into music, including some obscure groups and their back catalog of songs, I would not recommend getting this one.
Left Center Right
Apparently for everyone over 45, this is one of their favorite ways to gamble. I had not played it before, but it was a fun experience.
The concept is very simple. Each player buys in with three dollars. Then on their turn, they roll the special dice and either keep their money, or they pass a dollar to the player on their left or to the person on their right. They can also be forced to tithe a dollar to the pot in the center of the table.
Even when you are out of money, you can still get back into play if someone has to pass you some bills, so you are never truly out until the end.
The win condition is when only one player is left with money at the table. When that happens, they win everything in the pot. Scooping it up while whooping it up is optional but recommended.
Mysterium
The main event for me was a brilliant detective game called Mysterium, which relies heavily on conceptual artistic appreciation and interpretation. The premise is that there was a murder in a mansion many years ago and a group of psychics (the players) journey there one night to try and contact the spirits and solve the case. It’s also another cooperative board game, so everyone either wins or loses together.
The goal of Mysterium is to determine who killed the ghost, what room the deed took place in, and what weapon was used. So, it’s kind of like Clue but with some extra steps and no Tim Curry.
At the head of the table sits the final player, who becomes the ghost and acts as a sort of dungeon master. The catch is that the players doing the psychic work are not allowed to talk with the player who is the ghost. Instead, the ghost provides hints in the form of “visions” which are artistic cards that the ghost thinks will direct people to choose the correct murder suspect, room, or weapon each round. The cards are very vague, so picking out the right elements is quite a challenge.
For example, if the ghost wants a player to select a suspect who is a race car driver, they might (if they are lucky enough to draw it as a possible choice) share a card with a lot of wheels. The ghost is extremely limited in how many cards they get (they can draw seven from the pile of vision cards and share up to three – but many of the cards are extremely unhelpful).
Mysterium gets pretty challenging when, for example, the ghost gives you, say, a card with a giant top hat on it, but there are five suspects wearing similar hats. That can make things frustrating for both players and the ghost at times, although things get easier as the night wears on and wrong choices get eliminated.
Mysterium is extremely fun, and we played it several times with different people becoming the ghost. Although I would recommend that Mysterium redesign some of the cards that are unhelpful in almost every circumstance. In total, it is a really fun board game and perfect example of a cooperative title done right.
Give A Board Game Weekend A Try
Overall, the time I got to spend away from my screens and just about everything else was extremely beneficial. Ever since the pandemic, it feels as if I have had multiple screens going while constantly drowning in work. But sitting with friends and playing board games helped to refresh me in countless ways. My batteries are finally recharged. Now, I feel much better and am fully refreshed. I even want to try to dig back into writing and also working on developing that RPG I mentioned in a previous column.
If any of you also get a chance to get away for a while, especially if you can do so with a good group of friends and some great board games, I would highly recommend it.