You know them as your friends.
Lovely people. Kind people. People who would happily make you a cup of tea, help you move house, or let you have the last biscuit.
Then somebody puts a board game on the table.
Suddenly, Sarah who five minutes ago was asking if anyone wanted another drink is forming a secret alliance against you. Your partner has decided that “it’s just part of the game” is a perfectly reasonable excuse for completely destroying everything you’ve spent the last 40 minutes building.
So, what happens to us?
How can a few cards, dice and colourful pieces turn perfectly reasonable people into ruthless strategists and suspiciously passionate negotiators?
We have a few theories…
1. There’s Always One Who Says They’re “Not Competitive”
Never trust this sentence.
“Oh, I don’t really care if I win.”
Fast-forward an hour and they’re questioning the exact wording of page 14 of the rulebook because technically you may have moved that piece incorrectly three turns ago.
They don't care about winning, though. Obviously...
Board games have an incredible ability to uncover competitive streaks that apparently don’t exist anywhere else.
2. The Rulebook Suddenly Becomes a Legal Document
At the beginning of the game, nobody wants to read the rules.
“Can’t you just explain it?”
Twenty minutes later, however, the rulebook has become the single most important document in the room. Someone makes a questionable move. Silence. The rulebook appears. Pages are turned. Definitions are debated. Previous examples are referenced. Someone inevitably says:
“Well, that’s not how I interpreted it.”
Congratulations. Your relaxing board game night has temporarily become a courtroom.
3. Betrayal Is Apparently Fine If There’s Cardboard Involved
In everyday life, deliberately sabotaging your friends is generally frowned upon.
During a board game?
Completely acceptable.
You can spend half the game working together. You’ve built trust. You’ve shared resources. You’ve promised that you’re both going after the player in the lead. Then you spot an opportunity. And somehow “sorry, it’s the game!” makes everything okay.
Mostly.
4. Everyone Has a Completely Different Strategy
This might be one of our favourite things about board games.
Give four people exactly the same game and you can get four completely different approaches.
There’s The Mastermind, who is planning six turns ahead.
There’s The Opportunist, who has absolutely no plan but somehow keeps doing brilliantly.
There’s The Chaos Player, whose decisions make no strategic sense whatsoever but are causing enormous problems for everyone else.
And then there’s the player who just likes collecting the nice-looking pieces.
5. We All Have Our Favourite Excuses
Nobody simply loses a board game. There is always a reason.
“I had terrible cards.”
“I didn’t understand the rules at the beginning.”
“Everyone was targeting me.”
“If we’d played one more round, I would have won.”
“I wasn’t really concentrating.”
Naturally, when we win, none of these variables matter and it was entirely down to skill.
So Why Do We Love It?
Because underneath all the plotting, questionable alliances, dramatic dice rolls and accusations of “you only did that because I’m winning”, something pretty brilliant is happening.
We’re sitting around a table together.
We're talking. Laughing. Thinking. Competing. Making ridiculous decisions and creating stories that somehow get brought up months later.
You might forget the final score.
You probably won't forget the outrageous comeback, the disastrous decision that cost someone everything, or the friend who spent the entire game claiming they were losing before revealing an enormous pile of points at the end.
That's a huge part of what makes board games special.
Every group plays differently, and every time a game hits the table, something new can happen.
Even if it does reveal that your lovely, kind friends are actually absolute monsters when victory points are involved.
Meanwhile, Away From the Publishing Desk…
Speaking of people getting unexpectedly competitive, we've been out and about recently too!
We had a brilliant time at Canterbury Gaming Convention, where lots of you came over to play, chat and get involved.
Our giant games proved incredibly popular, and we loved watching people wander over for a casual go… only for things to become considerably more serious once winning was suddenly a possibility.
There was plenty of action at the spin wheel too. Apparently, no matter how old you are, if somebody puts a giant colourful wheel in front of you, you simply have to spin it. We don't make the rules.
It was also fantastic seeing so many people sitting down and enjoying our partnership games. There's something particularly rewarding about seeing games we've worked on being discovered in the wild especially when one person finishes playing and immediately brings someone else over to have a go.
That's what these events are all about for us.
Meeting players, introducing people to something new and, most importantly, seeing everyone having fun around a table.
So, to everyone who stopped by, played a giant game, spun the wheel, tried one of our partnership titles or simply came over for a chat:
Thank you!
Canterbury, you were brilliant.
Until next time! 🎲