With the corona virus, known as COVID-19, ravaging the world, the biggest thing now is how to not get infected so one can stay alive. It’s bigger than driving your dream sports car, getting pampered at your favorite spa or going on a cruise to Majorca. Talking about cruises, no one wants to touch any of those right now.
You are homebound and sweating it, complaining that your rapturous free spirit feels like a prisoner in chains. Get over it. You are better alive and bored than dead and excited. Actually, no one can be excited when dead. That’s because dying means lying comatose, with the inability to go shopping or dine out. But if alive, you can play tomorrow when a better day comes. But dead people don’t golf. They just can’t.
So while home, make the best use of it. Reconnect your spirit to such humdrum stuff as watching late night news. Listing to government stats about the corona virus surge and do the best you can not to add to it. Hearing the word “epicenter” should be sobering enough to put you on your toes and calm all that raging itch to go out and connect, which risks keeping the virus raging.
At Animatopica, we make games, like our game Dogs of the Galaxies, and want people to play them. We want you to play them with your families, at parties, events, when hanging out with friends or downing beers at the bar. We want you to play as many times as you can.
ut these times are different. We want you to stay home and play with your family and not entertain the idea of seeking out your usual hang-out buddies, the ones you sip wine with, quaff down kegs of beer with and play RPG or card games late into the night.
For sure, playing card games with friends is fun – we get it – and we love that you want to play. That validates what game developers like Animatopica do and tells them they are creating stuff you and your buddies like. But don’t go seeking out Joe, Jim, Mary and Martha, the usual gang you hibernate with; not in these weird times. The reasons are glaring. You don’t know where they’d been or what they have. You don’t want to bring more than your card game home – you don’t want to bring home dry cough.
This means that you better learn to make excellent card game company of your boring family. We love family alright, but we also understand boring in certain respects. You can curse and swear with your friends, and poke at each other with often wicked ribbing. It’s all part of the often border-line crude, but forgivable fun, especially when card game playing is mixed with a free-flow of inebriating liquid.
But family is a different ball game, especially with kids around. Here, your foul mouth is sanitized with the purest of soaps and water and language is watched keenly like a hawk. Therein lies the boring. Plus, you dare not whip out risqué cards near impressionable kids whose role-model you should be in the first place. What kind of devil would you be?
That’s why they created the term family games. Those are the type of games that are good for momma, poppa, young Jack and Amy – clean, circumspect, even priestly. Actually, priestly may be taking it too far, but you get the picture. Bottom line is that there’s no coarse language.
Buying card games to play for adults, teens or with kids? Don’t restrict yourself to Gin Rummy card game or Uno (although those are fine games of course). There are a lot of fine family games that are enjoyable by both adults, teens and kids. If you love card games, and have a family, you may want to explore different family-friendly card games without a not safe for work (NSFW) tag and keep some of those at home. Not to say that family games are made specifically for occasions like the corona virus, but they won’t hurt at time like these.
If your family members don’t know how to play, teach them, just don’t curse while at it, as you would do with friends. Once they get it, a whole new kingdom of quick escape avails itself when things get boring. And playing with your kids doesn’t mean you can’t still have a beer. Just don’t have at it like when with friends.
Now I can hear you, “who are you to tell me how much to drink in my own house?”
Hey! Not trying to be the drink police here, but what needs to be said needs to be said. It’s always advisable for adults to keep alcohol consumption clean and respectable when the company of kids. You shouldn’t risk losing that clear thinking that leads to incoherence. Besides, what kind of role model would you be?
And should your family not want to play cards during the pandemic, then tough luck. Leave them the heck alone.
