Board, not bored

Good-old board-gaming is booming and the lockdown has only upped the interest further. Families and friends are gathering to play — often virtually.

While you were rolling the dice and hoping to escape a menacing snake, a lot has happened in the world of board games. Gone are the days of Snakes and Ladders, Ludo or Monopoly. Urban India is seeing a rise in the popularity of new-age board games or tabletop games as they are called, largely spearheaded by millennial and Gen Z enthusiasts.

Take the case of 27-year-old Adil Aziz, Mumbai-based producer and core member of a content and production house. He says he has always been into board games, but access to games really opened up after 2010, when e-commerce sites started picking up. Adil owns between 40 and 45 board games and on any given board-game night, he has seven or eight friends dropping in to play with him. He has even participated in the Shasn Invitational Tournament in 2019, where he was the champion for Mumbai. Shasn is a political strategy board game, created by Zain Memon of Memesys Culture Lab.

Board game collectives

Not everyone may have board games at home to choose from. So, where do they go if they have to play or learn a board game or two and socialise as well? That’s where board games collectives and clubs come into the picture. Karthik Balakrishnan and Mithun Balraj started a Bangalore-based collective called ReRoll back in 2016. Their Tabletop Thursday events have been a huge hit among board gamers in the city. The group has never missed a Thursday event till the first week of March, when social distancing, and eventually, the lockdown meant they had to stop meeting in person. The group has now taken their board game sessions online and Tabletop Thursdays continue with the same level of engagement and interaction.

So, what are the games that most people take to, we ask Karthik (27), who is a software engineer by profession. Mafia, a social deduction and bluffing game, is popular he notes, while also listing others like Avalon, Secret Hitler and BOTC or Blood on the Clock Tower. Bangalore also has other such communities, the most popular ones being Meeples of Bangalore and Victory Point. The city even has an exclusive board games cafe called Dice N Dine.

A chance to socialise

But why are people drawn to these meet-ups? Karthik explains that while 70-75 per cent of board gamers are repeat visitors, they also bring along newbies who could be friends or cousins and who eventually end up liking the whole routine. “Anecdotally, not many are socialising, so these sessions bring in that element of interactivity,” he notes.

The absence of a dedicated space to hang out and play board games led 29-year-old Mumbaikar Riddhi Dalal to start Creeda-Board Game Cafe in 2015. By paying an hourly charge, people can walk into her cafe and learn a game and get going. She has introduced a concept called Game Guru, wherein one of the staff members help those walking in to choose a game based on their mood and preferences. They also recommend the “right game for the right group”, she says. The cafe provides access to 500 board games. The idea of socialising is typically limited to meeting up over dinner, coffee or catching up at the movies, which is hardly bonding, she explains. We need more engagement and board games could be the answer, she says.

Mainstreaming board games

Board games are still not a mainstream hobby, says Riddhi and adds that providing access and generating curiosity may help popularise tabletop games. Karthik notes that board games were not mainstream when he started out, back in 2016, but are growing in popularity in the recent past. Where are board game references in mainstream media, or Bollywood, for instance, he asks.

Prashant Maheshwari (35), a fashion accessories exporter from Mumbai, is doing his bit to popularise board games. He stumbled onto board games in 2011 when he saw an iOS app called Ascension. Soon, he discovered other board games but did not have many people to play with.

In a year, he started a group called Mumbai Board Gamers, which initially saw four or five people but soon grew into bigger meet-ups of over 100 people. However, Prashant was interested in making board games more mainstream and started an all-day tabletop event three years back, which saw about 300 people attending. It grew from strength to strength and Meeplecon 2019, the third edition, saw 6,000 attendees. The event, he says, was India’s first and only one dedicated to board games. The gaming area saw 100 tables and access to a wide variety of games, with volunteers to teach gaming to newbies.

India-centric games

“There are more than 1,00,000 games out there and not even 0.001 per cent reach India. And there are very few games that Indians can relate to,” says Phalgun Polepalli (39), who founded the Bangalore-based Dice Toy Labs along with his wife Shwetha Badarinath. The couple is on a mission to publish board games with an Indian context. They have collaborated with hundreds of artists across India to come up with board games that Indians can relate to — such as ‘Yudhbhoomi’ and ‘Chariots of Chandragupta’. In the pipeline are games themed around Hoysalas and the Indus Valley civilisation.

Dice Toys has created a community of 100+ designers as an FB group. Over 80 per cent of his customer base and website traffic are from millennials and Gen-Zers, he notes.

“Board games are a detox from our digital lives. People are always on their own phones at the table otherwise,” Phalgun observes. His son, now a six-year-old, has been playing board games since he was four. Talk about catching them young!

Games people play

Some of the most popular games today:
Risk: Strategy board game involving territories on the globe.
Catan: Also called Settlers of Catan, a strategy board game.
Ticket to Ride: Railway-themed board game.
Splendor: A card-based game.
Azul: Abstract tile placement board game.
Dixit: Card game involving guesswork and imagination.
Pandemic: Co-operative board game with the premise of pandemics.

Playing up the nostalgia

As we continue to practise physical distancing and stay indoors, nostalgia has come as a happy distraction for a section of Indian society. And traditional indoor games make up a big part of this trip to the past that families are undertaking now.

In fact, in some households, it is now a common sight to see the Ramayan or the Mahabharat playing on the TV while the family has gathered around to watch as well as play good-old carrom or a round of ‘chowka bara’ (a traditional game played with cowrie shells). With the roads also empty, the whole scenario is reminding people of life in the 80s-90s. Instagram is full of posts of how grandparents are tutoring their grandkids in games like pachisi, ali-guli mane and the aforementioned chowka bara. And for restless kids, there is always some indoor hopscotch!

Dr Clay Routledge, a well-known scientist, writer and Professor of Psychology at North Dakota State University, has done extensive research on nostalgia over the years. On his website, he notes: “Nostalgia increases positive mood, self-esteem, feelings of social connectedness, optimism about the future and perceptions of meaning in life.” Nostalgia also helps people regulate distress, he writes. No wonder then that when we are facing the biggest crisis in our living memory, we choose to look back.

Board game terminology

Meeple: This is like the pawn or a playing piece used in a board game to represent one player.

Shelf of Shame: This refers to a collection of games one has, but alas, without having had the opportunity to play.

Fiddly: This refers to a board game with small pieces that have to be moved around a lot, making the process cumbersome. Sometimes, it also refers to a board game with many micro rules that are difficult to keep track of.

BGG: Well, a no-brainer this one. Obviously, this expands to ‘Board Game Geek’. (It also happens to be the name of a very popular game website).

Analysis Paralysis: This is the term used for that one annoying player who takes forever to make a move, analyses and then analyses some more. Yawn. Sometimes, they are also known as perfectionists. (Please include emoji of your choice).

The game of lockdown

Prashant Maheshwari lives in a joint family of 10, along with his wife and daughter. Within a week of the lockdown, he realised that although they all lived in the same houses, they were all hooked to their phones. He decided to get them all to assemble in the evening to play games. He has an enviable collection of 280 board games at home to choose from, so a board game was par for the course. His favourite games are ‘Catch the Moon’ (a balance and dexterity game), ‘Crokinole’ (a dexterity game like carrom) and ‘Castle of Burgundy’ (a strategy game).

Riddhi Dalal of Creeda notes that just before the lockdown, she had many couples visiting and playing some last-minute board games at her cafe.

“Every evening, I play board games for at least two-and-a-half hours with my family.” Any plans to take board games online? She says that although she has interacted with some of her customers on the Zoom App for some games during the lockdown, the whole credo of Creeda is about offline interaction, so she doesn’t want people to get addicted to online games.

Karthik of ReRoll has been spending the lockdown setting up a game toolkit online so that members of his community can take to playing board games online.

On forum.reroll.in , there are discussions and game links, with video chat rooms to help people start playing online and branch out into their own rooms. He says that with location not being an issue, there are a total of 200 people playing online and a minimum of 40 people playing board games every Thursday.

In fact, Dice Toys has launched a print-and-play version game called, yes, Social Distancing.

The game has been launched partly for fun and partly to create awareness about the Covid-19 pandemic and the precautionary measures one needs to take. More games are being planned around creating awareness about the pandemic, Phalgun Polepalli, the founder, explains.