Keeping Your Sanity In The Time Of COVID-19
It’s not just a matter of being locked down and isolated. It’s not just a matter of being stuck with the family. There’s also the unhealthy matter of boredom to contend with. America is in a stressful situation. A lot of people are fed up, but they’ve got no avenue to release that angry energy.
Well, there are some options you may not have thought of as yet. Have you tried board games? Now don’t feel bad if you’ve written these off; a lot of people forget about them. But a good board game—that can take up the whole day, if everybody gets into it! It can truly help the time fly by. With that in mind, consider these board game options.
Good Old-Fashioned Monopoly
Monopoly is under-rated. Even if there weren’t a lockdown, everybody can have fun with Monopoly. This game commonly takes many hours, and the fun is in sticking it to the other players as you make laps around the board. Similar to Monopoly in terms of the length of time involved is Risk.
Polish Off That D20 For A D&D Campaign!
The grand-daddy of all board games is Dungeons and Dragons. D&D is the first widely-available mainstream RPG. This is the foundation from which digital Role Playing Games are built. There would be no Final Fantasy without D&D. At least, it wouldn’t be the same sort of fantasy.
In any event, D&D makes it possible to wage campaigns that can last for months; and could be a fine story to tell friends and family once this crisis has abated. You can find all manner of D&D adventures at D20 Collective; as well as dice and other accouterments key to having a fine foray into the land of fantasy.
Turn-Based Board Games: Chess, Chinese Checkers, Checkers
When people think “board games”, they generally think of little pieces making moves on a path across a board based on a roll of the dice. However, that’s not the only sort of board game there is. D&D is an aberration, and so are these other common games.
Chinese checkers, checkers, and chess involve a lot of strategy. While checkers is relatively straightforward and only intended for two players, you can wile away a day pretty easily with a good game. Chess can go even longer, as it is a slow, strategic game for the tactical thinker.
Chess has a deep history and is good for developing mental energies. If your house has a couple of good opponents, this can become a months-long contest. Other two-player board games are also worth considering; like Battleship, or Connect Four.
Non-Traditional Board Games
Beyond these suggestions, you might consider a few untraditional options, like “Drawn Pictionary”. There may be some sets for this on the market under another name, but you don’t necessarily need a specific set of rules or a board; just paper, people, and pencils.
Here’s how this works: everybody sits in a circle, and each player has as many sheets of paper as there are players in the game. You can make this from four to a hundred people—ideal game size is between four and eight. Each person holds a stack of papers. They write a phrase or idea on the top sheet and pass it to the left. The next person looks at the phrase and tries to draw it on the next sheet.
Once they finish, they pass their drawing to the left on the top of the stack. The next person puts the piece of paper with the picture on the bottom, writes down what they think that picture is on the next sheet and passes it. The game stops when the first phrase comes back around; then everybody has fun explaining what other players did. Many laughs ensue!
A Silver Lining
Board games are a fine way of staying sane as lockdown continues. Look into D&D perhaps, or traditional board games, or two-player options, or even “abstract” games like drawn Pictionary. Yes, this lockdown isn’t fun; but it could be an opportunity for family connection.