Board Games of our Younger Days

I'm on a business trip in Vietnam this week, facilitating workshops and meeting clients in Danang and Ho Chi Minh City. That's why there's been a little gap since the last posting, lah!

This afternoon after work, I happened to be walking near a park close to my hotel when I came across this scene, which you don't see so often in Singapore and Malaysia these days, two men sitting on the ground, out in the open, enjoying a board game of Chinese Chess.

It triggered me into thinking, a little nostalgically, about the board games we used to play back in the 60s and 70s. Those were the days before electronic games like Nintendo, Wii and Playstations had been invented. I'm sure you remember games like Snakes & Ladders, Ludo, Checkers and the like. As game design goes, they were pretty simple, but we derived hours of pleasure from them all the same.

In later years, a slew of fancier board games were launched, like Monopoly, Careers, Risk, Cluedo, Trivial Pursuit and so on. Some pretty creative ones, but (maybe I'm biased) I reckon they lacked the rustic nature of the earlier board games.

These days it's getting quite rare to see the younger kids play board games. Most of them are keener on the digital stuff. Which I feel is a pity, because the tactile feel of moving pieces around a board with your hands is something that an electronic game machine just can't replace. Not to mention facing another human opponent, rather than pixels on a screen. Well, that's my view anyway.

Anyway, do share your memories and views on games (board or otherwise) that you enjoyed as a kid ...