Games

There are Games for Everyone to Enjoy

Games and gaming are everywhere. There are partner games, individually played games, board games, electronic games, brain teasers, children's games, games that last a few seconds and games that last years.

Board games recently experienced a come back. Many new games with popular updated themes came out in the late 1990's and early in 2000. Some of these games were targeted at popular television programs and others at things we commonly find hilarious - like making our friends look completely silly. Of course, games like Twister never really went away - we have always enjoyed being silly while falling all over each other!

A lot of the old style games and board games recently got updates on the computer. Now there is no reason to spend as much time shuffling and dealing out the cards for solitaire as it takes to actually play the game itself. Checkers, chess, hearts and poker have all gotten updates on the computer and on the Internet. We can now play them with people across the world online!

Sometimes we have been tricked into learning via game playing. Remember in elementary school when the teacher gave us those 'word games' that went something like this: One train going 50 miles an hour east from downtown Podunk, and another train headed south at 75 miles an hour from eastern Virginia is expected to arrive in Podunk at 4pm, where will the first train be? I know you remember! Those games haunted our nightmares until we finally graduated to Calculus and that took over our nightmares.

Fantasy games were always fun as a kid. Pretending to be sucked into a board game and living the intense life that Jumanji showed us was a fun concept to consider. Pretending games, whether Cowboys and Indians or Princess games are a staple of childhood. Pretending is such an important part of our development. We try out who we are and who we want to be through these games.

Really smart people, adults and children alike, tend to get excited over brain games. Professional game players play chess and other 'brain games' in actual tournaments, often for significant amounts of money. Some of these televised gaming tournaments fascinate us and keep us glued to the program - cheering for one child or another.

Regardless of the type of games we play and how old we are and what games we play, it seems that we never tire of playing them. The real trick is to learn from the games we play.