In the 70s, we had board games like Snakes and Ladder and Ludo. I have played Chinese Checkers too at times. I was introduced to Monopoly much later when my kids were small. Other games like Scrabble, a big favorite of mine later, were not much in vogue during my childhood. Chess was never my cup of tea.
It was with great amusement that I downloaded Snakes and Ladders and Ludo in a mobile game format. In Snakes and Ladders, if I play against the computer, all I have to do is to click the dice when my turn comes. The game progresses on its own. The dice moves on the board, goes up the ladders if it encounters one, slides down the snake if it happens to land on the mouth. So I am just an idle watcher and clicker. When I win or lose, I get a notification. I feel quite useless really.
It was with great amusement that I downloaded Snakes and Ladders and Ludo in a mobile game format. In Snakes and Ladders, if I play against the computer, all I have to do is to click the dice when my turn comes. The game progresses on its own. The dice moves on the board, goes up the ladders if it encounters one, slides down the snake if it happens to land on the mouth. So I am just an idle watcher and clicker. When I win or lose, I get a notification. I feel quite useless really.
In the actual game, we got a large board which had these games printed on them. We also got a tacky little box of dice and buttons to use while playing. When we got bored of playing the right way, we invented other games.
For instance, we would play with two buttons instead of one. It had an advantage to it. If the turn of dice could land our button on a snake, we could move the other button and save ourselves the ignominy of sliding down the snake. The game was slower this way, but it gave us more options.
Another invention was to play it with snakes becoming the 'good guys'. If we reached the tail of a snake, we would climb up to its mouth. Similarly, if we encountered the top of a ladder we would groan because the new rule was to climb down the ladder. It was fun when played like this.
Yet another invention was to start the game from 100 and make it a win if we reached 1 first. When we encountered the tail of the snake we would slide up. Similarly on encountering the top of ladder we would happily climb down. Because you see, the 'down' was the new 'up. All these inventions relieved the tedium of playing the same few games over and over again;
The mobile game app of Ludo is pretty good. If I play against the computer, I still get to choose which button to move, which to stall and when to kill the buttons of my opposers. I am pretty sure there is an app for scrabble game as well. I must try that out.
