Games

Board games

I have always enjoyed playing board games, with friends, family, or work game nights. While my game collection has grown and shrunk over the years, some of my favorites have been:

• Illuminati. I first played this at a camp. The two players who’d played before told everyone that cheating is allowed as long as you don’t get caught. However, this is an optional advanced rule and made it very complicated to understand for everyone else, since there are already a lot of rules!
• Roborally. There’s a newer version that I have never owned, but I have played and think is an improvement.
• Bang. A fun spaghetti-western spin on the classic mafia/werewolves style hidden role games.
• Settlers of Catan. One of the first board games I played with new friends when I got to college. As with many, a first introduction to me for modern board games.
• Diplomacy? I have tried a few times to get into this game, since in theory it is so interesting that it doesn’t have any element of random chance. It is hard to find a group to play with, since it does not make a good party game.

Video Games

I have played many video games, mostly single player, or co-op. I never really approached the multiplayer war games, or MMOs. Some of the games I have the most memories playing were:

• Starship Titanic. A humor puzzle game written by Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. My brother and I would watch our dad play this game before bedtime when it came out.
• Diablo 2. This was my go to game for a long period in high school and college.
• Minecraft. The alpha version came out while I was in college, and I played on an early social server. The game has evolved a lot since the early days.
• Mount and Blade: Warband. Another game I came across in college. A perfect combination of first-person sword battles, and risk-style campaign mapping.
• Diablo 3.
• Stardew Valley. As with a couple other games I played, I first heard about this when it was referenced in an xkcd comic.
• Half Life.
• Zelda: Wind Waker. The first zelda game I played on a big screen, (non-gameboy).