Boardgames are seeing a resurgence in Orange and traditional games such as Monopoly or Scrabble are taking a backseat to a new wave of games.
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Orange City Library organised two board game days to be held during the school holidays due to the growing popularity of the games.
The first boardgame day was on Wednesday when Loretta Colla brought her daughter Juliette along and they learnt to play Tokado, a game where players go on a journey involving eating, buying souveniers and collecting things with the goal of having a great trip while making trouble for everyone else who is on the road.
While Juliette has been enjoying Settlers of Catan, which she got for Christmas, Mrs Colla said her favourite game is Pandemic because players work together to save the world.
Librarian Sean Brady said the next boardgame day will be on next Wednesday, July 18 for people aged eight years and older and will be held between 9am and 3pm.
Mr Brady purchased the games from games stores in Orange for people to use at the library and said the mechanics of the new games are different to some of their predecessors.
“It’s not just a rehashing of old themes,” he said.
He said new games include claiming territory, people can work together or work against each other, there are abstract, creative, race, science-based, logic and more complex strategy games, while games such as Photosynthesis have a beautiful design.
He said at the library, Talisman was on the table most often followed by old favourite Uno, science-based Ion, Seven Wonders and Age of Steam.
Mr Brady said the resurgence began in Europe in the 1980s and 90s but in Australia it started to pick up from 2004.
Although people of all ages are behind the revival, parents are encouraging children to take part because it is a more social alternative to video games.
Games n More owned by Nic Drage said along with parents wanting children to interact with other people, pop culture and television shows such as Big Bang Theory and Stranger Things have also contributed to the board game revival and popularity of games such as Settlers of Catan and Dungeons and Dragons.
He said among the most popular games is also Gloomhaven which he said is hard to keep stocked on the shelf and his supplier also keeps selling out.
“They are much more advanced than the old Monopoly and Scrabble,” he said.
Mr Drage said people can also play boardgames in the gamesroom at the shop during the school holidays or there is a boardgame night every Thursday.
Tanya Marschke
I am based at Orange and cover a wide range of subjects as well as the weekly business column. I've worked consistently in the the media industry since 2006 including the past seven years at the Central Western Daily. Before moving to Orange, I worked as a journalist at weekly newspapers the Beaudesert Times and the Gold Coast Sun in Queensland, as well as the Scone Advocate in the Hunter Valley. I started my career at the Ridge News in Lightning Ridge while I completed my journalism studies remotely at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst.
I am based at Orange and cover a wide range of subjects as well as the weekly business column. I've worked consistently in the the media industry since 2006 including the past seven years at the Central Western Daily. Before moving to Orange, I worked as a journalist at weekly newspapers the Beaudesert Times and the Gold Coast Sun in Queensland, as well as the Scone Advocate in the Hunter Valley. I started my career at the Ridge News in Lightning Ridge while I completed my journalism studies remotely at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst.
