Solitaire Gaming
My Kickstarter copy of the second edition of Nemo’s War arrived from Victory Point Games, but I’m not opening it for my birthday. It was a BIT late coming in from the Kickstarter (I originally thought it was going to be a Christmas present last year) but it’s there in a box waiting for its mid July debut in the household.
Anyway, on occasion of that, here’s the secret origin story of how I got involved in this whole crazy solitaire gaming hobby. You’ll note that I’ve since become aware of a whole slew of additional solitaire gaming companies, like White Dog and Hollandspiele and DVG and Decision Games, to mention just a few more. And there’s a great new updated Barbarian Prince download, which I detailed at Black Gate.
You’ll notice that I mention the tactile pleasure of sitting down with a board game. I’ve grown to appreciate that more and more. I spend so much time hunched in front of a computer already. I feel — without any kind of medical study backing me up, mind — that it must be exercising a different part of the ‘ol brain than working with a computer does, and I’m sure learning all the rules and mastering different tactics is good for stretching the gray matter. That, of course, is the side benefit, because the game play is FUN.
But if I keep blathering I’m going to completely lose track of the whole point of re-printing an article because I’ll have spent too much time typing this intro! I must spend a chunk of the day working on the secret sword-and-sorcery product before I get to writing, so I’d best get to it. Here’s what I knew about solitaire gaming back in 2011: