MANSFIELD — I loved board games growing up. My particular favorite was Monopoly, despite – or perhaps because – it often resulted in angry disagreements and bitter tantrums.
My strategy was to wait all this out and be the last one at the board once everyone else had stormed off out of annoyance or boredom.
This was part of the game as far as I was concerned, and I can still remember my sense of outrage when my parents suggested I forgive my younger sister the rent she owed me just because she was in tears and screaming.
I continued to play the game into adulthood, and throughout this time I assumed Monopoly was a British original. I was quietly horrified when I first saw an American board with ‘Baltic Avenue’ and ‘Boardwalk’ rather than ‘Mayfair’ and ‘Old Kent Road.’
I was telling all this to Beau Roberts, curator and designer of ‘The Game Gallery,’ an exhibition currently on show in the back room of the ‘Relax’ coffee shop.
“Eh, Monopoly,” sighed Beau, taking a sip of his coffee and indicating that it was perhaps not one of his favorite games to play. “You know if you play it by the actual rules – and most people don’t – it’s actually quite good. And it’s over much quicker.”
I had come to ‘Relax’ so Beau could talk me through the exhibition, which consists of game boards – some classic, some obscure – hung as wall art, with player tokens, dice, cards and the various props of each game all attached in place.
Board games as art is an idea that appeals to me. For many years my wife and I had a carrom board hanging on our living room wall. Carrom is a small table game similar to billiards, but I know very little about it: ours was never played and I have no idea how the game works. It did, however, look great above the fireplace.
Beau explained that he began collecting board games last summer, on impulse during one of his thrifting expeditions.
“I just started looking through a bunch of games. They were typically less than $3, and they looked interesting. Even if it isn’t something you would actually want to play, they look kind of cool.”
Given the vintage of some of the games in the collection – many of which are well over half-a-century old – I asked if it was a problem finding complete sets with all the pieces.
“A lot of the time when you’re thrifting, it’s a gamble. You might find you’re missing something, and in some cases I’ve picked up multiple copies of the same game to get what I need. And, you know, I can always get hold of a dice or whatever somewhere else.”
I pointed out a few of the games that I had known back in England, where many American games were popular.
“That works both ways,” Beau said. “Check this one out: Stratego. That came from over the water. Somewhere in Europe. You’d have to look it up.”
I did, later, and found out it originated from the Netherlands, where it is still played in significant numbers. I also discovered that the much-loved Parker Bros. game Clue was produced under license from British game company Waddington’s and based on Cluedo, the original name being a pun on Ludo, a game based on the Indian board game Pachisi, known in the U.S. as Parcheesi …
But here I must stop. Once you go down that rabbit hole you may never emerge.
Taking a look at some of the other games on display, I was particularly drawn to the early ones from the 1950s: Game of Politics (‘52), Assembly Line (‘53), Easy Money (‘56) – “totally a rip-off of Monopoly,” explained Beau, “although much easier to play.”
All these were new to me and the appeal was not so much nostalgic as aesthetic. These really are classic works of design and they deserve to be seen and appreciated, even if they are no longer played.
I didn’t see Scrabble, one of my favorites and probably the only one I still play on a regular basis.
“Scrabble’s a tricky one,” said Beau. “If I hang it, it needs to have words on the board – and I can’t decide what words to put on it.”
I made a few quick suggestions off the top of my head, but Beau reminded me that he needed to keep it reasonably clean for public display.
Nevertheless, I noticed that Dr. Ruth’s Game of Good Sex hangs proudly on the wall, and the game board text features the kind of robust anatomical frankness that one would expect.
“Yeah,” Beau said. “I think people will get a kick out of that.”
Behind the scenes, Beau is preparing yet more games to add to the display. He plans to make a few switches over the coming weeks, and new titles will include ‘The Dickens Game’ featuring characters from Charles Dickens’ novels and a ‘Cheers’ game where the board is the layout of the famous bar.
Up until now, I’d assumed that the current interest in board games had been largely a retro interest, wallowing in nostalgia and board game history. Beau surprised me when he noted that, in fact, over the last five years there has been a surge in new game design and production.
“I don’t know the reason,” he said. “Maybe it used to be seen as geeky, and now geekiness has gone mainstream. There is no geekiness anymore. But in any case I buy about one new game a month, there’s so much coming out all the time. It’s great.”
It’s almost impossible to look at all these games without wanting to play them, and with that in mind Beau has organized a ‘Board Game Day’ to take place here in ‘Relax’ on Saturday, Sept. 17.
The day-long event will run from 1 p.m. till close, and around dinner time Beau plans to supplement the usual snacks available at Relax with some pizza brought in from Two Cousins next door.
It should be a great day of fun, and personally I can’t wait to have a go on some of the games I’ve seen. I asked Beau if the titles on display will be the ones available to play on the day.
“It’ll be a mix,” he said. “I’ll bring my own stacks of games, and some of them are copies of the ones you can see here. Some of them can’t be displayed for various reasons. Some old, some new. And anyone is welcome to bring their own games, too.”
The Game Gallery is on display at ‘Relax, It’s Just Coffee,’ 105 N. Main St., Mansfield.
‘Board Game Day’ will take place here on Saturday, Sept. 17, from 1 to 9 p.m.
