From The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino:
"You know, chess really isn't my kind of game," Kusanagi muttered.
Yukawa rolled his eyes. "Here he goes again."
"First of all, what's all this about taking your opponent's pieces and not being able to use them? They're the spoils of war! Why can't I add them to my army?"
"Don't go blaming the rules of the game. Besides, the fact of the matter is your opponent's pieces aren't spoils, they're soldiers. When you take them off the board, you're kiling them. Not much use for dead soldiers."
"But you can use them in shogi!"
"Well, credit the man tho though t up shogi for being so flexible. I suppose that when you capture pieces in shogi your'e making them surrender, not killing them. That's why you get to use them again."
"Chess should be the same way."
"I don't think going turncoat sits well with the spirit of knightood."
(pg 39-40 in the ARC)...
Mancala
Apparently "Mancala" is actually a family of pit-and-pebble games, which I learned today. Play involves scooping up pebbles from a pit and sowing the pebbles, one at a time, into the other pits. These games were probably created in Africa hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago. Apparently the version we play would be better labeled Kalah, but I'm still going to refer to it as Mancala.
We've been playing Mancala a lot lately with Amber. It's a two player game, played on a board of 2 rows x 6 pits. The two scoring pits on each end are used in play. You start with 4 pebbles in each pit. If you sow the last pebble onto your side of the board in an empty pit, you capture all of the pebbles on the opponent’s side of the board in the pit opposite of the one you sowed your last pebble...
I ran across a mention of a board game in a book I'm reading this week, so I though I'd share.
The next afternoon Harriet didn't get home until five o'clock. She had purposely Stayed away all day, first following her spy route, then playing Monopoly with Janie and Sport. The game had made her irritable because she hated to sit still for that long. Janie and Sport loved it. Janie had all sorts of systems worked out for winning, and Sport was so passionate about money that they were kept continually interested, but Harriet couldn't keep her mind on it. (pg. 135, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh)
I can understand where Harriet's coming from . Monopoly can leave me irritated too. It can be such a long game, and I never, ever win. On the other hand, I do think it's a game that every family should own a copy of .
There are just some classic games that are great...
Monopoly is a classic boardgame. You know the one. You buy properties, charge each other rent, and basically hope to make everyone but you broke and begging. This week we played one game at our house spread out over 4 evenings. We played with short game rules, too, and it still took us probably a total of three hours. We could leave it set up and it's easier to play if you're not playing the whole game in one sitting, especially when one of the players is nine years old. She won by the way. Crushed us. And we weren't even playing nicely.
What amazes me though is the variety of Monopoly games available. We played the Littlest Pet Shop Edition, but I've seen Transformers, Spiderman, Sponge Bob, in addition to the classic version, electronic, and on and on. There is one for anybody.
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