Today has been a momentous day. The first International TableTop day, and the day my son became a Gamer. He has been playing board games for a while now but this was his first event, and his first independent purchase.
Our local event was hosted by a co-worker who runs Weekend Anime in Westbrook, Maine, with her husband. We told her ahead of time the kind of games he likes, Monsters Menace America, Battleball, Jenga, and the types of games we like, Catan, Roll Through The Ages, Stratego. She had only one suggestion, and so when we walked through the door, she was there with Takenoko ready to roll, ahem. Her description of the game “Like Catan but simpler, and with Pandas.” We were sold.
In Takenoko, you are given the responsibility of providing a habitat for the Giant Panda, a gift from the Chinese Emperor to Japan. You must cultivate and irrigate the land to make sure the Panda is well fed. The first person to achieve seven objectives ends the game but might not win, the person with the highest number of points wins the game. It is rated for ages thirteen and over but with just a few simple tweaks to the rules, barely even tweaks, it was the perfect game for my three year old.
When he was done playing, there was still so much to do. He helped his dad bring in old games to trade for new, he perused the other board games in the store, and then he became assimilated into the lifestyle. He walked over to a group playing a variation of Magic, he watched, he asked questions, he moved on. He thoroughly enjoyed every moment he was there and, despite having come directly from an Easter Egg hunt, he was engaged and well-behaved for a full two hours. When it was time to go, he was perfectly content, having used leftover Christmas money to purchase his own copy of Takenoko.
Note – I link to Amazon in this post but I encourage you to find your local independent gaming store and purchase through them if at all possible.
This post was last modified on November 25, 2017 12:10 am
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