The Game That Started An Obsession

When my husband and I moved to the Midwest, we had never lived more than 10 minutes away from the nearest family member. Now we were 1200 miles away, learning what ice and snow weather was like, and feeling like we were completely alone. This is when games started playing a huge role in our lives. We had always played card games and dominoes, but one Christmas we went home to visit family and were introduced to Settlers of Catan. I was immediately IN LOVE with the strategy and game-play style of this game. I knew I had to get my hands on a copy of it to bring back home to Kansas, but I was SHOCKED at the sticker price. At that time, I'm pretty sure we paid $60 for the original game, and I had NEVER paid more than $10 for any game in my life. Little did I know that there was so much more to board games than Monopoly. When we got back to Kansas we started introducing neighbors and grad school friends to Settlers. I'll admit the initial explanation of the game usually brings about a glazed look in the eyes of new game players (thankfully over the years we've pretty much mastered explaining it in under 5 minutes), but once we got about half way through playing the game, our new friends started to really get into it just like we had. Before long, we had made quite a few friends who shared a love of games, and weekly (if not daily) game nights had become a regular thing at our house. It's been over 12 years since my first experience with Settlers, but it is still a game regularly played with friends and family alike. It opened the door to a whole world of board games (and I'll admit I've paid way more than $60 for some of our games), and it also has allowed us to meet some of the coolest people from Kansas to Arizona.