h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Virtual childhood is no less exhilirating than the "real" thing. What it lacks is twofold.
It lacks exertion and it lacks socialisation. Both have implications for a child's future health and well-being. For citizenship, too, maybe.
But there was no Golden Age of boardgames. They were tacky pasteboard precursors of vastly superior computer-based gaming. In terms of the assimilation of life-skills and exercise, they were already the domain of the misfit.
The few boardgame with genuine virtue have conceptual simplicity to focus their intellectual challenge. Chess is probably the best example.
A child (or anyone else) will find other qualities of play in much greater abundance through console games. These include excitement, stimulation of the imagination and the development of reflexes and dexterity.
But there is more of these still in going out to the garden to play Cowboys and Indians.
For me, it has to be console games every time. I went through a brief period of resentment when I realised that my own kids preferred the Playstation or PC to a boardgame with their father. Then I realised that I would have been no different, given the choice.
Personal favourite? At the moment, Kingdom Hearts. Next month it will be something else. The variety, too, is part of the appeal.

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