Maybe it was moving back to the city where I was a teenage nerd that reignited my interest in certain geeky pursuits. Or perhaps it was something more insidious, like my lizard brain grasping at receding youth and independence in the face of impending fatherhood. Whatever it was, it took me and my pregnant wife to a Denver board game store, where I wanted to find something akin to global-domination classic Risk or the far geekier Axis and Allies that I’d played in high school.
She, an environment and social-justice journalist who doesn’t register on the nerd scale — no interest in global war, space, fantasy, the occult — found probably the only thing on the shelves that could have caught her eye even before meeting me. This game was called Power Grid. Of course.
Our visit to that game store, and the hours we’ve spent playing Power Grid (more on that later), woke me up to the board-game renaissance underway right now. Don’t think Monopoly or Mousetrap. Think Risk, or better yet, the nerd dog-whistle standby that is Settlers of Catan. Think of the most complicated, engrossing videogame you’ve ever played (or lost a loved one to), and put it on... Read more
