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Who's the more foolish? The fool or fool that plays after the fool?(loofish)United States
DURHAM
North Carolina
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A year or two back, my wife had to have ankle surgery. It all went very smoothly and she was soon recovering, with her recovery timed over the Christmas period so she would be at home for a while anyway. One thing this did affect was our gaming habits, as sitting at the kitchen table for any longer than absolutely necessary was not going to happen. So any and all gaming we did was on the couch.
We had been playing games on the couch before that of course - Cribbage is hardly worth clearing the table for and why bother? But we wanted to play more than just Crib, even if it is an excellent game. So I looked at my gaming collection in a whole new way: which games fit on the middle cushion of the couch?
The first early success was Jambo, which being mostly cards fit in quite well. I would generally have the coins in the box and the goods in six little piles on the coffee table.
Race for the Galaxy was another obvious choice. Even with the prestige points and goal tiles, it was not difficult to fit in - a box lid for the discard pile is handy.
Dominion was a little trickier. Obviously the actual playing of the cards is easy, but the laying out of stacks while still keeping enough room for play was the issue. The coffee table helped out and I was charged with the retrieval of the cards just bought (strangely that was still my task even after a full and complete recovery). We did move the tableau of kingdom cards onto the couch itself - 10 piles were not too difficult to accommodate and it meant you could see more clearly what cards were on offer.
Dice games work quite well for it too. We played To Court the King, with the cards to buy spread out in the middle between us. Rolling dice into a box is advisable. Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age is even easier to install.
The next level in couch gaming we tried out was something with an actual board and we ended up successfully playing Tigris & Euphrates with the board resting on a board (my wife has them for her painting), with just enough room at the edges for the player screens and the monuments. Unearned VP cubes stayed in the box. It worked remarkably well!
Even if you don't have an ankle in a cast, playing on the couch is quite relaxing and certainly more comfortable, as long as you angle yourself to be able to see what is going on without twisting yourself round too much. And sometimes we just don't want to be bothered with clearing (and cleaning!) the table. Anything that lowers the barrier to playing is a good idea in my book.
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