Like any avid reader, when I’m reading a great book, I like to place myself in the main character’s shoes. What might I have done differently? And while that’s always a fun way to daydream an hour or so away, it’s just a thought experiment. You can’t actually know what impact your decisions would have. However, there is a fun way to assume a new character or persona, make decisions and directly affect your world and other people’s as well. I’m talking about board games! Here at Woodbridge Library, we will be hosting a Board Game Café on Monday, January 18^th at 7:00 pm, where you can get together with friends (or make new ones!), and play some games. There are a lot of games that I think have a great literary counterpart, and will make you feel like you’re in the same world as a specific book.

In the book World War Z, a zombie outbreak has come close to eradicating humanity. The United Nations Postwar Commission is putting together a document that records this period of time through interviews with the military, CIA, scientists, and other people connected to the Zombie War. It’s written in an interview style as well – different points of view, often contradicting each other, all trying to tell the same story. It’s a fascinating look at how the human race might attempt to survive these circumstances.

What would it have been like to try to contain a deadly outbreak like this? In the co-operative board game Pandemic, you play the role of a specialist working to cure a series of diseases that have threatened to take over the world. (It’s not stated that they’re working to cure a zombie pandemic, but we can pretend, can’t we?) Each of the roles that you and your friends might assume have different abilities and powers, so each time you play will be different. This is a co-operative game, so you will play on the same team as your friends, and rely on their abilities as well. Every time you think you’ve gotten the pandemic under control, there’s another outbreak, and another part of the world might be eradicated. It’s a fast paced and thrilling game that I highly recommend.

H. P. Lovecraft was a master of a certain kind of horror fiction that many now call Lovecraftian Horror. He created characters in his short stories that have lived on in popular culture – creatures like Cthulhu, Hastur, and Azathoth. While his work was not recognized during his own lifetime, he did become an inspiration to other later authors – such as Stephen King and his son Joe Hill, as well as Neil Gaiman. His works capture a sort of cosmic horror and helplessness that humanity feels in the face of what he calls the ‘Elder Gods’.

This same feeling has been captured in a series of co-operative games based on the Cthulhu Mythos. The game Elder Sign takes place in a museum in the city of Arkham, where many of Lovecraft’s stories took place. Someone, somehow, has used the museum’s artifacts to open a portal to other dimensions and summoned one of the great Ancient Ones. You play as an investigator, alongside the other players in this game – again, similar to Pandemic, everyone has a different role with specific abilities, and you work together to seal away the Ancient Ones forever.

So, you think you’ve got game? Come into Woodbridge Library on Monday, January 18^th, 7:00 pm, and prove it!