Gaming with the Kid

I’ve played two sessions of Catan Junior so far.  The first was a two player game with just Allison, and then a pair of two-player games with Allison on my team, and then Diana’s team.

The game is simple enough.  You basically roll the dice to collect resources, and use the resources to build new towers.  You can also trade resources at the market (one for one, but your item might not be available), or the supply (two for one for any item).  Finally, there is the Ghost Captain, which you can move around if you roll a six.

When we played the first time, Allison was having fun until she realized she was probably going to lose.  Then she wanted to stop playing.  I encouraged her to play, and she indeed did lose and got really upset.  She said she hated the game and wanted to throw it in the trash, which was hilarious and sad at the same time.  :)

Later, when we were driving, I talked to her about the game, and winning and losing.  She said it wasn’t fair, because I’d played the game “a million times before”, and she was just a kid and it was her first time playing.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was my first time too, but I told her that it’s ok to lose and that the fun part is playing, not really who wins or loses.  I tried to say it was a “practice game” and that it didn’t matter.

Anyways, the next night we played again, where Allison was on Diana’s team.  They won.  Then she was on my team, and we won.  Although one of the games was close, and she decided she wanted to defect to the winning team.  At the end of the second game, she wanted to play again and be on her own team, but we saved that for next time.

I think it was good for her to be on a team, and see how Diana and I reacted (or didn’t) when we lost.  We also have some co-op games on the way (where everyone wins or loses together), which should help as well.

This started off as an email to Eryn, but I figure this would make a good blog post, so here it is.