Rani's Favorite Games: Let's build on Mars!

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by! All month long, we’ve been talking about some of my favorite things, and how they relate to my writing. Why? Because I couldn’t decide what to talk about, it’s my birth month, and I thought this would be a really fun way to show you how everything in your life can somehow relate back to your writing, even if you didn’t think it could.

Thus far in the series, we’ve talked about my favorite book series’ and how those books shaped me into the writer I am today, television shows and movies, and how those things have inspired the things I write, and the music I listen to—whether for while I’m writing, or the things I listen to in order to get myself moving when I’m not writing. What, then, do we have left to talk about? Well, I have two weeks’ worth of things to say. ;-)

Rani’s Favorite Games: Terraforming Mars

I’m turning into a board game person. I just really enjoy them. I used to play a lot of board games when I was younger, but they never really played into anything I did as an adult—until recently. Lately, the biggest game that’s been of use to me in my writing life is one that really has nothing to do with my writing life: Terraforming Mars.

It’s a board game unlike any other, and I’m not just saying that. There are a lot of components in this game that I’m pretty sure are only in this game. And I think that’s pretty darn neat! But the biggest draw, for me, is that it gets me thinking. Terraforming Mars forces me to think, to rethink, to plan, to rehash, to calculate, and do a whole lot of other things that I wouldn’t normally be doing in my day to day life. For me, that’s what makes it one of the most pivotal games I’ve ever played.

I’ve talked about this before, and I’m sure I’ll talk about it again, but it’s highly important for writers to at least do some things other than writing. Writing is great. I love writing. I would love to be able to just sit and write all day long. But I also have a day job. I have family and friends. And it’s important to me, as it should be to you, that you have other things you do, other things you think about, than just your writing.

That’s where games like Terraforming Mars come in, because it forces me to think, to think hard, and to think hard about something other than my writing. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever really thought about my writing at all, when I’m playing this game. It’s far too engrossing for that.

Because of that, I think Terraforming Mars will always be one of my favorite games, just because I’ve used it so many times to get my brain out of a rut, to get myself thinking about something completely different, and to challenge myself to do something I’m not so accustomed to doing. After all, like I said, until I really started playing this game, I hadn’t honestly played a lot of games since I was a kid.

But don’t think I’ll stop here. Oh no, I have friends who are determined to make a gamer out of me yet. It’ll happen, I’m sure.

[love]

{Rani Divine}