When I first came to Istanbul, I brought only clothes. My first trip home for my brother’s graduation last May, I left Turkey with empty bags, and returned with mostly board games. You see, one of the many things that Izzy and I have in common is a passion for board gaming. We talked about it and decided we would put our collections together and form a weekly gaming group. It has been three months since we put this idea into practice. So far it’s been quite successful.
We have been able to meet nearly every week with between four and eight people. We typically meet at 8pm and eat together while playing games and catching up with what one another have been up to. Selim and Izel, whom I have met through gaming, are as devoted as Izzy, Erman and I. Selim travels nearly as far as I do (90 minutes) to get to where we play and is so in love with the games that he borrows them to play with his own group on the Asian side of the city on weekends, and takes notes during the week (well he did until we all made fun of him too much for taking notes during the game).
According to Selim (and the other agree), the kind of thought provoking games that I have brought with me from various countries (France, the US, the UK, Germany and Italy) are very appealing to Turks. Most Turks don’t do much with their free time. Many young people spend their weekends socializing in cafes or at malls shopping. He says many of the people he knows simply do not know what to do with their free time other than going out somewhere together. Games, he says, allow people to do something that is different, and familiar at the same time. People can still be with friends and socialize, but at the same time they get to put their minds to work and engage in friendly and fun competition. It is my impression that Turks like to compete. All those people that have had a little courage and come to a meeting or two have had a lot of fun, and instantly became warmly welcomed members of the group.
We started off by creating a Google group to organize ourselves. When Facebook began spreading like wildfire through Turkey, Izzy set up a Facebook group as well. You can check out either below as well as the group game list:
Of course, my goal with the group is to build a base of Diplomacy players. For those of you that do not know, it’s one specific game that I play a lot. It’s sort of my hobby (if you want more information than that, do your own research). I love the Thursday meetings, and wouldn’t change them for anything, but I would like to get a monthly Diplomacy game started. We have played twice now, and are playing online together, but haven’t had much organization about it. Hopefully that will change when it’s colder and people have less to do.
Playing ‘Power Grid’ at a cafe called ‘The Wrap.’ It has great food, strange, but soft music, and is usually empty. Except for making us leave at 11:30pm instead of midnight, it is a perfect place for gaming. From the left is Omer, Selim, Tahsin, Izel, someone I don’t know and Kocas (AKA Patrick)
One of the things that the group was inspired to do (mainly Izel, Selim, Erman and Izzy) was to bring games to Turkey. They said you can’t buy games like the ones I have anywhere and that it could be very popular to sell these kinds of games in student dense areas. Well this past weekend Izzy made the following find in a store:
In case you don’t know, that is Settlers of Catan, a rather well known very popular German game. If I had to pick a game to introduce first to Turkey, it would be that one. Furthermore, the game to the left is Ingenious, a new and fun German game. So it appears someone beat us to it. For me this is great. Less work for me! I am going to try contacting the company that did the translation and see if we can’t influence them on their future choice of games, and hopefully our group will continue to grow as steadily as it has been.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Recent Comments