The Saturated Sponge

Do you remember learning to drive? This does go back to board games, eventually, I promise.

Maybe it’s easier nowadays with electric cars, or if you grew up in a part of the world where automatic cars are the standard, but I learned in my early 20s, and I remember my first lesson well. I remember it because it was two hours long, and it was so mentally taxing that when I came home, I did two things immediately. I had a bit of a cry, and then I went to sleep.

If you know the feeling I’m talking about, you might be in the same boat as me. I hardly ever experience that feeling anymore. That feeling of trying to cram new knowledge, new learning into an already full brain. You hear lots about the plasticity of children’s brains and why they’re so good at learning and taking new concepts on board, and I didn’t really think too deeply about it. The willingness of a brain to give a little, to let new things in.

I think of it in two ways. Firstly, the titular sponge. If you’ve ever tried to mop up a spill with a sponge, you know that once you get to a certain point, it’s already absorbed as much as it can. It doesn’t matter how much you will it to shluck up some more, there’s just nowhere for it to go.

Secondly, I think about baking. Every year I make a big Christmas cake, and every year I use a mixing bowl that’s not quite big enough. If you’ve ever made that same mistake, you know that unless you stir very slowly and very carefully, flour and goodness knows what else is going to spill out. That’s how my brain feels to me when I’m trying to parse new information. Even if I’ve done the active learning part, my brain still needs the space to swish things about and to assimilate the new things.

That’s Japanese for ‘I’m learning Japanese’, because I’m learning Japanese. I’m writing this off the back of another Japanese lesson with my wonderfully patient tutor, Mika-san. I’m heading over to Japan for a visit next year to celebrate (commiserate?) turning 50, and I want to be able to talk to people. To read signs. To feel like I’ve put in the effort before I go. Learning Japanese is pretty difficult, especially as someone in his late 40s.

By the end of the lesson, I feel quite stupid. Not because I can’t hold a detailed conversation, but because I can’t remember a lot of things I already know. I forget basic verbs that I’ve known for ages. I forget how to form sentences. I forget to end questions with か/ka, and just rely on rising intonation. My brain struggles to rapidly absorb and assimilate the new things it’s learning.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s massively rewarding, but it’s hard work. When the lesson ends and I say goodbye, I come downstairs and churn out verbal diarrhoea at my wife, who looks at me like I’m crazy, then I sit at my desk and go gormless for half an hour. Presumably, my brain is trying to file it all away somewhere useful, between ‘Car number plates I’ve remembered since I was 13’ and ‘how to brush my teeth’.

Why, oh why, am I telling you all of this? Isn’t this meant to be a board game newsletter?

Tomorrow night is another of my game group’s ‘Intro to board games’ nights. We’ve started running some light and easy games to help bring people to the table who might otherwise be intimidated by ‘those complicated games you play’. One woman who came last time told us about the time she went to another local night. She joined in with a game that sounded middle-weight to me, but she said she just felt stupid. Everyone else knew the game, or picked it up quickly, but she couldn’t, and she didn’t go back.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you regularly play modern board games. It doesn’t matter if you prefer light games like Sushi Go, sprawling Vital Lacerda titles, or something in between. You know the games, and when someone introduces you to a new game around the same weight, there might be some learning, but there are commonalities.

It’s a worker-placement game. It’s a trick-taking game. You have asymmetric abilities. You have hidden roles.

Whatever it is, there’s a chance you’ve experienced something similar in some other game, and it helps. It helps you learn the game. It helps you contextualise what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Most of us have been guilty at some point of teaching a game with a level of assumed knowledge. However, it’s super important to try to stay mindful and to take in everybody around the table.

If you’ve never played a modern board game and you’ve had a busy day at work, college, or looking after the kids, heading to a game night is something you’re doing when your brain has already made enough decisions for the day. Decision fatigue is a real thing. It’s estimated we each make around 35,000 decisions every day, so coming into a new experience, a new hobby, one which comes with a mental overhead, is something to consider.

Forgive the imagery, but those newbies are sitting at your table with a saturated sponge on top of their shoulders. There’s only so much they can take in. Try to remember this and choose their introductory steps accordingly. Be patient. Be kind. Be observant. Know when to back off, when to help, and when to give them a break from the game altogether.

Basically, be attentive, considerate, and choose new games accordingly. If they pick a game up easily, use it to inform what you move on to next. In the end you’ll end up with new people to play games with, and that’s a win, however you look at it.

Learning something new is hard, but rewarding. Let’s all help new gamers find their new lifelong hobby, together.