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Entry #10
My Dad has finally accomplished one of his dreams, and that is to be the best Settlers of Catan player in the world. He's played over 900 games at the time of this writing, and at an hour per game, that's a huge time investment.
I mean, he's always been good. And obsessed.
When I first introduced my dad to the original Settlers of Catan board game a few years ago (having been introduced to the game myself by Ross, incidentally), he was immediately fascinated by it. He went out and bought all the expansion sets -- none of which he likes as much as the original version -- and demanded to play it every time we had a game night. Regardless of how many people we have to accommodate at a gaming get-together, be it two or 12, the first question out of his mouth was always the same: "Are we playing Settlers?"
Most of my friends and I invariably tired of the game mostly because there are so many other great board games out there; too many to be pigeon holed into playing the same one over and over again. Another reason was that because it was the only game my dad liked to play, he was becoming impossible to beat. Those of us who were smart enough not to trade with him would get frustrated at people who would fall for his salesmanship. After a while I vowed never to play with him again unless it was some different variation of the game that he hadn't completely figured out yet, and even then only when I absolutely couldn't convince him to try something else in my collection.
Fast forward three years to the pre-release of Catan for Xbox Live Arcade. We played it on the XBLA developer network here in the office (a perk from The Behemoth side of the operations) and knew immediately it was right up my dad's alley. I mean, here we were playing it every chance we got, taking turns against the different A.I.s and critiquing each other's strategies. The game was so well implemented and fun to play that it was obvious it would be an immediate addiction for my dad, whose would stay up to the wee hours of the night playing Civilization on his PC.
So I borrowed Tim's expertise for a weekend and we drove down my parent's place in Maryland. First, we went on a whirlwind shopping spree where we purchased a 46" Sony TV, a new Xbox 360, wireless network card, wireless controller, and an XBLA gold membership. Then we went about completely rearranging the living room to optimize it for the new set-up and getting my dad familiarized with the whole online gameplay experience.
Within one week he was absolutely hooked.
After a month he was still staying up to 3 a.m. on a regular basis to squeeze out every minute of gameplay he could.
Now, almost seven months after its debut, my dad has finally made it to where I knew his passion for Settlers of Catan and addictive personality could take him: Number One in the world.
Congratulations, dad. You've earned it.
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