The SORRY! state of board games

My favorite board game is SORRY! I played it as a kid and then many times with my kids. Somehow the game is constructed so that no matter how big a lead a player might have somehow the end comes down to a nail-biter where anybody can win. It’s truly ingenious. Imagine if basketball games all came down to one last shot. (As it is, I’ve always maintained in the NBA they should just give each team 100 points and let them play for five minutes.)

In SORRY! you have four nubbins that you move around the board trying to get them all across the finish line first. If your nubbin lands on an opponent’s square you bump his nubbin back to “start.” You draw cards with numbers and move backwards and forwards accordingly. It’s deceptively simple, but somehow over the course of the game the race always gets tighter and tighter. A game takes about a half-hour. 2-4 players, from age 6 to adult.

Well, there’s now an updated “new” version. Why? Why fuck with perfection? Each player now only gets three nubbins, card restrictions have been lifted and players move around the board faster. Plus, there’s this new Fire and Ice feature that modifies the rules for nubbins that are assigned one. And this feature has caused additional confusion as there are now situations not explained in the rules.

The point of this new version is what? To speed up the game? A half-hour is too long? To sell new versions to fans of the original? To compete with video games? The president of the company was losing too often to his kids?

Whatever the reason it's just another example of fixing things that aren’t broke. Repealing net neutrality. New Coke. Replacing Scott Pelley. Automatic intentional walks. Blue M&M’s. Crystal Pepsi. Clairol Touch of Yogurt Shampoo. KRTH’s new jingles.

Considering how hard it is to get anything right, when you do, LEAVE IT ALONE. SORRY! but that’s the way I feel.



from By Ken Levine