Don't Be Sorry

The kids are out of school, dinner is done and it's a Friday. Time for some fun, but what to do? Yes, it's tempting to go over to your friend's house and check out their new custom poker tables, but you should play a board game with the kids instead, because after all, they're not going to be young and want to play with you forever. Carpe opportunum, as they say. A family board game is always a good bet for a good time, but which one? Hey, how about Sorry? With a title like that, how could you have anything but fun? No one will regret playing this one, that's for sure. Sorry is a great game, as much for its cathartic appeal as for its minimal setup. Just unpack the board, throw some colored tokens down, and get to flipping those cards. The object of the game is for the players to move their own colored tokens all the way around the board, by way of the cards that control their motion. Sounds straightforward enough. Yes. The twist is that, much like real life, once you're outside of your “home” zone, you're in danger. Maybe this is not a good game to teach the children life lessons with (or maybe it is). In any case, if you run into someone else's piece under the right circumstances, you can send that piece back to the beginning. There are slides and neat things that accomplish this objective, but the real joy and agony of the game is its namesake card, which sends all exposed tokens of the opponent of your choice back to the beginning. Revenge is a dish served often and hot in Sorry, and you'd better believe there will be tensions when someone's just about to win and you pull out the super-weapon card, like a blue shell in Mario Kart.