February 4 – “Icky-Heroes”

I was introduced to a brand new table game yesterday by three of my grandsons and my wife.  She had the joy of playing one game with them while I finished up some work on the computer.  The name of the game was Icky Heroes or Hero-iky or something like that, I think.  The playing board is made out of Legos, so it was right up the boys’ alley.  They live in a fantasy world where Legos greet you every morning when you wake up, follow you throughout your day, whether around the house or in the car, and Legos are right there to bid you good night.  Wait a minute.  That’s not fantasy.  I think I just described their bedroom.  And house.  And car.  Well, if you live with Legos, as they obviously do, why not have a game that requires the playing board to be put together?  Of course they also live with a toddler little sister who would love to join in on the action.  Now, her joining in generally involves some tiny piece of the puzzle entering her digestive system, so for the time being she is under a royal edict banning her from the area when competition is taking place.  And a wise edict that is, I must say. 

The game itself involves rolling a die and moving your Lego guy the number of spaces indicated, through doors to nowhere and over rocky obstacles and past walls that require teleportation to pass.  Sounds simple enough, and that’s the extent of introduction to the rules I received when we began the game.  But then you inevitably come face to face with sundry creatures strewn about the tracks.  Monsters and trolls and ogres and giant spiders and huge bats, evil kings and even the grim reaper.  Oh, and wizards.  I was assigned the role of wizard.  Call me Harry Potter, I guess.  In his early years.  The battles are fought by each player rolling his die.  Highest number wins.  Monsters are removed from the board.  Heroes potentially lose one of their four hearts.  (Although all is not lost should that happen.  Hearts are regenerated with the next roll of your die).  Each battle can do immeasurable harm to your character (actually the harm is carefully measured and even more carefully administered by the offending beast, controlled of course by the highly knowledgeable aforementioned grandsons).  If you survive the contests you can continue your search for healing elixirs and golden helmets and a massive treasure trove that apparently exists somewhere (although I never saw it).  And there are tiny pieces of gold strewn about to entice you into monster traps.  But with enough of these random gold pieces you can purchase an array of powerful weapons to use in you fight against the evil monstrosities.  A bow and arrow, a battle ax, swords, spears, shield, and even a healer’s staff for when your wounds get too great to go on. 

What’s that?  The object of the game?  How do you know who wins?  I have no idea.  I never got beyond the individual battles, so I was obviously delegated to a life of foot soldier-dom.  The guys seemed to have a lot of fun, though.  Even Josiah.  Well, even Chris.  So it was worth it.

Psalms 13:5 says, “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.”

Father, thank you for being so in control that we can trust in you for the big picture and be happy as foot soldiers in your army.  Amen.