If you go looking for pictures of games, you’re most likely to find photos of components, the occasional illustration used in the game and often the game box itself. If you go out looking for pictures of games being played, though, you’ll find photographs of more or less serious looking people. Some of them look worried, others determined and yet others almost joyless in their intense exertion in figuring out their next move. The way boardgaming tends to present itself in pictures is of an emotionally undercooked, but intellectually highly challenging activity.

This false impression towards people outside he hobby is generally self-inflicted. On the one hand, this serious emphasises that this is an appropriate activity for people who have outgrown the classification of “child”. On the other hand, it’s a flattering portrayal for people, who see games as a way to engage with history or at least gain a better understanding of it. Let alone those who consider games a kind of sophisticated mental contest, that only a select group of players have a taste for. By treating play primarily as an intellectual exercise, that consists of a collection of strategic and tactical considerations, we not only valorize the activity itself, but also those who engage in it.

All those things are, without a doubt, part of the spectrum of playstyles and experiences. But in my experience and observation, they are neither representative, nor do they capture the unique strengths of play. Those are found in the emotions we experience at the gaming table. Or when we share the table with others, in performing those emotions. A game can grab us. It can thrill us. It can make us feel tense, when our goals are put in jeopardy. It can give us the pleasant sensation of completion, when we manage to tackles a particularly hard challenge. These emotions are what turns of from people taking part in a game, to actual players.

In the presence of other players we even get to expand this bouquet of emotions to include one more facet. Playing games with other people offers us a stage to not only experience these emotions, but also to act them out for our own entertainment as well as those of the people around us. We get to use all manners of colourful language to curse out the hand we’ve been dealt. Playing a game together offers us a safe space to vividly and mockingly complain about another player’s move. Depending on the group, we might even engage in the kind of language that might make hardened sailors take note. The smidge of genuine anger or frustration we feel gets channelled into an exaggerated, even camp performance to both calm ourselves and entertain the others. The emotions we express become a pressure valve that benefits us all.

This is, to me, one of gaming’s most prominent strengths. Through its use of fictional situations it evokes an emotional response in us, much like movies do. If games offer some kind of escapism, they do so by allowing us to experience intense emotions and share them with others (if present). It’s the ironic distance between the emotions we actually feel and how we communicate them, that gives gaming its own unique sense of humour. It’s the special kind of joke that only those sitting around that table are privy to. Within this selected, some might even call it magic, circle we establish familiarity and even friendships. Even, or particularly, among men.

Gaming comes alive, because of the room it provides for our emotions. The more we try to push them out of the way we play and how we present it to people outside the hobby, the more we deny ourselves the very things that makes gaming worthwhile. Emotions are the lifeblood of great games and great gaming groups. This can’t be overstated or broadcast enough.

The unreserved intellectualization of play, its reduction to questions of logical causalities and matters of probability – regardless of how much individual enjoyment we can derive from doing so – is ultimately a reliable path to dismantling our experience. Once a game has been disassembled this way, there is nothing left but incentives, rewards and constraints. Like a beloved pet becomes only a collection of fur, muscle and bones, instead of a loyal friend that has accompanied you for years.

Games and play itself has to be thought of, understood and experienced with its entire emotional spectrum.

But playing and experiencing a game is different from writing or talking about it. As indispensable as emotions and their expressions are for the experience itself, they can be misleading or even obstructive when we want to critically engage with a game. Ever since click counts and engagement has been treated like an objective measure of quality, it’s become normal for game criticism to be shaped by emotive language and presentation. This observation is neither new, nor revolutionary. Most of all it’s not meant as criticism. These things are just a trend like any other, it’s our zeitgeist.

This emphasis on emotion should in my opinion be considered a stylistic choice, at least. It is how critical engagement is presented in order to fit the current habits of the audience. Talking about a game in a purely factual manner, careful to never veer from a position of neutrality offers little in the way of entertainment and as such is of little interest to most players.

But to talk or write solely about the emotions we felt playing the game, is simply a continuation of the experience itself. We try to recapture how it felt to play and relate this to others. But just as a game puts us into the centre of the action, so does such a re-telling draw attention to ourselves. This might make us miss out on the actual critique of the game itself.

Because critique doesn’t occur through retelling selected experiences we’ve had with a game, but through reflecting on them and contextualising them properly. A critique of a game is more than explaining the rules and mentioning individual moments you remember. With the added fig leaf of a concluding, “personal” opinion this might serve the formal requirements for a game criticism, but that’s all.

As mentioned above, I consider it an unnecessary limitation of play to put such a high value on reducing it to a purely intellectual exercise. Emotions at the game table are a great thing. They enrich our individual experience, but also that of the group we’re playing in. I wish this would be seen and treated as a self-evident part of playing games as a whole.

At the same time, the emphasis on emotions and emotional truths in criticism seems to have an opposite effect. Instead of enriching and expanding our critical engagement with games, this presentation of feelings and game themes only takes up more space. I would like to see more board game criticism that doesn’t just talk about what we feel, but questions those reactions. I’d love for questions questions outside of “Did I have fun?” to become part of the standard repertoire of any game review.

And while we’re on the subject of wishful thinking, I’d like a Switch 2 for Christmas.