One thing that many autistic people share is an intense passion for specific special interests. Over the years, my personal obsessions have included everything from mushrooms to Scooby Doo (and, of course, board games). The reason I bring this up on Wargamer is that there’s a new tabletop game that perfectly captures the idea of infodumping about things you love.
That game is Collectionomics, a party game that began crowdfunding via Kickstarter on March 18. Designer Becca Horovitz says in a promotional video that “I designed Collectionomics because I have collections I love and friends who don’t always share that love.”
“I love my rock collection, same goes for my friends with their own passions”, Horovitz explains. “The problem is it’s hard to find opportunities to share as adults without feeling like you’re hogging the spotlight or boring people. Collectionomics was designed to be fun for everyone playing, whether they care about striations in sedimentary rocks or not.”
It’s a social game at its core, where players can bring items from personal collections to present to the rest of the table. This item is then surrounded by a series of wacky prompt cards, and the players must argue about which best describes the item on display.
Unlike many of the best board games in the ‘voting’ subgenre, Collectionomics decides its winners with a jury rather than a single judge. Everyone gets to vote on their preferred prompt-item matchup and who gets the points.
Given that most of the game’s components are provided by the players themselves, I can see a lot of silly potential. I have a collection of odd Christmas tree ornaments that would make great conversation starters, for one. I also have enough minis and figures of DnD’s Strahd von Zarovich to fill an evening talking about. The Kickstarter page recommends including dice, buttons, trading cards, and more – the possibilities are endless.
A standard edition of the game is available for $35 (£27). This gets you the basic box, which is filled with storage space for the collector’s items you wish to play with. It also comes with 70 prompt cards, plus goal cards, voting cards, a playmat, and a sand timer (just in case anyone infodumps for too long, I imagine).
Higher pledge tiers also include, among other goodies, the slightly more adult Bedroom Drawer expansion and blank tokens that let you create your own prompts. For $140 (£108), Horovitz will even send you 42 mystery trinkets to play show-and-tell with.
The Kickstarter campaign will end on April 9, so you have until then to decide what niche hobby you’d like to share. If you’re in the market for some other social games, here are the best couples’ board games we’d recommend.
Source: Wargamer
