We enjoyed four CamasCon camps this year. These retreats to connect Christian (although anyone is invited) tabletop gamers with each other and with their Lord. They are a highlight of the camp season. April, August, September, and November all host a CamasCon.

April and November have the normal CamasCon experience with campers who are thirteen + or campers who are 10 + but accompanied by a parent. In August, we have Family CamasCon where we provide child care for children five-and-up until dinner time, when families game together. In September, we offer a calmer CamasCon where all of the attendees are adults and hopefully no one needs supervision to keep them from flipping over the game board when they lose!

Since I am blogging about our recent fall camps, I will highlight photos from both our September and November CamasCon retreats with a few thrown in from the other camps for good measure.

There is such a variety of games and gamers at CamasCon! From those who love a long ten-hour grindy game that is heavy on strategy, to those who are more like myself and only play as a way to connect with others.

Now, Parks definitely has strategy, but since these ladies talked me into playing, you can be confident that it is also easily accessible and lends itself to a relaxed and friendly type of game play.

Twilight Imperium … well that is a whole different animal. These gamers are sitting down to an experience which may well involve planning their strategy in minute detail for ten hours, only to have Scruffy, Ragnar, or some other aggressor blow up their home planet two seconds before they win the game.

There are those who live for that epic battle experience and there are many, many games just for them!

There are also just as many games that fall somewhere in the middle.

It is pretty amazing the number of games that get played in a single CamasCon weekend.

But even with all of those games that need to be played, CamasCon campers pause during the day to connect with their Lord. Here, VanHelsing leads the chapel time at the spring retreat.

He also plays and teaches games. I am not completely sure if this moment is chapel related, game related, or just Van Helsing related. You be the judge. What exactly is he doing?

For those whose brains begin to ache after hours and hours of gaming, there is always the option of taking a quiet walk out in God’s creation or sitting beside the fire with a good book and a furry friend.

Our cook, Ragnar, kept everyone extreamely well fed during their gaming adventure.

Sitting around a table together and connecting over a game is such an amazing way to make new friends and to draw closer to the friends we already have.

I have watched people connecting over boardgames both at CamasCon and in our own home for many years and I cannot express the great value of playing a simple (or brain-numbingly complex) game together.

I have even had multiple teachers from our local public schools ask Scruffy and I to bring in boardgames to play with their students.

Why?

To teach math skills and even more important, the skill to communicate with others and to both win and lose with grace.

Gamers need not be quite as close as Princess Leia Freyja insists on being, but nonetheless, CamasCon is a meeting of the minds, hearts, and passions of Christian tabletop gamers as they seek to grow closer with one another and their Lord.

Boo Boo