Game Night

Game night in Snowdrift Bay was usually an excuse to eat pizza, catch up with friends, and occasionally remember there happened to be a board game somewhere beneath the snack bowls.

This week, however, Spike and Roberta had other plans.

For nearly a month they had prepared for what Spike called "the definitive Galactic Conquest experience."

He had memorized the rulebook.

Roberta had spent evenings carefully organizing hundreds of tiny pieces into labeled containers while Spike laminated color-coded reference sheets. She had even insisted the seating arrangement be determined according to what she called "strategic personality resonance."

"This isn't just game night," Spike said proudly as he admired the finished table.

"This," Roberta agreed, "is an event."

Guests arrived just before sunset.

Yorn carried a thermos of hot cocoa.

Brenda arrived with homemade cookies.

Philip wandered in wearing a hoodie that read I PAUSED MY MOVIE FOR THIS.

Elara entered carrying a bottle of wine.

Philip immediately wandered toward the pizza boxes.

Yorn asked Spike how work had been.

Elara set the wine on the kitchen counter.

"So," she smiled, "how has everybody—"

"Should we maybe sit down?" Spike interrupted.

Everyone looked over.

"Oh," Brenda said. "Sure. I just thought we'd catch up for a few minutes."

"We can do that after the game," Roberta said pleasantly.

Philip looked back from the pizza.

"...Can't we do both?"

Spike laughed.

"Not with Galactic Conquest."

The room fell quiet.

"...Right," Philip said.

The dining room table looked like NASA had suffered an emotional breakdown.

A sprawling hexagonal galaxy stretched from one end of the table to the other.

Hundreds of tiny ships.

Plastic planets balanced on transparent stands.

Stacks of cards.

Resource cubes.

Dice.

Player mats.

Laminated reference sheets.

Laminated quick-reference sheets explaining the reference sheets.

Color-coded organizational trays.

Philip slowly looked around.

"...How long have you two been setting this up?"

"Three evenings," Spike said proudly.

"...Three?"

"We had to restart once."

"Why?"

"The moons weren't emotionally symmetrical," Roberta explained.

Nobody asked what that meant.

Everyone sat.

Spike clapped his hands together.

"The objective is actually very straightforward."

Everyone visibly relaxed.

"You'll be competing for galactic dominance through military expansion, economic leverage, technological superiority, political influence, diplomatic negotiations, interstellar commerce, adaptive taxation, resource optimization, and strategic orbital governance."

Nobody looked relaxed anymore.

The explanation began.

Ten minutes passed.

Twenty.

Thirty.

Brenda quietly leaned toward Elara.

"So did you ever finish that mystery novel?"

Spike stopped speaking.

"...Sorry."

Both women looked up.

"We're still explaining."

"Oh."

Brenda smiled apologetically.

"I was just making conversation."

"We'll have plenty of time for that after the game."

Five minutes later—

Philip reached for another slice of pizza.

Spike stopped again.

"...Philip."

"What?"

"I really need everyone's attention."

"You've got it."

"You were looking at the pizza."

"I can listen while looking at pizza."

Spike frowned.

"...Not effectively."

Philip slowly withdrew his hand.

Another ten minutes passed.

Yorn quietly chuckled at something Brenda whispered.

Roberta slowly rolled toward them.

"Could we maybe keep side conversations until after setup?"

"We're listening," Yorn assured her.

"I know."

"...Then what's the problem?"

"The atmosphere."

Another hour passed.

Spike smiled.

"I think we're ready to begin."

Everyone brightened.

"Great."

"Excellent."

"Finally."

Spike picked up the first-player marker.

Then froze.

"Oh."

Everyone's smiles disappeared.

"I forgot orbital taxation."

A collective groan escaped the table.

Eventually, the first turn began.

To everyone's credit, they genuinely tried.

Brenda highlighted important sections of the rulebook.

Yorn took notes in a notebook labeled STAR THINGS.

Philip fully committed to roleplaying.

"The Bone Consortium wishes to be remembered as fiscally irresponsible."

Elara patiently asked questions instead of pretending she understood.

Unfortunately, nothing they did was right.

Yorn moved one of his fleets.

Spike immediately reached across the table.

"No."

"What?"

"You don't want to do that."

"I thought I did."

"You don't."

"I was hoping to learn by—"

"I'll fix it."

Spike physically moved Yorn's fleet somewhere else.

Brenda proudly built her first starbase.

"There!"

Spike looked pained.

"...Why there?"

"It seemed like a nice planet."

"But strategically—"

"I wasn't really thinking strategically."

Spike leaned back.

"...That's becoming apparent."

Philip announced,

"The Bone Consortium proposes eternal peace."

"I'll accept," Brenda smiled.

Spike closed his eyes.

"You haven't unlocked diplomacy."

"...Can't we just pretend?"

"No."

Elara quietly moved three ships.

Spike immediately shook his head.

"No."

"What now?"

"You forgot supply maintenance."

"I don't know what supply maintenance is."

"I explained it."

"An hour and a half ago."

"Yes."

Yorn accidentally called the diplomacy tokens "friendship nickels."

"They're influence markers," Spike corrected.

"Right."

Five minutes later—

"So I'll spend two friendship nickels..."

"Influence markers."

Another ten minutes—

"I'll save this friendship nickel—"

Spike visibly winced.

Nearly two hours passed.

Nobody had completed a full round.

Brenda finally sighed.

"...Can I ask something?"

Spike nodded.

"Of course."

"Is it okay if we're...bad?"

"...What?"

"We've never played before."

"So?"

"So we're probably going to make mistakes."

"You don't have to."

Silence.

Yorn smiled politely.

"I think we do."

Philip looked around the table.

"I honestly don't care if I lose."

Spike blinked.

"...What?"

"It's just a game."

"I know."

"I mostly came because I like spending time with you guys."

Brenda nodded.

"Me too."

Elara raised her wine.

"I thought this was mostly an excuse to socialize."

Spike looked genuinely confused.

"...This is social."

Philip gestured toward the board.

"We've spent two hours discussing fictional tax law."

Something inside Spike snapped.

"NO!"

Everyone jumped.

"You know what? No!"

He stood so abruptly his chair crashed backward onto the floor.

"This is exactly the problem!"

He began pacing around the table, pointing furiously at the board.

"You keep acting like this is complicated!"

Nobody spoke.

"IT ISN'T!"

He jabbed a finger toward Yorn's player mat.

"You resolve planetary upkeep before stellar maintenance unless your civilization is under quantum sanctions, in which case sanctions happen after fleet provisioning but before orbital tariffs unless you've already passed the Galactic Commerce Accord!"

Yorn blinked.

"...I don't know what the Galactic Commerce Accord is."

"IT'S ON PAGE FORTY-SEVEN!"

Brenda cautiously raised a hand.

"I thought we were still on—"

"No! You're thinking of trade normalization! COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!"

She quietly lowered her hand again.

Spike pointed at Philip.

"And you don't trade garlic bread!"

"It worked."

"IT DIDN'T WORK!"

"I got garlic bread."

"You don't barter with physical food because then how do you calculate interstellar inflation after the Sixth Economic Revision?!"

"...The what?"

"THE SIXTH ECONOMIC REVISION!"

Elara calmly opened the rulebook.

"I'm trying to find—"

"You don't need the rulebook!"

"You literally handed us the rulebook."

"Because you shouldn't NEED IT!"

Roberta had rolled beside Spike by now, every bit as frustrated.

"And your fleet movement!"

She looked at Brenda.

"Why would you move through the nebula before securing your auxiliary trade corridor?"

"I..."

"And then build a civilian outpost before researching plasma agriculture?"

"I don't know what plasma agriculture is."

"EXACTLY!"

Yorn tried to interrupt.

"Spike, I think maybe—"

"And friendship nickels!"

Spike practically shouted himself hoarse.

"They're NOT friendship nickels!"

"They're influence markers!"

"They generate diplomatic leverage that can be converted into legislative authority during emergency senate sessions if—and this is the EASY PART—you've maintained positive relations with at least two neutral systems while avoiding economic embargoes from civilizations that haven't even entered the game yet!"

Philip stared.

"...You called that the easy part."

"IT IS THE EASY PART!"

The room sat in stunned silence.

Finally Brenda spoke softly.

"...Spike."

"No."

"You've just said about sixty words."

"Yes."

"I understood...maybe three."

Spike looked around the table.

"You mean..."

He turned toward Roberta.

"...They really don't get it?"

Roberta looked around the room.

Nobody made eye contact.

She slowly closed her eyes.

"...Oh, for the love of..."

Spike turned back toward everyone.

"YOU PEOPLE AREN'T EVEN TRYING!"

"We are trying," Brenda protested.

"Clearly not!"

"I have four pages of notes!" Philip held them up.

"THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL MAKING TERRIBLE MOVES?"

"I'VE BEEN PLAYING FOR EIGHTEEN MINUTES!"

"We spent THREE WEEKS preparing this!"

"We know," Yorn said gently.

"Do you?!"

"Yes."

"We laminated everything!"

"They're very nice laminations," Elara said.

"I ORGANIZED FOUR HUNDRED GAME PIECES!" Roberta shouted.

"I MEMORIZED SEVENTY-TWO PAGES OF RULES!"

"I ALIGNED THE ROOM'S ASTRAL ENERGY!"

"I MADE SIX DIFFERENT REFERENCE SHEETS!"

"We've been using them!" Brenda insisted.

"APPARENTLY NOT!"

Yorn raised both hands.

"Spike..."

"What?"

"I think maybe we're just more interested in spending time together than winning."

Spike stared.

"...What?"

"We came because we wanted to hang out with our friends."

Brenda nodded.

"The game was supposed to be part of the evening."

Philip shrugged.

"I honestly thought tonight was pizza with optional spaceships."

Elara smiled kindly.

"I came for the company."

Spike looked around the table.

Everyone nodded.

Nobody disliked the game.

Nobody had been mocking him.

They had simply cared more about spending time together than mastering Galactic Conquest.

His face fell.

Then immediately hardened again.

"THEN WHY DID WE SPEND THREE WEEKS PREPARING THIS?!"

With one furious sweep of both arms—

WHOOOOOOOSH!

The galaxy achieved orbit.

Plastic fleets ricocheted off the chandelier.

Cards fluttered through the dining room.

Resource cubes rained into bowls of chips.

One tiny moon landed perfectly inside Philip's coffee.

A plastic battleship bounced off a pizza box.

Another splashed into Elara's wine.

Silence.

Roberta looked around at the destruction.

"I hope you're all happy."

Nobody answered.

Finally Brenda looked around the room.

"...Honestly?"

"Yes?"

"I actually think this is the most fun we've had all evening."

Philip nodded.

"I was just about to say that."

Yorn couldn't hold it anymore.

He burst into laughter.

Then Elara.

Then Brenda.

Within seconds everyone except Spike and Roberta was laughing.

Spike looked around.

Nobody was laughing at him.

They were laughing because, for the first time all night, the tension was gone.

He slowly sat back down.

"...Were we really that bad?"

There was a pause.

Nobody wanted to answer.

Finally Elara spoke.

"You invited us over to spend time with our friends."

She gestured toward the destroyed galaxy.

"You accidentally invited us to a final exam."

Roberta sighed.

"...Oh."

Spike rubbed one spine against another.

"I suppose..."

He looked around the table.

Brenda's highlighted rulebook.

Yorn's notebook.

Philip's careful notes.

They had all genuinely tried.

"I think," he admitted quietly, "...we forgot why we invited everyone."

Brenda smiled.

"We really were trying."

"I know."

"We just wanted to spend time with you."

Spike nodded.

"I'm sorry."

"So am I," Roberta said.

"I think we got a little carried away."

"A little?" Philip asked.

"You corrected the way I picked up a die."

Spike thought for a moment.

"...That does sound like me."

Even Roberta laughed.

Twenty minutes later, Galactic Conquest had been carefully packed back into its enormous box.

The pizza returned to the middle of the table.

The wine was finally opened.

Brenda called Pierre.

He arrived ten minutes later without explanation, nodded politely to everyone, and immediately began miming what appeared to be bowling during an earthquake while being chased by invisible geese.

Nobody guessed correctly.

Nobody cared.

Everyone laughed anyway.

Near the end of the evening, Spike glanced at the towering Galactic Conquest box resting quietly against the wall.

"...Maybe every five years."

Philip nodded.

"I'm willing to commit to once per presidential administration."

"And maybe," Brenda added, "something with fewer than seven tax systems."

Yorn smiled.

"And fewer friendship nickels."

Spike instinctively opened his mouth.

"...Influence..."

He stopped himself.

He grinned.

"...Friendship nickels."

Roberta chuckled.

"I suppose the galaxy can wait."

This time, everyone agreed.