Largest game fest to mark last weekend in city

The event is organised by MADIEE (Making A Difference in Educational Experience), a start-up involved in a unique pedagogy, which shifts the emphasis from black boards to game boards to educate people. With Chennai boasting of a large number of board game enthusiasts, and the rise of several communities and forums that encourage the same, the event hopes to motivate more people to join the popular trend.

“All the games are by international publishers, and not the usual ones people here are accustomed to. Some of the popular ones are Splendor, Decrypto, Avalon, Azul, etc. Our team will advise participants which games are best for them to try out based on their interests,” explained Senthil Kumar, founder of MADIEE, who is organising the initiative.

For example, there are games that come under a category termed ‘Ameritrash games’. These are American-style board games that generally feature a prominent theme and encourage direct competition between players. Then there are ‘Euro games’ which generally have indirect interaction between players and focus on strategy.

“So there are professional or serious players who pick games accordingly, or if there are families and friends attending, we suggest the Euro games. In Chennai, now we have companies such as ours and a few others who design, create and publish board games from scratch, that is very encouraging for the community. There are also many more buying games and playing them at home to hone their skills,” Senthil added.