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When I was quite young, perhaps 8 or 9 years old, my friend Colin and I invented a game that was simply called “Men.” Although there were some female characters in the game, I guess the name “men” just made sense to our little boy minds!
This game took a long time to set up and play and it often took up the entire house, which both amused and annoyed our parents. To begin, we gathered up all of our toys, action figures, and anything that could be used to build structures. From tiny LEGO figures to G.I. Joes and Ninja Turtles to Star Trek spaceships, we gathered our forces into a big pile in my room or his room, depending on whose house we were at. The supreme champion of the game was Toby, a battery powered walking, talking robot that blew smoke out of its mouth but sadly came without a laser pistol (it seemed that someone had stolen it from the box at the store).
After gathering everything that we’d need, we took turns choosing our “men” and building our teams. We assigned point values to everything to make it fair and often spent time debating which values were most reasonable. Then, once we had divided up everything, we chose our bases (often one in the bedroom and one in the basement or living room), built some structures for defense, and set up all of the “men” to defend the bases. We often expanded into other rooms, too, with research outposts, forward bases, and things like that.
“Men” was a complex game. Of course, there was a lot of fighting and blowing things up, but we also took prisoners of war and held prisoner exchanges, sent secret agents to spy on the enemy, went on diplomatic and research missions, built and repaired infrastructure, and more! The really interesting thing, now that I think about it, is that there was really no way to win, and the game never really ended. I’m sure it would have made an interesting study for some child psychologists!
I only knew Colin for a couple of years, though. My family soon moved to a new city and I went to a new school. After that, I never saw Colin or played “men” ever again.
