A. 飴国　B. 御免　C. 手術　D. 人生　E. 手掛かり　F. 独占

Clearly, the secret point of this challenge was not to make any real attempt at identifying the games but simply to spend the whole time talking about whether or not we like(d) them.  Well spotted, A(nother) Fan!  His comments on Operation were highly insightful and vastly understandable, especially to those of us not blessed with an overabundance of manual dexterity as children.  As for Life, on the other hand, he seems to have missed the point (I’m just talking about the game . . . right?)  Even at a young age, we players were able to discover pretty much right off the bat that going to college was an absolute waste of time.  All it did was allow you access to a couple of extra careers, and since career choice was random and the salary unrelated to said career choice, this was exceedingly pointless.  And you got stuck with loans!  Skipping college was a no-brainer.  Really, though, if you want to avoid “difficult” decisions like that, you’re better off sticking with Candy Land, which I for one was still playing in college (apparently I failed to learn the lesson that Life was trying to teach me).  Although there was, perhaps, less woofing involved.

But I suppose we should give him a more objective score as well, to see whether or not his claim about blindness enhancing his other senses (or at least his results) has any merit.  He’s one for six (or one for five if you consider that he only made five guesses with any chance of being correct), picking up a correct answer at E.  Looks like he’s better at Clue than he remembers.  Still, it’ll be hard for him to take too much joy in the victory, as he identified the much-maligned Monopoly (F) as his beloved Bridge.

Shirley’s opinions were a little more subtle, but we can still tell what she likes (the intrigue of Clue, the simplicity of Candy Land, the absurdity of Life) and what she doesn’t (the facelessness of Sorry, the interminability of Monopoly, anything under the sun related to the word “operation”).  Her guesses, too, were more subtly correct, which is a polite way of saying that they were wrong.  The second character in A, now that I think about it, does look a bit like one of those awkwardly shaped pieces in a too-small hole, but this is actually a country; the “Land” of “Candy Land.”  Presumably Shirley doesn’t want the weight of a whole nation on her new steel knee, so she’ll be okay being wrong about that one.  We can clearly see the butler in B raising up a knife to do violence to . . . some sort of complicated clockwork mechanism, it looks like, though that would seem to provide for a pretty poor mystery.  Anyway, as we all know, all butlers are British, and all British people are exceedingly polite, so it only makes sense that he would say, “Sorry” after doing the deed.  Shirley, however, says “Sorry” when presented with C, the Operation.  And D, the simplest one, is of course Life.  Just as it should be, right?

(Pause for laughter)

Theoman quietly picked up three correct answers.  This is a kid that you never want to let be the banker.

I’m still in a bit of a gaming mood, so this week’s challenge won’t stray too far.  We’re going to be working with a set of things from one of the games we just finished talking about (and no, I’m not including Bridge).  However, here’s the trick: I’m not going to tell you which game.  You have to guess that for yourself.  I will provide a couple hints, though: remember that KYPC has already had quizzes on the murder weapons from Clue and the playing pieces from Monopoly.  Presumably the Wordsman isn’t that repetitive.  Also, let’s give me a little credit and assume that I’m not going to present you with something as boring as the array of colors or numbers featured in Sorry.

A. 医者　B. 運動選手　C. 会計士　D. 教師　E. 警察官　F. 芸術家

G. 販売員