Human memory works a lot like a muscle. It’s a faculty that can be strengthened through exercise, and that will wither away if it’s not stimulated often enough. The good news is that there are a lot of fun activities that can help people of all ages connect with their friends and exercise their memories in innovative ways. Trivia games like Boom Again are a great example of how games can be put together to make learning and memory exercise more fun for all ages.
Boom Again is a trivia board game released in 2020. It’s one of the latest projects headed by veteran game designer Brian Hersch, who the game’s website humorously credits as the team’s “Head Boomer”. As the game’s name indicates, Boom Again is a game designed by boomers for boomers. The trivia game comes packed with over 2,200 questions that draw upon the culture and shared experience of those who grew up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
Rather than being a straightforward test of knowledge, Boom Again is designed to work as a lighthearted trip down memory lane. As the game’s website puts it: “The game questions aren’t meant to trip up your brain like in other trivia games. Rather, they’re designed to be fun, to spark memories of “days gone by” — and mostly to bring people of all stripes together for a good time.”
In a blog post detailing the development of the game, Brian Hersch explained that one of his main design principles when planning out Boom Again was to avoid player frustration. In his words: “Everyone thinks trivia has to be really hard. But people don’t want to feel embarrassed. Sure, playing with hard pop culture trivia might feel good to really smart players who get to show off. But the majority of us feel awkward and intimidated. Where’s the fun in that?”
This combination of factors puts Boom Again and other trivia games like it in a unique position. Unique other types of memory exercises, Boom Again is social, interactive, and — most important of all — fun. And finding fun ways to keep one’s memory active is an important endeavor, especially as people grow older.
Board games as a learning tool
On top of memory exercises, another way to preserve cognitive function as we age is to keep learning new things about various subjects. And this is another area where board games can be useful. Complex roleplaying and strategy board games involve dozens and rules and multi-layered strategies that combine to create a near-endless well of complexity for players to explore.
Trivia games also provide plenty of learning experiences, especially when the game in question has a clear theme or premise. The manufacturers of Boom Again, for example, have reported that they have gotten a surprising amount of positive feedback from younger players who played the game by themselves or among other relatives. That’s because trivia games offer a good opportunity for players to share knowledge about a given topic whenever another player is struggling with a question. And the social and emotional context of a fun game creates a situation where little pieces of trivia that come up during a play session are much more likely to be committed to memory than information that’s obtained through less interesting methods.