Life, Death & Heroscape

[Elginb]

It occurs to me that I've recently passed my 3rd year anniversary with Heroscape. I remember because I picked up the game just before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans just a few days before my friend Dewey died.

I met my friend Dewey when I started a new job in late 2000. We ended up hitting it off fairly quickly. I think we first got together to work on audio-tape "cut-ups" with my recording equipment, then went on to play basketball together quite frequently. But we didn't really start getting along until I broke my arm a few years later, when he offered to put me up for a few days while I recovered from surgery. I was pretty zonked, but when I emerged from my pain-killer induced haze, Dewey and I would take in some Chess.

After I was well on my way to recovery, Dewey and I would continue to get together frequently to play Chess (usually while catching a basketball game). Much to Dewey's frustration, I would win the vast majority of the time. Soon, we switched over to playing Scrabble, but this proved to be equally frustrating to him. To his credit, instead of moving on to another game, he became obsessed with reading about Scrabble tactics and history and what-not. He got better, but I still somehow managed to one-up him more often than not.

So I set out to find some other game to try that we might be more equally matched at. I made a point of researching games on About.com, where I first stumbled upon a review of Heroscape. I went to a local game store and saw it, thought it looked cool, then looked at the price tag-- $50???? No way, pal! I bought Settlers of Catan instead, which proved to be a big mistake...

Where I had dominated Dewey at Chess and Scrabble, he managed to clean my clock at Settlers every time we played. I don't know what it was, but I couldn't quite discern the strategy of the game. Maybe it was because it sort of reminded me of a more pastoral version of Monopoly, or maybe this was just the game Dewey was born to play. Anyway, after a few months of him beating the crap out of me, I decided I wanted to try something different. That's when I picked up Heroscape...

Heroscape had some things in common with both Settlers and Chess. Dewey was particularly fond of the modular board for Settlers, so I figured the even greater customizabilty of Heroscape would appeal to him. The game-play was similar to Chess, which was a real draw for me. So I unveiled the game to Dewey and another friend of mine and ended up playing several hours of the game the first time we played. I think we were all blown away by the game on several levels.

A couple days later, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Now I was living nice and dry and safe up in Colorado, but I did have a friend, James, in New Orleans who I couldn't get a hold of. For a couple days, I was in a bit of a panic. Finally, I got a hold of his sister and she got me in touch with James-- his house had been destroyed, but he had survived and was on his way to stay in North Carolina with family. I was psyched! It was Man vs. Nature, and my pal made it through unscathed! Well, it was all the set-up to a cruel joke. The very next day, I found my friend Dewey, dead in his apartment from a brain hemorrhage...

I had never had a friend that close die on me before, and I had never actually found someone dead before-- I was thrust into a haze worse than any I had been in during my post-surgery recovery period for my broken arm. For a while, I could hardly deal with human interaction-- it seemed rather fake or pretentious somehow. Maybe that's why I then took to Heroscape so fervently...

Heroscape is a great form of escapism. On the one hand, it encourages you to become a completist, and it was in collecting Heroscape that I gained some direction, again. Taking long drives all around Denver, trying to squeeze every last booster out of each Target, Walmart and Toys R Us... it was meditative in many ways. So was the process of building maps-- the bigger and more impractical the better, of course.

Gameplay was a side-note for a while, but eventually I found another friend who became just as interested in Heroscape as me-- you see, he was a big fan of that Pirates of the Spanish Main game, which I absolutely detested (what's with all this stupid measuring?!?!), which shared many elements with Heroscape, but had the added advantage of someone to play with. So Heroscape helped me get back to interacting with other human beings.

Since then, I've gone on to collect everything (except for the Convention exclusives) with multiple commons and master sets. I don't play it as much as I'd like to... but these days, it's because playing Heroscape keeps me from doing a lot of the other things I love to do with life; but I can't forget that it's a greatly because of Heroscape that I'm engaging in life as much as I am right now.

Heroscape will always be part of my memory of Dewey, who died 3 years ago September 2nd. So, Dewey, this one goes out to you...

Elgin

[Mr Migraine]

RIP Dewey.

[champrjk]

I'm sorry for your loss. Great read by the way.

[Rogue A$$asSIN]

I am truley sorry for your loss, your friend sounded like a true friend and these days can any of us say we have a true friend.

Again, I am sorry for your loss.

[kaemonawa]

That's bad about your friend. Very sorry about Dewey

[spidysox]

Thanks for sharing. We should all have friends like Dewey.

[Mutt Lo]

Thanks for sharing. Its nice to know Scape has affected someone in such a positive way.

[CheddarLimbo]

Thank you, Elgin, for sharing such a personal story with the community. Having recently experienced a death in my own family, I know that sometimes the best way to combat grief is through positive connections with the people around you. Good luck!