The challenge of the game
In those halcyon days before the invention of the videoconsole, we made “our fun” using that most versatile of gaming platforms, the imagination. Coupled with a few sheets of lined paper, several pencils and a teacher that was distracted by other students with more pressing needs, we were free to design gaming environments that had little to do with monsters and everything to do with towers, tunnels, carefully arranged puzzles and traps. In short, we were the masters of our own domains.
Jump forward about thirty years, to a world where the television allowed those with only a stub of imagination to vicariously participate in a perilous world. Throw in a bit of nationalism and a disaffected Napoleonic fortress, and Fort Boyard was born.
We’re into a second decade for this multinational production, and as a spectator “sport”, the program has lost none of its charm. Who wouldn’t be drawn in by an infectious soundtrack, snakes and ladders, bungee jumping into the ocean? You name it, they’ve got it (up to a limit). In fact, the Wikipedia entry lists the variety of puzzles/events used through the years, as well as a list of the countries that have tried to make this series their own. Olympians, eat your hearts out. Instead of one gold medal, there is a pot of gold medallions to gather and weigh in if enough challenges have been met.
Keep an eye out, particularly on one of the less-watched networks like TV5. You might not get a chance to hang upside down in a roomful of snakes while the rope ladder twirls, but at least you can pretend you are there. Imaginary sports for the imaginary athelete that lives inside us all.
