Jeffro’s Car Wars Blog

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I bought Car Wars when I was just a kid. I remember it just like it was yesterday.

We had this gigantic bicycle store in my town. They even had a gigantic bicycle on the front of the building. Odd place; they’re still in business today. You’d walk in, though, and go to the back and up a ramp and they had all sorts of hobby stuff. An electric train ran all around the section. It was mostly model stuff, but they had one little rack of Car Wars stuff for some reason.

There they were… little black pocket boxes and zip lock baggie expansion sets. I was enchanted. I bought the game and went home. I was just a kid, though. It had to be just the 4th or 5th grade or so. I opened it up and read through it. It was the coolest thing I’d ever bought.

I couldn’t really figure out how to play and I didn’t know anybody that could pick it up with me. I don’t know what happened exactly, but somehow I got frustrated. I went to my brother to ask him to help me learn to play it. (He’s eight years older than me.) He wasn’t very helpful and something sort of pushed me over the edge. I think I just wanted him to play with me and he wasn’t even going through the motions of explaining or reading the rules. I burst into tears.

“I just wha-wha-want to play this game!!!”

I’ll never forget that next moment, though. There I stood… hoping that somehow my big brother would have mercy on me and take a couple hours to play the game with me. He looks at me… pauses a moment. Then:

“They should never have sold this game to a little kid!”

He turned and walked off. I pulled myself together and went back to trying to figure it out myself. If only I had bought Ogre instead– and if only Ogre came with some decent solitaire rules– maybe then I would have grown up to be a regular person…. [Rolls eyes and chuckles at self.]

Gaming Note– Good solitaire rules for Ogre appear in The Ogre Book.