Episode 178 B

EPISODE 178
LEVEL B1 – B2

READING COMPREHENSION

Board Games Renaissance
Gaming is believed to be very close to being fully immersive. Facial recognition software is almost capable of scanning your face and rendering 3D versions of yourself that don’t look like disfigured Marvel villains. Virtual reality headsets—once they’ve sorted out the fact they currently make you feel a bit sick—are nearly able to drop players into the thick of it. Gesture control tech isn’t far off when it comes to characters emulating the movements of players. Humans are almost one with the machine. So, at first, it strikes me as odd that we’re apparently in the midst of widespread board game revivalism. Why would people be so fascinated with stationary bits of plastic and card when they have all these wide interactive worlds accessible to them? Undoubtedly, we are in the middle of the golden age of board games.

This is by no means wishful thinking. Sales of board games have been on the rise every year for the past decade; there are listings of the best board game cafes and bars andmany successful YouTube channels focusing on board games have tens of thousands of followers. There’s something to be said about being at a table with your friends, live and in-person, which explains the popularity of board games. Such communities will always be connected. The communities aren’t anything new. Warhammer and Dungeons & Dragons have had strong cult followings since the 1970s and 80s, spawning all sorts of clubs, meetups, and conventions—and those continue today. What’s surprising is that, even after classics like Magic: The Gathering and Monopoly have been digitized, physical sales continue to grow.

Board games have increased in popularity and become more normal, as with other things that were once niche and geeky and that only nerds played. The idea of board gamers was always big guys with complicated battle maps sitting around in dark rooms, but things are different now. There are „gateway games” that development teams bring along to game fairs and expos to get people hooked. Give people a simple game—a theme they can relate
to—and then introduce them slowly to the mechanics of other games, that’s the way more people can get involved and see the appeal. Hundreds of new games are being made every year to appeal to all those prospective new
converts, many of which rely on crowdfunding to get off the ground. Matt Sloan, founder of Beer & Board Games, and a regular online game reviewer, says, „I think that the ability for board games to reach all the various corners of geek culture is what gets people excited about them, and the niches that they explore can be insanely specific. The possibilities of board games and related merchandise are endless.”
Adapted from www.vice.com

 

Ex. 1 Find the words or expressions in the text which mean the following:
1) one with which you can be surrounded, three-dimensional: __________
2) to create, generate sth: __________
3) distant from the truth: __________
4) bringing back to life: __________
5) a meeting of enthusiasts: __________
6) to turn sth into electronic data: __________
7) an unpopular kid at school who has a strange hobby and likes studying:__________
8) to have a mental connection with sth: __________
9) the attractiveness of sth: ___________
10)providing money from a large group of individuals: __________
11)a group: __________
12)popular: _________

 

Ex. 2 Match the expressions from the two columns into logical collocations:
1) facial                               in popularity
2) to sort                             midst of sth
3) to drop                           following
4) sth strikes                      been on the rise
5) in the                              game
6) sales have                      sb as odd
7) cult                                  recognition
8) to increase                     of fairs
9) a gateway                       sth out
10) game                              sb into the thick of sth

 

Ex. 3 Provide English equivalents of these expressions:
1) być zdolnym do czegoś
2) naśladować coś
3) w żadnej mierze
4) zrodzić coś
5) niszowe
6) zespół opracowujący coś
7) zaszczepić coś w kimś
8) przechrzta
9) gadżety, towary
10)ruszyć z miejsca
11)przedstawić coś komuś
12)pobożne życzenie

 

Grammar corner…

English is a very productive language and it’s easy to make new words in it. What isparticularly useful is making verbs and there are several ways of doing it, e.g. by adding an ending -ize, -ise, -yze, and -yse. The decision is usually arbitrary, i.e. made without any particular reason, so a good way to learn it is to develop a certain intuition.

 

Ex. 4 Make appropriate verbs by adding the right ending.
1. It’s prohibited to ____________________ (advertisement) tobacco and alcohol.
2. We had no plan, so we had to ____________________ (improvisation).
3. Your job will be to ____________________ (supervision) the production team.
4. We need to ____________________ (analysis) our sales figures to come up with a
good pricing policy.
5. It’s quite normal that if you’re in a relationship with a psychologist, they will try
to ____________________ (psychoanalysis) you all the time.
6. If the police believe you’ve been drinking and driving, they will
____________________ (breath analysis) you.
7. Congress sessions are usually ____________________ (television).
8. I need to ____________________ (revision) for my finals, otherwise I’ll fail.
9. After the accident, he was ____________________ (paralysis) from waste down.
10. We’d like to ____________________ (minimal) the risk, but it’s impossible to eliminate
it entirely.

 

GLOSSARY

immersive – porywające, realistyczne
to render sth – oddać coś (np. realistycznie)
far off – błędny
revivalism – renesans czegoś
a convention – zlot
to digitize – poddać cyfryzacji
a nerd – kujon
to relate to sth – identyfikować się z czymś
the appeal of sth – atrkcyjność czegoś
crowdfunding – grupowe gromadzenie funduszy
a community – społeczność
widespread – rozpowszechniony
facial recognition – rozpoznawanie twarzy
to sort sth out – uporać się z czymś
to drop sb into the thick of sth – wrzucić kogoś w środek akcji
sth strikes sb as odd –  coś zadziwia kogoś
in the midst of sth – pośród czegoś / w trakcie czegoś
sales have been on the rise – sprzedaż ciągle rośnie
cult following – całkowite oddanie się czemuś
to increase in popularity – zyskiwać na popularności
a gateway game  – gra, od której rozpoczyna się przygodę
game fairs  – targi gier
to be capable of doing sth  – być zdolnym do czegoś
to emulate sth  -naśladować coś
by no means  – w żadnej mierze
to spawn sth  – zrodzić coś
niche – niszowe
a development team  – zespół opracowujący coś
to get sb hooked on sth – zaszczepić coś w kimś
a convert – przechrzta
merchandize  – towary, gadżety
to get off the ground  – ruszyć z miejsca
to be introduced to sth  – przedstawić coś komuś
disfigured  – zniekształcony
a villan  – czarny charakter
to come up with sth  – wpaść na coś

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