Jul 22, 2021 05:04 PM EDT By Ernest Hamilton, UniversityHerald Reporter

While educational board games are a lot of fun, they are not the only type of game that can teach players new things. There are a variety of interesting board games out there that, despite not being designed with education in mind, can end up being very informative for all the players involved.

Trivia games fit this category, as puzzling over trivia questions can be a great way to explore different topics and learn from players who know more about a subject than you do. And now players who want to explore the pop culture and history of the 50s, 60s, and 70s can do so with the help of Boom Again, a board game packed with over 2.200 trivia questions related to that period.

Boom Again is a good example of how board games can be educational almost by accident. Designed by boomers and for boomers, Boom Again works as a group trip down memory lane that can be enjoyed by friends who are around the same age. The game is made specifically for Baby Boomers and it can be enjoyed by groups of 2 to 10 players.

That said, soon after release, the makers of the game began receiving surprising feedback from gamers. Despite the game's topic and main target audience, many players found the game fun and could be fun for the whole family. While the older players enjoyed the game as a trip down memory lane, younger players found themselves learning a lot about the culture of the Baby Boomers while playing the game.

On the game's official website, the team behind Boom Again explained how the game can work to open a conversation between generations.

"The truth is, the younger generation pays more attention than we think. They know our songs. They've watched our TV shows. And, yes, they may have learned about what we experienced growing up in their high school history class vs. on the streets as we did, but the fact is, they still learned an awful lot of it."

It makes sense. After all, one generation's childhood is another generation's history. And while shooting for nostalgia across its six categories of trivia questions, Boom Again ends up covering a variety of historic events and pop culture landmarks that younger generations may be aware of, or interested in. And exploring them in the context of a fun game played with friends and family is a good way to make discussions about the past more interesting.

How the game works

Released in 2020, Boom Again is a relatively straightforward board game. To play the game, players must split themselves into two teams that compete by answering questions in different categories to win tokens on the game's board. Each correct answer gets a team one step closer to gaining one of the tokens. The opposing team can either target a different category or go after the same token, creating a trivia tug of war.

The over 2,200 trivia questions contained in the game are split into six different categories: things we heard, things we saw, things we learned on the street, things we learned in school, in the news, and SHOUT. The latter is a wildcard category where questions have multiple possible answers.

See Now: Covert Team Inside Newsweek Revealed as Key Players in False Human Trafficking Lawsuit