I used to play Life with kids I babysat for. I always lost spectacularly. I always ended with billions of children and no money

We had this marvellous game in England which was British Rail, and you had to work out how to get from place A to place B most efficiently, and we were all up on the entire rail system plus tourist destinations.

Oh my gosh, I would LOVE that game!!

I think it's still available. If it's the one I'm thinking of, it's part of a whole series of rail games. The original was Empire Builder; Eurorails is in the series too.

Backgammon was a game my sister and I got into in high school. Euchre was the hot card game in our high school before I started, but I learned to play so I could partner with my older siblings and cousins. By the time I started high school, though, it was a dying fad, and after freshman year, I didn't play again until a few decades later.

If it's the one I'm thinking of, it's part of a whole series of rail games

Were you thinking of Great Game of Britain?

Hmm. Now I'm wondering if I can get a good backgammon game for my phone.

We played euchre all the time in high school, but it's a very regional game.

We had a month of school left after the calculus AP exam, so our teacher used it to teach us how to play bridge.

Board games and card games were a huge part of my childhood, and indeed adult life. As a teenager I was particularly into strategy wargames, like Squad Leader or Rise and Decline of the Third Reich. (Props to my dad for owning Diplomacy too; there began my love of multiplayer cutthroat games. My parents also owned this odd little game called Spy Ring, which I found fascinating.)

At uni it was trick-taking card games, primarily 500 and Black Lady. Pit was a revelation. Nowadays, the card game I'm most into is Race for the Galaxy. I've played it, occasionally obsessively, for well over a year and it just never gets old.

Were you thinking of Great Game of Britain?

No, British Rails.

Erin, just knowing that Mrs. Mooney existed has improved my day.

One year my family went up to Tahoe almost every single weekend, and we spent every single night playing cribbage. I don't even remember how to play it anymore, but just seeing the board and the pegs makes me feel all content and warm and summer-nights-y.

No, British Rails.

Oh, our game was Great Game of Britain. There was a steam version and a current time version, but we stuck to current day. You could also do stuff to delay your opponent in their quest to get to their destination. God, we were obsessed.

Other than that, we played backgammon and word games. Once we came of age, we could even play Scrabble with parents! My mother is not the sort of woman who plays games with kids. She had helpers for that, or other kids. She wanted a real competition.