Perhaps it's because of the fun we had in GCSE English attempting to speak in Chaucerian accents ("Whan that Aprille with his shoures soute" etc – thank you, Mrs Trouncer); maybe it's because the best of the pilgrims, the gap-toothed Wyf of Bath, is called Alyson, but I've always had a soft spot for The Canterbury Tales. Couple that with the fact I come from a family partial to a spot of board-gaming, and you begin to imagine my excitement at the news that – way past time, surely – a game based on The Canterbury Tales is in the works.

It sounds absolutely joyful – the artwork is drawn from the Ellesmere manuscript of the Tales and Hieronymus Bosch's The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things. "In The Road to Canterbury, you play a medieval pardoner who sells certificates delivering sinners from the eternal penalties brought on by these Seven Deadly Sins. You make your money by peddling these counterfeit pardons to Pilgrims travelling the road to Canterbury. Perhaps you can persuade the Knight that his pride must be forgiven? Surely the Friar's greed will net you a few coins? The Miller's wrath and the Monk's gluttony are on full public display and demand pardoning! The Wife of Bath regales herself in luxury, the Man-of-Law languishes in idleness, and that Prioress has envy written all over her broad forehead," writes its publisher, making full use of excitable italics.

But "for you to succeed as a pardoner, you'll need to do more than just sell forged pardons for quick cash. To keep your services in demand, you will actually need to lead these Pilgrims into temptation yourself! Perhaps some phony relics might help? There is also one big catch. The Seven Deadly Sins live up to their name: each sin that a Pilgrim commits brings Death one step nearer, and a dead Pilgrim pays no pardoners! So much to forgive, so little time. Will you be able to outwit your opponents by pardoning more of these Pilgrims' sins before they die or finish their pilgrimage to Canterbury?"

Hurrah! I am definitely going to try. The goal, says creator Alf Seegert, an English professor at the University of Utah as well as a board game creator, is to become "as corrupt and wealthy a Pardoner as possible", and there will be coin purses in which to store your winnings: deeply symbolic, apparently. "Chaucer depicts the Pardoner as having a very indeterminate gender, and it's as if his coin purse is compensating for what he lacks between his legs," Seegert says. Indeed.

It seems I'm not the only one excited about the prospect of The Road to Canterbury. Distributor Gryphon Games placed it on Kickstarter to gauge interest, and has already raised over $14,000 (£8,500), well ahead of its $10,000 goal. OK, it's not loads, but it's a board game based on a 14th-century story, for goodness' sake, so I think that's pretty amazing.

I'll definitely be snapping up a copy for family fun in the Flood household this Christmas, but it made me wonder about other literary-themed board games. I am not particularly tempted by Soho ("Each player is the editor of a small literary magazine. Before the next issue can be printed, six pieces of rashly commissioned copy need to be retrieved from a somewhat motley bunch of recalcitrant writers"), but am enticed by It Was a Dark and Stormy Night (incidentally check out Seegert's own entries into the Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest – some good stuff there...)

The Canterbury Tales aside, though, are there any other titles you'd like to see getting the board game treatment? This venture into Dante's Inferno is a bit too Dungeons and Dragons geeky even for me, but, still in medieval mode, I wouldn't mind having a play of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – can you cut off the Green Knight's head while sticking to the rules of chivalry and courtly love? How about you?