2008 in Review -- Games

It's that time! As I've done before, it's time to check my records of the various board games I played in the year just gone by. If you weren't around for this the last time (or are uninterested in following the link I provided), here's a recap of the two provisions on this list:

* Only board games, card games, and such get counted. PC and console games -- even the ones played with other people -- need not apply.

* Games of my own design that I played in the course of working on that design don't get counted.

2008 will be known as the year Rock Band devoured my spare time. I took part in only 162 games (down from 234 in 2007). This 162 is even padded to some extent, because it counts every separate session of poker I sat for in my trip to Las Vegas. Not that Rock Band wasn't fun (and it remains so), but I'm hoping to get back to more board games in 2009.

Here's the list, 61 different games in all:

25 Words or Less (1)
Agricola (1)
Apples to Apples (1)
Attika (1)
Augsburg 1520 (1)
Bananagrams (1)
Blokus Trigon (1)
Carcassonne (2)
Carolus Magnus (1)
Cartagena (2)
Castle (1)
Caylus (2)
Caylus Magna Carta (1)
Clans (1)
Craps (4)
Da Vinci Code Board Game (1)
Downfall of Pompeji (1)
Eketorp (5)
Family Business (1)
Gangsters (1)
Goa (1)
Hey! That's My Fish! (2)
In the Year of the Dragon (6)
Lost Cities (8)
No Merci! (2)
Notre Dame (4)
Oasis (1)
Odin's Ravens (1)
Palazzo (2)
Perudo (1)
Poker (16)
Princes of Florence (1)
Puerto Rico (4)
Quelf (1)
Quiddler (1)
Ra (1)
Race for the Galaxy (6)
Ricochet Robot (6)
RoboRally (1)
Rummikub (1)
San Juan (2)
Scene It! - TV Edition (1)
Set (12)
Settlers of Catan (2)
Sleuth (3)
Snorta! (2)
Speed Scrabble (1)
Squint (3)
Ticket to Ride: 1910 (1)
Ticket to Ride: Marklin Edition (3)
Ticket to Ride: Switzerland (4)
Time's Up (4)
Thurn and Taxis - Power and Glory (4)
Too Many Cooks (3)
TransAmerica (3)
Union Pacific (5)
Up and Down (4)
Vampire (1)
Vikings (6)
Werewolf (1)
Witch's Brew (1)


Some miscellaneous comments on the list.

I was taught "Speed Scrabble" a few years ago by the word-genius mother of a friend. This Christmas, my own mother pulled out an odd zippered bag in the shape of a banana, labeled Bananagrams, and suggested we might give it a try. I skimmed the rules, and realized in a few seconds, "oh! this is Speed Scrabble!" Without the concerns of overt copyright infringement. Anyway, I hesitated to list my one game of each in 2008 separately, but that's what I did.

Blokus Trigon is the only way to go if you have 3 players. Similarly, the original Blokus is the only way to go for 2 or 4 players. Reverse those numbers, and each game plays terribly.

Yes, there is a Da Vinci Code Board Game. It's not great, but not terrible. It's a mystery game that comes with I think 16 puzzles. In other words, you can play the game exactly 16 times, then it's done. At my current pace, I've got 15 more years, so I don't really have a problem there.

I pulled out Family Business one night on a lark, remembering how much fun I used to have with that game back in my college days. Man, have my tastes changed.

I've often explained that I don't buy many 2-player games, because I so rarely have occasion to play one. So imagine my surprise to see that I played 8 games of Lost Cities and 1 of Odin's Ravens.

Yup, more Poker than any other game in 2008. Appropriate.

Somehow I managed to play two games that start with the letter "Q," Quelf and Quiddler.

The Power and Glory expansion for Thurn and Taxis, with its slightly altered rules and substitute board, was such an improvement over the original that I'm not sure I'll ever play it again.

A handful of the games on the list were newly acquired towards the end of the year, as birthday and Christmas presents. I'll probably be reviewing those games in more detail in the weeks ahead, after I get enough time to play them a bit more and fully form an opinion of them.