Happy New Year!!!
I usually start off a new year with a look back at the board games I played in the previous year. 2009 was a landmark year for this. As I'm sure nearly all of you know by now, I attempted to play every board game in my game collection at least once during the calendar year.
I may never have explained why I set this particular task to myself, though. It wasn't on a dare or a bet or anything like that. I just had reached the point where I felt like half the games in my collection were getting ignored. Now for some of those games, it was for a damn good reason; but I also felt like there were some great gems in there that had never been tried out since I arrived back in Denver, were long forgotten about, or just whatever. I figured if I played everything, we'd discover (or re-discover) some favorites to add into the rotation.
We'd also find a few things to put on the "sell me online" pile. And by the way, I resolved early on in this commitment that I would not escape out of an obligation to play a game by selling it before actually playing in once in 2009. There are a few ways in which some might say I cheated throughout the year, but that wasn't going to be one of them.
So the good news is, I did it. With two hours and forty-five minutes to spare on New Year's Eve, I completed the last game in my collection. It happened at the same house where, at a New Year's Eve Party 12 months earlier, the whole thing began -- a nice full circuit.
Before the rundown, a reminder of "what I count":
* Only board games and such get counted. PC and console games -- even the ones played with other people -- don't.
* Games of my own design that I played in the course of working on that design don't get counted.
2009 marked a big upswing in the number of games I played, as you might expect, given the circumstances. I didn't plan this at all, but as it turned out, I played exactly 365 games during the year, for an average of one a day. (That's not many to a guy like FKL, but is more than double my 2008 total.)
It totaled up to 185 different games I played. That's also higher than the total number of games I played in 2008. Again, you might expect this, given what I was trying to do -- but actually, a fair chunk of these games weren't even mine. 2009 also turned out to be a year where a number of my friends were also picking up more games of their own. Sangediver in particular really threw into the gaming spirit. All together, it really broadened the variety. Here's the list:
1 25 Words or Less
1 Adel Verplichtet
9 Agricola
1 Alhambra
3 Amun-Re
1 Anima
2 Apples to Apples
1 Arcana
1 Arkham Horror
5 Attika
1 Attila
1 Augsburg 1520
1 Ben Hvrt
1 Beyond Balderdash
2 Blackjack
1 Blokus
1 Bohnanza
1 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Board Game
1 Buzztime
6 Carcassonne (sometimes with various expansions)
2 Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers
2 Carcassonne: The City
1 Carcassonne: The Discovery
1 Carolus Magnus
1 Cartegena
1 Castle
2 Caylus
1 Chicago Express
2 Cineplexity
1 Citadels
1 Cities and Knights of Catan
1 Clans
1 Clue VCR Mystery Game
7 Code 777
1 Colossal Arena
1 Construction Game
1 Craps
1 Cribbage
1 The Da Vinci Code Board Game
1 Das Kollier
1 Der Untergang von Pompeii
1 Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix
1 Doge
9 Dominion
1 Dominion: Intrigue
1 Drakon
1 Dvonn
2 Eketorp
1 El Grande
4 Endeavor
1 EuroRails
1 Family Business
1 Fruit Bandits
2 Galaxy Trucker
1 Give Me the Brain
1 Global Chess
1 Goa
1 Goldland
1 Great Dalmuti
1 Guillotine
1 Hey! That's My Fish!
1 High Society
2 In the Year of the Dragon
1 Incan Gold
3 Industria
1 Iron Dragon
1 Java
2 Kingsburg
1 Linie 1
1 La Citta
1 Loaded Questions
1 Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation
7 Loot
2 Lost Cities
1 Lost Cities: The Board Game
2 Louis XIV
1 MageStones
2 Maharaja
1 Masquerade
1 Medieval Merchant
1 Metallurgie
1 Metro
1 Mexica
1 Mission Red Planet
2 Modern Art
1 Monopoly: Star Trek Edition
1 Monopoly: Star Wars Edition
2 Mystery of the Abbey
1 Naval War
1 New England
1 Nightmare
1 No Merci
4 Notre Dame
2 Oasis
2 Oceania
1 Odin's Ravens
1 Once Upon a Time
2 Outburst II
2 Pack & Stack
2 Palazzo
1 Pass the Bomb
1 Pente
1 Perudo
1 The Play's the Thing
21 Poker
1 Power Grid
1 The Princes of Florence
1 Proteus
1 Pueblo
10 Puerto Rico
1 Pyramidis
1 Ra
1 Ra - The Dice Game
19 Race for the Galaxy (with varying expansions)
5 Ricochet Robot
1 Ricochet Robots
1 Risk
1 Risk: Lord of the Rings Edition
1 Robo Rally
1 Rummikub
1 Samurai
1 San Juan
1 San Marco
1 Scattergories
1 Scotland Yard
1 Scrabble
1 Seafarers of Catan
6 Set
2 Settlers of Catan
1 Silverton
2 Sleuth
1 Slide 5
3 Snorta
1 SpaceBeans
8 Space Alert
3 Squint
1 Star Trek Board Game
1 Star Trek: The Next Generation Board Game
2 Steam
1 Stephenson's Rocket
2 Stone Age
5 Stonehenge (once for each of the 5 rules sets it comes with)
1 Taboo
1 Tales of the Arabian Nights
1 Talisman
1 Tamsk
2 Thebes
1 Through the Desert
1 Thurn and Taxis
2 Thurn and Taxis: Power and Glory
1 Ticket to Ride
2 Ticket to Ride: Europe
2 Ticket to Ride: Marklin Edition
1 Ticket to Ride: Mystery Train Expansion
2 Ticket to Ride: Switzerland
2 Ticket to Ride: USA 1910
2 Tigris and Euphrates
1 Tikal
4 Time's Up
4 Time's Up: Title Recall
3 Too Many Cooks
1 Torres
2 Tower of Babel
2 Traders of Genoa
3 TransAmerica
1 Tribbles
1 TriBond
1 Trivial Pursuit: SNL Edition
1 Trivial Pursuit: Star Wars Edition
1 Trivial Pursuit: Warner Bros. Edition
2 Union Pacific
1 Uno
1 Uno: Star Trek Edition
5 Up and Down
1 Vampire
1 Verrater
2 Vikings
1 Wallenstein
1 Werewolf
1 Willow Game
1 Wings of War
4 Witch's Brew
6 Wits and Wagers
1 Wooly Bully
6 Yspahan
So, random observations about the list:
For another consecutive year, poker was my most played game. If you don't count that, Race for the Galaxy takes the prize. Honestly, that's not a top favorite of mine because of the relatively low degree of player interaction. But it is pretty good for being quick, and that short run time means it gets played a lot in my group.
Hooray, Puerto Rico's back! Those of us who love it play it when the weirdos who don't aren't around, or when there are enough people to support two games.
Among the better "finds" in the collection (again, the real point of my challenge) were Amun-Re, Tigris and Euphrates, and San Marco.
For a mass-market, licensed board game, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Game is surprisingly good.
Carcassonne is really at its best with almost no expansions, I've decided.
The times we played Monopoly and Uno this year didn't completely suck. That said, I don't expect to ever play either one again.
Yes, I played both Ricochet Robot (my copy) and Ricochet RobotS (friend's copy). The latter has the weird angled walls that let some robot colors pass through them.
The first game played of the year? Witches' Brew. The last? The Star Trek board game, a nutty trivia game probably worthy of its own post in the near future.
So, on to gaming in 2010! And no, I'll not be repeating the "must play everything" challenge again. The purpose was served.
5 comments:
For my part in the goal, I enjoyed a good number of the games we played. Not all of them mind you (coughcoughmonopolycough) but still - I was more than surprised by a lot of them.
I mean really, I NEVER would have given the Clue VCR game as much credit as it wound up getting. For simplicity, Loot and Wits and Wagers are also just fun.
Even with some of their flaws, I enjoyed Agricola and Mystery of the Abbey - and in my world, Code 777 can just suck it.
I am wondering though...how in the hell did I miss 10 total encounters with Ticket to Ride? Hmm.
Amusingly, my captcha is "derail."
365 games! That's pretty good, I'd say!
591 for me, down from something like 700 last year. Not a bad year, though.
But I'm getting more and more interested in the time spent playing games, because a game of Loopin' Louie can take about 10 minutes while a game of Shogun goes on for two hours. So putting them together and saying I've played two games sounds a bit screwy to me.
So here goes: I spent a total of 618 hours playing games, which amounts to almost 26 full days of gaming goodness.
Also, I played 149 different games (of which 59 I'd never played before), and I played them with 62 different people. (Although, sadly, you weren't one of them this year.)
The most played? Formula D, because we're running those championships at work (34 games).
The most actual time spent playing a single game? Combat Commander, with 98 hours. No other game even comes close.
Looking forward to 2010!
And if I could squeeze you in there somewhere, I'd be all the more happy.
FKL
I'd have to say that my count is lower this year mainly because I decided to spend more time on my novel.
And since I intend to spend MORE time on my novel this year (and also on my master's thesis), the 2010 count should go down again.
Not a problem. As long as I get to play Combat Commander once in a while, I'll be happy. :)
FKL
I was thinking the other day how much I spent on games last year, then decided it was better not to know. However, I do still blame you ;-) I was happy to play Buffy again, even with the ass kicking. Plus, I'm also surprised how much fun we had with Monopoly, Risk, and the Star Trek games...well maybe not the ST:TNG game.
I remember that Buffy game. Rather enjoyable.
And 7 games of Code 777? How poetic.
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