2020 in Review -- Games

There are a couple of January traditions I have here on the blog: looking back on both the board games I played and the movies I saw in the just-completed year. Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 has had a big impact on both, making for a lot of the former, and far less of the latter.

I wound up playing more board games in 2020 for two major reasons. First, during stay-at-home orders, my friends and I looked online (as so many did), using sites like Board Game Arena to keep connected and keep playing. About a third of the games I played in 2020 were played online.

Of course, even with Zoom, an online game isn't always going to feel like a reasonable substitute for an in-person gaming experience. I had plenty of those too: two player games with my husband, games with the same close circle of people... and a ton of games on a group ski trip back in innocent, long-ago February before any of us knew what was about to hit.

I played 404 games in 2020. (That's not an internet error.) This is a huge leap from the 261 games of 2019, and could be counted as even more if not for a big asterisk that I'll get to in a moment (besides the qualifier I always mention, that playtest games I played for work aren't included in my total). I played 108 different titles over the course of the year -- give or take counting a game played with and without its expansion(s) as separate things.

The game I played the most was The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine. And I mean by far the most, because the 35 plays I logged were "sessions." This campaign game asks you to overcome a series of 50 missions, and you could log each mission attempt (which takes perhaps 10 minutes at most) as a "play," win or lose. Had I counted that way, I'd have logged well over 200 plays of this one game alone. In any case, The Crew is a game that keeps on giving, a game that I'm happy to play pretty much any time -- even though I've played through all 50 missions at least once. (I had some reservations in my original review about it not supporting a 3-player count as well, but it's a minor quibble. This game is an absolute gem, an A, one of the best to be released in years.)

Can't Stop emerged in second because it's quite easy and fast to play online (while waiting for friends to "arrive" for an arranged Zoom/BGA gaming session).

The high number of Charterstone plays came from playing two complete and separate legacy campaigns of that game. I also completed Legacy campaigns of The King's Dilemma and Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 (while starting Season 0 and a replay of The Rise of Queensdale). Plus there were the two campaign-like expansions to Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. It turns out that campaign games are easier to get through when you're limiting in-person contacts and seeing the same people over and over again.

Favorite "new to me" games in 2020 include Brass (Birmingham or Lancashire), Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 (I'd gladly play it again, despite knowing the story), The King's Dilemma, Roll for the Galaxy (though that's actually smoother on Board Game Arena than in person), and those Hogwarts Battle expansions. And, of course, The Crew.

Here are all the stats:

35    The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine
30    Can't Stop
25    Charterstone
20    7 Wonders
18    Roll for the Galaxy
18    The King's Dilemma
13    Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig
13    Pandemic Legacy: Season 2
13    Secret Hitler
12    6 nimmt!
12    The Rise of Queensdale
11    Hanabi
11    Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle - The Monster Box of Monsters
10    Wingspan
7    Pandemic Legacy: Season 0
7    Tobago
6    Las Vegas
6    The Taverns of Tiefenthal
4    Dune: Imperium
4    Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle - The Charms and Potions Expansion
4    Stone Age
4    Twice As Clever
3    Bad Bones
3    Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game
3    Broom Service
3    Escape Tales: Low Memory
3    For Sale
3    Leo
3    Merlin
3    Telestrations After Dark
3    Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
3    Yokohama
2    Caylus
2    Clans of Caledonia
2    Codenames
2    Concordia
2    In the Year of the Dragon
2    Letter Jam
2    Obscurio
2    Orleans
2    Poker
2    Prêt-à-Porter
2    Roam
2    The Mind
2    The Mind Extreme
2    The Quacks of Quedlinburg
2    Viticulture
1    13 Clues
1    Aggravation
1    AquaSphere
1    Awkward Guests
1    Back to the Future: Back in Time
1    Brass: Birmingham
1    Brass: Lancashire
1    Cartagena
1    Castles of Mad King Ludwig
1    Clank! A Deck-Building Adventure
1    Clank! Adventuring Party
1    Coloma
1    Custom Heroes
1    Dead of Winter
1    Deckscape: The Mystery of Eldorado
1    Decrypto
1    Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix
1    Dice Hospital
1    Dice Throne: Season One
1    Everdell
1    Exit: The Game – The Forgotten Island
1    Grand Austria Hotel
1    Great Western Trail
1    Hawaii
1    Istanbul
1    Jorvik
1    Just One
1    Luxor
1    Marvel Champions: The Card Game
1    Master Word
1    Metro
1    Perudo
1    Plunderbund
1    Point Salad
1    Potion Explosion
1    Puerto Rico
1    Raiders of the North Sea
1    Root
1    Saboteur
1    Sagrada
1    Sonora
1    Sorcerer City
1    Stop Thief!
1    Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade
1    Tasty Humans
1    Teotihuacan: City of Gods
1    Terra Mystica
1    Terraforming Mars
1    The Builders: Antiquity
1    The Castles of Burgundy
1    The Princes of Florence
1    The Resistance: Avalon
1    The Speicherstadt
1    The Voyages of Marco Polo
1    Tigris and Euphrates
1    Time's Up -- Title Recall
1    Trajan
1    TransAmerica
1    Unlock!: Exotic Adventures – Night of the Boogeymen
1    Vikings
1    When I Dream

Until vaccines for COVID-19 are widely distributed, 2021 is going to look pretty much the same as 2020. So I expect to play a lot more games -- again online and/or with the same few people. There are worse things than playing more games...