2022 in Review -- Games

Happy New Year, everyone! After several weeks off of blogging, and several holidays, I'm now back to start 2023 as I start each new year here -- with a few looks back at my entertainment consumption of the year before.

I'll start with board gaming, which actually dropped off a lot in 2022: I played 201 games throughout the calendar year (18 of those online via Board Game Arena). Why the drop of nearly 30% from 2021? My best theory is that at various times throughout the year, I and most people I know were getting Covid. Quarantine would take different people out for a period of isolation, and while thankfully no one faced a serious case, people were sick and not in the mood for online games.

Or maybe not. But it gives me the opportunity to express some gratitude that there were no serious Covid infectionsin my circle among many cases. (Vaccines!)

Anyway... I played 78 different games in 2022:

24    The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
10    So Clover
10    The Quacks of Quedlinburg
9    Exit: The Game – Advent Calendar: The Mystery of the Ice Cave
9    Kokopelli
8    Secret Hitler
6    Azul: Queen's Garden
6    Turing Machine
5    Green Team Wins
5    Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
4    Azul
4    Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig
4    Cascadia
4    Just One
4    Old London Bridge
4    Planet Unknown
3    Cat in the Box
3    Gutenberg
3    Roll for the Galaxy
3    Scout
3    Whirling Witchcraft
2    Art Decko
2    Can't Stop Express
2    Decrypto
2    Hanabi
2    Long Shot: The Dice Game
2    Merlin
2    Nidavellir
2    Skull King
2    Subtext
2    The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine
2    Twice As Clever
2    Viticulture
2    Viticulture World
1    3000 Scoundrels
1    6 nimmt!
1    7 Wonders
1    7 Wonders Architects
1    Akropolis
1    Ark Nova
1    Augsburg 1520
1    Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra
1    Bad Bones
1    Black Orchestra
1    Can't Stop
1    Catch the Moon
1    Clever Cubed
1    Clue
1    Condordia Venus
1    Crown of Emara
1    Dune: Imperium
1    Fantasy Realms
1    Forbidden Island
1    Furnace
1    In the Year of the Dragon
1    Juicy Fruits
1    Las Vegas
1    Lost Ruins of Arnak
1    Master Word
1    Mombasa
1    No Merci
1    Nyet
1    Paperback
1    Picture Perfect
1    Rolling Realms
1    Santa Monica
1    Splendor
1    That's Pretty Clever
1    The Castles of Tuscany
1    The Chameleon
1    The Red Cathedral
1    The Speicherstadt
1    The Taverns of Tiefenthal
1    Truffle Shuffle
1    Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
1    Watergate
1    Wingspan
1    Zooloretto

As usual, I didn't tally games I played in the course of work. (Though my job shifted in 2022 much more to the production side of making board games over the design/development side, so I didn't play as much in that context either.)

Some games I counted only by the "session." This included both of The Crew games -- where I counted "1 play" no matter how many missions were played (successful and failed). "Session" was also how I counted the Exit: The Game Advent Calendar my husband and I played through in December. We were not diligent about playing once a day in the run-up to December 24th; instead we played on 9 separate occasions, each time tackling multiple accumulated days' worth of puzzles.

• Once again, The Crew topped my list. In 2022, it was the newer Mission Deep Sea -- even only counting it "by the session." It won't surprise me at all if that game tops my 2023 list too. I've played the campaign all the way through three times now, and my group still isn't tired of playing it. So long as the game remains our go-to ("I don't want to start another long game, but I could play a few rounds of The Crew"), it's probably going to stay atop the list.

• Excluding that (and go-to party game So Clover), The Quacks of Quedlinburg tops my list with 10 plays. It's honestly not a personal favorite of mine, but everyone in my group (including me) likes it well enough that whenever someone suggests it, there's usually quick agreement. (But my own preference would be for the next title on my list, though: Kokopelli.)

Other observations:

• Wingspan dropped off a TON since 2021, and that has almost everything to do with an observation I made about it in my last annual wrap-up. The Oceania expansion does radically alter the game, and it turns out: probably not for the better. I noted last time that the addition of nectar (a "wild" resource) arguably makes the game too easy. That "argument" has won the day in my group. Another new expansion has arrived, Asia, and we're likely to give that a try. I suspect we're going to remove the Oceania expansion before we do.

• Speaking of "expansions that weaken the game," we've also decided we don't like the Charms and Potions expansion for Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle after all. Fun as the "charms" mechanic can be, we've found the "potions" to be time-consuming and tedious. And we've found that the overall balance of the expansion leaves it far too easy for experienced players to beat the game. In our two most recent plays, we stripped out that expansion (leaving the Monster Box of Monsters) and found that we enjoyed the experience more than we had in a long while. We lost both times, but barely on both occasions -- and that felt much more rewarding than lengthy cakewalks.

• For the first time in years, I wasn't part of any Legacy game experiences in 2022.

• I played three different versions of Azul during the year, and the play count reflects my order of preference for them: I quite enjoy the new (to us) Queen's Garden, I still think the original is an elegant triumph, and Stained Glass of Sintra is decent.

We'll see what emerges from the collection in 2023!