2024 in Review -- Games

2024 was a minor milestone of a year for me in playing board games. But before I get to why, let me start with an overview of the numbers.

Over the course of 12 months, I played 277 games. This was a very slight increase from the 273 plays I had in 2023, achieved thanks to a marathon evening of mostly short games on New Year's Eve. I played 75 different titles -- a slight drop from 2023, though this was very much the point.

See, 2024 was the first year I specifically set out to complete a "10 x 10" -- playing at least 10 different board games at least 10 times each. And while I was successful in that, I must say it's probably also the last time I'll ever set out to do that. The original intention was to bring to the spotlight some beloved games that my group and I don't always make time for amid trying out new things.

It did do that, to some extent. However, it also led to a couple of games that seemed beloved to us early on, but overstayed their welcome a bit as we sometimes played them over other options we'd rather play, just for the sake of the 10 x 10 completion. So this year's "challenge": just play more of the things we enjoy, whatever they are and however many times that may be. Duh.

Before the list, my usual caveats:

• I don't count the games made by my work if I played them for work (in unfinished forms).

• I count a few games by the "session," like The Crew and the Exit: The Game Advent Calendar. (But I don't need either of those to still have a completed 10 x 10, so don't "lawyer" me.)

Here's my 2024 List:

20    Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West
13    The Gang
11    Exit: The Game – Advent Calendar: The Silent Storm
11    Forest Shuffle
11    The Quacks of Quedlinburg
11    Sagrada Artisans
10    The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
10    Distilled
10    Kokopelli
10    Patchwork
10    Secret Hitler
10    Things in Rings
8    Nokosu Dice
8    Viticulture World: Cooperative Expansion
6    Landmarks
6    Ultimatch
6    Wyrmspan
5    Concordia Venus
4    Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig
4    Clever Cubed
4    Link City
4    Phantom Ink
4    Sky Team
3    Coloma
3    Fiction
3    Foundations of Metropolis
3    The Great Split
3    Star Trek: Cryptic – A Puzzles and Pathways Adventure
3    That's Pretty Clever!
2    Art Society
2    Big Boss
2    Cascadia: Rolling Rivers
2    Cities
2    Clever 4Ever
2    The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine
2    Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
2    Just One
2    A Message From The Stars
2    Old London Bridge
2    Ready Set Bet
2    Secret Identity
2    Splito
2    The Taverns of Tiefenthal
2    Telestrations After Dark
2    Wandering Towers
2    Wits & Wagers
1    Azul: Master Chocolatier
1    Azul: Queen's Garden
1    Azul: Summer Pavilion
1    Cascadia
1    Clank!: Catacombs
1    Dune: Imperium – Uprising
1    Farkle
1    First Rat
1    Fromage
1    FTW?!
1    Great Western Trail: New Zealand
1    Hallertau
1    In the Year of the Dragon
1    Joan of Arc: Orléans Draw & Write
1    Knarr
1    Merlin
1    Mistwind
1    Point City
1    Rear Window
1    Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition
1    Roll for the Galaxy
1    The Search for Planet X
1    Shadows over Camelot
1    Skull
1    Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: A Gemstone Mining Game
1    Stone Age
1    Time's Up! Title Recall!
1    Twice as Clever!
1    Windmill Valley

And some random thoughts:

• This was a year for legacy games. I completed one campaign of Ticket to Ride Legacy with one group, and then jumped into a second campaign with a different group that will finish sometime in 2025. I also completed a campaign of Sagrada Artisans. I don't have any new Legacy game lined up yet for the new year, but I'm fine with that. Consider it an embrace of that "no obligations except what's fun" idea. I'm open if the right Legacy game should come around, but also happy to avoid such a commitment.
  

• The Quacks of Quedlinburg remains a favorite in my group, and now that my friends have blinged out their copy with screen-printed plastic tokens for the ingredients and wood-carved chests to hold them, I'd say it's not about to become a less popular choice.

• I continue to enjoy Distilled; despite it having no single truly revolutionary game mechanic, I find it mixes familiar gameplay in its own enjoyable way. The makers of that game have a new one coming this year, Luthier, that might make a big splash in my group when it arrives.
  

• For the second year in a row, I played multiple versions of Azul, but missed out on Stained Glass of Sintra. Clearly, it's my least liked of the series.

• While I'm not explicitly going for a 10-by-anything this year, a couple of games I'd like to play more include Viticulture World (though I feel I only want to play it with 4 players now, having tried it at a few other counts) and Concordia Venus (still a personal favorite).

• I'm also very much aware of several games I've so far played only once, that I'd like to keep at to see if I like them as much as I think I might: Fromage, Hallertau, Mistwind, and Windmill Valley. 

Here's to another fun year of gaming in 2025!