I added another challenge last night. Well, less of a challenge and more of a reminder but… I feel like I have quite a few games that I bought with the purpose of playing them mostly solo and they don’t all hit the table for reasons so I made a geeklist and a BGStats 25x1 challenge.
This is mostly for big games. I will play the small ones anyway. It’s quite doable for the most part. Many of those will see my table anyway. But there are a few neglected ones that may need some prompting 51st State, Septima, Terra Mystica Automa, Voidfall, Petrichor, Oceans Automa, Hallertau and the two monstrosities: Leaving Earth & Mage Knight.
I take some solace in the fact that a number of these games I did not actually purchase. I have won a couple of giveaways and received free games when attending conventions which accounts for at least 12 of these unplayed games. Then there are the random gifts from friends and family, which since I did not particularly ask for them are usually lower on my “to play” list than those I choose myself, which is around 11 games.
Though some real gems have come from those unasked for games, so I’m not knocking them. For example, that’s how I first got 7 Wonders, and it was very popular at our table for a while.
Well, that is a very strong start to the year! Heat continues to impress as a racing game with a surprising amount of depth and variety, I’m still completely undecided on Arcs but I’m going to give it at least a few more kicks before I make up my mind, and I suspect I’m going to be getting a LOT of Battletech in before my trip to Adepticon in March.
A kickstarter I funded… gosh, a while back… finally arrived, and I managed to get it on the table almost immediately! Woo! Great, albeit super weird game… “Space Crokinole,” basically, but much like Catacombs (which I’ll be playing on Thursday!), way more depth and strategy than you would expect from a game where the core mechanic is flicking little disks.
But I really like it. This is the “Zenith Edition” which improves on several rules from the first edition, and has far better components (including an optional neoprene mat which is fantastic), but at its heart its still a silly little spaceship flicking game with tech trees, and upgrades, and all sorts of nonsense.
As my time at the game store comes to a close (7 Saturdays left!), I’m happy to report that there aren’t that many games coming out that I’m super excited about… my copy of Earthborne Rangers should theoretically arrive sometime around May (assuming this insanity with the USA doesn’t derail all cross-border shipping, which it might)… but other than that… I kinda think I’m good? I love my collection, and still have to purge a few dozen games, but overall… I’m good.
The challenge: Play two of my unplayed games each month.
So, games that got played in January:
Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth
Unmatched: The Witcher - Steel and Silver
Unmatched: The Witcher - Realms Fall
I know, I know, Unmatched barely counts as they are more or less expansions to a game system, but at least I can mark them as played!
I did get almost one round of solo play in on War of the Ring: the Card Game in, but got interrupted and it got too late before I could try to get back to it, so I just packed it up. Hope to try again this month.
Challenge commenced, including learning how to play one of the heaviest games in my collection.
Keyforge 10x10
Set
Deck
Month
Total
Win %
Status
Dark Tidings
Bailiff Susannah Murklurker
11
[11/10]
0%
Tokens of Change
Oscar “Jurassic Classic” Qvinpain
2
[2/10]
0%
Progress
12%
An excellent start in terms of play count. Specaularly unsuccessful in terms of win rate. Although, to be fair to “Jurassic Classic”, it’s too highly rated to be playing in the causal games queue so I’ve been deploying it in competitive, which is not the most forgiving place to be learning a deck.
Monthly Mini Challenge
January: play all my Roll/Flip and Write games
Twenty plays in total, with all but one of the soloable titles played. Less success for the ones requiring more than one player, with only one played. Didn’t get to any expansions. Was a most enjoyable challenge, I do love a good X and Write.
February’s Mini Challenge: Play all the games I purchased in Spain last year (see here).
1.) Sold a lot of stuff on eBay (once it’s on the Bay, I don’t care how much they go for). Will have to do another wave or maybe two. Most of the games left in my shelf are really difficult to pry out.
2.) Nearly the end of Feb and my shame pile is likely to be done by the end of March. Exciting times!
3.) Unlock! and Micromacro were both done. Alas, I’m a bit too busy with the other goals.
I’m late to the party! I’d like to have it as an easy flexible challenge. 100 plays of any of the following. Doesn’t have to be equal plays. Plays this year prior to the challenge will be included.
You know… I might have to take Root off this list. I really didn’t enjoy it that one time we played. I’ll give it at least one more stab, but… yeah, it just wasn’t fun. But maybe I was just beaten way too badly, and we really picked a very bad combination of factions… but the fact that you can pick a really bad combination of Factions feels… anyway. I’ll reconsider at the close of March.
Arcs is kinda in the same boat, TBH, but I’m more excited to give that one another stab. Maybe the puzzle is just weirder? I have never played a game so often and understood it so little. Maybe my friends and I just aren’t Werhle fans? I dunno.
Heat continues to be great. The 1962 Grand Prix was even tighter and more interesting than the 1961, and I can’t wait to try 1963!
Other than those, got Dorfromantik on the table a couple times, played the next two missions in Divinity Original Sin (which, admittedly, I’m done with personally, but the rest of the group is excited to see the ending, so I will continue pushing through), a few great games of Ito, and a game of Shogun that I actually won. Nice to revisit the classics sometimes… I don’t think Shogun is spectacular or anything, but it’s neat, not super long, and it has really interesting pacing.
I did indeed play Catacombs, but we didn’t play it co-op so it doesn’t count unfortunately. Great game, though. Oh, and my official version of Ito, which as I mentioned above, is great.
Other than that, I think I’ve done pretty well not getting new games. My job at the game store is ending in 4 weeks (March 22nd is my last day!), and while I am excited about the new job and the new opportunities to work on my writing and my art… it’s going to be very rough financially for at least a few months, if not longer, and so I am reigning in almost every expense I can and hording money like it’s… well, money.
Except Adepticon. As it stands I am still going to that, and it’s going to cost me at least a few thousand dollars, but I am trying to remember that I’ve been saving for that for over a year and it should be okay. And I’m doing some ninja purchasing (grabbing con exclusives and early releases), so I might make a little money back by doing that.
I should make ten plays on original Rallyman and DIRT, as well as GT and Sentinels that are already on this list, from the monthly challenges, so that’s 4×10 that’ll fall out of other things. Sea Salt seems inevitable, and Ill be very happy if Imperium Horizons and Steampunk Rally make it too.
Not enough Xia yet.
No new games played this month. I did play A Gest of Robin Hood on BGA, but for my challenge I only count physical plays.
One thing in my defense is we are currently lacking a dining room table, as our older kid managed to break two of the legs during a tantrum. As such I have found it much harder to play any games the past couple of weeks.
The 10x10 solo Challenge: 54% completion thanks to BGA
Guild of Merchant Explorers 10/10 exclusively BGA as I gave away my copy. This is much more fun once I don’t have to look at the box full of air. Also it is a solo game through and through.
Harmonies 10/10 mostly workbreaks but a couple on the table
Daybreak 8/10 still loving this both solo and with 2 players
A Gentle Rain 7/10
Mistborn 4/10 yay a newbie broke into the challenge straight away. It’s pretty good.
Naturopolis 4/10
Sprawlopolis 4/10 I will have to either ban one of them or extend to 11x11 again
51st State 3/10 not sure this will stic
Fertig! 2/10 – these are app games and I actually got back into the game quite a bit in recent weeks and probably played closer to 30 games but didn’t log them after the first two. Should probably remove this from the list.
Grove 2/10 this one won’t stick unless it accompanies me on vacation I think.
The 25x1 solo challenge remains at 2/25 (Arle, 51st State)
The multiplayer challenge is stuck.
Overall I had very little energy for gaming this past month. My cold took my down for almost 2 weeks. I am so tired that when my partner offered to play any game with me, I declined and we went for a walk instead.
Maryse and I have actually come up with a small challenge for us: Play at least one game from our Pile of Opportunity every other month (we’re busy people).
We’re now up to date after this week, when we tried out both Earth and Lacrimosa (already a likely top 5 game for us, holy crap).
We got 8 games in our Pile for now, so it’s a question of picking which one I want to learn and teach yet.
I’m leaning towards Kutna Hora.
For information purposes, the Pile consists of:
Altiplano
Aquatica
Cryo
Ghost Stories
Kutna Hora
Reign of Cthulhu
Spirit Island
Yellow & Yangtze
51st State, Septima, Terra Mystica Automa, Voidfall, Petrichor, Oceans Automa, Hallertau and the two monstrosities: Leaving Earth & Mage Knight.
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