Baba Verizap, what a deck! 100% win ratio so far and jolly good fun.
Monthly Mini Challenge July & August: Play assorted Final Girl combinations to see if it stays or goes
Despite the extension, only played two games of this and only one combintaion… clearly not enthused, so shelf space would be better allocated to alternative titles.
September Mini Challenge:
Play all the games I buy in September
Drip
Need to get a wriggle on to have any chance of success.
KeyForge 10x10
No progress
Monthly Mini Challenge September: Play all the games I buy this month
Not even close, as there were rather a lot of purchases made while visiting Tokyo. All those tempting tiny boxes are very easy to slip in a suitcase. Still, a total of 21 plays is not to be sneezed at.
Slightly delayed by BGG moving their API behind a login wall. Yeah, I should have registered earlier. But while waiting for my API key I’ve written my own logger and analysis tool that runs entirely within my control…
I have completed a soft 10×10!
Game
Plays
Rallyman: GT
30 (+2)
Sea Salt & Paper
23 (+5)
Flip 7
22 (+1)
Imperium: Horizons
17 (+1)
Tinderblox Sunset
14 (+6)
Turing Machine
14 (+5)
Project L
13 (+5)
Flash Point: Fire Rescue
12 (+10)
Compile: Main 1
10 (+2)
Crokinole
10
Steampunk Rally Fusion: Atomic Edition
10 (+1)
And for once my maximum game rectangle (the X × Y with largest total number of plays) is not the N×1; instead it’s 24×5, 24 games at least 5 times each. The rest of those are:
So the new novel was released this month (big thank you to everyone who grabbed a copy!), but did manage to get in a few bangers from the list.
Most important was the 6-player game of TI4 with PoK. Fantastic time, thoroughly enjoyed myself. Legit one of the best games of TI4 I’ve played, and probably one of the best games of TI-Any# that I’ve played. Great fun.
Only 1 game of Frosthaven due to some scheduling conflicts, but we played a couple hands of FotRLotRTTG afterwards, so that ticked a few off the list as well. Sadly, Earthborn Rangers is going to be difficult to finish since 1 of the players has had to move to China for work for a semester or two. Ah well. Neat game, no question, but I still don’t quite get the rabid fanaticism both SUSD and NPI lavished upon it. It’s good, but is it that good? I dunno. It feels just really elegant and fine, but I haven’t had a moment of “Oh yeah, this is great.”
Other than that, managed to get Tyrants of the Underdark on the table, and a bunch of games of Battle for Hoth, which was nice and fast. But overall, not a lot of games in the month… I wonder if November is going to be better, now that I don’t work at a game store and am exhausted and stressed for Nov-Dec? We shall see!
No new games in the month. I picked up a box of Battletech Gothic despite my better judgment… they’ll make fine pirate mechs. And I am curious about the other Extended Universe stuff for Battletech… Rayguns and Rocketships Battletech should be cool, and I know there are one or two more they’re working on.
I picked up the newest expansion for Lost Ruins of Arnak, and I have two small card games on pre-order… but yeah, not a huge amount… oh, other than Twilight Imperium 4 Thunder’s Edge. Very excited about that one!
Is this API-key necessary for any of my tools (BGStats, geekgroup api) to function or have you written your own code to aggregate plays? (I would assume it is not necessary, but one cannot always assume someone writing APIs is handling things the way a software dev would expect them to)
They said that getting access to your own plays/collection while logged in wouldn’t need the special new authentication header, but I haven’t been able to find a login path that still works.
I was always pulling the raw data and then doing computations on them locally. Now “the raw data” are in a local database.
I think they have two reasons for this: bouncing AI-scrapers before they make CPU-expensive queries, but also monetising the API for commercial users.
November Mini Challenge
Having voted in the BGG People Choice Top Solo Games 2025 on Friday, seems like the perfect time to play the 20 games that got my votes.
No new games played in November. My wife is dealing with some head stuff that leaves her in various states of pain and discomfort, so until that’s cleared up she is not in a place for learning new games, and I find I just don’t have time for solo games right now, as my kids are staying up later on average.
The penultimate month, and I’m pretty sure that most of this list isn’t going to get finished by December. Of course, that’s not “the point,” as far as points go… these are, as they say… more like guidelines.
Bloody pirates.
Anyway! A couple games of Thunder Road Vendetta which continues to prove what a banger it is (even the weird tournament/arena combat format! Which is aggressively fine, not bad at all, but not as great as the core game), one more Frosthaven, and a few more kicks at LotR FotR TTG, which I continue to find mildly delightful. One of my buddies wasn’t a fan, but we only played it 2 player as his wife was occupied keeping the children occupied.
I’ve played another game of Sidereal Confluence and might get it on the table again this week, a bunch of lighter fare like Spots and Dro Polter and the quirky-but-good Pick n’ Packers. I’ve also had more than a fair share of game night cancellations due to weather and family and such. But also got to play a few games of Sekigahara! So, swings and roundabouts.
There are tentative plans for 3 more official game nights in December, and one of them is for Twilight Imperium with both expansions! Exciting! As for this Thursday… I legit don’t know. Maybe another round of Sidereal? It’s a very good game…
Couple tiny new acquisitions in Flip 7 and Things in Rings. I’ve played Flip 7 a bunch, but the partner tried it for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed it. Things in Rings sounds like a neat little party thing, and inexpensive, so looking forward to giving it a whirl. Maybe over the holidays as a way to avoid starting fights with my family (a tragically long and well-trod tradition at this point).
Happy holidays, everyone! And I hope you get tonnes of great gaming in December!
