Yes, I was only for Thursday to renew my passport, and have a bit of retail therapy. Cerberus Games had a 20% off on board games, so on top of the mini expansion for Root I got Branch and Claw for Spirit Island. And I left before I made a hole in my wallet, their selection and prices are very good for a brick and mortar shop. But the weather was very unpleasant, gusty wind and showers, so I left after a few hours and was back home to Hastings in the early evening.
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So, I cancelled my pre-order for Burncycle qnd logging here I’ve just seen it’s got an SUSD review.
This year I think I’ve got better. Preordered 2 18xx, backed no Kickstarters, bought 3 games sold 1 and cancelled 1 order before delivery. Hopefully I can break the purchase cycle to something a little more manageable. At some point I’ll have to trim the 18xx down as I think 30 is a bit untenable for playing but I need to play more to decide what suits me for keeping.
Also I’ve been clearing out. Down to 105 with 5 on the sell list and 6 on ks/preorder. Hopefully I’ll slip below 100 again soon but won’t push too hard for that as I’d rather have 105 games I’m happy with than 100 games plus some regrets. I’d be happier if purchases slowed further, maybe it would be symptomatic of satisficing (satisfactory and suffices) with what I have and exploring them rather than always chasing rainbows of perfect games or a perfect collection.
I like euros but I consider them ephemeral, so I’ll keep buying as current games grow stale and leave, let’s not be too draconian.
Thanks for listening
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Gosh, ~30% of your collection is 18xx?
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Will be when the 4 on order arrive. Just now it’s ~25%.
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Only about 4% of my collection is 18xx
Likely… about the same.
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Backed 1 on Gamefound, partially funded by selling an old copy.
Sold some, bought some. might back 21Moon
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An amazing effort! I thought it would be relevant to our downsizing challenge. This user is thinking… HAH - outside the box!
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I’ve been pretty good buying and backing less this year. I haven’t sold anything recently but I also haven’t bought anything.
Today, I have a migraine and an hour before the end of the campaign ended up backing Septima.
I always buy or back games when a migraine hits. Definitely a pattern. My self-control turns into self-pity and this in turn leads to add-to-cart therapy. I suspected this for a while but today is definitely proof.
Overall, I am trying to put collection changes of all kinds on hold. I previously got rid of most of the “urgent” cases… I am hoping that with a new space (as in spaaaaace!) for the collection within the next year, I can re-evaluate everything.
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I’ve managed to move out over sixty (!) games in the last month (mainly at Airecon), and only about five came in to replace them.
One of the five is Spirit Island, which I had never played - and somehow hardly heard of - before, and I’m already starting to think I could be perfectly happy if I got rid of all my other games and just kept that. It’s astonishingly good.
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Spirit Island is a delight! Up there with Root for great assymetric games with so much replay value.
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Following up on a prior post in the other thread. Downsizing may be a bit much right now - I feel you need to play to downsize. But it’s definitely time to cap the collection. Here’s the commitment:
Zero games purchased until NerdzDay '24. This is about 8 months from now, and should be long enough for a mental reset. The reason for this timeline is that I do, in fact, have a handful of games I’ve already decided to add and I’m grandfathering them in, but a few went on sale this week (start) and I’m anticipating a few on sale in August (end):
- 1889 or 1846 - decision pending (so one purchase left)
- Railways of the World, Zoo Vadis, Camel Up (was waiting for Black November at Boardlandia, done)
- Through the Desert (was waiting for KS launch, done)
- Heat and GwT: New Zealand (I’m confident both will be part of NerdzDay in August)
- Race for the Galaxy: Xeno Invasion (due Q4 next year)
I’m now realizing this should include expansions as well.
I’ve also been toying with a self imposed restriction to only buy games that at least 2 (or 3) years old. I’ve definitely noticed that my “younger” purchases are, on average, worse. I’ll definitely miss some things this way, but on average I think it’s a win. See Railways, Zoo Vadis, 1889, and Through the Desert above - these are sure bets (not even bets).
What’s the goal?
- Space. Money’s ok for now, but I’ve spilled into space beneath the bed, a few in the attic that I’m waiting for my kids to be older, etc. The need isn’t big enough to justify the sprawl. If we could get rid of some of the kids toys, now, there’d be room for mine on the shelf…
- Mental energy - too much time and energy spent researching and deciding. Too often I just get something because I’ve used up the time and energy I have to assess it, and having the game allows me to push that decision off to a future cull decision with no deadline. But that is, in fact, just a commitment to spend more time later.
- I like my games. Even just the advent of November, and checking a few of those last 8 boxes, has been a little stress. Shop, buy, release holds, they’ll come. Unbox, rules, baggies. Find space. It’s work. For a few weeks when that whole wing of my brain was closed off, it was really nice to focus entirely on the games I have. Soloing old stuff rather than new, playing without reading rules. I don’t know how to articulate it, it was just really nice.
I’m hoping in the next 8 months that “really nice” will settle in and I’ll experience some rewiring in how I approach all this. Also, playing leads to culling, as I mentioned, and I’m aiming for roughly a 20% reduction.
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Yeah. I pretty much smashed my goals from the Gaming Goals 2023 thread
I am currently doing a Reverse Kondo and “rebuilding my collection from scratch”. As if I start with nothing.
So far. I got 27 from heavy to light. In no particular order:
| Heavy / Medium | Long Light | Quick Light | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Food Chain Magnate | Chicago Express | Zoo Vadis |
| 2 | Indonesia | Innovation | Modern Art |
| 3 | The Great Zimbabwe | Impulse | Mottainai |
| 4 | Pax Renaissance | Glory to Rome | Through the Desert |
| 5 | Pax Transhumanity | Bus | The King is Dead |
| 6 | Pax Pamir | the Estates | Samurai |
| 7 | Stephenson’s Rocket | Evolution: Climate | Orongo |
| 8 | Cthulhu Wars | Santiago | Escape Curse of the Temple |
| 9 | Dominant Species | Ride the Rails | Goodcritters |
| 10 |
Pro: these are gut-feeling without looking at the shelves, so there’s no “incumbency” influence
Con: this list relies on gut-feeling. Meaning my memories are often unreliable. So the list will grow inevitable as I play the faves that aren’t in this list. But at least a good number of the “unknowns” will be sold after they get played
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This post gives me 2 reactions. First looking at the games in long light they mostly strike me as short heavies. Apologies for the quibble.
Secondly it’s got me really excited for our next Mottainai duel 
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Good point. But I tend to like games with weighty decisions. So the categorisation now falls to rules weight.
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