- find new games
Youtube. Lots of youtube.
SUSD
Dice Tower
NPI
ThinkerThemer
BeforeYouPlay
3 minute boardgames
Board games in a minute
Board Gaming Ramblings
TheGameBoyGeek
Watch It Played
Rahdo I guess
Roll for Crit
Cardboard Rhino
Quackalope
All you can board (especially good for Marvel Champions)
Team Covenant (same)
Heavy Cardboard…
play games
Mostly on our dining table, but we made a very low-budget table topper out of a big piece of plywood and some felt, for bigger games:
I play regularly online on BGA, and occasionally on Yucata and boiteajeux. Even more occasionally on board game core for Food Chain Magnate. I also have a variety of board game apps on my phone and Steam, and play on Tabletop Simulator sometimes as well as PBF games here.
store games
1 4x4 Kallax and 2 2x4 Kallaxes, which are rapidly reaching capacity…
improve your games
Mostly inserts (folded space, but I need to make my own for Pipeline). I have the tokens from Quacks in coin capsules, for more satisfying bag rummaging, and a couple of games with metal coins.
find new games
Here, podcasts (SUSD, NPI, SVWAG), usually by playing new games at conventions, and recently by playing games on BGA.
rank your games
BGG
track the games you own, track the games you want, track what you play
BGG and boardgame stats app
talk about games
Here, discord, and with IRL gaming friends
What you use to:
-Play games
I bought a cheap card table on Amazon, and it’s been ideal for standing OVER some boxes in my room and giving me a dedicated gaming space. Nice slightly-rubbery surface for picking up cards / components, weighs nothing and the only footprint is the tiny thin legs.
Play games (table, floor, internet, playmat, dicetray are all fine answers… just to give you some ideas)
Mostly TTS at this point. Mostly because of the pandemic, though not technically directly since my entire house is vaccinated and I could be having more in-person game nights.
Because my work went to full remote work, I decided I needed a better desk setup, so bought a larger Ikea table, but because they were low on the legs, I had to steal two of them from one of my tables, leaving me down to the one in the kitchen, which is always covered with stuff and my life is exhausting enough I rarely have the energy to clean it off to play games.
When I do play in person, I play on the 56" Ikea LINNMON, which apparently has been replaced by a new table top. It’s a bit wobbly, but was cheap, and a decent size. And because it was cheap, and the legs could be unscrewed, I had two, initially just to bring out for the bigger games – 2 of them work reasonably well for 6p TI:4 provided you have a playmat – though, one eventually became our kitchen table.
Eventually I’d like to upgrade to something nice, so might do that sometime next year.
I do use playmats for some games:
Store games (obviously there is only one correct answer to this, what’s yours?)
Kallax. I’ve looked into some of the fancier solutions, but I find them to all be too expensive. The Kallax isn’t perfect, but it’s a great combo of price and functionality.
I did back the LaxRax Kickstarter, though. It’s a little pricey for what is essentially a 3D printed piece of plastic and some dowels, but it looks like it will basically make the Kallax perfect for storing games, so being able to store and pull my games out easier was worth the price of basically another Kallax to me.
Improve your games (blinged components? inserts? sleeves? playing them lots of times…)
I love a good organizer. Even though some of them can cost as much as a game, if it’s a game that’s particularly annoying to take out and put away, if the organizer means I’ll play it more, it’s worth it.
I usually just buy them, a mix of foamcore ones and the lazer etched wood ones. But for some games, like Gloomhaven and TI:4 I put my own together using a combination of Plano boxes, deck boxes, and for TI:4 some cheap crayon and pencil boxes from a craft store.
Find new games
Mostly SU&SD – but more the Podcast these days than the videos – and by reading posts here. Sometimes by friends posting talking about them, or posting links in a Discord. Occasionally on Kickstarter, but that’s usually RPGs and not board games. And sometimes just by trying something on BGA, though haven’t played there much lately.
Rank your games
I used to rate them on BGG, but at this point I don’t really rank them unless I do the Top 10 post here (or on the old SU&SD forums). I find ranking to be a very hard thing to do, because it really depends on mood for me.
Except for TI:4 it’s been my clear cut No. 1 since it came out. I love that game, much to my wife’s chagrin. She can’t stand all the arguing and posturing. Haha.
Track the games you own (eyes are a fine tool for those with a small collection)
Every few months I’ll update BGG.
Track the games you want
I usually put a game I’m interested in on my BGG Wishilst and a couple times a year – usually around my birthday and Christmas, since my family has the link to the list – I’ll look through and move stuff around – or remove it entirely – generally by asking “Will this actually get to the table?”. Some games I keep on there even if it’s a “no” just because there’s a chance I might be able to do it.
Track what you play
I use Notion to track my weekly split-session TTS TI:4 game I play with my friends. Other than that, I don’t track.
For a bit, I was tracking my plays of Aeon’s End with Notion too, but then I got lazy.
Talk about games (note: if you don’t put down tekeli.li here you’re reading this from a wrong angle)
Here. On a couple Discords I’m in with friends, both in voice and text. With friends in person. Rarely on the comments on SU&SD posts.
That is some dedication to the cause of galactic infighting!
play games: table in the living room. Also, on the coffee table. Or on the floor. Or on a blanket in a park, when the weather is nice. Or occasionally at the pub.
I cherish the time when me and my partner played games in the bathtub on two planks of wood. We both moved houses and now none of us has a bathtub at home. Tragic.
store games: mostly in their boxes. My lost copy of Carcassonne was in a canvas bag, and I stand by my choice. Race for the Galaxy lives in the box of a novelty mug, the original box thrown away during a relocation. I had other games without their boxes, for the same reason.
I have a staircase to nowhere in my new apartment, with my games perched on its steps. I call it Board Game Staircase to Hell, that’s where I hide my games now (I am in the “most board games look terrible” camp)
improve your games: I religiously pour all components from plastic baggies into their boxes, and use the baggies for other things, for the horror of board games collectors.
find new games: I mostly buy second hand, it’s more like they find me. SUSD has a big influence on what I consider interesting, though.
rank your games: I don’t.
track the games you own: eyes (I still managed to lose two games, mind you)
track the games you want: I don’t do that.
track what you play: I don’t do that either.
talk about games: I tend to bore people around me in real life. Tekeli.li might really be the only place online where I do that every now and again.
You are a monster!
I’ve just done a new sort of blingage: coin capsules for Ashes.
Better trays for Quacks, just off the 3d printer, doubles as a book stand with a curved front lip to the tray:
(yes, those are the GeekUp Bits from BGG.)
Works for storage too, using one of the books as a lid:
ETA: not my design, but from thingiverse.
Are you just trying to fill up that huge box now?
Once I’ve got everything printed, I’ll know how much of the box I want to keep when I cut it down to a slightly more sensible size. (Quacks Big Box is only that huge because it needs to fit all the punchboards; once the game has been got ready for play it could be much smaller.)
That’s how a lot of game boxes go: if not for the board, they could be a lot smaller.
Yeah, but in this case the actual cauldron boards are quite a bit smaller than the punchboard that has to fit into the box…
