Since @Acacia has announced that for the moment, there will be no more weekly topics from his side… I’ll try to make the occasional one. If anyone else has ideas, let’s have them.
For today, I’d like to have this open topic about what was 2024 like for you?
Here are some prompts:
How would you characterize your year 2024 in one sentence (you can make it a run-on-sentence) or meme?
What was your favorite (game related or not) event?
I’m not going to talk about real life because I find it too depressing. So in the world of boardgaming…
More games at home since my wife isn’t a gamer but we have a friend staying with us who is.
I don’t always have a game of the year, but this time I have two: Imperium [Horizons] on the heavy side (by my standards), Sea Salt & Paper on the light side.
Sadly, this meme captures my year in boardgames best.
I didn’t get to play nearly as much as I had hoped or wanted.
2024 was yet another in a series of unquiet years, especially in the first half, when echos of the house renovations haunted us with surprise bills that came at the exact moment I was suddenly out of work, while my partner’s corporate job endured way more downs than ups as has been the case for the past few years and yet from June onwards we were graced with a sense of things returning to a more stable, less anxious state of being on a personal level at least.
2024 surprised us with a bunch of unexpected bills…
I surprised 2024 by giving up freelancing and taking on an employee job
I also surprised 2024 by replacing Netflix/Disney with a Crunchyroll subscription and embarking on an on-going anime devouring adventure
My game of the year was already set in stone sometime in the middle of January: Daybreak. I have continuously played games of this with a friend on BGA. We just started another one today–after winning the previous one. Saving the world feels good and so do the combos.
Worth a mention: Harmonies and Beacon Patrol. Both made it into my top-played games this year. And I keep recommending them to others as well.
My BGStats stats for 2024 (posted on Mastodon previously)
Most played, The Search for Planet X, which is so good.
Favorite is hard because. Normally I wouldn’t include a digital-adaptation, but I’ll say 1862: Railway Mania in the Eastern Counties played via 18xx.games.
But honorable mentions to Petrichor and Coffee Roaster for being chill when my brain needs chillness.
Four kids is way harder than expected.
I got several games played! That’s a full (possibly critical) success.
Board gaming related: SPIEL with friends and get to meet @yashima for first time
We need to resurrect the top games thread… but our club did a challenge where we played all of the TTR games exclucing the Legacy game and the demo edition
That reading is fun again. I picked up Foundation because it was a small book and it eased me into reading again. I am now holding the Way of Kings and it’s a pretty hefty book
The lows were lower than the highs were high, but also less numerous.
I had myself a bit of a mini-music festival in Montreal in September, seeing Sabaton, Judas Priest, Unleash the Archers and Powerwolf over the course of a week-end. My neck was quite cross at me afterwards!
Most played is DEFINITELY Ticket To Ride Rails & Sails. Nothing else even got close. We saw our friend Yvan a lot this year. No complaint! My favourite, though, is probably Everdell Farshore. I love most things Everdell, and that was a very good one.
Despite Maryse’s mum passing in April and Christmas time being HER time, the time she loved the most, the Holidays were a lovely, happy affair. I expected way more tears than I saw!
I actually got my blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in December! I was so sure I hadn’t met the requirements, with the amount of time I’d had to miss (the death, then my back injury), but I got it now!
How would you characterize your year 2024 in one sentence (you can make it a run-on-sentence) or meme?
Ultimately it’s a tie - “Baby” or “Unemployment.”
What was your favorite (game related or not) event?
For my birthday I coaxed a fourth player to fly out from Seattle (it was also time for him to visit anyway and see his nieces, who conveniently live in my house) and we finally did Sidereal Confluence. Also dinner and Hansa Teutonica.
Most played or favorite game of the year?
See: Next week which will fork off this bullet
How did 2024 surprise you?
Baby - I already had a baby in 2023 so I was not surprised to find that I still had her in 2024.
Unemployment - I had a job as of Jan 4 so I was surprised on Jan 5 to find that I did not have one.
Ah, nannies. Our nanny, who had been hired on the mutual understanding of a 3 year term, decided that nannying wasn’t for her anymore. Second nanny worked for 5 days before quitting (we were also discussing nightly if it was going to work out before she initiated). Finally have a semi-stable nanny as of September…that was a lot of unexpected disruption.
How did you surprise 2024?
Finally published that book that I started in 2012. Nobody saw that coming.
Took up 18xx and Splotters.
