If you want to read about my plans prior to attending Ghengis Con this year, check out Genghis Con 2016 – Preview. I had created a long list of games that I wanted to play; primarily to see if they were good 2-player games for Lori and I. The list was long since I didn’t know which games would be in the library. Many were, so we had very little downtime – except when our brains or stomachs needed the break. Below I list all the games we played with my current BGG rating for the game. Since I have only played many of these once or twice, these might be considered first impressions and not an extensive evaluation. A low rating (<7) probably indicates that I won’t play it again unless it is offered up by someone else who wants to play. A higher rating (7-9) probably indicates that I will try to play it again and the rating might change (up or down) with more plays. In some cases I have noted if I expect my rating to go up or down (+/-) with more plays. A note about my ratings: Since the BGG rating scale is based on whether you want to play a game or would suggest it over other games, I tend to rate low because there are so many games competing for my attention. I certainly wouldn’t rate a game a 10 after just one or two plays. The only “10” below is Puerto Rico, which we played because it is one of my favorites that I don’t get to play often.

It is important for me and for Opie Games to be a supporter of the table top gaming community and I am always looking for opportunities. In January 2015 I created a short list of goals for the year.

If you think legacy style and other disposable games are crap by their very nature and you are looking for a few more grenades to drop in the BGG forums, well you have come to the wrong place. I hope to present a few ideas that have come as a result of playing, and thoroughly enjoying a few legacy and disposable games recently, namely Pandemic Legacy: Season One and T.I.M.E Stories. As I have planned to play and actually played these games, I have noticed a few dynamics that seem to be unique (at least for me) to these sessions.

Last year I posted a review of my 2015 Genghis Con experience and I plan to do the same this year. This year I am adding a preview to note some changes in my con plans and to be able to cut right to the chase in the review article (the post post).

Why Genghis Con?

I will spend an extended weekend at Genghis Con for the third year running. I live about an hour from where the con is held and it is not far from my office, so it is very convenient to attend. In past years I slept at home, but I will be staying two nights at the con hotel this year. Hopefully, this means I will get in more gaming! This is not the only major change to my con routine planned in 2016. This year my wife will also attend (which was the primary rationale behind getting the hotel room). She came for a few hours on the final day in 2014 to see what the con was like. Of course, this was probably the worst day since things were winding down and too many con-goers had not followed their con-123s. Despite the warning signs, she agreed to attend most of 3 days this year.

Background

As mentioned in 2015 Review: Round 1, based on the number of times that I played any given game in 2015 (and compared to 2014 when possible) indicates that some of them were winners in 2015 and others were losers. Let’s take a look at a few games in each category:

Winners

A common way of measuring the actively played games is to use a metric called “nickels and dimes” (games played 5 and 10 times in one year respectively). To that we can add “quarters” also since I had a couple games that broke the 25 plays mark and a couple more that were close. This seems to be a good metric for my level of gaming; distinguishing between those games that get attention and those that don’t. In my previous post called A Nickel’s Worth of Game Play I discuss what is indicate about a game when I get 5 or more plays.

Background

As I did in January of 2015, I will review the previous year’s gaming. Note: Also as before, I wouldn’t consider this a review of the games, but a review of my experiences with them.

I started tracking my plays on BGG in January 2014, so I can report on the games that I played, the ones that didn’t get any attention, and I can compare 2015 to 2014. Just in case it isn’t nerdy enough to catalog my game collection, record game plays, and review them, I also have to consider a few “rules” in the analysis.

Background

Having just completed the analysis on game quality data to compare Kickstarter published games to the general population of games, some interesting data regarding the general quality of games over time also became available. While the data is available, let’s take a quick look at the quality of Hobby Games over time.

The data presented here was collected from on Board Game Geek using the Advanced Search feature. Please refer to the original article (Kickstarter: A Source for Quality Games?) for the qualifications to this data.

Background

Previously I reported on some statistics for excellent games that have been published through Kickstarter and how Kickstarter has provided the opportunity for some new designers and publishers to launch successful game development companies. (Game Designers: Impressive First Impressions). One of the comments/criticisms that the article received was the common refrain, “Sure there are some Kickstarter successes, but just not many of them.”

Not one to stand by while anecdotes and opinion are used to substantiate claims, I dug into the Board Game Geek ratings for Kickstarted games compared to all games published in the years 2010-2014.

Setup

I was listening to a recent podcast… Gino of the Talking Tinkerbots podcast mentioned his frustration with the caveat, or even caution, applied by reviewers about games or Kickstarter projects by first-time designers. The discussion caused me to think about some of the successes and failures of first-timers and to do a little research that might prove interesting. I understand the concern related to “unproven” designers or publishers, but appreciate the perspective that I think Gino was applying.

Not that this article is intended to be a logical argument, but in logical argumentation the problem Gino has pointed out is known as a Genetic Fallacy. Something is bad/good because of its origin.

It would be too easy to focus on the negative here: First-timer Kickstarters that funded but ultimately failed and games that didn’t meet gamer expectations, etc. or to defend first-timers by focusing on “known” designers and publishers failing on the same criteria. The fact is, examples of both are plentiful – I regretfully have some of each (first-timers and known designer/publishers) in my game collection as evidence.

Instead, I want to:

1. Take a positive approach to first-timers and provide a few examples of “Impressive First Impressions.”
2. Provide a few examples of the games by established designers that were their first or early designs.

Listening to a recent podcast, I heard that a certain game design contest had received quite a few entries for which “a 3 x 3 grid of cards” was a main feature. Those discussing this event sounded derisive to those designers who presented these designs. Now, maybe that was just my impression, but that impression was the seed for this blog post. So let’s take a look at “a 3 x 3 grid of cards” as a game feature. Note: I was not one of those designers entering the contest, so this is not a case of sour grapes; just an observation.