2015 Review: Round 1 - Playin Games

John Parker

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.

My complete list of plays from BGG is at the end of this article with shading to indicate the major breakpoints. A few notes about my records:

  • Since I participated in a couple playtests for game producers and I am always playtesting my own designs, there are a lot of plays that don’t get recorded. In cases that I can, I will update a game’s plays once the game has a record in the BGG database (e.g., Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn).
  • Although I have several board games on Android and also play on some online sites, I generally don’t record those plays with a couple exceptions: pass and play games where the players are actually seated together and asynchronous games where I am playing with people that I normally play face-to-face games, but do not have the opportunity to get together or neither of us has the analog game. (I do live in a relatively remote area as do some of my gaming buddies).
    • So, games against random online players or AI are not counted.
    • However, I do record 1 play for games that I have not played otherwise to indicate that I have played that game. So the game will show up as one I have played, but that play won’t count toward the total game plays. (Crazy, I know).
  • I have counted solitaire games of actual board games, but those are rare.
  • Similar to electronic plays, I have not counted expansions separately (except in one case so I knew how many I played with and without, but I have excluded these numbers from the tallies).
    • However, some “expansions” are more like whole new games, so I have recorded those separately from the base game. E.G., Ticket to Ride Europe and Ticket to Ride show up as separate entries.
    • Generally, I do record 1 play of expansions, so I know that I have played them. So the game will show up as one I have played, but that play won’t count toward the total game plays. (See note about being crazy in the rules for Android and online playing).

Summary

A quick summary of the data:

Stat

2014 Total

2014 %

2015 Total

2015 %

Total

%

Games Played

79

 

122

 

201

 

Number of Plays

735

 

585

 

 

 

Number of Plays *

555

 

585

 

1140

 

Avg. Plays per Game *

7.03

 

4.80

 

5.67

 

Games Played > 6 times

27

34%

27

22%

54

27%

Total Plays of Games > 6*

385

69%

362

62%

747

66%

Games Played < 6*

52

66%

95

78%

147

73%

Total Plays of Games < 6*

170

31%

223

38%

393

34%

* Excluding Star Realms which was exclusively played on Android in 2014.

   

 

What does it all mean?

  • 122 different games played compared to 79 in 2014 and 90 of those were games that I had not played before. I certainly have met the goal of expanding the universe of games that I have played in 2016.
  • 585 Plays compared to 555 in 2014. That is a small increase, but I don’t think 2016 will be much different. This may be about the limit of game plays that I can manage in one year unless something drastically changes in my available time.
  • I do record that approximate amount of time for each BGG game session, but I have not transferred that information for calculation. I continue to live in denial about the time spent playing games. However, since I don’t watch television (I only work in television), my total time spent being entertained is still small in comparison to the national average. Also, I contest that playing games is a far “better” use of time than watching TV.
  • As shown in the previous numbers, I diversified my game plays in 2015. So my H-Index for 2015 was 1 play of 2 possible games short of 12 compared to a similar shortfall from 14 in 2014. This puts my H-Index for all recorded plays (since Jan. 2014) to 18. Since there are still many games that I continue to play regularly, I would expect that to continue to go up in 2016 even while the diversity of games continues to expand. Based on the games that are today on the cusp, I’d guess (not a goal) that my H-Index will reach 22 by the end of 2016.
  • Depending on where I draw the line for “frequently played games” I get an interesting comparison to “rarely played games.”  Based on the total data for 2014-2015, I am drawing the line at 7 plays or more in one calendar year. (Note: Since game plays continue across years, this is a little wonky, but it will have to do).
    • For 2015 the data shows that there are a relatively small number of commonly played games and a large number of rarely played games. This is consistent with my goal to try many new games (but I will get into goals later):
      • Frequently Played Games: 22% of the games represent 62% of the plays.
      • Rarely Played Games: 78% of the games represent 38% of the plays.
    • …which is a very different picture than 2014:
      • Frequently Played Games: 34% of the games represent 69% of the plays.
      • Rarely Played Games: 66% of the games represent 31% of the plays.
    • …which puts the 2014-2015 average at:
      • Frequently Played Games: 27% of the games represent 66% of the plays.
      • Rarely Played Games: 73% of the games represent 34% of the plays.

In 2014 when almost all of my game plays were from my own catalog, these numbers clearly showed that there were some real losers. Now that I have regular access to other games and am actively trying to play many different games, the numbers are less indicative of losers; only 1 play is often an indicator that I played someone else’s game rather than I didn’t get around to playing one of my games again. Even so, if plays were victory points there are some clear winners and losers in my catalog of games. We’ll take a look at the winners and losers in Round 2.

2015 Plays

Here is the list of all (published, non-expansion) games played in 2015.

Game

Qty

Codenames

49

Timeline

26

Hanabi

23

Pandemic

21

Friday

20

Telestrations: 12 Player Party Pack

19

Spyfall

15

No Thanks!

14

Concept

13

Machi Koro

13

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set

12

Red7

11

Sushi Go!

11

Mysterium

11

Fidelitas

10

Ticket to Ride

10

Tiny Epic Defenders

10

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival

9

Can't Stop

8

Mice and Mystics

8

The Resistance: Avalon

8

Alchemists

7

Dead Drop

7

Diamonds

7

One Night Ultimate Werewolf

7

One Zero One

7

Viticulture

7

BANG! The Dice Game

6

Castles of Mad King Ludwig

6

Dominion

6

Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia

6

Jaipur

6

Ticket to Ride: Europe

6

Two Rooms and a Boom

6

7 Wonders: Duel

5

Colt Express

5

Dominion: Adventures

5

Eight-Minute Empire: Legends

5

Istanbul

5

Pastiche

5

Tiny Epic Galaxies

5

Tiny Epic Kingdoms

5

Tuscany: Expand the World of Viticulture

5

Battle Line

4

Castle Panic

4

Coloretto

4

Lost Legacy: The Starship

4

Martian Dice

4

Trains: Rising Sun

4

Welcome to the Dungeon

4

Among the Stars

3

Between Two Cities

3

Caverna: The Cave Farmers

3

Eldritch Horror

3

The Grizzled

3

Mr. Jack

3

Splendor

3

Tides of Time

3

Valley of the Kings

3

VivaJava: The Coffee Game: The Dice Game

3

Backgammon

2

Carcassonne Big Box 4

2

Dragon Slayer

2

Elevenses

2

Eminent Domain

2

Flick 'em Up!

2

Ghost Stories

2

Guildhall

2

Hive

2

Las Vegas

2

Puerto Rico

2

Royal Palace

2

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

2

Spurs: A Tale in the Old West

2

Star Realms

2

Takenoko

2

Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small

1

Among the Stars: Expanding the Alliance

1

Ascension: Deckbuilding Game

1

Betrayal at House on the Hill

1

BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia

1

Bohnanza

1

Castle Dice

1

Chaosmos

1

Citadels

1

Cutthroat Caverns

1

Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game

1

Dixit

1

Dominion: Intrigue

1

Dungeon Twister: The Card Game

1

Fearsome Floors

1

Get Bit!

1

Golem Arcana

1

Kingdom Builder

1

Libertalia

1

Lost Legacy: Flying Garden

1

Merchants & Marauders

1

Mystery Rummy: Jekyll & Hyde

1

Neuroshima Hex!

1

Nuns on the Run

1

oddball Äeronauts

1

Oh Hell!

1

Primordial Soup

1

Quarriors!

1

The Red Dragon Inn

1

Saboteur 2 (expansion-only editions)

1

Scoville

1

Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients

1

Sheriff of Nottingham

1

Small World Underground

1

Stone Age

1

Strike A Pose

1

Thunderstone

1

Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small

1

Among the Stars: Expanding the Alliance

1

Ascension: Deckbuilding Game

1

Traders of Osaka

1

Tragedy Looper

1

Trains

1

Trivial Pursuit

1

Ultimate Werewolf: Inquisition

1