Playing Games Blog

Over the last few weeks I have come to the conclusion that playing a game 5 or more times has disproportionate significance in my distorted little world. First some background, though, before I can explain why.

Since I track my game plays on BoardGameGeek, it is easy and interesting for me to see which games meet those common gamer geek thresholds of nickels, dimes, and quarters (5, 10, and 25 plays). Of course, to do this, I also track my game collection. You can see what my game plays in 2014 were in my 2014 Review: Playin’ Games article.

All this tracking provides the, maybe regrettable, ability to see what games I have acquired and not played; what some call “The List” or “The Stack.” I might just be looking for excuses, but I think that “The List” for me is not horribly embarrassing – 11 games (excluding expansions – see, I am already looking for ways to make this look better), compared to my collection, 121 games (again excluding expansions) – right at 10%. Further justifying, I have had only 3 of those games in my collection since before Christmas 2014 (a notable benchmark since I received more games than I could play that day).

Why Genghis Con?

I joined in the fun at Genghis Con for most of its 4 days last weekend. I live about an hour from where the con is held and it is not far from my office, so I stay at home instead of the hotel where it is held. I’m sure I am missing out on some of the con experience by doing so, but even with the long drive I probably stay fresher. This was my second time to attend, so I knew what to expect. Last year’s observations would have been more focused on finding out what the con was like, but that is lost to memory now. For 2015, here’s a brief summary of how I spent my long weekend.

As mentioned in the 2014 Review: Playin’ Games, I have not previously committed to a gaming goal in the past. I am not one much for New Years’ resolutions – they typically disappoint – but at the same time understand the need to set goals periodically. I just try to set shorter term goals more regularly than annually. I might be disappointed more frequently, but at least none of those missed goals are major. So without setting specific goals for playing games in 2015, here are a few of my desired outcomes and some ideas about making them happen:

A whole year’s worth of gaming reviewed in one blog post.  Hmm. Could be a long one. Note: I wouldn’t consider this a review of the games so much as 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 and the ones that didn’t get any attention. It wasn’t until later in the year that I heard about various challenges gamers set for themselves like “10 x 10” and “H-Index of 14 in ‘14” so I did not start the year with any such goals. Mostly I was just curious about how many games I would actually play, but I suppose I also wanted to see what games were getting the most plays and compare that to the ones that, by recollection, were providing the most entertainment.

At the risk of falling into complete nerdom, a little analysis of the year’s plays follows.

You might say I am a fan of social deduction games. They can be exciting and really get a group activated. Their success is often related to the gaming group dynamics, but there is enough variety in the genre that it isn’t difficult to find one that will suit most groups. (Watch for my related article on the varieties of social deduction games).

I had been thinking about introducing a group of my friends (4 other couples) to hobby gaming, but did not have much indication that they would be interested; other than they generally like to have fun by socializing with a fair dose of kidding thrown in. For this group I figured a typical, safe starting place like Dixit (for this many people we play teams).  A few have artistic leanings and occupations so the artwork would be the hook and they should have some creative clues. Based on the dynamics of the group, though, I really wanted to check their interest in a social deduction game.

We invited them all over for a happy hour at our house and I was prepared to have Dixit and several other games ready to spring on them. Here’s where the story gets interesting…