Oh look at me being all trendy and thinking anyone actually reads this! Do you care what I played or how I enjoyed this year in gaming? No! But, I enjoy some statistics so lets do some statistics. As a note I use Board Game Stats app to track most of my plays. I say most because I have certain criteria for tracking a play, which honestly could be a while post unto itself so we save it for later.
How did 2023 go?
I had 245 plays recorded with 14 named individuals. I played 91 games 21 or 23% of which were new to me. Player counts can be found in the table below:
| Player count | Percentage played |
|---|---|
| 2 | 28% |
| 3 | 24% |
| 4 | 27% |
| 5 | 15% |
| 6 | 4% |
| 7+ | 2% |
Just under 80% of my board games were in the 2-4 player range. So next time you are confused why all board games just magically are made to be in that range, well it’s my fault, I am the target audience. I am sorry that I do not have more 5-10 player board games.
For frequency I played 99 days of the year. Which is slightly more frequently than once every 4 days a year. However these plays were not evenly distributed. In fact my longest drought without a game played was 15 days without playing a game in late February to early March, though there are quite a few other 10-14 day periods with no recorded games in them. My longest stretch of playing games every day is only at 5 days in the middle of May. Of the games I did end up playing 77% happened on the weekend (Friday Saturday or Sunday) with 35% of the games happening on a Friday. This is a function of my schedule as we often have friends over on Friday evenings to play board games and the stats definitely represent this.
Then there is the stats that sort of imply I have too many games. This year I played 45% of my collection at least once. This isn’t a great number and when you consider the 245 plays you think I would be able to do better than that. Considering that I really do need to donate, or sell quite a few games I think this just reiterates that point. I would really like this statistic to be somewhere around 60-70% so I should probably figure out how to achieve that, whether it involves having fewer games or playing more games. My H-Index, which means I have played at least H games H times was only 6 this year versus 9 from last years showing that I definitely had more breadth than depth this year. That being said there is some bright side to this I played 11 games at least 5 times this year, 4 of which were played at least 10 times and 2 of which were played 20 or more times. Amazingly, unlike previous years most of these were NOT due to being kids games. Sure Uno gets second billing with 24 plays this year (which is amazing because my kid only got it in November for his birthday) but So Clover, Qwirkle, ONUW and Star Realms manage to hit the top 5. Are these deep and complex games? Nope but they are fun and I do like the fact that they continue to sit so high on my list. So with the basic information down lets talk do some quick random awards I am making up on the spot.
Random Awards I am making up on the spot
Favourite New to me Game: This is a hard one and it is weird to want to give honourable mentions, but I think this has to go to Spirit Island! I have been putting off this game for some time time and having played it I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about how expansive the game space is for this.
Most shameful unplayed game in my collection: This has to go to King’s Dilemma. I would love to play this but I really need three other consistent humans who will put up with this and I’m currently at two. I have been at two for over a year. One of the big goals this year is to finally find that fourth and get this legacy game started.
Game(s) I was most glad I played this year: I was originally going to keep this singular but I felt like there were more than one game I wanted to put into this category and THIS IS MY POST so I do what I want. First of all, at the end of the year I finally got to play a game of Android. This has been sitting unplayed for years in my collection and I wanted to give it a try. I am really glad I did, not sure if the game is for me but it was definitely fun and enjoyable. I feel like more thought needs to be put into some of the aspects (by the players not the designer) and the conspiracy seems quite powerful but I enjoyed it. The second is that I got to play Millennium Blades not once but twice this year. It isn’t new to me, but oh boy is it an amazing game. Every time I play it I feel it goes differently and it gets pretty crazy and hectic. It always takes time but oh boy do I enjoy that game. Lastly, I did get a game of Chaos in the Old World on the table again and I remember that I do really enjoy the asymmetric troops on a map genre. So maybe that means this year we will get some Blood Rage or Kemet or even more CitOW back on the table.
Game Mechanism of the Year: So every year I find that there are some games that I am more drawn to and influence my habits a bit more. This year it was definitely games with a stacking or dexterity element. With For Science! and Paku Paku making their ways into my collection just to name two, it was super fun to have these games and see what they can do.
Conclusion
So that was my random collection of stats and info for the year. Overall I thought I did quite well and I am happy with how it went. I think the biggest take away is that there are some things that really need to leave my collection so I should get on that.