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So, as I look back upon my purging for 2009. Which has basically become a permanent goal since I stopped buying basically anything new and different some time toward the end of 2007 or so. I would like to reflect upon where I stand right now in relation to where I wish I stood.

As of the end of 2009 I officially stand at 258 games listed in my collection in BGG. Many of those are Expansions (Nearly 20 in Age of Steam and Power Grid Expansions alone) So I think that’s a pretty good number. I wish it was actually under 200, but with the expansions I’ve put in, and hardly take any shelf space at all when I put them in the main games boxes, it’s kind of hard to trim it much more.

I fudge those numbers a little bit. Some expansions I fail to list due to principle, like the Agricola Z deck, or the Chuck No-Rice card in Ghost Stories. This was a change sometime this year due to some changes in the way BGG split out games when they add RPG Geek. Whether or not an expansion gets listed depends upon a few factors, but either way, if I list them, they count to the total, if I don’t they don’t.

I also have one game coming ‘Republic of Rome’ which I received as a Christmas Present from Val, but as of yet, has been deemed dangerous by the US government and has not left customs inspections.

So, let’s see how I’ve done. After I get Republic of Rome, that will put me at 259 games.

End of 2007, 270
End of 2008, 262

Well, I guess I’m not going very quickly at this am I? I do okay, I don’t add very much during the year at least, and I get rid of at least a couple of more games than I actually add. Which is a good thing, but still, I’ve really technically only dropped 11 games in two years. Which is horrible, but at least it’s better than when they were shooting way up in 2005 and 2006.

Goal for this year. Drop to below 250 BGG Listed games. Using my principles of listing. Unfortunately, this means some games will be impossible to get rid of (Chess, Euchre, Poker, etc.) Just means I’ll have to take the axe to at least 9 more games at some point during the year. And possibly to more depending upon if there’s any that I want to add or subtract.

I’d also like to clean up the game room shelves a little bit. I suppose that’s sort of this same resolution, but I mean, I’d like to get everything into one place sometime. Tired of having to go looking for something if I want to find it, they should all be contained on my two shelves.

I’m working on a Five and Dime post too, but that will probably be a couple of days.

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG, Boardgames, Purge

So like I said earlier, I made a last minute trip to Gamefest South.

That was a nice hotel. I really enjoyed all the traincars and stuff that they had going on, of course, that was not the purpose of my visit, but considering all the stuff they had, plus a really nice (so I’m told) Aquarium, I kind of wish I had brought the wife and kids.

Oh well, perhaps we can go together sometime later. It would be cool staying in a converted rail car.

Anyway. Played some good games, got to play Tales of the Arabian Nights only one day after I officially added it to my collection. It’s a nice game, I liked it. Hope to try it with some of the group sometime soon. Did not get to play Snow Tails, the other game I just got in.

Did play Steel Driver, knocked that off. Not sure whether or not I really liked it, we played it with three, and the auction rules were kind of goofy, so I’m not sure we had them quite right.

Played another game of Die Macher which was fun (that game is always fun).

Played a game called Shadow Hunters, but didn’t really like it.

Various other things were played and taught, but those were the most noteworthy in some form or fashion.

I also participated in the Flea Market. A tradition I have kind of grown fond of, as I try to keep my collection as lean as possible. So I packed up a few games this time. My main items were the copy of Formula D that I had purchased stupidly (just to get the new dashboards, then discovered I hated the dashboards), as well as me deciding that I would keep Torres but get rid of the other mask games. So I had Java, and Tikal.

Also got rid of Princes of Florence, it just wasn’t hitting the table.

Now, I screwed up when I went to look around. I saw Lord of the Rings, and two expansions, which were in really great shape, that I was able to secure for a nice price. As well as getting Fearsome Floors for a pretty good price as well.

I also ended up trading away my copy of Conquest of Paradise for a copy of Race the Wind to one of the other “vendors”.

So I sold about six or eight games, but came home with four (counting expansions). So that didn’t really lower my number on my BGG List very much. Still hanging around 260. I think I’m going to get rid of some stuff for Geekgold soon though. I have a few things that have been unsellable. I should probably wait till after BGG’s flea market though. Also I need to start putting my list together for that.

Pretty sure I’m going to be dropping 1960 soon.

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG, Boardgames, Chattanooga, Gamefest, Purge

So, we met some new gamers that just moved to the area this past weekend. Had a great time with them at Dinner, and even got to play a game or so with them on Sunday. I think they’ll make a great addition to OSBG.

Anyway. We played a game of Manila, but before they left. They wanted to try out the Crokinole board sitting on our wall. So we set it up (BTW: It fits great on my table.) and played a few rounds.

Well after they left, Olivia and I were goofing off a bit with the Crokinole game before I put it up. So while doing so, I snapped a few pictures of it. And got this one that I really liked.

Now granted, my camera is horrible in low light situations, still despite the grainyness of this image it’s a fun picture. So I posted it on the geek. It has gotten some pretty nice feedback.

Anyway. Paulmond saw it on BGG and liked it enough that he decided to enhance it in photoshop, (despite its poor quality). Well, it’s quite neat. He took out the picture in the background and the roll of wrapping paper, and blurred the background, so that you concentrate on the foreground when looking at the pic. It’s quite neat. I wouldn’t have even figured out how to do this seeing as how you’d have to recreate the wallpaper image that was under the picture and all. Anyway. I’m going to start playing with photoshop a little bit more before i go posting stuff online. Maybe I’ll pick up some cool techniques.

So cool.

Anyway, I’ll have to add some more pics I took the other night to this album. There are a few pretty good ones.

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG, Boardgames, Crokinole, Manila, Olivia, OSBG, Photoshop, Pictures

I was playing around with twitter, and not one day after I signed up on Twitter, did BoardGameGeek add a feature where you could add all your played games to your twitter feed.

I played with it a little bit this weekend, but I don’t think I’ll continue to do this, I don’t know that anyone is really all that interested in it, and if so, were it an interesting game played or something happened, I would just do so manually. This web site already contains the games last recently played by me anyway. I’ve always thought it was fun, and I use it to click on the link and get directly to a certain game sometimes when I want a fast link to it. Usually when I’m reading one of my blog posts or something.

But I see no need in duplicating this data into my twitter feed. But I did add my twitter feed to the side bar just to see whether or not I like it. I may not continue to use twitter, but it will be there for the time being.

In doing this, I decided that I wanted to separate site navigation and categorization from the “fun stuff” links, the photos, recently played stuff, twitter, etc. So, I went to the three column design. Also, a change of color, just for something different.

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG, recently played, technical data, themes, twitter

I noted during some of the Board game Purge segments about my tracking of plays and how for the last two years, I’ve tried to be a little bit more diligent about it. I will also continue going forward.

There are several that don’t get marked. Usually it’s a quick game with the girls before bed, or something here or there that I missed while recalling a long list of played games during a various gameday.

Another is the On-line games. Specifically, those played on Brettspielwelt, SpielbyWeb, or Mabiweb. I occasionally play a game or two on these various sites. They provide an avenue for getting a gaming fix in when otherwise, time or circumstances preclude me from getting a group together.

The thing is On-line plays are definitely experience. Now, I never track anything played against an Artificial Intelligence. But a group of humans playing a Amun-Re by email on SBW is certainly helping me gain valuable experience for the next time I play. And when I remember, I try to mark those down as plays. (SBW makes it easy with it’s own hook).

If someone goes to my list of games, and sees that I’ve played Hacienda 4 times (about the number I’ve played Face-to-Face) vs the fact that I’ve played Hacienda 28 times. Which is going to tell you more whether or not I know the game, the rules, and hopefully have fleshed out some decent strategies.

BGG could implement a flag for on-line plays. That would help to differentiate the statistics somewhat. As of yet, they have not done so. I often think I should implement my own database, which will track plays with a flag, and even scores and winners if necessary, as well as adding some other notable things that may be only of interest to me. I’ll just drop a hook in there to throw my plays up on the BGG database as well when I track mine. That way everyone would still benefit from the combined play statistics.

But it seems like a waste of time anyway, to duplicate what is already available. Hmm.

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG, Boardgames, Game Collection, Online Gaming, Play Statistics, Purge