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So, in accordance with the popular activity among the board gaming crowd, I hereby present to you my Five & Dime list for 2010.

One word of warning, they kinda suck. Apparently I spent the bulk of 2010 playing new games, or light games, and not playing nearly as many as I usually do. I went through a pretty serious funk from around March to about November or so. I don’t think I bought more than two games in all that time, I didn’t play many.

Our local game group kind of stagnated at some point during the year. Besides a couple of events I attended I didn’t play very many ‘gamery’ type games during the year at all.

To be honest, at some of those gaming events, I spent a whole lot more time socializing and visiting with friends than I did playing games.

All of this is in an effort to make me feel better about my five & dime list that I’m about to present, because you’re not going to believe how bad it is.

Well anyway here goes.

My 2010 Board Game Five & Dime List!

Crokinole – 12 plays – I’m guessing a good portion of that was my visit with friends for a football game in September along with entry into the Crokinole Tournament at Tennessee Game Days. I love this game though. It’s a great game, even if I quit playing boardgames altogether I’m pretty sure I would still hang on to this.

Werewolf – 11 plays – A good portion of this was likely at BGG.con, there might have been a game or two of it played at Midsouth Con as well, but I don’t remember and don’t care enough to look up dates. I really like Werewolf. If the fact that you needed 9 players to really play it wasn’t a concern, it would probably get played a lot more. I can’t wait till I get my copy of the Resistance. Going to love getting that one in. I predict that will be on this list in some form or fashion next year.

Scrabble – 10 plays – Haha, This is sort of a fudge I think. I don’t log all my plays of it, but occasionally I do log a couple of plays of Words with Friends as plays of Scrabble. I play Words with Friends a lot. I have about 5 friends that we are constantly rematching with. My friends are very good at the game, (or else were all equally bad at it) because most of the times our games are extremely competitive. At least one of these plays was played scrabble on an iPad using the iPhones as tile racks. That is so cool.

Small World – 10 plays – This is another half and half type of number. Half of these plays were played on the board, but I’m guessing a few of these were played on the iPad as a two player game as well. I don’t log plays against AI’s which I do often, but against an opponent I most certainly do, if I think about it. There are times my daughter and I have played this that I didn’t log it, and forgot about the play shortly after, I’d say we’ve played closer to 30 games of this over the past year.

King’s Breakfast – 5 plays – I love this light fluffy game, it’s quick, and easy to teach, yet gives many interesting decisions. Every once in a while, I’ll bring it out and it’ll get a couple of plays, but often I forget it’s on the shelf.

Tichu – 5 plays – Three of these plays were at the BGG.con Tichu Tournament. All very competitive games that we played. I can’t remember where the other two occurred, but I imagine it was here and there. I love Tichu as well, one of my favorite ‘trick taking card games’

And, that’s it. There you have it. That’s all I got. I told you it was sad!!!

For the curious, here are my other plays above 1 for the year 2010. Last year, I didn’t talk about these games or list them at all because I wanted to respect the Five & Dime Format. This year, I’ve decided that I have to list these, otherwise, I won’t have any Geek Cred. At least some of the stuff on this list will go a long way toward reestablishing a smidge of that Cred.

The Adventurers 4
Hacienda 4
Löwenherz 4
Neuroshima Hex! 4
Pandemic 4
The Resistance 4
Telestrations 4
Bananagrams 3
Battlestar Galactica 3
Ca$h ‘n Gun$ 3
Carcassonne 3
Dungeon Lords 3
Go 3
Hive 3
Loot 3
M 3
Ninja versus Ninja 3
Poker 3
Race for the Galaxy 3
Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age 3
Zendo 3
10 Days in the USA 2
Battling Gladiators 2
Chaos in the Old World 2
Cosmic Encounter 2
Traumfabrik 2
Eat Poop You Cat 2
Goa 2
El Grande 2
In the Year of the Dragon 2
Liar’s Dice 2
Liberté 2
Lord of the Rings 2
Manila 2
No Thanks! 2
Polarity 2
The Princes of Florence 2
Railways of the World: The Card Game 2
San Juan 2
Schrille Stille 2
Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit 2
Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization 2
Trendy 2
Word on the Street 2

I won’t list the 1 plays as that would be really, really, really, long. If you’re interested in that, click here!

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG.con, Boardgames, iPad, iPhone, MidsouthCon, Pictures, Play Statistics

Alright, so it’s out a little later than I would like, but here you go. My Five & Dimes lists and what I think about them.

General Comments. I really diversified this year it looks like. Which I hope to do less of in the future. I really wish that I would play games I love more than playing a game I’ve never played. This year, that didn’t happen much, except with those games that others in my group love that I like as well, and usually am quite happy to play.

Dimes
Werewolf 30 – I don’t see werewolf not making my dime list any year for probably the rest of my life. I love this game, and whenever I get enough people together for a game, I tend to be interested in getting it played and pushing it onto people.

Cities 10 – I played this one for the first time in March of this year at Tennessee Games Day. I loved it, and immediately purchased a copy of the game. It’s got a lot going for it for the insanely quick play time. Most of the plays of this game happen back to back as well, as usually since it’s over in about 15 minutes, people tend to want to try it again. Couple that with three totally different scoring methods, and you have a really great filler that will probably show up for a long time to come.

Nickels
Battlestar Galactica 8 – Love this game, not so sure about the expansion yet, bu this game is really good, with an awesome theme. This one will likely be somewhere on this list next year too, as nearly everyone I know loves it too.

Ghost Stories 8 – I really liked this game a lot when I first started playing it, and we played it several times, but it is starting to feel samey to me now, and I don’t know that it will get very many plays over the next year. I tend to think that Pandemic, BSG, and Shadows will steal back my Coop game plays away from this one.

No Thanks! 8 – Really love this filler, but sometimes forget it’s in the shelf since the box is so small, I need to do like my friend MA and just keep up with lists for different numbers of players of everything that I have available. I need to set up a database before I can do that though, as I doubt I’ll want to update the lists that much.

Race for the Galaxy 8 – Love this game too, and it got a lot of play at the beginning of the year, but suffers from the same problem as some of the other fillers in that I have this one in a small box for space reasons, and I tend to forget about it when we’re looking for something to play.

Zendo 7 – This one has some lovers and some haters in our group, but I tend to find when I’m at a convention, there’s always a little time for at least a few rules to get done.

Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game 6 – This game is so much fun, although it has a lot of luck and stuff, but makes up for it with theme, and with the story you get to tell everyone about how your game went when you are finished.

Manila 6 – Manila is a great little gambling game, that I consciously tried to get played more this year. Glad to see it made the list. I tend to speed this one up a tad by starting them on the 0′s rather than the bottom level. I think that makes it a little more tolerable, by cutting at least 20 minutes off the game.

Bang! 5 – Played a lot at the beginning of the year, when we were still going to the OMGA Group, but this one waned late in the year when we had a core group that met every week. This one will always get some play, just not sure how much among the weekly game group. Probably none.

FITS 5 – Found this one and bought it at the same time I bought Cities. This one has replaced Ubongo as my puzzle game introducer to new people. As this one is puzzly like Ubongo, but has much better and easier scoring.

Manoeuvre 5 – Glad this one made it onto the list too. I don’t tend to play a lot of two player only games, but this is one of the first ones that I have liked to grab when it was appropriate. I really like the different aspects of the armies, and how they interact with each other.

Small World 5 – And finally Small World. Days of wonder game from this year, and not one that I would have picked up if it wasn’t for an insanely good deal. But I’m glad I did, everyone likes it, I like it enough to play it, and my problems with always having the same board can be addressed with a variant online. This one is a good one for introducing Axis & Allies/Risk players to New style board gaming as well.

Conclusion
So, that’s all I’ve got for this year, there are a few that just barely missed the cut, but I’ve decided not to talk about them at all out of respect for the format. Hopefully it will give me incentive to try to get one or two of the honorable mentions into the fray next year.

written by Chris \\ tags: Boardgames, Play Statistics, playlists

I know it’s a bit late in the year, seeing as how it’s the end of February and all. But since the amalgamated stats have not come out yet, I figure I’m still on time.

Dimes
Werewolf – 30
Race for the Galaxy – 26

Fives
Last Night on Earth – 9
Mr. Jack – 8
Pandemic – 8
Blokus – 6
Descent: Journeys in the Dark – 5
No Thanks! – 5
Ra – 5
Tichu – 5

As far as my Dimes go, Werewolf will always be on there, it seems that’s what I spend most of my nights doing while I’m at a Con. Of which I regularly attend two per year. Race for the Galaxy was played bunches when I first got it. But I petered out on it toward the end of the year. I will still play it, it will likely make at least the Fives list next year, if it doesn’t quite make Dimes. It packs so many decisions into a really small amount of time.

On My Nickels list. I’m surprised by Descent: Journeys in the Dark showing up. I wouldn’t have expected it. It is a good game, but I played it more times last year than Age of Steam? Wow… And to Last Night on Earth barely missing the Dimes list. Sorry. I’ll try harder next year. If you haven’t played it, and you love Zombies. What are you waiting for. If you hate Zombies and the idea of Zombies games. You and I share something in common. But Last Night on Earth is a good game where the stories are memorable. I still remember KF our priest suicidal bombing run into a train of Zombies trying to enter the mansion over six months ago!!! Try Asking me about the Le Havre game I played on Saturday six months from now.

written by Chris \\ tags: Boardgames, Game Collection, Play Statistics, Stories

In my very first Board Game Purge Post, I said I was listed as owning 270 games in the BGG Database.

Back then, and still today, that number is actually fairly padded because a lot of expansions, and add-on’s etc. are listed in that number as well.

I’ve just closed off 2008, and I checked my profile. I have 262 games listed as owned…

So, all the games I’ve sold, I’ve managed to drop only 8 games lower in the database. I’m not quite sure I understand why. I know my shelves are noticeably more thinned out. Did I add that many expansions?

I know I did add about 6 more Age of Steam expansions this year. Which manage to fit in the Age of Steam box. So that’s part of the number. Most of those are really just sheets of paper.

I only made two major game orders this year, the first being in February, the last being in December. I did pick up two games at BGG.con, Battlestar Galactica and Galaxy Trucker.

Aside from that, I have not added any games, each of the game orders was about 8 or 9 games maybe. So with all I sold at Tennessee Games Day, along with all I sold at BGG.con, I’m not exactly sure where they all came from…

I still need to go through my profile and make sure my owneds actually match up with what I have I think.

Anyway, I’ll still be on a purge goal next year I think, though I’m not sure there’s very much chaff I can cut anymore, I feel fairly bare right now.

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

I posted a geeklist with my BGG.con Experience. I don’t want to duplicate that here, so if you’re interested, head on over: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/36959

As far as pictures. I took the camera and snapped a few, I don’t have them loaded in yet. But I will soon, and I’ll attach them to this post.

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG.con, Boardgames, Play Statistics