Now that 2018 has wrapped up, it's time to look back at some of the highlights of the year as well as at some personal stats. Personal stats are always fun. I know it is well into February now, but there were a lot of stats to compile and rankings to complete! This was the first year I started tracking games, which I did using the BG Stats app. Although it was tough to get used to at first, it is now second nature for me to record plays. For me, I have been recording any game I play regardless of whether it is in person, on an app, or online as long as it is not against AI. So this includes solo plays of games or online games against anonymous players. As an aside, I will be listing a bunch of games below and will be probably posting short posts based on these lists, so keep an eye out for a deeper breakdown of the following lists.
Based on this tracking, I played 1001 games this year. Since I didn't really start tracking until about March, I also did not play much between the start of the year and when I started tracking other than a couple online games of Food Chain Magnate, so it was easy to go back and record these. Towards December, I was sitting around 900 games played, so just to hit that magic number I had to add in some extra solo plays of Ganz Schon Clever and Noch Mal via the app and just got there. There were 102 different games I played, and because this was the first year of tracking, 102 of these games were "new" to my tracking.
My H-Index was 18. What an H-Index refers to is "N" number of games played "N" numbers of times, which in my case means I played 18 games at least 18 times. These are the games that made up the list, with the number of times played:
I know I said that later on there would be a breakdown on some of these lists, but I also would like to just provide a few quick thoughts. Ganz Schon Clever was a breakout roll-and-write game this year, being nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres. When the app came out I was instantly engulfed by the game, evident by being the only game to have over 100 plays, and by a long shot as well (although I did play the physical version a couple times as well). Noch Mal, another app that I played a lot solo, was a distant second at 97 and not able to crack 100, but far ahead of the game in the bronze position, Takenoko. I have already reviewed Takenoko and even though it was not the most favorable review, it is my most played online game with 36 plays. Finally, Welcome To..., another game that I reviewed, was the only physical game I played to break into the H-Index with 20 plays, which is quite a feat and shows how enjoyable this game is. Finally, some other notable games were Food Chain Magnate, The Great Zimbabwe, and The Voyages of Marco Polo, which were tied for the most played heavy game at 24 plays each. Just to note, two of these are Splotter Spellen games, who are quickly becoming one of my favourite publishers.
This year, I took a look at the Top 3800 games on BoardGameGeek. Of these, I played 239, which is 113 more than last year! I also want to play 667 of these, which is a lot more than the 386 from last year. Because of this, I have put together an updated Top 150 Games of All-Time which I will start posting as soon as I finish last year's list (I'm very slow). There are 42 new games in my Top 100 this year, which also means that 42 games dropped out from last year's list, including 19 that dropped out of the Top 150 completely. I also have 27 other new games that are in the #101-#150 spots. Because of all the new games I played this year, almost doubling the previous year's total, a lot of change is expected in the Top 100 and I expect things to settle down next year. There were no returning games to my Top 100, likely as well due to the the large influx of new games.
The highest debut belonged to Gaia Project and if you know what my favourite game is, it probably won't take long to figure out where this game will end up. It is an amazing reimplementation of Terra Mystica with an excellent space theme and the technology tracks are sublime. A couple notable jumps were A Few Acres of Snow (+25) and 7 Wonders (+19). Although initially I was not enamored with A Few Acres of Snow, it has grown on me over the years and being able to play it a few times on Yucata helped to really convince me how good it is. I don't know what the broken strategy is and I don't intend to find out. 7 Wonders also climbed up quite a bit thanks to the new app and the game being released on BoardGameArena. Similar to A Few Acres of Snow, when 7 Wonders came out, I did not like it at at all. However, I really liked 7 Wonders: Duel so when the app came out for 7 Wonders, I went back and discovered why this drafting game is so good.
The biggest drop was Twilight Imperium, but that was mostly due to me deciding that it's been too long since my last partial game for me to really say that I have played it. Other notable drops include Takenoko (-88), Kingdomino (-75), Forbidden Desert, (-71), Ticket to Ride (-70), and Caylus (-70). It is quite interesting that one of the biggest drops was Takenoko, even though it was my most played non-app game. The other big drops I think might be anomalies because when I look at the titles, they are all very solid games and perhaps they will climb back up next year, especially Ticket to Ride.
I will also put together a list of the Top 150 Games I Want to Play this year. In my Top 100, there are 49 new games, which makes sense considering 26 dropped out and I was able to play 23 from the previous year. The biggest jump was Brass: Birmingham, which is easy to explain since I love Brass: Lancashire. Other big jumps included Trajan (+61), War of the Ring (+44), Spirit Island (+43), and Here I Stand (+43). The big jump for Trajan may be heavily influenced by the fact that I was learning how to play Trajan at the time I ranked the games, so although I had not played it yet, it was fresh in my mind and the rondel mechanic was very interesting.
The biggest drop was The Princes of Florence, with other notable drops being Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases (-72) and Vinhos (-70). For The Princes of Florence, it is a classic game that has always ranked very high and I also own this game, but other than that I don't really know anything about this game so that is likely why it has dropped off. Sherlock Holmes dropped mostly because even though it is highly ranked, the more I hear about it the more I feel like the reading aspect does not appeal as much to me and that there are other puzzle-solving games that I would rather play, such as Chronicles of Crime or escape room games. Finally, I was a bit surprised that Vinhos dropped so much, but other Vital Lacerda games rose such as The Gallerist and Lisboa and the winery theme feels repetitive having played Viticulture already.
On this list there were also a few returning games. Last Will reappeared after a few Top 100 lists featured this game and I'm not sure why it left as the theme has always sounded like a lot of fun. Grand Austria Hotel was originally on the list because it had an interesting theme and that always appealing Klemens Franz art, but dropped off probably because I did not know what the game was about. Well, after learning it was from one of the designers of Tzolk'in and The Voyages of Marco Polo, it jumped right back up, plus it broke into the Top 100 on BoardGameGeek. Finally, Fugitive and Russian Railroads are just games that came back due to recent reviews peaking my interest.
Anyway, as mentioned earlier I will summarize more of my thoughts on some of these lists on future posts, but for now I just wanted to say that this has been a record year that probably won't be matched again. Discovering some of these websites for playing games online has allowed me to play more games than ever, including some that I probably wouldn't have had time for in real life or would perhaps never consider playing in the first place. I think my Top 100 will start settling down in 2019 as there won't be such a big influx of new games. Hopefully I will be able to continue my streak of playing the #1 game from my Want To Play list each year.
Based on this tracking, I played 1001 games this year. Since I didn't really start tracking until about March, I also did not play much between the start of the year and when I started tracking other than a couple online games of Food Chain Magnate, so it was easy to go back and record these. Towards December, I was sitting around 900 games played, so just to hit that magic number I had to add in some extra solo plays of Ganz Schon Clever and Noch Mal via the app and just got there. There were 102 different games I played, and because this was the first year of tracking, 102 of these games were "new" to my tracking.
My H-Index was 18. What an H-Index refers to is "N" number of games played "N" numbers of times, which in my case means I played 18 games at least 18 times. These are the games that made up the list, with the number of times played:
Most Played Games (H-Index = 18)
1. Ganz Schon Clever (142)
2. Noch Mal (97)
3. Takenoko (32)
4. Can't Stop (26)
5. Food Chain Magnate (24)
5. The Great Zimbabwe (24)
5. The Voyages of Marco Polo (24)
6. Innovation (23)
6. Troyes (23)
7. Agricola (22)
7. Puerto Rico (22)
8. The Castles of Burgundy (21)
8. In the Year of the Dragon (21)
8. Tokaido (21)
9. Hive (20)
9. Tzolk'in (20)
9. Welcome To... (20)
10. 7 Wonders (19)
11. Concordia (18)
11. Race for the Galaxy (18)
I know I said that later on there would be a breakdown on some of these lists, but I also would like to just provide a few quick thoughts. Ganz Schon Clever was a breakout roll-and-write game this year, being nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres. When the app came out I was instantly engulfed by the game, evident by being the only game to have over 100 plays, and by a long shot as well (although I did play the physical version a couple times as well). Noch Mal, another app that I played a lot solo, was a distant second at 97 and not able to crack 100, but far ahead of the game in the bronze position, Takenoko. I have already reviewed Takenoko and even though it was not the most favorable review, it is my most played online game with 36 plays. Finally, Welcome To..., another game that I reviewed, was the only physical game I played to break into the H-Index with 20 plays, which is quite a feat and shows how enjoyable this game is. Finally, some other notable games were Food Chain Magnate, The Great Zimbabwe, and The Voyages of Marco Polo, which were tied for the most played heavy game at 24 plays each. Just to note, two of these are Splotter Spellen games, who are quickly becoming one of my favourite publishers.
This year, I took a look at the Top 3800 games on BoardGameGeek. Of these, I played 239, which is 113 more than last year! I also want to play 667 of these, which is a lot more than the 386 from last year. Because of this, I have put together an updated Top 150 Games of All-Time which I will start posting as soon as I finish last year's list (I'm very slow). There are 42 new games in my Top 100 this year, which also means that 42 games dropped out from last year's list, including 19 that dropped out of the Top 150 completely. I also have 27 other new games that are in the #101-#150 spots. Because of all the new games I played this year, almost doubling the previous year's total, a lot of change is expected in the Top 100 and I expect things to settle down next year. There were no returning games to my Top 100, likely as well due to the the large influx of new games.
The highest debut belonged to Gaia Project and if you know what my favourite game is, it probably won't take long to figure out where this game will end up. It is an amazing reimplementation of Terra Mystica with an excellent space theme and the technology tracks are sublime. A couple notable jumps were A Few Acres of Snow (+25) and 7 Wonders (+19). Although initially I was not enamored with A Few Acres of Snow, it has grown on me over the years and being able to play it a few times on Yucata helped to really convince me how good it is. I don't know what the broken strategy is and I don't intend to find out. 7 Wonders also climbed up quite a bit thanks to the new app and the game being released on BoardGameArena. Similar to A Few Acres of Snow, when 7 Wonders came out, I did not like it at at all. However, I really liked 7 Wonders: Duel so when the app came out for 7 Wonders, I went back and discovered why this drafting game is so good.
The biggest drop was Twilight Imperium, but that was mostly due to me deciding that it's been too long since my last partial game for me to really say that I have played it. Other notable drops include Takenoko (-88), Kingdomino (-75), Forbidden Desert, (-71), Ticket to Ride (-70), and Caylus (-70). It is quite interesting that one of the biggest drops was Takenoko, even though it was my most played non-app game. The other big drops I think might be anomalies because when I look at the titles, they are all very solid games and perhaps they will climb back up next year, especially Ticket to Ride.
I will also put together a list of the Top 150 Games I Want to Play this year. In my Top 100, there are 49 new games, which makes sense considering 26 dropped out and I was able to play 23 from the previous year. The biggest jump was Brass: Birmingham, which is easy to explain since I love Brass: Lancashire. Other big jumps included Trajan (+61), War of the Ring (+44), Spirit Island (+43), and Here I Stand (+43). The big jump for Trajan may be heavily influenced by the fact that I was learning how to play Trajan at the time I ranked the games, so although I had not played it yet, it was fresh in my mind and the rondel mechanic was very interesting.
The biggest drop was The Princes of Florence, with other notable drops being Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases (-72) and Vinhos (-70). For The Princes of Florence, it is a classic game that has always ranked very high and I also own this game, but other than that I don't really know anything about this game so that is likely why it has dropped off. Sherlock Holmes dropped mostly because even though it is highly ranked, the more I hear about it the more I feel like the reading aspect does not appeal as much to me and that there are other puzzle-solving games that I would rather play, such as Chronicles of Crime or escape room games. Finally, I was a bit surprised that Vinhos dropped so much, but other Vital Lacerda games rose such as The Gallerist and Lisboa and the winery theme feels repetitive having played Viticulture already.
On this list there were also a few returning games. Last Will reappeared after a few Top 100 lists featured this game and I'm not sure why it left as the theme has always sounded like a lot of fun. Grand Austria Hotel was originally on the list because it had an interesting theme and that always appealing Klemens Franz art, but dropped off probably because I did not know what the game was about. Well, after learning it was from one of the designers of Tzolk'in and The Voyages of Marco Polo, it jumped right back up, plus it broke into the Top 100 on BoardGameGeek. Finally, Fugitive and Russian Railroads are just games that came back due to recent reviews peaking my interest.
Anyway, as mentioned earlier I will summarize more of my thoughts on some of these lists on future posts, but for now I just wanted to say that this has been a record year that probably won't be matched again. Discovering some of these websites for playing games online has allowed me to play more games than ever, including some that I probably wouldn't have had time for in real life or would perhaps never consider playing in the first place. I think my Top 100 will start settling down in 2019 as there won't be such a big influx of new games. Hopefully I will be able to continue my streak of playing the #1 game from my Want To Play list each year.
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