The Last Year In Gaming

I meant to do this earlier in the year, but I wanted to take a look at how my gaming habits have changed since 2011.

Top Ten Played Games for The Duke BGG from 1 Jan 2011 through 1 Jan 2012
  1. The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game 32
  2. King of Tokyo 23
  3. Race for the Galaxy 23
  4. Elder Sign 21
  5. Rune Age 20
  6. Quarriors! 14
  7. Hive 10
  8. Thunderstone: Dragonspire 10
  9. Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin 9
  10. Archaeology: The Card Game 7
Top Ten Played Games for The Duke BGG from 1 Jan 2011 through 1 Jan 2012
  1. The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game 63
  2. Thunderstone: Dragonspire 59
  3. Pandemic 26
  4. Archaeology: The Card Game 18
  5. Shuuro 17
  6. Nightfall 15
  7. Descent: The Road to Legend 14
  8. Lord of the Rings 14
  9. Summoner Wars 12
  10. Warhammer: Invasion 12

Total for 2011 = 434 Total for 2012 = 318

Okay, so there are some major differences. Firstly lets address the difference in total games played. This number is over 100 games smaller, this was mostly due to me moving away from my primary play group. This has also meant that the number of games I’m playing for reviews has been reduced.

My most played game in both years has remained the same, however, what the figures don't show is that that is mostly solo plays. Thunderstone, the second most played game has dropped to 8th position, even if you add in the plays for TS Advance it would still only rank 6th.

This year marked my first real foray into tablet gaming, I haven’t logged those plays, but that experience brought Elder Sign to my attention and as we can see it has replaced Pandemic as the co-op of choice. Personally I still prefer Pandemic as I find Elder Sign, overall, a bit too easy. Also we can see here that Rune Age has replaced Thunderstone as our deck builder of choice. This is actually due to my little brother. Because Rune Age uses a smaller fixed set of cards he is able to play almost totally unaided, where as Thunderstone’s random mix of cards presents too much text for him to really join in.

The final noticeable entry is Race for the Galaxy, this is one of my favourite games to play with my friend Sam (UK Settlers Champion) and with Kevin (from Kevin & Games). I think all the logged sessions above come from the 4 or 5 times we met up last year, so if we saw each other more often I think RFTG would have easily been in the running for top spot.

Overall I’m buying and playing fewer games, yes, I’m a little burned out and I’ve also been quite busy, but I feel I’ve reached a stage where I’m happy with the number and selection of games I have and the drive to buy more is just not as prevalent (although Paul at Board Game Guru might tell a different story!). 

My predictions for next years list are:

  • Thunderstone will drop out of the top ten
  • LOTR LCG will remain in the top ten but drop from first
  • Rune Age and King of Tokyo will remain in the top ten
  • X-Wing and Descent 2nd Edition will both enter the top ten
  • There will be one game in the top ten that is not even on my radar yet

Okay, that’s it. I may be off for the next two weeks as I organise my move back up north but that means I should be back with full reviews as of April.

Until then, have fun gaming!

Chris

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