Play2Relax

Boardgamegeek.com turns 10!

January 22 was the 10th anniversary of the opening of boardgamegeek.com, the greatest boardgaming site in the known multiverse.

I owe this site a great debt of gratitude. While Settlers of Catan may have sparked an interest in eurogames, it was the geek that reninvigorated my love of gaming and connected me to my gaming group, where I have not only had a crapload of fun, but I have made some great friends, lifelong friends.

I don’t even remember how I first heard about the site, but I had only been a registered user for a few months before someone in a local game group had contacted me and invited me to come check out the next meeting. Here’s where I posted about that very first experience with the Fresno gamers.

I guess I could say that I spend way too much time on the geek, but screw that! I spend exactly the right amount of time on the geek. It’s awesome. It’s free, but I choose to contribute a bit of money each year because it’s something I use almost daily. It’s more than worth it.

Here’s what boardgamegeek is all about, as per their wiki page:

BoardGameGeek is an online board gaming resource and community. The site is updated on a real-time basis by its large and still growing user base, making the ‘Geek the largest and most up-to-date place to get gaming information! There is no charge to become a registered member of BGG, although you are certainly encouraged to help improve the site by adding your own reviews and thoughts on games to the existing database!

There are reviews, ratings, images, play-aids, translations, and session reports from board game geeks across the world, as well as live discussion forums. In addition, every day nearly a hundred game trades pass through the hands of registered members, as well as transactions in the marketplace. If you are new to the site and are wondering where to begin, you might start with the Guide to BoardGameGeek.

Start wherever you want. The geek is the place to go for all your boardgaming needs. When you get there, register, and look for user gameguythinks. If you are already registered, then put that 10th anniversary microbadge up and display it proudly!

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2009 in Review

According to the data at boardgamegeek.com, I played games 626 times in 2009. I played a game about 52 times each month, which isn’t bad at all considering these are almost all played face-to-face with other gamers. I think I played five games online at BrettspielWelt, maybe less than that. I played 235 different games over the course of the year, and more than half of those games were new to me. I cannot imagine that will be the case in 2010. November was the worst month for gaming at only 25 plays and August was a total game fest at 89 plays. 2009 was my first complete year where I was really involved in the hobby, so I’m curious to see how things change over time.

My friend, Mark Jackson, compiles a list of five and dimes for the gaming community. These are games that have gotten at least five or ten plays throughout the year. This is the first year I’ve participated, so here are my lists.

First the dimes:

• [20] Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age
• [19] Vs. System
• [15] World of Warcraft Trading Card Game
• [14] Cheese Snatching
• [13] Escalation!
• [12] Finito!
• [12] Ra: The Dice Game
• [11] Duck, Duck, Bruce
• [10] Big Points
• [10] Crokinole
• [10] Harry’s Grand Slam Baseball Game

Now the fives:

• [9] For Sale
• [9] Monopoly Deal Card Game
• [8] Cities
• [8] Hop Hop Hurray!
• [7] Archaeology: The Card Game
• [7] Cheeky Monkey
• [7] Mow
• [7] Rat-a-Tat Cat
• [7] Sushizock im Gockelwok
• [6] Battleline
• [6] Hive
• [6] Power Grid
• [6] Race for the Galaxy
• [6] Tier auf Tier
• [5] Blink
• [5] Can’t Stop
• [5] Hey! That’s My Fish!
• [5] Lord of the Rings – The Confrontation: Deluxe Edition
• [5] Make ‘n’ Break
• [5] Marrakesh
• [5] Sleeping Queens

Looking back on my lists, I think the biggest surprise is just how many games have an exclamation mark in their title. I wonder if that’s normal for board game titles, or if I am somehow drawn to games with an exclamation point. Come to think of it, I have included an exclamation point in the title of the game I’m designing, so maybe I am drawn to them.

New additions to the dime list will be Piece o’ Cake and Keltis: Der Weg der Steine, if the last few weeks are any indication of the rest of the year. Both Power Grid and For Sale will stay in the fives, I think. Cheese Snatching and Hop, Hop, Hurray! will also be in the list somewhere. Everything else is anyone’s guess.

2009 was a rough year in many ways, but I really do think that being able to play games regularly helped me get through the tough spots. I plan on playing just as much, or even more in 2010.

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Funagain gives profits to Haiti

Online game retailer funagain.com is donating 100% of its net profits from all in-stock orders placed on Friday, January 15, 2010 to AmeriCares (www.americares.org) an organization involved in providing much needed medical care and relief for the the people of Haiti.

I think it’s a nice opportunity to pick up a great boardgame that you can sit down and play with family and friends. I was playing some games last night with my wife and a good friend, thinking how lucky I am to be able to do so.

You can also donate directly to AmeriCares.

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