inconsequential ruminations

Almost every other boardgames blogger has done a year review, so I had better not be left behind. Looking at the Five and Dime lists at Spielfreiks and rec.games.board, I get a real feeling of gaming inferiority. How do these people get to play so many games? On top of my work, sport, friends and family I can only squeeze in a few hours a week.

My gaming year has been wrapped up in this blog. I started it around Christmas 2003. After two blogging software fiascos, I have ended up with WordPress, and I am very happy with it. It just works. I am enjoying the boardgames blogging scene in general. Much more signal and less noise than anywhere else.

It is interesting to see how Spielfreiks and rec.games.board have gone downhill this year, as people have flooded to the Geek. In the last six months of 2003, Spielfrieks had 10,375 messages. The last six months of 2004 had 5,849. I do not know how rec.games.board has performed in comparison, but I get the impression it has been damaged less than Spielfreiks. I suspect Spielfriek’s accidental change to a private group, making subscription harder, has caused some of this decline. However, the main reason has been the quality of the tools for discussion at the Geek. GeekJournals, GeekLists and discussion at individual game entries have taken over. I would like to think blogs have had an impact, but I doubt it.

From a personal viewpoint, my own gaming group has suffered as my most enthusiastic local gaming friend has left town. On the other hand, every few months I get to go to visit my friend Michael and play all the latest games. He is always ahead of the curve. It is a longish drive, but worth it for tough competition and good company.

Were far more games released in 2004 than before? It certainly seems that way. I have always been amazed at how many games are released onto the market, but last year’s Essen was unbelievable. I would be fascinated to see statistics of the numbers of games released at Nuremberg and Essen combined over the years. Since I started in the hobby, only in 2000, releases seem to have escalated exponentially.

Onto the games I discovered this year:

Hits
It was a good year for big games. More importantly, it was also a good year for Play-By-Web and Play-By-Email. Overall, Age of Steam is my Game of the Year.

• Puerto Rico Expansion: Every Puerto Rico owner should get a copy.
• Cosmic Eidex: My current favourite three-player card game. Full of options to explore.
• Tichu: My current favourite four-player card and partnership game. Any game my wife enjoys, I enjoy.
• Die Macher: Big and beautiful.
• Elfenland: I am sure this will be a winner for my entire group.
• Age of Steam: My proudest win of the year was PBeM against four experienced Age of Steam players, on only my second game.
• War of the Ring: I still cannot decide if this is fatally flawed or a work of genius. I suspect flawed genius.
• Wizard Kings: Although theme lets this down, overall I think this is a better game than War of the Ring. There are currently big debates about the future shape of the rules. It will be interesting to see how things turn out.
• Twixt: Definitely my favourite abstract, although Dvonn is another good discovery. I love how much action is squeezed into so few moves. Excellent at Little Golem.

Misses
Light and middleweight games suffered. I think I am getting a little jaded.

• Executive Decision: Too slow, but could be developed into an excellent modern German game.
• Bang: Fun the first two times, but after that, it choked.
• Ivanhoe: My group decided to adopt this as their favourite game, partly because I was bored of it. That is how to guarantee games nights go down in frequency…

I aim to consolidate my collection. I want to weed out the average games and bring in stronger replacements, or serious classics. There is no space for mediocrity – that sounds almost like David Brent. I might try the Board Game Geek’s new trade manager. It is a pity I cannot search British traders only.

Games I plan to buy

• San Juan
• Torres
• El Grande

2004 was a good year. I love gaming and have no intention of stopping soon.