500 games

This past weekend, I hit the 500 mark for games played this year.
There was some discussion of people's current games for the year on href=http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spielfrieks/>spielfrieks, and I
thought I'd include my post here.

Games played: 502
Different Games Played: 216
New to me games: 120
Number of people played with: 187

While there are some games I enjoy a great deal, what I really enjoy
is variety. Despite this, I've already hit 10+ and 5+ for many games
this year, though a great many games that have been played once (131)
or twice (42).

The games marked with *'s are the "few or no plays before this year"
games.

My 10+ list so far: Geister*, SpinBall, TransAmerica*,
Electronic Catchphrase, Crokinole, Call my Bluff.

My 5+ list so far: Knockabout, For Sale, Hamster Rolle*, Industrial
Waste*, Puerto Rico*, 6 nimmt!, Pente, Zirkus Flohcati, Alles im
Eimer*,
Hick Hack in Gacklewack, LOTR:TC*, Battle Line, Mause Rallye*,
Pueblo*,
Speed.

But, I've decided I personally like Joe Huber's "happiness" number
better than just the straight number of plays. By that metric my top
games for the year:

1. Puerto Rico (8 plays)
   
2. TransAmerica (17 plays)
   
3. SpinBall (24 plays)
   
4. Lord of the Rings (4 plays)
   
5. Industrial Waste (8 plays)
   
6. 6 nimmt! (7 plays)
   
7. Crokinole (15 plays)
   
8. Traders of Genoa (2 plays)
   
9. Electronic Catchprase (16 plays)
   
10. Geister (31 plays)
    
    
    
    
    
11. Battle Line (5 plays)
    
12. Call my Bluff (10 plays)
    
13. LOTR:TC (6 plays)
    
14. Pente (7 plays)
    
15. Code 777 (3 plays)
    
16. Pueblo (5 plays)
    
17. Euphrat & Tigris (2 plays)
    
18. Medina (2 plays)
    
19. Haste Worte? (3 plays)
    
20. Hamster Rolle (8 plays)
    

where I expect Lord of the Rings will go up once I get the Sauron
expansion, I expect LOTR:TC will hit 10 plays, and I hope to play a
little more E&T. Puerto Rico will probably remain at the top.

This year, I've been good at TransAmerica, For Sale, and Puerto Rico,
while I've been less skilled at Alles im Eimer, Hick Hack in
Gacklewack and Zirkus Flohcati.

Squint

I decided to pick up the new game "Squint" from Out of the Box this
past weekend, and got to play a few games. I was reasonably pleased.
The very basic idea is Pictionary-like with cards with various
squiggles, circles and lines which you have to use to "draw"
with. There are three difficulty levels and you determine each time
which to use by a die roll. After a couple of games this way, we
found the hardest ones were the most enjoyable, so we played with just
those, and that works very well. Next time, I may use the variation
of allowing the person who is "drawing" to do any or all of the words
on the card. That way, they can go conservative and do the easier one
for fewer points or the harder one, or try to get multiple one's
guessed.

Overall, as a party game, very solid.

ABCNews article

ABC News
href=http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/hobbies020903.html>
has a story on obsessive hobbyists, and includes a bit on the
associate dean of the Rice school of engineering, Tony Elam, who is an avid
(>4000 games) board game collector. He likes Puerto Rico.