2009 Games Summary

I managed to hit the one-game-per-day threshold just barely this year. Gaming with the kids has continued to progress, and that's allowed us to start hosting more gaming. Hopefully, lots more in 2010. There's still lots of good gaming at lunch at work, though my personal amount of play has gone down a bit. Race and Dominion dominated again, and overall another good year of gaming.

My kids are great gamers. My 5-year-old now plays real games, and is beginning to learn some actual tactics, and my 3-year-old finally has enough patience for an extended (ie 20 minute) game. Non-kids' games successfully played with kids include: Quoridor, Twixt, Zig Zag, Chess, Pitch Car, Pingvinas, Blokus Trigon, Dvonn, and a variety of others, focused on abstracts.


Overall Stats

• 365 Games Played
• 44% at home (family & guests)
  
• 15% at work
• 22% regular gaming group
• 12% "events" (eg, Unity Games)
  
• 7% other friends' homes
  
• 192 different Titles
• 141 days with at least one game played
  
• 54 new-to-me games played
• Gamed with 162 different people
• 33 new games or expansions acquired
  

Top Games

• 44 games of Race for the Galaxy
  
• 43 games of Dominion
• 9 games of Electronic Catchphrase
• 8 games of Connect Four
• 7 games of Viva Topo!
• 6 games of Loopin' Louie
• 5 games of Quoridor
• 5 games of The Adventurers
• 5 games of Go Away Monster!

New Games

The kids' game success of the year was clearly Viva Topo! which I picked up at Danger Planet when they had their store closing clearance. It's a nice push your luck race game, which is a mechanic that works well with kids.

Among the adult games, only the expansions for Race and Dominion really stand out. Three Commandments, The Adventurers, Ghost Stories and At the Gates of Loyang were all very good, but none are breakout hits.

Ten Years of Games

I have been tracking the games I play now for 10 years. I tracked games some in '97, '98 and '99, but didn't start keeping really good records until 2000. In this past decade, I played:

• 4480 games: 1.2 games/day
• 1060 titles: 2 new titles/week
• 1267 different days: 2.4 days/week
• with 977 different people: 8 new people/month

Top People

Of the top ten people (by number of games played) my wife and daughter are #1 and #10. Of the remaining eight, two (FR & ET) are folks I game with every month, two are people I've gamed with many times a year for the entire decade (RS & SD) and four are four are people who I gamed with a lot and then they moved away.

Top Games

The following 30 games got 20 or more plays in the decade:

100+: Electronic Catchphrase, Race for the Galaxy, Crokinole

50+: Dominion, Call My Bluff, Speed

40+: Battle Line, 6 nimmt!, Geister, Spin Ball, Can't Stop

30+: For Sale, Zirkus Flohcati, Apples to Apples, Light Speed, Loopin' Louie, Trans America, Knockabout

20+: Pente, Ra, Carcassonne, Puerto Rico, Go Away Monster!, Blue Moon, Hick Hack in Gacklewack, Werewolf, Heroscape, Flinke Pinke, San Juan, Princes of Florence

A few games that didn't make the 20 plays threshold, but deserve mention from this decade, for me: Descent, Traumfabrik, Vinci, Fiese Freunde Fette Feten, RoboRally, Power Grid, Schnaeppchen Jagd, Goa, Battlestations, Medici, Fresh Fish & Medina.

Every Year

Only four games got played every year of the decade, because well, a lot of great games came out during the past decade. Those four are Igel Argern, Can't Stop, 6 nimmt! and Ra. A bunch of games managed to hit 9/10 years though: Medici, Knockabout, Crokinole, Basari, Battle Line, Call my Bluff, Lord of the Rings, For Sale, Zirkus Flohcati, Speed, Electronic Catchphrase & Apples to Apples.

Year-by-year breakdown

Year    Games   New     Diff    Ses     Ppl
1997     ~30
1998    ~100
1999    ~150     63
2000     301    112     141     126     129
2001     712    172     266     175     165
2002     650    161     279     163     241
2003     552    128     272     129     180
2004     470     80     212     112     216
2005     429     92     208     124     236
2006     365     84     205      83     216
2007     256     73     153      78     170
2008     370     66     168     140     159
2009     365     54     192     141     162