132 Family Board Games Played in 2015!

board game shelf — Lots of fun games played in 2015!

With the start of a new year, it’s time once again to look back on our last year of family board game playing.

And what a great year it’s been!

Looking back, here are a few highlights from our year in board gaming:

We posted 44 family-focused board game, card game, and party game reviews.
We also posted 41 articles related to family board games.
We added more games to our game shelves than any other year.
We recently gave away over 60 games to local families.
And we played 132 different games!

Well, that last one should more accurately be that Dad played that many different games. (Since dad’s the only one in the family that records his board game plays.)

SaltCon Five Tribes board game — Had a blast at SaltCon 2015 with my nephew.

And that number is up just slightly over 2014 when I played 127 different games.

Last March I also spent a couple days playing a ton of games at SaltCon – a local board game convention.

Most Played Games of 2015

For those who visit our site regularly, you may already be able to guess which games will appear on the “most-played games” list.

Here are the 20 board games, card games, and party games I played the most in 2015 (in order of most plays):

Kingdom Builder board game — Kingdom Builder is one of my favorite family board games.

All of the games on this list have been played at least 5 times (with some many more – like Dominion which is way up there).

Favorite Games of 2015

SaltCon Scoville board game — Super cool components and fun game play in Scoville.

You may think the games I played the most might just be my favorite games of the year. While some are, there are plenty of games that I may not have played much during the year but are still games that I had a blast playing.

As I look back, a number of great games stand out. They aren’t all newly published board games during 2015, but they were new to me.

The games I loved playing for the first time this past year are:

Board Gaming Goals for 2016

Christmas board games to play — Still many games waiting to be reviewed.

I typically break my New Years Resolutions down into various categories. That way I can shoot to make improvements a bit each year in multiple aspects of my life. And of course, I’ve also set a board game category for resolutions.

Here are my board gaming goals for 2016:

Play 150 different games.
Finally catch up on the stack of games on our “to review” shelf.
Continue to host a monthly Guys Game Night.
Join in with a local board game store regular game night.
Attend SaltCon again, but this time for all 3 days of super fun game playing.
Attend GenCon!

My “play 150 games” goal doesn’t just include new games. It also includes many older games I haven’t played in the last few years.

Sheriff of Nottingham card game — Our Sheriff of Nottingham review is coming soon!

For my “review games” goal, it means all 30+ games currently on our “to review” shelf will get done before taking on any others. Since we average 1 game review a week, it will take a number of months before we get caught up on these. And this is a tough situation for me because there are a lot of great games I want to tell you about.

But in setting our review schedule, it’s clear to see that it’s just the way it has to be.

The good news about this though is that you’re in for a treat every week!

Because there are a lot of great games waiting on our review shelf.

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Overall Goal

The Board Game Family — Let’s hear it for family time!

As much as I enjoy thinking about doing all the fun game-related things I’d like to do this year, all these goals will be at the mercy of my overall goal to: Keep board game playing in its proper priority.

There’s no doubt I love playing games with my kids. I believe playing games creates great bonding moments and helps us all develop our mental and social skills – no matter our age.

But at their current ages, our kids have a wide variety of interests. And the most important thing I can do as a dad is spend time with them doing what they love.

And most times that will involve things other than games.

It may even be as simple as just sitting around talking instead of playing games. I’m not going to look at that as lost game night opportunities. Instead, I’m going to do better at valuing whatever we’re doing together as the best thing I can do at that moment.

We hope you enjoy setting your New Year’s Resolutions and we wish you all the best in 2016!