125 Different Games Played in 2013!
As we dive into a new year, I love to look back over the board games, card games, and party games I’ve played during the past year.
For 2013, I’ve played 125 different games!
My best family gaming buddy for 2013 has definitely been Caleb – our 10 year old son. He’s always ready and willing to play. And he’s also very agreeable to learning new games all the time. He sees a new game arrive and he’s all over it – “Let’s play!”
Thanks to BoardGameGeek.com as well as the cool app for it, it’s so simple to record which board games I play. After playing a game, I’ll simply click on “Record a Play” and boom, it’s done. Then I can easily pull reports of all sorts to review the games I’ve played.
Most Played Games 2013
By our 2013 mid-year post, we’d played 82 different games and listed which games were on the most-played list so far for the year. So it’s really no surprise that those same games will top the list for the year as a whole as well.
In 2013 we also reviewed a number of expansions to some of our favorite family board games. For the purposes of considering how many different games played, expansions are not counted as different games. Playing Alien Frontiers with the Factions expansion, is still Alien Frontiers (although we definitely recommend the expansion). And mixing in cards from various Dominion expansions, is still best just noted as Dominion.
Here’s the list of my most played board games, card games, and party games in 2013 (ordered by number of plays).
Played 25 times or more:
Dominion is the clear winner for most-played game in 2013 – clocking in at close to 100 plays!
In 2012, Memoir ’44 led the pack. But with more Dominion expansions and the new hit with the boys (Descent), Memoir ’44 dropped from the top spot.
Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) was the big hit from Christmas 2012 and quickly scooped up most of the boy’s and dad’s game playing time. That’s why it’s no surprise Christmas 2013 brought us a Descent expansion – Descent: Journeys in the Dark Labyrinth of Ruin. I fully expect Descent to be on this same list in 2014.
Played 10-24 times:
- Kingdom Builder
- RoboRally
- Escape: The Curse of the Temple
- Sequence
- 7 Wonders
- The Resistance
- Telestrations
Since we just got Telestrations in November, it’s cool to see how quickly it jumped onto our most-played game list with just over 10 plays!
- King of Tokyo
- Risk Legacy
- Tsuro
- Hive
- Ticket to Ride
- Clue
- Alien Frontiers
- Ligretto Dice
- Eternas
- Quanzy
- Timeline: Inventions
- The Resistance: Avalon
- BraveRats – preview coming soon
(Click on the game names above to see our full reviews.)
There are also a lot of games that I’ve only played once in 2013 – 50 to be exact.
Regardless of which game, or how many different games I’ve played, that’s a lot of family together time – I love it!
There may not enough time to do everything we’d like to do but when given the chance, spending time with family will win out.
Family dynamics are always changing. Kids just keep growing and their activities and interests change along the way (jobs, social life).
This year our oldest son will be leaving home. No doubt, that will have a big impact on how we spend our time.
So rather than setting any specific gaming goals (# of games played, reviewed, etc.), my goals are pretty constant – Enjoy time with my family!
There’s never a shortage of fun family board games to play.
I still have plenty of new board games on my “want to play” list. And there are many games on our shelves we haven’t played in a while that I’d like to get to the table. Either way, there’s plenty of fun ahead.
Here’s to 2014!
Happy New Year!
P.S. On second thought, we do have a specific board game goal: Get through Risk Legacy game 15 before Trevor leaves home (currently on game #9).
Dominion was one of our most played this year as well. There are just so many combinations now that you never play the same game twice. Plus the fact that it’s my wife’s favorite game helps get it to the table more often. Now that they aren’t making any more expansions (so they’ve said), I no longer have an easy gift idea for my wife.
I’m impressed by the number of plays you achieved on Descent. That’s not a short game. I had three games that hit over 25 plays last year and two of them were short kids games.
I’ve had the goal to play 100 games the past couple of years (since you first posted on your goal to play 100 games a while back). It’s a fun goal to have for a year. I managed to play 103 different games last year.
Aaron – it has been a pretty fun goal to have. And great job on reaching it!
For Descent I’ve recorded a ‘play’ for each Quest. Our quests typically average and hour. Sometimes we’ll play more than one quest in a row. But mostly they’ll be different days. So for getting through a full Descent Campaign, that will hit 9 plays (9 different game sessions).
Dominion is so addicting to me because I love trying to figure out an optimal path among the variety of card mixes that pop up each time. It’s great your wife loves to play too.
I’d be curious to know of the 50 games you played only once, how many would you play again, how many you really want to play again and how many you never want to see again.
Scott – Looking at the list, only 13 of those 50 games that we’ve only played once during 2013 will I most likely not play again. 37 of the 50 are games that I’ll definitely play again. For example, one is Battlestar Galactica – a long game that’s tougher to get the right group together to play, but we really love it when we do.
I just found this site.I love board and table games.