128 Different Games Played in 2012!

Lemming Mafia board game — Here go the lemmings.

What a year for games!

In 2012 we played a ton of different board games, card games, dice games, and party games – 128 to be exact!

That’s a lot of games.

I guess I should clarify that these are games that I, dad, played in 2012. But since most of these games were played with family members though, and they don’t track their game plays, I can say “we”.

At the start of last year I set a goal to play over 100 different games. For each of the 2 previous years, I had played 98 different games. So I set the goal to get over the 100 mark in 2012.

Power Grid board game — So many games, so little time.

Goal accomplished!

We actually hit the 100th game played mark in October and had to keep going. So I threw out a stretch goal of 125 games.

New goal accomplished!

Lots of Family Time
Ok, goals for playing games may sound a little ridiculous. But at least I’ve had a lot of fun with my family and friends. Many people set goals and New Year’s Resolutions for spending more time with family. The way I look at it is that I’m just finding a way to quantify it.

I have to put a “shout out” to BoardGameGeek for providing a great tool to track board game plays. And with the BGG mobile app, it’s even easier. Finish playing a game and click – play recorded. I love numbers and metrics as well, so tracking something like this is another element of fun for me.

Ticket to Ride board game — Have you tried Ticket to Ride?

So how much time did I spend playing games with my family throughout the year? That’s a little tougher to gauge since the amount of time it takes to play a game varies dramatically. A game of Fortune and Glory the Cliffhanger Game or Battlestar Galactica takes a lot more time than a game of City Square Off. In fact, I’d guess that you could play about 30 games of City Square Off in the same amount of time. Either way, if I’m spending 3 hours with my kids, then I’m having a great time.

Along with those 128 different games played, I logged a total of 467 games plays. So whatever time I pick as an average play time, I know that’s a lot of hours spent having fun with family.

It also means that on average I played each game 3.648 times. And we know this is certainly not the case because I definitely have my favorites.

Most Played Games
When I wrote about the mid-year progress toward this goal, I also took a look at which games I had played the most up to that point. So a few of these most-played games for 2012 won’t be a surprise. What is a surprise to me however is that I played 20 games 5 times or more.

Here’s the list of my most played board games, card games, and party games in 2012 (ordered by number of plays).

Memoir '44 board game — How lucky are your dice rolls?

Played 10 times or more:

Confusion board game — Figure out your next move.

Played 5-9 times:

Considering that we just got Descent: Journeys in the Dark for Christmas and we’ve already played it 8 times (almost hit the 10 plays list), you can see how big of a hit it is in our house.

New Goals for 2013

Alien Frontiers board game — Fight for territory control.

How many different games should I shoot for this year?
I’m not sure that’s going to be one of my goals this year. The important thing to me is to spend time with my family. It was a fun goal for 2012, but I don’t think it’s needed this year.

Another goal I set for myself at the start of 2012 was to play more of the games we already had on the game shelf rather than just playing newly published games. And in looking at the list of games played, I feel pretty good with how that’s turned out as well.

Even though we keep culling our game collection, we still own just over 300 games. So there are still plenty of games that didn’t make it to the table in 2012. But that just means that like most New Year’s Resolutions, I can put that goal on my list again for 2013 – playing more of the games that we already have (and love) rather than always adding more. (Mom will be happy with this goal.)

So I think my game goals for 2013 will focus on playing more of the games we love, playing games that we haven’t played for a long time, and playing games that I’ve wanted to try for a long time, but have yet to play (Puerto Rico, Thurn and Taxis, Galaxy Trucker, Agricola, and Acquire).

However 2013 turns out, spending quality time with my family will always be top on my priority list.

Have a great year!