Sixty-One in Sixteen!

Last year in January, I saw a ton of people posting #51in15, as boardgamers rushed to play as many different games as they could.

And I get that - I do.

But it's thinking like that that has people playing Fluxx or Miskatonic School for Girls.

I know the drive to play is strong. And it's an important one for those of us who self-identify as gamers. But "play anything anyone sets in front of me to hit an arbitrary quota" is not the way to do it.

I would rather play a game that I like six times than six different mediocre games.

Last year, I played just over 70 unique games, and many of those games were ... okay.

Some of them were good games that I enjoy. Starfighter, for example.

Some of them were good games that I don't enjoy. Like Texas Zombies, which my wife (and her writer's group) loves.

Some of them were less-good games that I enjoy. I think Win, Lose, or Banana is the poster child for this one ... it's a terrible game, but it's an absolute blast and I can play it for hours at a time. The same goes for Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre,

And some of them were just terrible games. Word Whimsy, for example.

My goal for the next year is simple:

Play more games I like than games I don't like.

If that means only playing twenty games this year, then I'll only play 20 games this year.

As I'm writing this, I've played twelve unique games so far, and they are all games that I want to play more of.

Yes, I'm going to play some new games this year. And some of them will almost certainly be duds. But I'm going to be working hard at breaking out more old favorites like Alhambra. Or getting actual play out of some of the games that have been on my shelf but haven't hit the table, yet. You know - in case they're undiscovered gems.