Year In Review:
2011 Review
Review – 2011
This Year Was… …:
2011 has been a tremendously hectic year. A change in career, working part-time, settling in to family life and of course, boardgaming in 2011 which (unlike the other short term hobbies I used to have) has made me level up in the mastery of boardgame geekness.
Fluffy Level Up
Without further ado, the following is the summary for my gaming goodness of 2011:
The year that was... ...
There are some plays that went unrecorded such as the Hari Raya gaming at BGN Puchong but this is pretty much all of it. All in all it appears that I played 3.6 games a month or just shy of one a week which is a definite increase over my 9 games recorded for the entirety of 2010. However I don't expect to sustain this increase in the coming 2012, if anything boardgaming will have to be cutback a little due to life commitments in the coming year.
Some surprises to me in terms of number of plays I managed to squeeze in were games like Glory To Rome (until I realized that we had a six game marathon in a single day) as well as Hansa Teutonica considering that it is a somewhat older game but proving my point that the gameplay mechanics just does not get old despite the somewhat thin theme.
I am somewhat disappointed that I could not get in more plays for Troyes and Dungeon Lords during the year considering that I personally find both these games to be one of the gems of my collection. Unfortunately I will have trouble finding game time for Troyes because one of my gaming group members prefers to stay away from it.
Also I've finally figured out what the heck "Fives & Dimes" means, it basically translates to games you've played at least "five or ten times". I was a bit embarrassed that none of my games has hit the milestone of ten times and decided to exclude this segment from this year's review.
New Games I Bought:
I bought/received as gifts/threatened with violence (kidding) a total of 13 new boardgames in 2011. Compared to others I know 13 seems to be a pretty small number but it represents a 81% increase in my collection from 2010. And although my collection seems small at 29 games (6 of which are expansions), I have already encountered every boardgamer's space/time conundrum of not having enough shelf space for everything you own.
The following is a list of my acquisitions of 2011:
- 7 Wonders
- Agricola + Expansion: Agricola Gamer's Deck (Gift from siblings)
- Alien Frontiers
- Belfort
- Bohnanza (Gift from Cell Members)
- Chronicle (Gift from Cell Members)
- Citadels + Expansion: Dark City (Gift copy from BGC)
- Eminent Domain
- For Sale
- Glory To Rome
- Race For The Galaxy Expansions: The Brink Of War & The Gathering Storm
- Through The Ages: A Story Of Civilization
- Troyes
From my purchasing habits, I realize that my initial purchases tend to be well established games that are within the top 100 ranking on boardgamegeek. That's probably why you don't see any game reviews that I do with poor comments & ratings. I guess my disposable income is not at the level where I can afford to just splash out my hard earned Ringgits on games that I have not done any research on or are not tried and tested by the gaming community out there. However, towards the end of 2011, I have taken a leap of faith with games by Tasty Minstrel Games in particular such as Belfort (which is already proving to be a sound purchase), Eminent Domain and being part of the kickstarter for Kings Of Air And Steam.
New People I Played Games With This Year:
My regular gaming group hasn't changed, Da Panda, Milo & Mo are still the people who are most obliging towards entertaining their deranged older brother in his somewhat time consuming hobby. However 2011 has seen me get to know a whole lot of gamers through BGN Puchong as well as my occasional jaunt to OTK Cheras (okay twice in a year is probably not occasional) plus the one time I introduced simple boardgaming at my Cell Retreat.
It has been a great pleasure to actually get to sit down and play a game with people like JY, Kareem, Samson, Nicolas, Melchor, Jeanne, Joshua, Dwolve, John, Wai Yan, my cell guys & gals and not least of all, my wife. Those epic moments of boardgaming in my life are attributed to these great people and it has been great to be able to get to know you.
Preach it little baby!
Closing Thoughts On 2011:
2011 has been a great year, a blessed year and indeed a year of goodness. Here's one toast to the year that was, and another to the year that cometh, may 2012 be that year that makes your life different.
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