I continue to track the games that we play each year. Due to busy schedules, COVID bringing caution to a lot of extra social gatherings, and Sharon and I playing a lot more games just after dinner this is the state of things. Skip Bo topped the chart hitting the table more than 48 times (we played it so often I know I didn’t record every play, also we usually play a few games) I’m not the biggest fan of this simple card game, but Sharon sure is and also my mother enjoyed it when I visited over Christmas. Fortunately Skip Bo was not our only go to game and often we would break out Space Base (10) and Roll for the Galaxy (8) both of which were favourites of my regular Tuesday night gaming group.
Sharon and I also enjoyed many roll and writes up at the cottage, they are great to take out on the deck and not worry about pieces blowing away. We get a nice breeze on our deck that keeps the mosquitos away! Lost Cities Roll and Write (14) topped our list of lazy summer days games. The cottage was also where we discovered a cooperative game, Burgle Bros. (4) that Sharon absolutely loves. And to round out the cottage gaming we played a lot of Project L (15) which is a great tetris like game, really simple to explain too. I kinda played that one out, but Sharon still enjoys it.
My Tuesday night group continues to play Rage (34 but I’m sure I missed recording a few) almost every time we get together. This game was such a big hit that one of our gamers had his brother in Austria hunt down a few new copies of the German version of the game. I still think this is the best version in terms of rules. We mostly role play in that group with Forbidden Lands (14) being the current jam for us. We have a bunch more Free League games to get to the table as well.
A surprising entry this year was a dollar store purchase of Downforce (11). There were a bunch of games that Winners offloaded to the Dollar Store chain and folks on the gaming boards were really excited. I managed to snag this and Ishtar which really didn’t grab our attention. Downforce looked a bit too simple but we gave it a try and ended up liking it much more than Formula Dé which was the last race game we really enjoyed.
The only other game that made it to the table a significant amount of times is a new game I kickstarted: Point City (9). From the makers of Point Salad, this is a great filler game. Oh, and there is Auction 45s (9) which we play with our friends Dale and Ady. It is a traditional Euchre variant played on the East Coast (Maritimes and New England).
Overall I played 64 different games this year, it feels like a slow year for gaming, but there was a lot going on. Next year I’m hoping to game a lot more!
