Herein lies the musings of a woman who is juggling a full time job, running her business, life, the run-up to the first Christmas she has ever hosted and trying to play her entire board game collection in a month. Strap in guys!
Entry 1
Winter Challenge 2020
Inspired by The Brothers Murph who played their collection in a week, we decided to try and play our whole collection in a month. Now this is 4.5 times longer than a week, but unlike Nick and Mike, we both have full time jobs and haven’t got people making food and setting up games for us!
So the challenge was to play all 87 of our games within a month. Some of these were on the shelf of shame unplayed, so we would have to learn how to play these games too. Many were pretty new too, so we had only played them once or twice, so this made it HARD. We had to play the games properly, we couldn’t skip through and deliberately cut the game short. If there was an option to play a short version though we were allowed to play that. Some of the games needed more than two players, initially we were going to exclude these. But then decided if these were able to be played over zoom then we still had to play them. So the total list was 87 different base games!
So any of you who are quick at maths will realise that we had to play on average 3 games a day to manage this. And we are working full time, I work two jobs, he works one, and we workout 5 times a week. Also sleeping and eating needs to still occur. It was a challenge! I mean everyone I spoke to about it thought we had had a bump on the head to decide to do something this mad.
Our reasons for the challenge
Why are we doing this? Well we thought about it a few times and then started planning to see if we could actually manage it. It will be hard but we reckon if we tried that we could just about squeak over the line. And I love a challenge.
We have bought a lot of games this year since lockdown. We have a games room in our house, and the shelves aren’t full, but we are getting there. So this seemed like a great way to decide on which games make the cut and which needed to be moved on to more loving homes.
I mean if I’m honest, the main reason to do a slightly mad challenge, is always to see if you can! And with the current local restrictions there is not a lot else I can do.
Entry 2
The first week
December so far has been mad for us both workwise. I feel like I have barely had time to turn around each day trying to keep all my plates spinning. So we were not off to the best start. In the first week of the challenge, we managed to only play 7 games. A far cry from the required 21 games to stay on track. To make matters worse, all the games we managed to play were firm favourites too that we didn’t need to read the rules for and could play through quickly.
The 7 games played this week were; Fort, Welcome To, Doppelt Do Clever, Captain Sonar, My City, Star Wars Unlock, 7 Wonders Duel.
Top Three:
Fort
We love deck-builders and this is probably my second favourite (after Hero Realms). This has such a different theme where you are kids in the playground trying to build the best fort and collect pizza and toys. The interesting thing is that any cards you don’t play that turn go out in your yard, where they can be stolen by other players. This greatly affected my play style. I refused to give up my carefully chosen deck to my opponent! Fort is kooky, bright and colourful with great art. Definitely keeping it’s spot in my collection.
Published by Leder Games and plays 2-4 in about 30-50 mins.
Welcome To
This flip and write is in my top 10 games, I love it, so of course this one keeps its spot. During the game you are trying to fill up your neighbourhood with houses that run in ascending or descending order across the three streets. There is added complexity where each number you write in will have some neighbourhood feature associated with it that you may also play. These could be fences, parks, pools, temp agencies and estate agencies trying to fulfill the contracts.
Published by Blue Cocker Games, plays in 20-30 mins and 1-100 players.
7 Wonders Duel
This game gets all the love, and rightly so. This drafting game is sleeker, and by all accounts, a better version of 7 wonders that is optimised for two players. You buy cards to build your engine across 3 ages, to try to win through either militarising your opponent into submission on a tug of war track. Or you can out-science them to win, or else if it comes to the end then the winner is the one with the most victory points. This game is quick enough that you can play a few rounds in a row, and if you lose by a whisker, you will want to play again until you win.
Published by Repos Games, plays in 20-40 mins for 2 players.
More to come soon!
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