I played 54 unique board games this year. Of those, 14 were new to me this year: Imhotep, Just One, Patchwork, Red Rising, Dixit, Shadowrun: Zero Day, Encounters: Shadowrun, Level 7: Omega Protocol, Wavelength, Oath, Race for the Galaxy, Ransom Notes, A Handful of stars, and So You’ve Been Eaten.
Most of these 54 games I just played once, though I played more than a dozen games each of Decrypto and Word Slam (both light party games, Decrypto is a perpetual favorite of mine).
Usually I play through a legacy game, but this year my group didn’t start a new one (what with ‘real life’ and starting families taking precedence). Instead, we mostly focused on lighter games, or one-off story games like T.I.M.E. Stories.
My favorite new game of the year is Just One. My least favorite is Encounters: Shadowrun, which I played once and will likely never play again (the other players felt the same way).
The game I’m most eager to play again is A Handful of Stars, which will probably result in me selling A Few Acres of Snow, as it seems to be a strictly better replacement.
This was the year of party games for me, with lots of plays of Spyfall, Telestrations, Coup, Wavelengths, Welcome To, Dixit, Word Slam, Skull, and Decrypto, and only 2 plays of Scythe, our go-to ‘heavy’ game. Clank, a solid medium-weight got 4 plays, and would have gotten more, except I needed a break, as all four of those plays were within a couple of weeks.
I’m looking forward next year to some more medium-weight games. This year I played two excellent games of Lords of Waterdeep, as well as some Red Rising and Bruxelles 1897.
Legendary: Marvel continues to be popular at my house, though it shines with 2 or 3, and I would never recommend it at 4 or 5 (a common problem with many deck builders, especially in the river style).
My most satisfying game of the year was In The Hall of the Mountain King, which never fails to delight. I also defended my undefeated streak at Rising Sun (though lost my perfect record in Red Rising).
Quacks of Quedlinburg is one I expect to be the Clank of next year, medium length and popular with guests and visitors. I also expect to bring Spirit Island to table more often; I’ve been playing a lot of that digitally, and we just recently picked up the 5-6 player expansion.
Bolded games are ones I particularly enjoy, though T.I.M.E. Stories rides the line of getting that distinction.