The Games of 2020

What a year! I think it's fair to say it did not go the way anyone expected, and this had implications for my year in board gaming. There were many negatives: I didn't host any game nights for my students; I barely played any games with my friends in town; and a big family get-together was cancelled, which would have been an opportunity for both silly and strategic fun with family members. The biggest positive, though, is that my family loves games, and so we basically spent all year playing board games together. There were almost no interruptions! This was also the first year I tried any online board games, which in my case was mostly a handful of games of Scythe with my brother. It's not the same as sitting across the table from each other, but it's way better than nothing, and there are some fiddly bits that the digital implementation handles for you.

My records show that I played 101 different games in 2020, for a total of 525 unique plays. Once again, like last year, I am shocked to see the total number of plays decreased since the previous year. Whereas last year's numbers were even boosted by Bonk, this years were boosted by The Crew. We got Race for the Galaxy to the table a lot this year too, and that's one we usually play two or three times when it comes out, so I really expected total plays to be up. Maybe it's more related to the kids growing up than I gave it credit for, since where we used to sit and play several simpler games together, now it's more common to spend longer on crunchier titles. Well, it's not the quantity that counts, but the quality, and I feel like we had some great family gaming moments this past year. A few of the highlights to me have been playing Kingdomino with subsets of the whole family, finishing Clank Legacy, playing a lot of Journeys in Middle Earth and Arcadia Quest with my two older sons, getting the next son into Massive Darkness, and loads of family painting (1, 2, 3, 4). The two older boys and I also played a lot of Frostgrave this year, including a small campaign of random scenarios followed by new warbands in the Thaw of the Lich Lord campaign; now, I would call Frostgrave a miniatures skirmish game, but it's listed in the board game category on Board Game Geek, so it gets logged with the rest. More recently, we have been diving into some new Christmas games, most notably My City, which the three older boys and I have really enjoyed, and we four also just started an Imperial Assault 1 vs. All campaign.

Here are the games that I played at least ten times in 2020. As in the past, I have collapsed some different titles together, such as the various Arcadia Quest games or the variations on Clank.

• Race for the Galaxy (33)
• Clank! (23)
• Just One (21)
• Kingdomino (21)
• The Quacks of Quedlinburg (21)
• Arcadia Quest (18)
• My City (18)
• Codenames: Duet (17)
• Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth (16)
• Frostgrave (15)
• The Crew (11)
• Medieval Academy (11)
• BONK (10)
• Machi Koro Legacy (10)
• Thunderstone Quest (10)

This year's gaming took my h-index to 25, meaning that there are 25 games that I have played at least 25 times. This is automatically computed by my Board Game Geek app and does not take into account any of my collapsing of categories. I remember being excited when my board game h-index exceeded my academic one, but now I'm pretty sure there is no comparison. 

Let's take our annual look at my top-played games of all time—or at least since I started logging plays in 2016. We'll look at the "quarters" and higher, which are the games I have played at least 25 times

• Clank! (All expansions and Legacy) (75)
• Gloomhaven (66)
• Kingdomino (62)
• Crokinole (61)
• Race for the Galaxy (58)
• Animal Upon Animal (56)
• Carcassonne (51)
• Camel Up (47)
• Thunderstone Quest (46)
• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (Core Set + Crimson Throne) (41)
• Rhino Hero: Super Battle (40)
• Quiddler (39)
• Labyrinth (38)
• Arcadia Quest (36)
• Reiner Knizia's Amazing Flea Circus (34)
• Runebound (Third Edition) (34)
• Terror in Meeple City (30)
• BONK (29)
• Temple of Elemental Evil (28)
• Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth (28)
• Go Nuts for Donuts (27)
• Massive Darkness (27)
• Stuffed Fables (27)
• Champions of Midgard (26)
• Obstacles (26)
• Red7 (26)
• Incan Gold (25)
• Loot (25)

How about that? Clank took over Gloomhaven! Everybody here except the youngest loves Clank. I suspect he will love it, once he gains some more experience points in reading, mental math, and of course, mash shuffling.

I also engaged in a modicum of table-top role-playing games this year. I wrote in June about getting some friends together online to play Dungeon World, and during the year, I was able to run six more sessions of that with my family. I intended to write a bit more about that here, but the short version is that some games were not as good as others, and we made some characters we intended to pursue, but we tend to fall back on board games. (I also think I may have fallen into some of the mistakes Professor DungeonMaster mentions in his latest video.) We also played a few games of Fate, which was also fun and maybe more in keeping with some of the kids' interests in worldbuilding and improvisation. In any case, though, we run into the age-range problem: we haven't found one thing that all of us enjoy together just yet. Still, maybe there is some promise for more TTRPG fun in the new year.

Last year, I reported on books and video games. I had vague intentions of logging these again this year, but I was too lax in it to bother sharing anything quantitative here. I've taken up the challenge of reading more, which cuts into both painting and video game time, but I think it has been worth it. I have particularly enjoyed reading a collection of Flannery O'Conner stories, joining a discussion group on C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man, and, more recently, re-reading Frank Herbert's Dune series, which I originally read in the early 1990s. This last selection was not inspired by the upcoming movie but rather by coming across Matthew Colville's discussions of how much he loves the first novel. It spurred me also to pick up Dune: Imperium for Christmas, and we have already logged five plays of that since December 25. It was designed by Paul Dennen, who designed Clank!, so I guess that puts him right up there with Vlaada Chvátil and Isaac Childres for us.

Here are links to previous years' games reports in case you want to check them out:

• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• 2016

Thanks for reading! Happy gaming in 2021!