There’s nothing like spoiling a new year before it even begins by setting yourself unrealistic expectations – so here goes!
First though, I’d like to thank y’all for reading this blog and wish you a fantastic (or at least tolerable, if that’s all you can muster) festive period.
By the end of the month I’ll be up near 40,000 visits for the year for the third year in a row, which feels fantastic. It’s nice to know a few of you still care about words in a world full of YouTube numpties – sorry, ‘influencers’ – and a social landscape fuelled largely by soundbites. Cheers 🙂
Five gaming New Year’s resolutions
- Keep my collection at 150
I’ve managed to cut back to what many will still see as a ridiculous amount of board games, but when you have friends who could comfortably add a zero to that figure I’m not doing too bad. I’ll talk about this more in my end of year roundup, but suffice it to say I want to keep the collection around this number: it’s manageable on a single wall and I get most things played. Getting it to this point has been relatively easy, but that’s going to get trickier now – the chaff has largely gone, so there are going to be some tough decisions ahead. Speaking of which… - Clear my current review pile by March
I’ve got nine games I brought home from Essen that I’m yet to review. I want these played five teams each and reviewed by the end of March, which is doable. So in the next few months expect reviews of: Orbis, Color Monster, KeyForge, Estates, Fertility, Prehistory, Tsukiji, 1906 San Francisco and Magnastorm. Orbis and Color Monster should be the next two, but I’m yet to play any of the others. Finger’s crossed they will all be classics vying for a permanent berth on my shelves. However, they’ll be competing for playtime with me also… - Clearing the ‘shelf of shame’
I have 10 games on my shelves that I haven’t played in 2017 and, now, 2018 – a couple of which go even further back – while the copy of Shafausa I picked up mega cheap this year is punched but unplayed. Two of the 10 need three or more players (Nefertiti and Eternity), which I find tricky, but the rest I have no excuses for: Artus, Brass, Lords of Vegas, Lost Valley, Mombasa, Pizza Box Football, Twilight Struggle and Uruk. They’re all games I really like too, so they need table time. But to make matters worse, I fully intend to also… - Have a design ready for pitching at Essen
I’ve had a germ of an idea with Brett Gilbert for over a year. I’ve dived in on an intriguing idea of another Cambridge Design Group regular, Federico. And I’ve just started chatting to Matt Dunstan about the bare-bones idea for a new euro collaboration. On top of that, I’ve got four of five irons in the fire for solo designs that I simply (ha!) need to make initial prototypes for. It’s much easier to give people the advice ‘just get it to the table’ than it is to actually do it. Especially, of course, when you’ve promised to… - Give Sarah every second game choice
This is actually already kind of sort of in operation, and she is the patientist of missuses in the whole world. But especially of late, with Essen release review pressure, it’s probably been more like every third choice. Or occasionally fourth… but it’s not deliberate, I swear. As we’re essentially just playing my games, it’s not as if I’m not going to like her choices – and it’s good that she’s picking out ones she wants to get good at and is regularly beating me at a lot of them. But keeping her favourites is also making it hard to…
[Repeat number 1. Loop to fade. See you in 2019…]