Games Played: 3 Quarters of Madness
At the current progression, the next Games Played update will be in a year. Since my goal is to understand my own play patterns, though, I hope it’ll be a little sooner than that. But are there even any patterns to understand?
There Is No Dana
Is there really any point to attributing anything beyond the virus? Probably not.
In late 2019 and the beginning of 2020 I was getting into a regular routine of hanging out and gaming with university friends. Then the boom dropped on everything.
We’ve been very lucky here in Finland, both as a family and as part of the Tampere community. So I really shouldn’t complain about games played and other not-really-problems. I’m glad that we’re healthy, that we have food on the table and a roof over our heads. But that doesn’t make the last few months fun in any sense of the world.
Here are the games played per month:
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep |
| Games | 39 | 15 | 37 | 5 | 3 | 8 | 15 | 21 | 14 |
January started off strong, with a mix of online games, family games, and a regular university game night. February was a little closer to typical as work and school schedules returned to normal. Then the virus hit.
Only Zuul
March was a flurry of activity as everyone tried to entertain themselves and stay connected. Looking at the list, it’s almost all online games — lots of Evolution and Ticket to Ride, plus a bunch of games played on Tabletopia. My regular band of gamers gave online board game physics simulation a very fair shake… and I think we all decided that they were the worst of both worlds.
Time conquers all except being stuck at home.
That made May and June into a wasteland. Things picked up in July, mostly due to family play and online apps. My family even made an alphabetical list of favorite games and we’re slowly working our way through them. Finland has also been under relatively “normal” conditions since mid-summer, though there are signs that this could change again soon.
Games Played Stats: Q1 – Q3
Time for more tables! First, some overall stats for the year so far:
Games played: 157 (234 in same period of 2019)
Different games played: 61 (61 in same period etc. )
Games played more than once: 25 (29 same period…)
Games not played in 2019: 25 (only 19 in the 2019-2018 comparison!)
Percentage of collection played: 45 of 140 = 32% (need to buy less and play more!)
Newest game played: Pendulum (2020)
Oldest game played: Monopoly (1930s)
Longest time since last played game: Monopoly (June 27, 2010)
Status of Cape Horn: the shrink wrap remains undisturbed!
The big surprises are the number of games not played the previous year and the fact that someone not related to me actually talked me into playing Monopoly. (We had fun, but once every ten years is enough.)
And One More Table
Finally, the top 10 played each quarter.
| 1Q | 2Q | 3Q | |
| #1 | Evolution (21) | Oceans (3) | TtR family (16) |
| #2 | Ticket to Ride family (14) | Splendor (3) | Splendor (4) |
| #3 | Splendor (8) | Ascension (2) | Evolution (3) |
| #4 | Tapestry (3) | Animal Upon Animal (1) | Patchwork (3) |
| #5 | Uno (3) | Azul (1) | Spirit Island (3) |
| #6 | Compounded (2) | Bohnanza (1) | Ricochet Robots (2) |
| #7 | Happy Salmon (2) | Castle Panic (1) | Ascension (1) |
| #8 | Hey! That’s My Fish (2) | Musée (1) | Betrayal at House on the Hill (1) |
| #9 | Q.E. (2) | Robinson Crusoe (1) | Flash Point: Fire Rescue (1) |
| #10 | Stone Age (2) | Uno (1) (also Wingspan) | Frank’s Zoo (1) |
Yep, Q2 was pretty bad…