As a family, we play a lot of games. Starting back sometime in 2012, Adam began tracking our plays to keep tally not only of what games we played, but who won, lost, and what the scores were. Originally, we did this by writing on the bottom of the game box top. (did you just gasp??) I loved the little character it gave to our favorite games but eventually we decided that this wasn’t the best solution to us. 

Not only did it lower the resale value of the game if we chose to find it a new home, but it also didn’t meet the spreadsheet desire of my stat loving husband. After writing on the box tops, it wasn’t enough to know who won — he wanted to know ev.er.y.thing. What was each person’s win percentage? How often did we play this game? Which cards did we use? (Think Marvel Legendary tracking – an invaluable step for our favorite game) What percentage of new to old games did we play this year?

Cue Queen blasting “I Want It All”

The below post is going to feature some of our favorite games for this and years past. Many are reviewed here on our website and most (if not all) of the below games can be easily found on our Amazon Storefront!

Enter the BG Stats App

Starting in 2015, we began using the excellent iPhone app BG Stats. If you are at all interested in logging your games played, this is the app we recommend. It does nearly everything and more that you could ever want from a stats app for tracking board games. (Not an ad, we just love it and want you to know about it!)

The app itself is 3.99, but there are some in-app purchase for a few dollars that unlocks all of the trackable elements for you like deep stats and challenges. For us, the roughly $7 investment it has been completely worth it. 

Why Track Board Game Stats?

You certainly don’t need to track your board game stats! This is an exceptionally unnecessary thing we do that we just really enjoy. Playing a board game does’t have to involve keeping a record of your stats. I promise you, if this wasn’t something that Adam did on his own and was instead left up to me, we would not have a record of our games. However, I’m so glad he does! 

So why track these stats anyway? We personally choose to record our plays for three main reasons:

The first and main reason we do is because we find it a fun way to record the various plays of games and fun times that we have had with our family and friends over the years. Call it a diary of sorts. You can see which games you have played the most, which friends have joined you for game nights over the years, and quickly look up a game that you might have forgotten the title of but remember playing “that one game night for your birthday.”

The second reason we do is because, quite simply, we are very competitive in this house. Tracking our stats is an easy way to enjoy the friendly competition between each other about who has the best record in a particular game, overall, and against various competitors. It’s mainly silly, but also serious business. 😉

The third reason, and one that has evolved over the years of tracking our game stats, is that it is nice to see just what types of games you are playing. Which ones are making it to the table consistently over the years? Which ones have fallen to the wayside? Have our preferences changed? 

 Let’s look at our gaming stats for 2020

So let’s get to it! Here are our stats for 2020!

Total games played in 2020: 765 | +133 games compared to 2019 (632)
Total unique games played in 2020: 223 | +9 games compared to 2019 (214)
Number of games played only once: 90 – 40% of total games played | +12 compared to 2019 (78)
Busiest month: March – 93 Play |  2019 – November – 80 Plays
Least busy month: November – 38 plays | 2019 – August – 28 Plays
Games Played: 25+ – 5 | +5 games compared to 2019 (0)
                           10+ – 9 | +4 games compared to 2019 (5)
                             5+ – 24 | -6 games compared to 2019 (30)

Individual Stats

Adam: 597 Play | 109 New | Most Played Game: The Crew – 38 plays
Kelsey: 403 Play | 75 New | Most Played Game: The Crew – 38
Alice: 280 Play | 38 New | Most Played Game: Zombie Teenz Evolution – 19
Sebastian: 252 Play | 30 New | Most Played Game: Zombie Teenz Evolution – 20
Oliver: 267 Play | 24 New | Most Played Games: Pitchcar – 32
Harry: 87 Play | 9 New | Most Played Games: Strike – 9

Top 10 most played games of 2020:
1. The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine – 38 plays
2. Crokinole – 36 plays (17 different people played Crokinole this year)
3. Pitchcar – 34 plays
4. Strike – 29 plays (the first play was December 4^th!!)
5. Zombie Teenz Evolution – 25 plays
6. My City – 24 plays
7. Similo – 17 plays
8. 5-minute Marvel – 17 plays
9. Barrier Battles – 14 plays
10. Fabled Fruit – 13 plays
Other Games with 10+ plays: Charterstone, Cinco Linco, & Marvel Legendary

The Year of Legacy and Flicking Games

This was the year we finally completed some legacy games and dived deep into our campaign games. The Crew, Zombie Teenz Evolution, My City, Fabled Fruit, and Charterstone all got a lot of time at the table thanks to our goal to finish a legacy game in 2020. The great thing about these legacy games we completed is they are all still playable after the campaign. Another popular game type this year was flicking games. 

We also played a lot of Crokinole with our adult friends since it requires a fair amount of skill and Pitchcar with the kids since it’s simple flicking fun. Barrier Battles is a 1v1 flicking game that is a lot of fun but was played fewer times due to the limited player count. 

The rest of our top ten is rounded out with, no surprises here, quick kid games; hence many plays of Strike, Similio, and 5 Minute Marvel. All three are excellent examples of games that play quickly and are fun for a wide range of ages. With so many kids in our house, it’s always fun to see which ones the kids gravitated towards most the past year.

Top 10 Games of 2019 compared to their plays in 2020

This is always a stat that we like to look at. Why? Well, because it’s interested to see which games were our most played the previous year that perhaps didn’t carry over into the following year as game interests change. 

Here’s 2019’s top ten compared to how many times we played them in 2020.

1. Zombie Kidz Evolution – 2019: 21 plays  | 2020: 2 plays;  -19 plays
2. Marvel Legendary – 2019: 18 plays  | 2020: 11 plays;  -7 plays
3. Dragon’s Breath  – 2019: 12 plays  | 2020: 2 plays;  -10 plays
4. Grandpa Beck’s Nuts about Mutts – 2019: 10 plays  | 2020: 4 plays;  -6 plays
5. Brandon the Brave – 2019: 10 plays  | 2020: 2 plays;  -8 plays
6. Antiquity Quest – 2019: 9 plays  | 2020: 0 plays;  -9 plays
7. Monster Chase – 2019: 0 plays  | 2020: 0 plays;  -9 plays
8. Cardline Dinosaurs – 2019: 9 plays  | 2020: 1 plays;  -8 plays
9. 5-Minute Marvel – 2019: 9 plays  | 2020: 17 plays;  +8 plays
10. Quirky Circuits – 2019: 8 plays | 2020: 0 plays; -8 plays

Again you’ll see a lot of kid games here! In 2019, Oliver’s first full year of really getting into games, we played many of his favorites: Nuts about Mutts, Dragon’s Breath, Brandon the Brave, Monster Chase etc. 

Yet by 2020, he had aged out of many of those titles hence not getting a lot of plays in 2019. We’re anticipating however that over the next year or perhaps 2022 to see a lot of these titles jump back into our most played games as Harry will turn 4 this summer, which we have found is the age where their interest in games really explodes as attention spans lengthen.  

Noticing Consistent Favorites

The two hold overs from 2019 to 2020 were 5-Minute Marvel (which saw it go up in plays) and Marvel Legendary (just outside the top 10, but still had 10+ plays). In 2021, I highly suspect we will see Marvel Legendary back toward the top of most played games; more on that down below. I am guessing that Marvel United will replace 5-Minute Marvel as our quick family superhero game with new expansions releasing this year.  

Game Goals for 2021

While we love to keep track of our high scores and our win/loss records, one of the things we love so much about the BG Stats app are the Challenges!

This is an in-app purchase for .99 that we highly recommend for anyone looking for a fun way to challenge themselves to play and complete various gaming goals by creating simple challenges and an easy way to track and update your progress.

Here are Adam’s three gaming goals for 2021 we have entered into our BG Stats App. 

( Before we get to that, there is one thing Adam would like to point out: Due to our recent move from Iowa to Florida, we downsized our board game collection and Adam as well downsized his comic/graphic novel collection. We took many of these titles to resell at Half-Price Books and our local comic/game store. Since Adam got a better return on store credit for his items, there was a recent (large) influx in new games.

And here is where I would like to note that this influx in new games defeated the purpose of downsizing for the move. )

PLAY 1 X 25 – MARVEL LEGENDARY  

Marvel Legendary has always been Adam’s favorite game. Solo, head to head, or a big group game — he loves it all the same! One of his main gaming goals for 2021 is to play every Marvel Legendary Hero and Mastermind in our collection. This is going to be a feat! 

If he can average two plays a month to get 25 plays by the end of the year that should easily cover playing all the Hereos. It will take 40 games to play every Mastermind. While he tracks each play in BG Stats App, he also created a separate Marvel Legendary play log with Google Sheets to track his win/loss with the various characters. (His love of spread sheets is never ending)

35×1 – 2021 Unplayed Games Challenge

As of January 1^st we had 35 unplayed games in our collection. This is quite a turn for us as we like to keep our “shelf of shame” (or opportunity, however you like to look at it) relatively low. We added 25 of these games in the last two months of 2020. However, some of them date back to as far as October of 2018.

Games Added in 2018: Pandemic Legacy Season 2, RA, & Terraforming Mars
Games Added in 2019: Marvel Legendary Villians
Game Added in Early 2020: First Class, Galaxy Trucker, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, Quest for El Dorado; Heroes & Hexes Expansion, Schotten Totten, Search for Planet X, & Shards of Infinity
Game Added in Nov/Dec 2020: Awkward Guest, Azul: Summer Pavilion, Barenpark, Catacombs, Century: A New World, Clank! Legacy, Dream Home, Ethnos, Floor Plan, The Fox in the Forest, Gizmos, Machi Koro Legacy, Mandala, Parks, Point Salad, Project L, Quacks of Quedlinburg: Herb Witches, Res Arcana, Rolled West,  Shards of Infinity: Shadow of Salvation, Space Base, Taverns of Tiefenthal, Terraforming Mars, Tournament at Camelot, & Tybor the Builder 

20×1 – Replay Old Favorites

The BG Stats app can help you create challenges by using one of their templates. One of their template challenges looks at games in your collection you hadn’t play in over a year or more. After reviewing the options it shared, Adam picked out 20 collection classics he wanted to play again. 

Games Last Played in 2019: Concordia, Dinosaur Island, Escape: Curse of the Temple,
Medieval Acadmey, Mission: Red Planet, Quirky Circuits, Targi
Games Last Played in 2018: Deception Murder in Hong Kong, For Sale, Imperial Settlers, Mangrovia, Orleans,
Games Last Played in 2017: The Game of 49, Steampunk Rally, Stockpile
Games Last Played in 2016: Gravewell: Escape from the 9^th Dimension,
Games Last Played in 2015: Alien Frontiers, Castle of Mad King Ludwig, Lords of Waterdeep,
Games Last Played in 2014: Lords of Vegas

What Are Your Goals for 2021?

Again, I would just like to reiterate, that if you are not interested in keeping track of your stats for games, you shouldn’t feel pressure to! Ultimately we play these games because it is fun and we love taking the time to track our plays because it too is fun for us. 

For us, these goals aren’t just about working through our collection, but it’s about creating intentional time for us to enjoy something that we love with the people we love in our lives. It’s too easy to make a yearly list of goals that feel like restrictions or punishments. For us, whether our yearly goals are for board games or personal health and development (because we’ve got a lot of those too,) we try to keep them positively focused.

If you made it this far into this nerdy post, you are a true friend! Now that you know how our 2020 gaming went and our goals for 2021, we’d love to hear your gaming goals! We’re excited to see what you play this year and hope you’ll share with us! 

If you’re looking for an easy jumping off point to create your own gaming goals and challenges, check out our post for free printable 10 x10, 20 x 3, and 5 x 5 challenge downloads to get you started! And if you aren’t already, come follow us on instagram and join our community to share your 2021 gaming goals. We love getting to connect with you there!