by Aaron Thorne
I think it was October of 2014 before I became aware of the 'play 10 games 10 times' challenge here on the Geek. I really liked the idea, but it was way too late in the year for me to participate. But, there is always next year, right? For the last eight years or so I have been randomly picking games from my collection, playing them, and writing about them on my personal blog. As that has been going on for a number of years I wanted a new challenge, and this looks like fun. So, for 2015 I am going to take a break from that and focus on playing 10 games 10 times, using this blog to record my thoughts. I hope that others here on the Geek will follow along with me as I go through this new challenge.
Because the theory behind this challenge is to force yourself to play a game enough times to uncover its hidden depths that would get missed through only one or two cursory plays, as I went through my game collection to identify games to play I decided to institute some basic rules for game selection. First, a game could only be chosen if I had less than 10 plays already recorded for it. For example, I really like the game Memoir '44, and would happily play it ten times in 2015. However, I already have 25 plays logged, and have a really good feel for how the game plays and relevant strategies, so that game will not get picked for the challenge. I am focusing on games I don't already have significant experience with. Second, a game and all of its expansions count as one game. So, if I select a game like Runebound, which has lots of expansions, the base game and all expansions that I choose to play with count as one expansion. Third, if there is a set of games with the same basic rules that allow for the games to be combined, then that also counts as one game.
As of this writing I still have a week and a half until 2015 begins, so this list is subject to change (I could get something amazing for Christmas that I just have to add to the list), but as of right now here are the 10 games that I am planning to play:
A)
Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2nd edition)B)
Lost BattlesC)
Space InfantryD)
Field Commander: NapoleonE)
The Great War at Sea: MediterraneanF) the Anima card games (
Shadow of Omega,
Beyond Good and Evil, and
The Twilight of the Gods)
G)
Commands and Colors: NapoleonicsH)
AbaddonI)
Empires in AmericaJ)
Darkest NightAlternates (in case it turns out that I hate one of my selections and can't stand to play it anymore) are as follows:
K)
Sentinels of the MultiverseL)
Castle RavenloftI should point out that I expect most of these games to get played solitaire, and in fact some of them are dedicated solitaire games. While I have a regular weekly play group, the types of games that get played there are simple wargames or strategy games, and this challenge lets me tackle some other types of games that will probably never see the table otherwise. In addition, many of these games have different scenarios, so don't expect me to play the same thing over and over; different scenarios result in different experiences, so I plan to get a lot of variety in the way I set up the various game plays.