I Was Wrong...

 A Bigger Man Than I

This game had so much promise

"A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them."
~John C. Maxwell

I have made many mistakes over my board game career.

One of them was backing games early on in the lifespan of Kickstarter and backing some stinkers. This was early on with the website having just been launched and things were a bit more untamed at that point. There was still marketing that was done, but most of it was word-of-mouth and creators did do their best to relay what the game would entail. Keep in mind, this was just after the big boom that was Cards Against Humanity, so quite a few creators were attempting to capitalize on the "Judge plays a card, people around the table play other cards to argue their point" craze. While Cards Against Humanity had taken the formula for Apples to Apples and made it adult themed, there were still so many other games that were attempting to recreate the formula in their own way.

Unfortunately, I backed a game called Story War, which had a really cool idea of having two players play two character cards with an item or two, on a battlefield that was played by the "judge". Players then would argue who of their characters would win in the fight and ultimately leave it up to the judge. The art was great, the idea was sound, and it had the potential to do well in the sphere since it was fairly inventive. There was only one problem: the game came out at the same time as Superfight and that did everything that Story War did, but had significantly less cost to produce as it was just words on a card deck (a-la Cards Against Humanity). The game crashed hard because of this and the production company was bankrupted by the campaign, meaning that only the initial run of the games were ever sent out.

It was a huge disappointment for me and that paired with another poorly made decision to back another game on Kickstarter led to my next mistake: I was so burned by Kickstarter that I decided to not return to the website for about a decade because I was so burned on the games that I had backed. I had been so excited about the games but they were both stinkers and not only had I spent my hard-earned money (I was a poor college kid at that point), but there had been no way to really determine if the games would be good or not based on the campaigns. Sure there were PNP versions, but again, I was a poor college student who didn't have access to a good printer to try the games out, so I had to wait until the game shipped to me and at that point, I didn't even know if it would be good or not.

Vul-Kar knows no mercy

So when the games arrived, I was heavily frustrated with the quality not being what I had thought it would be (dang Kickstarter marketing) and I became severely disenchanted with the whole Kickstarter prospect. I significantly regret that since there were so many great games that came out in the time that I swore off Kickstarter and when I eventually restarted looking at the website again (2013-2023). I missed out on games like Gloomhaven(on the fence about this one), Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar (which I've been able to play recently and it's amazing), and Thunder Road: Vendetta (which I got secondhand NIS after it had shipped, thankfully). While it did save me money, it also killed my love of board games during that time, and although I had a spark lit after playing CATAN for the first time, I lost it soon after getting some crappy games.

I just love how good this wash is!

A third mistake was attempting to let others dictate what I had in my collection, especially as I started to build it out the last year or so. Ever since reentering the hobby board game universe, I've started to try to figure out what I like and what I don't like. Unfortunately, that's led to a lot of perusal of websites and top 10 "Best Games of X Genre" lists, some of which are great and others which are... not the best. There were a ton of games that I purchased at the recommendation of others, both on BGG and on other articles that I read on the web, which turned out to not be my cup of tea.

I picked up a second-hand copy of One Deck Dungeon after it had been recommended on a "Top 10 Solo Dungeon Crawler Games" list and while the gameplay was serviceable, I found that it wasn't really my type of game. There was too much dice rolling and far too much randomness to the game for my liking, which meant that even if I played well, it still came down to dice rolls, which I do not like. I like an element of randomness, but having the entire game built around that aspect didn't sit well with me. I also picked up a second-hand copy of King of Tokyo after seeing so many rave reviews of the game both on BGG and elsewhere, but it only hit the table once before I decided to get rid of it after it sat for several years on my shelf unplayed.

"Why did you get rid of King of Tokyo?" you may be asking, and it ultimately came down to only really having an opportunity to play the game with two players where the game is best with three or four players. I love the idea of the game, but it just didn't fit my niche of gameplay style and needs. I had to come to grips with the fact that not every game that I owned was going to be something I enjoyed playing and it would be better for me to get rid of it so I could get something that I truly enjoyed and would hit the table more often.

Could I have gotten the King of Tokyo: Power Up! expansion for it, which I've heard really helps balance out the two-player issue? Sure, but that means that I would have spent more money on it and I couldn't justify spending that money on something I wasn't certain on versus spending money on something I knew I would like. I learned that I had to develop my own tastes for games and it was ok for me not to like something that everyone else liked. That was a hard lesson to learn, but I'd like to think that I'm a bit more mature in my thinking now.

Digitally Omitted

I love the shiny and also the weight.

I have talked about this in previous posts, but I'm not a big digital implementation player. I like having game pieces in my hand and being able to play around with them as I play the game. I was diagnosed later in my adult life with ADHD, which was of no surprise to me because I always had to be fiddling around with things, or doodling, or keeping my brain busy during class, or work. I love physical board games because they often have coins, tiles, pieces, etc, that I can fiddle around with. The berries and coins from Everdell are especially great for me as I can fiddle around with them, flip them, squish them, or do any manner of manipulation to keep my hands busy while I play.

I had played some digital implementations of games before and I will say that I was not a huge fan of them. Again, I come back to the issue that the games themselves are far much more fun to play with other people in the room. At least that was what I thought. I also ran into the issue that I tend to fiddle around a ton with game pieces and playing digitally doesn't allow me to do that.

I thought that I was an "all physical games" kind of player and that digital implementation had no place in my life.

And then I discovered how much I can do on BoardGameArena.

Simple, yet effective at displaying current game status.

I had mistakenly thought that games on BGA that were marked "premium" were unable to be played with other people. I mainly stuck to solo and free games on BGA because of that incorrect notion, and that led me to some decent, if not great games, but they were all missing the element of being able to be played with someone else.

I will also note that I tended to play games in real-time for all my games on BGA because that is what I knew how to do. I hadn't really messed around with many of the systems available on BGA and that was more of a PEBKAC ("problem exists between keyboard and chair") issue versus an issue with the website itself. I was dumb. I will admit it here.

But it all changed when I started messing around with the "turn-based" option on BGA. I found that I could have up to three games at once looking for potential people to play with and although I wasn't a premium member (which I want to be, but I don't have the funds for right now), I could still play games with random people if I waited.

I played six games that day.

There were five that I played with a mix of real-time and turn-based, but there was another one that stood out to me: the opportunity to play Terraforming Mars with Gerry H. What was so cool to me about this was that he and I were able to play Terraforming Mars on opposite sides of the world together, each taking time to play our turns as needed, but we also had the opportunity to play the game throughout the day as we played.

Well, we theoretically could do that, but he and I ended up playing the entire game that night (day for him) and it was an absolute blast. It really made me rethink my hardline position on not playing games digitally. Not only was I able to play a game with a friend, but I was able to play a game that I didn't own, and have all the upkeep performed by the digital platform.

Where Do I Go From Here?

That's the question isn't it? Now that I've realized I made a mistake with avoiding any and all digital games, I think that I can begin to accept a balance between the two mediums. Life is all about growth and admitting that you're wrong and that's part of growing up and maturing.

I'm still fairly new to the whole "hobby" aspect of board games, although I'd like to say that I have been in it longer than I would care to admit. Sure I played games when I was a kid, but it wasn't until about 2020 that I really started to get into the hobby more and more. To many gamers here on BGG, I'm new to this hobby, despite having some deep roots in board games, and I'm still learning the ins and outs of what works and doesn't work.

The most important aspect of this whole lesson is learning from my mistakes. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I know what mistakes I've made and I know how to fix them, and part of that is being humble enough to know that I made the mistake. I know that there are probably more mistakes that I'm unaware of, but learning from past mistakes and not repeating them is an important part of anyone's journey.

That being said, if you ever want to play a game with me on BoardGameArena, just send me an invitation. I'm up for pretty much anything and my username is the same on BGA as it is here: LinkToDarkness. I can't promise I'll always be able to play a real-time game, but if you'd like to play with me, I'm always up for a game or two!

As always, thank you so much for checking out this blog. If you liked it, please hit the green thumb at the top of the page and feel free to leave a comment on the post. I appreciate all interactions and will respond to everything that I can. If you really liked the post and want more ramblings, feel free to subscribe and get new posts every Monday/Wednesday/Friday.

*Originally posted on BoardGameGeek on 3/7/2024*