1K Plays Is Close At Hand!

 This is BIG!

Normally I would do a blog post with a review. But my play of the game that I was going to review fell through this last week, so I'm scrambling to find something else. That was when I realized that I'm getting close to 1000 plays logged here on BGG.

1000 plays logged. That's such a wild number to me, especially since I only started really logging plays back in September/October of last year. I've always love board games, but I was never really into logging them because I didn't know that was a thing. I had heard of keeping track of hours spent playing video games (which I'm afraid to look at because I have so much time spent playing video games over my life), but never logging plays of board games.

I joined BGG back in June of last year after just using the site to look up game recommendations and ratings for a few years and wanting to really start developing my profile and presence here on BGG. When I did so, I found that there were a certain subset of users here on BGG that logged their plays. Interested in what that meant, I started tooling around on the website and found that you could enter in the play details of the game and it would show up on your profile as a logged play. Users could then track those logged plays and see what games have seen a trend of plays over the last few weeks, months, years, etc, in order to determine what they liked.

It was an interesting idea and the more I dug into it, the deeper that I found the rabbit hole went. Not only was there a way to track the statistics of your played games, but there was also stats like "Fives" and "Dimes" and something called an "H-Index." I quickly found out that "Fives" were games that had been played 5 times or more, and "Dimes" were games that had 10 or more plays to them. There are a few additional names for plays, like "Quarters" (25) and "Centuries" (100) that weren't noted on BGG, but on other locations and I knew that I had to start getting those plays on my profile. It tapped into the video game achievement section of my brain and I needed to have at least three or four of each.

I didn't discover what the "H-Index" was until later, as that took a bit more research to figure out, but I immediately launched into starting to log my plays in September. As I started logging, I found out that an "H-Index" was a simple formula: x games played x times. For instance, someone who had played 5 games 5 separate times each would have an H-Index of 5. Armed with that knowledge, I heartily threw myself into logging plays and easily got Magic Maze, Onirim, and Friday to 10 plays, especially due to the "Solo-tober" challenge, and was able to get 5+ plays of Utopia Engine, and Welcome To... as well. I was fairly happy with my five and dimes and knew that it would be a good start to my logged plays.

The Obsession Grows

Visualized plays of 2023

2023 saw the year end with 353 plays for the year, which was pretty good for me since I had only started logging plays in September. There were a few plays from earlier in the year that I entered and I did my best to be honest with the stats since I was the one who would be utilizing them. I'm sure that there were some games that I missed, but I wasn't obsessive about logging as I am now and that lent itself to missing a few games here and there.

Still, at 353 plays for the year, I was 3 games short of getting an average of 1 game per day and I knew that in 2024, I would want to absolutely shatter that record and push for at minimum, 2 games per day on average. I started playing and logging consistently in 2024 and although I've missed a few days at the beginning of the year, I pretty much consistently have gotten at least one play per day of a board game every single day this year. I've actually been tracking it and have managed to get my daily plays average to about 2.75 plays per day and while it's not an official goal of mine, I'd love to get that number to 3 per day on average by the end of the year.

My H-Index saw the end of 2023 at 9 and I had to feel pretty confident about that respectable number. It wasn't amazing compared to some of the people here on BGG, but for me an H-Index of 9 felt pretty good. There was so much more that I could do with games however, and that's when the play bug really hit me hard.

At the beginning of 2024, as I noted, I challenged myself to get over 365 plays for the year, but as I thought about it, I wanted to get 730 plays for the year, to double the number of plays per day that I had over last year. It was a doable goal, but I also wanted it to be something that was attainable. I could have pushed that number up further, but as I've learned in the last few years: "Do not be overly ambitious."

It's been a banner year for me since I've not only started a blog (which you're reading now and thank you for entertaining my thoughts), but I've also been able to build out my collection significantly and connect with a few new friends over board games. It's been a wild ride so far and the year is just half over, so I'm beyond excited about what the rest of the year might bring. I even started some creative writing here on BGG, starting with my post about a man who goes insane while logging plays because he tapped into the Eldritch Knowledge beneath the surface.

With several reviews coming up (I'm planning on getting a review for Deadly Dowagers out next week if I can swing a play or two of it, and a review of Rhino Hero the week after), multiple games still on their way to me from Kickstarter and ongoing connections with publishers (and maybe even an interview!), I'm really excited to share all of this with you all. This has been such a great chance for me to stretch my creative muscles and I'm loving the interaction that you all give in the comments. Thank you for reading my musings and for leaving comments, it really means a lot to me.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Visualized logged plays for 2024 so far...

Moving forward with the blog, as I started looking at my logged plays, I realized that I wanted to do something special for 1000 plays logged here on BGG. I know that it's not as big of a number as some other people, but it's an absolutely massive number to me. There were some plays that I've added from my childhood and teenage years that probably account for that number being higher than 2023-2024 combined, but again, I tried to assign the logged plays in the past sparingly, so this number might not be fully accurate to describe how many games I've played.

I'm treating this as a celebration of 1000 plays logged here on BGG since that's what will show up on my profile and I'm going to be looking at all my logged plays over the last year or so and picking out 10 of my favorite games that I've played in the 1000 that I've logged here. Some of them might be a bit fuzzy on details because they happened a while ago, but I thought that would be a really fun way to celebrate 1000 plays.

I'll probably put together a geeklist of the games and plays logged since it's going to be basically copying what I've put here, but for those who will be interested, I'll link it in the post when it goes live. Based on previous plays from the last few weeks, I expect that I'll hit that magical 1000 plays mark either later this week or next week, so I'll probably have the post go live on Monday next week to celebrate the 1000 plays.

The further and further I get into logging plays, the more I realize the benefit of having a great way to log them, and I really have enjoyed BG Stats, which was recommended several times by other users here. It's allowed me not only to add more information to my logged plays, but also represents an easy way to log plays from BGA and transport them to BGG once I've gotten the information in. Thanks to all who recommended the app, and for those looking for a good way to log plays, this app has been so beneficial for me and I cannot recommend it enough. There are graphs of play time, visualizations for player count, and everything that my little stats brain could want from an app that helps me track my play of games.

With that being said, I think I'll wrap up here to finish this up without dragging on too much, which I often do with these posts. Again, I want to give a hearty "Thank you" for reading this blog. It's been an absolute honor writing for you all and I look forward to what the future might bring!

Give your thoughts:What goals have you set for yourselves with games this year? Are you participating in any challenges (official or otherwise)? What started your journey here on BGG and how much or little do you participate here on the website?

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 2.8.2024*