And so ends the board game challenge…
As a final tally, we played 90 board games over the 24 days, leaving 23 games unplayed. Pretty happy with the end result considering;
- We all work fulltime jobs
- We essentially lost a week while we were away at Quidditch nationals
- There were multiple days when we played 0 games due to work and other commitments
- We probably averaged an hour less sleep per night due to the challenge
- New games kept arriving throughout the month, increasing the number we had to play.
To play 90 games in 24 days is a pretty mean feat, and makes me very grateful for having awesome housemates that would do such a crazy challenge with me, and who share my love of board games. Your average board game fanatic is lucky to get a game a week with friends being busy, but I’ve always got 2 other avid gamers around to join in.
Like with most things, the sense of obligation to do it makes it significantly less enjoyable. Both me and Kieran started to refer to playing games as “work” as we booked in time to play, and gamed whenever we were available, and had the energy to do it. Despite this, due to having some amazing games, overall, the challenge was very enjoyable, and confirmed that I have no regrets about the amount of board games we have.
For now, I have a week in Cairns, where I will detox, and not play any games for the entire week. After the detox, I look forward to spending further time with my beloved games, without the sense of duty and threat of punishment.
Highlights of the adventure include:
- Me and Kieran learning that a relationship between us would not work (Fog of Love)
- A six second game of love letter
- Kieran refusing to play white cards, then playing white cards
- Making up our own rules from our vague memory of the game for GOT Card game
- Kieran leading the ship to disaster in space alert
- Matt “mashing A” and subsequently winning space alert
- Playing Who Goes There, and having John become infected after drawing 1 vulnerable card, even though me and Archie had already drawn about 5 each
Top three games of the month:
| Aden | Archie | Kieran | |
| 1. | Spirit Island | Who Goes There | Spirit Island |
| 2. | Who Goes There | Scrawl | Rajas of the Ganges |
| 3. | Century Golem | Mansions of Madness | Aeons End |
Honorable mentions to; Mansions of Madness, Clank, & Aeons End, which are old time favorites, but top 3 has to go to games I hadn’t played yet.
To sum up the experience, and my relationship with my board games, I’ll quote Bilbo:
I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
Because we don’t have enough games in our life, we also went and did an escape room on Sunday after getting in the mood by playing “Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective – The Thames Murders”. More games to come, and with heavy consumption of alcohol all but confirmed at this point, date for the Judgement day party soon TBC.
Zombiecide (feat. Panda) – Failed for about our 10th time on Mission 6. So close to the end and then just overrun by extra activations due to all the zombies being on the map.
Masterbeaters Board Game Adventure 