I completed my 20×5 for 2023! Woo! I actually finished it all up at the fall Board Game Geek convention, getting in my final plays of Petrichor as well as Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy. If you have never been to a BGG gaming event, it’s worth making the trip. Which, for me, is a short drive down I-35 so there’s that…
I also set up a 12×1 this year. I have a lot of games that I have purchased over the years because I liked the art, or the theme, or they were “supposed to be really good” and “no collection should be without these” or some such reason. I had some recent (or less recent) hot games on this list like Ark Nova (big in 2022) and Underwater Cities (extremely popular when it first came out in 2018). My goal for the 12×1 was to get one one game a month from my unplayed games list, learn it, and play it. In some cases, they got played a lot! In other cases, just the once. But I really liked the feeling of discovering new games that I already owned, and I’ll have another post that details those results once I finish December.
But back to my 20×5. This year I again tried for a mix of approachable games that I might play with family and friends as well as more complex games that I need my gaming group to help with. Without further ado, here’s the list, and the play count as it stands today.
| Game | Plays |
|---|---|
| Scythe | 14 |
| Revive | 13 |
| Meadow | 6 |
| Takenoko | 8 |
| Ark Nova | 30 |
| Gentes | 6 |
| Black Angel | 5 |
| Tiletum | 6 |
| Underwater Cities | 16 |
| Verdant | 6 |
| Petrichor | 5 |
| Mariposas | 5 |
| Earth | 9 |
| Planet Unknown | 6 |
| Quacks of Quedlinberg | 8 |
| Passtally | 6 |
| Arch Ravels | 6 |
| Flamecraft | 6 |
| Eclipse: Second Dawn for the New Galaxy | 5 |
| Patchwork | 5 |
I had placed Scythe on this list intending to play my copy of the Fenris campaign. I did not, but I still got to play the game a number of times. Revive came out in 2022 and was a definite hit with my gaming group. Takenoko is a continuing favorite so I included that again this year. The biggest surprise was the amount of enjoyment I got from my copy of Ark Nova. It came out in 2021 and shot up the Board Game Geek top 100 list (currently sitting at the fourth position, also currently one of the most played games on Board Game Arena). I learned it earlier this year and was instantly enthralled with the game. Several of the 30 plays were online via BGA but the majority of them were in person games. I only recently picked up the expansion for the game and it’s an amazing update to an already favorite game.
Quacks of Quedlinberg was my most played game from 2022 so I included it again for 2023. I did not want to play it as much this year, but I figured I could always find people who were willing to play. It hasn’t made it to double-digit plays this year but there is still time left. 🙂
Last year I learned Tekhenu so this year I wanted to pick up another “T” game and selected Tiletum. It was an excellent choice! Tiletum and Tekhenu both use dice in a very similar way (resources and/or worker options).
Flamecraft was a Kickstarter that I backed and received late last year but had not yet played. It’s not a super complicated game and it’s very cute so it falls solidly into the “friends and family” game category. Patchwork released in 2014 was the oldest game selected for my 20×5 this year. Ironically I picked it because it’s a game my wife will often play with me, and I did not play a single session with her this year. 🙂
The last two games I completed for my 20×5 were Petrichor (2018) and Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy (2020). I learned Eclipse earlier this year and really enjoyed it, but it’s a definitely time commitment! The game takes a while to set up, and then even though it’s limited to 8 rounds it can really get involved as players try to expand their space empires. I have yet to win a game (came close in my final attempt for the year!) but keep coming back. I feel that it’s a bit like Scythe in that you have to learn a bit about what each faction can do, and optimize strategies for playing each one.
Petrichor is again an older game (released initially in 2018). I picked it up during a holiday sale at the end of 2022 when the publisher put the Collector Edition (beautifully boxed game that includes all promos and expansions in one purchase) on sale. The concept and art for the game really intrigued me, and nobody else in my gaming group had a copy of the game, so I wanted to make sure I tried it out. I didn’t even get my first play in until October! I thought at one point I might swap it out. I am very glad that I kept it as the game play is interesting and challenging and (of course) fun. So far I have played only the base game and I look forward to exploring some of the expansions going forward.
Now that my 20×5 is finished for the year, what’s next? 🙂 I mentioned my 12×1 earlier in this post and I still need to finish that. Other than that, who knows?