Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Top of the Stack, January 2026

Transcript

Top of the Stack, January 2026 · Pick Up and Deliver

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to pick Up and Deliver the podcast where I
0:06
Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorders, I step out for a
0:08
Speaker 1: walk and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around.
0:10
Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good morning listeners. It's a warmer
0:23
Speaker 1: than usual day here in suburban Chicago, and I am
0:26
Speaker 1: out for a walk. This is my second attempt at
0:29
Speaker 1: this podcast because I still have not solved the microphone
0:31
Speaker 1: issue on my audio recorder. I think I do need
0:35
Speaker 1: to buy a different lab mic. I think the one
0:37
Speaker 1: that came with is cheap and not wind resistant at all.
0:40
Speaker 1: I'm really upset because the one I'm using now is
0:44
Speaker 1: really good. I've used. This is my third one that
0:47
Speaker 1: I've gotten over the course of like eight years. They've
0:50
Speaker 1: all been really good. They're only like ten bucks. But
0:53
Speaker 1: the plug that it comes with is the three ring
0:56
Speaker 1: plug that you use on a phone, and it doesn't
0:59
Speaker 1: work on an audio recorder. So my next thing to
1:02
Speaker 1: do is investigate whether or not there's a converter jack
1:04
Speaker 1: that I could buy that will let me connect the
1:07
Speaker 1: three ring plug to the two ring plug. If I
1:10
Speaker 1: can do that, then I'll just use this microphone. If
1:13
Speaker 1: I can't do that, I have to buy a new microphone.
1:15
Speaker 1: The problem is they don't make this brand of microphone
1:18
Speaker 1: for audio recorders, only for phones, and I can't tell
1:22
Speaker 1: from reviews which other microphones are as good, so I
1:27
Speaker 1: can't find any that talk about how well the microphones
1:30
Speaker 1: resist wind. So we'll see. I recorded two podcasts yesterday.
1:34
Speaker 1: One of them turned out fine, the other one turned
1:36
Speaker 1: out bad, and I thought I had shielded the microphone
1:39
Speaker 1: from wind. So I don't know what was causing the noise,
1:43
Speaker 1: but it's clear that microphone that came with the audio
1:46
Speaker 1: recorder sucks, and I need to get anyone. So that's
1:49
Speaker 1: where I am with the exciting journey of trying to
1:53
Speaker 1: record my podcast. Anyhow, all of that is to say
1:58
Speaker 1: I am here recording a All of that is to
2:01
Speaker 1: say I'm here recording a retake of my January twenty
2:05
Speaker 1: twenty six Top of the Stack as the final Top
2:09
Speaker 1: of the Stack of the season. I will remind you
2:11
Speaker 1: once more that I swiped that phrase from the podcast
2:13
Speaker 1: of Nonsensical Game Earth, a delightful group of goofballs that
2:19
Speaker 1: made a delightful podcast for a while, and they had
2:21
Speaker 1: a regular feature where they talked about the games they
2:24
Speaker 1: were going to play before the next episode that they
2:26
Speaker 1: called Talk at the Top of the Stack, and I
2:28
Speaker 1: swoped it. So on this episode, I'm going to talk
2:31
Speaker 1: about the games I played in December, whether I what
2:34
Speaker 1: goals I accomplished. I'll also wrap up some of the
2:36
Speaker 1: year conversation and yeah, we'll jump right into it. So
2:41
Speaker 1: to start with my monthly stats, I played eighty plays
2:45
Speaker 1: of sixty two different games, bringing my one year total
2:48
Speaker 1: to eight hundred and seventy six plays of three hundred
2:51
Speaker 1: and fifty six different games. My shelf of opportunity started
2:55
Speaker 1: the year at sixty four. My goal was to reduce it.
2:58
Speaker 1: Instead that eighty six, which is up three from the
3:03
Speaker 1: beginning of December, which isn't bad given how many games
3:06
Speaker 1: I usually acquire in December because of the holidays. My
3:11
Speaker 1: actual top of the Stack list the games that I
3:13
Speaker 1: pick each month, and I'm going to try to play.
3:15
Speaker 1: You'll remember I pick four and if I play three,
3:18
Speaker 1: it's considered a success, which means that over the course
3:21
Speaker 1: of the year I should get thirty six plays from
3:23
Speaker 1: top of the Stack games if I've done correctly done
3:26
Speaker 1: well well. I got two this month, bringing my total
3:28
Speaker 1: to twenty six out of thirty six, roughly two thirds
3:32
Speaker 1: of the goal or just over two thirds of the goal,
3:34
Speaker 1: which is okay but not ideal. I would have liked
3:36
Speaker 1: to do a little better, but you can only do
3:39
Speaker 1: as well as you do. I had a nice time
3:42
Speaker 1: playing the games, and I'm happy with the outcome. The
3:47
Speaker 1: games that I did play this month, I was in
3:49
Speaker 1: hoping to play nineteen oh two Melias, the Cattleman, Moa,
3:53
Speaker 1: and five Points Games of New York. I played two
3:56
Speaker 1: of them. I played nineteen oh two Melias and I
3:58
Speaker 1: played Moa. Next up we have first plays. This month.
4:03
Speaker 1: I had one hundred and twenty six new to me
4:05
Speaker 1: games at the beginning of the month that I had
4:08
Speaker 1: played this year, and by the end of the month
4:10
Speaker 1: I had played twelve more or sorry, eighteen more, for
4:14
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty four new games tried this year.
4:17
Speaker 1: The games I played this month in the order that
4:19
Speaker 1: I tried them Zenki, which is I think a bad
4:22
Speaker 1: pronunciation of the Chinese game that's very similar to chess.
4:27
Speaker 1: Take Time, seven Wonders, Dice, Landmarks, nineteen oh two, melieis Sleigh,
4:32
Speaker 1: the Spire, Moa Ito, Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of
4:36
Speaker 1: the Ring, Trick taking Game, Speakeasy, Rolling America, Power Hungry Pets,
4:41
Speaker 1: Joe Name It, Cross Clues, Wandering Galaxy, Sanctuary, Cafe Beras,
4:47
Speaker 1: and I dissent. So lots of fun games there. Because
4:51
Speaker 1: this is the end of the year, I'm probably not
4:53
Speaker 1: going to have time to talk about very many of them.
4:55
Speaker 1: And when we get to the end of January and
4:56
Speaker 1: I start the next season, I'm already gonna have a
4:59
Speaker 1: bunch of new games to talk So if there's any
5:01
Speaker 1: in there that you particularly want to hear about, let
5:03
Speaker 1: me know. I'll probably pick a few to talk about anyway,
5:06
Speaker 1: but I'm not definitely not going to cover all of them,
5:08
Speaker 1: so keep that in mind. I did get to try
5:12
Speaker 1: some expansions this month. Five in fact, three of them
5:16
Speaker 1: were part of my play of a Touch of Evil.
5:19
Speaker 1: I got to play at Touch of Eugle for the
5:20
Speaker 1: first time in a couple of years. It was a
5:22
Speaker 1: delight as always, and I had three mini expansions. I
5:26
Speaker 1: had the Hero Upgrades, I had the Something Wicked Dark
5:30
Speaker 1: Revelations supplement, and the Coast Haunted Shores supplement. We mixed
5:34
Speaker 1: all of those into the decks and into play and
5:37
Speaker 1: it was a great time. I also got to try
5:40
Speaker 1: to escape room games, and generally I consider those expansions
5:44
Speaker 1: if they are part of a series I've already played.
5:46
Speaker 1: We played Exit the Game, the Advent Calendar, the Silent Storm.
5:50
Speaker 1: This is our third Advent Calendar we've done from that series.
5:52
Speaker 1: A lot of fun little puzzles of various difficulty, but
5:56
Speaker 1: you know, sort of escape room puzzles really a delight
6:00
Speaker 1: and Body of Evidence Blood on the Bayou. This is
6:02
Speaker 1: a new card game iteration of the body of Evidence
6:06
Speaker 1: idea from the Mysterious Package Company, in which you play
6:09
Speaker 1: a coroner investigator looking at various bits of evidence trying
6:14
Speaker 1: to figure out who done what. It's great. Next up,
6:18
Speaker 1: we have games that I dust it off. As you know,
6:22
Speaker 1: a dusty game is one that I've played before, but
6:25
Speaker 1: I haven't played it for at least a year. The
6:27
Speaker 1: dusty games that I have this year include ninety one
6:32
Speaker 1: games at the beginning of the month, and I'm up
6:34
Speaker 1: to one hundred and three at the end, so I
6:35
Speaker 1: dust it off twelve games. We have a Touch of
6:38
Speaker 1: Evil two years, one month, twenty eight days, Dixit nine years,
6:41
Speaker 1: eleven months, twenty one days, very nearly a decade. Dixit
6:45
Speaker 1: is a game that I feel like I play a
6:47
Speaker 1: lot because I use it in class, but I never
6:49
Speaker 1: actually play it with the students, so I don't log it.
6:51
Speaker 1: I don't count as as having been played, but I'm
6:54
Speaker 1: around it all the time, and so I'm very familiar
6:56
Speaker 1: with it. So then I bring that game and use
6:59
Speaker 1: it after Aquatica one year, two months, twenty five days, Dusty.
7:04
Speaker 1: I like that game, but my family wasn't super keen
7:07
Speaker 1: on it, so I traded it along while I thought
7:09
Speaker 1: it was still pretty relevant and I could get some
7:11
Speaker 1: decent value for it. And now it's on board game Arina,
7:14
Speaker 1: so I get to play it a little bit there
7:16
Speaker 1: if I want first Class All Aboard the Orient Express
7:19
Speaker 1: three years, twenty two days, Dusty. This is one of
7:22
Speaker 1: those tracks on tracks games. It's I think it's the
7:25
Speaker 1: same designer as Russian Railroads. It's very much this game
7:27
Speaker 1: where you're making small incurrens, but then there's these combos
7:31
Speaker 1: that you can get that push you along. I like it.
7:35
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would like it in person,
7:37
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of tracking of bonuses, and I
7:40
Speaker 1: like the way the computer tracks bonuses. Next up, we
7:43
Speaker 1: have Trophies one year, twenty seven days, dusty. This is
7:45
Speaker 1: a nice little party game that we play with my cousin.
7:48
Speaker 1: So last year at Thanksgiving we played it, and then
7:50
Speaker 1: this year at Christmas we played it. So that's the
7:53
Speaker 1: timeline there. Next year it won't get dusty, because we'll
7:55
Speaker 1: play it at Thanksgiving again. I'm sure Libertalia wins of
7:58
Speaker 1: Gaelecrest one year, one month, one day's dusty. This is
8:01
Speaker 1: a game I really really like. I would be happy
8:03
Speaker 1: to play this game often and regularly, and I hope
8:07
Speaker 1: I get to. And I really enjoy Libertalia. I love
8:09
Speaker 1: the variety available in the different cards that you can
8:12
Speaker 1: draw at random, and I love the challenge of trying
8:17
Speaker 1: to shape your choices to fit the oh it's a
8:21
Speaker 1: white person nutthatch not hatch. I love the challenge of
8:24
Speaker 1: trying to face your choices or shape your choices so
8:27
Speaker 1: that you're anticipating what other players will choose. The interaction
8:30
Speaker 1: of the different cards is really compelling. I think Libertalia
8:33
Speaker 1: is an excellent game, well worth your time if you
8:36
Speaker 1: get a chance to play it. I like the original
8:38
Speaker 1: Libertalia just fine, but I like Libertalia Winds of gael
8:41
Speaker 1: Crest better I think the art is more interesting, even
8:45
Speaker 1: though it's anthropomorphised animals, which is kind of overdone, but
8:47
Speaker 1: they're flying airships, which is pretty cool. I just it's
8:51
Speaker 1: also just refined. I like the ranking system gives another
8:55
Speaker 1: thing for the cards to do, but also helps make
8:58
Speaker 1: the determination between who play which car works Great Dominion
9:01
Speaker 1: two years, five months, fifteen days, Dusty. This is a
9:04
Speaker 1: game that I think really benefits people who play it
9:06
Speaker 1: a lot. At least that was my experience playing it
9:09
Speaker 1: with our friends who play it a lot. And maybe
9:11
Speaker 1: it's just I'm bad at it, but that one wasn't
9:13
Speaker 1: my favorite experience. Space Base is three years Dusty, almost
9:17
Speaker 1: to the day, and I really like Space Base. The
9:21
Speaker 1: card play and the dice rolling really feels better to me,
9:24
Speaker 1: are more interesting to me than Machi Korro. I like
9:27
Speaker 1: the overall flow of the game. I think that the
9:31
Speaker 1: actions you do are really fun. The only thing I
9:33
Speaker 1: don't like about it is that there are a bunch
9:35
Speaker 1: of cards that do wacky things like letting you move
9:38
Speaker 1: cards around, letting you activate cards and stuff, and then
9:41
Speaker 1: there are other cards that let you just get victory points.
9:44
Speaker 1: And anytime I go for the wacky cards, I lose
9:48
Speaker 1: to somebody who's just going for boring victory points where
9:50
Speaker 1: they get points every time somebody rolls a four or whatever,
9:54
Speaker 1: and it makes me sad that it's much more reliable
9:57
Speaker 1: to just go for victory points, as there's a lot
10:00
Speaker 1: the games. It turns out, racing to the end is
10:03
Speaker 1: a more effective way to win than goofing around with
10:06
Speaker 1: the stuff the game offers you. That is space space.
10:09
Speaker 1: I played Brass Birmingham. It's been nearly two years since
10:12
Speaker 1: I played that. One year, eleven months, twenty four days.
10:14
Speaker 1: I like that game a lot, turns out, I still do.
10:17
Speaker 1: It's my second top game, second game on my top fifty,
10:21
Speaker 1: and I think it'll probably stay there. It's really good.
10:24
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to play it again this year.
10:26
Speaker 1: Raw one year, four months, ten days since I played that,
10:28
Speaker 1: and boy, that game just gets better every time I
10:31
Speaker 1: play it. I wish that my family like auctions, because
10:33
Speaker 1: they don't, and so I don't have a copy myself.
10:36
Speaker 1: Of course, if they ever want to try it, I
10:37
Speaker 1: can borrow it from toggle. But it is a delight
10:40
Speaker 1: and you really should check it out. Altaplano al Toaplano
10:45
Speaker 1: is a game I played in part to try to
10:46
Speaker 1: finish my South America challenge, but also just because I
10:50
Speaker 1: really like it, and so does my daughter, and I
10:52
Speaker 1: wanted her to have a chance to play it while
10:54
Speaker 1: she's home from college visiting. My wife played it as well,
10:57
Speaker 1: and we discovered she does not like Altaplano at all
10:59
Speaker 1: and probably won't ever played again. So that's too bad.
11:03
Speaker 1: But I was worried that would be the case because
11:06
Speaker 1: she didn't really like Orleons very much either, and they're
11:08
Speaker 1: very similar games. So I really like Altiplano better with
11:12
Speaker 1: the Traveler. Last time I played, I didn't use it.
11:14
Speaker 1: I think I was playing with somebody who only had
11:16
Speaker 1: the base game, and the Traveler really adds another dimension
11:19
Speaker 1: to the things you can do and just gives you
11:22
Speaker 1: a lot more flexibility. So I really like that Euphoria
11:27
Speaker 1: build a better Dystopia. This was nine years, eight months,
11:31
Speaker 1: and twenty two days Dusty, so again almost ten years
11:33
Speaker 1: since I played this. I played it one time nine
11:36
Speaker 1: years ago, and I remember thinking I loved the idea
11:38
Speaker 1: of it, I didn't really enjoy the play very much,
11:40
Speaker 1: and that's the same thing that happened this time. I
11:42
Speaker 1: don't know why I like a dice play dice Placement
11:45
Speaker 1: worker replacement game just fine. I like everything going on
11:49
Speaker 1: in the theme. I like everything that's going on with Euphoria,
11:53
Speaker 1: except the actual gameplay. It just falls flat for me.
11:58
Speaker 1: One of the things that happens in the game. The
12:00
Speaker 1: premise is it's a dystopia, so you have all these
12:02
Speaker 1: workers and you don't want them to get too smart
12:04
Speaker 1: because then they'll leave. They'll escape. Of course, the other
12:07
Speaker 1: part of it is that the smarter they are, the
12:09
Speaker 1: better workers they are, so there's a nice interaction between
12:12
Speaker 1: the two. But every time you collect your workers, you
12:15
Speaker 1: have to roll them, and if they come out too smart,
12:17
Speaker 1: one of them leaves, and there's this whole thing you
12:20
Speaker 1: can do to try to mitigate that. But at some
12:22
Speaker 1: points it's just really unlikely to make it mathematically impossible
12:26
Speaker 1: to have a worker leave, and then you lose that
12:28
Speaker 1: die and you have to go through the effort of
12:30
Speaker 1: getting it again. Well, I think I rolled three different
12:34
Speaker 1: times in the game when it was mathematically possible for
12:38
Speaker 1: me to lose the worker. I probably rolled six or
12:40
Speaker 1: seven times during the game, but most of those times,
12:43
Speaker 1: no matter what I rolled, I wasn't going to lose
12:44
Speaker 1: a worker. Just by the way the math worked out.
12:46
Speaker 1: But there were three times in the game it was
12:48
Speaker 1: mathematically possible for me to lose a worker, and I
12:51
Speaker 1: lost one every single time, usually by rolling box cars
12:54
Speaker 1: or like eleven and then. So that was really frustrating,
12:58
Speaker 1: including the first time I took my workers back. You know,
13:01
Speaker 1: two turns into the game or three turns into the game,
13:04
Speaker 1: I lost one of my workers and it took me
13:06
Speaker 1: so long to get another worker. It was very frustrating.
13:09
Speaker 1: But I mean that's part that's meant to be part
13:11
Speaker 1: of the game, part of the strategy and tactics is
13:13
Speaker 1: to account for the fact that you're gonna lose workers.
13:15
Speaker 1: But still I didn't have a good time. I enjoyed
13:17
Speaker 1: the company though, So that was euphoria. Making one hundred
13:20
Speaker 1: and three games dusted off this year. Now you could
13:23
Speaker 1: tell from that probably that I played because I played
13:25
Speaker 1: Brass Birmingham in an altaplano. I knocked two more games
13:28
Speaker 1: off my top fifty list to try to play. But
13:30
Speaker 1: by the end of next year, so I'm down. I've
13:33
Speaker 1: got twenty nine games played of my top fifty this year,
13:37
Speaker 1: which leaves twenty one to play next year. Doable, but
13:40
Speaker 1: it's going to take some effort. I saw over on
13:42
Speaker 1: board game Geek that John just posted this morning or
13:45
Speaker 1: last night that he is trying to play all fifty
13:48
Speaker 1: of his this year. Good luck, man. That's gonna be
13:51
Speaker 1: a challenge. Any digital ones that you get going, I'm
13:54
Speaker 1: happy to join. If you're interested to see what are
13:56
Speaker 1: the other fifty games that I haven't played that I
13:59
Speaker 1: am planning to You can find that over on over
14:03
Speaker 1: on rattleboxgames dot com. In the show notes for this episode,
14:07
Speaker 1: there's a link to my top of the sack list
14:09
Speaker 1: on Board Game Geek, which includes the remaining top fifty
14:13
Speaker 1: games to be played. And now the big new is
14:15
Speaker 1: my ten for ten. Now, as you know, a ten
14:18
Speaker 1: for ten generally is where you pick ten games and
14:20
Speaker 1: you're gonna try to play them ten times in a year.
14:22
Speaker 1: I've done that a couple of times. It doesn't work
14:25
Speaker 1: with my gameplay style. I like to play lots of
14:27
Speaker 1: different games, as you know, I played eight hundred some
14:31
Speaker 1: games and three hundred and twenty six different titles. That
14:33
Speaker 1: doesn't go well with trying to play each game ten times,
14:36
Speaker 1: as one hundred plays are just ten games. It's just
14:39
Speaker 1: not my style. But I really like the idea of
14:41
Speaker 1: setting up a challenge, a kind of goal for myself.
14:43
Speaker 1: And so what I do is I do a ten categories.
14:46
Speaker 1: I've done that. I did that last year, I'm doing
14:47
Speaker 1: it this year, and maybe did the year before too.
14:50
Speaker 1: I did Designers one year. Anyway, here's the ten categories
14:53
Speaker 1: I set up, trying to play ten plays each and
14:55
Speaker 1: these are kind of in the order that I finished
14:57
Speaker 1: them more than anything else. But not always. We've got
15:00
Speaker 1: games in which the narrative of the game features magic
15:04
Speaker 1: ten plays done, games that I played five times on
15:08
Speaker 1: the table. So this is secretly fifty plays in this
15:11
Speaker 1: ten because I have to have played the game five
15:14
Speaker 1: times to get it on this list. Now, this is
15:16
Speaker 1: the one place where my no repeats rule comes into play. Generally,
15:20
Speaker 1: when I play a game for the ten for ten,
15:23
Speaker 1: I can only use it to fulfill one category, even
15:26
Speaker 1: if it would actually fulfill two. For example, when I
15:30
Speaker 1: played Altaplano, the cover of Altaplano is primarily green, so
15:34
Speaker 1: I could count it as a game that starts with
15:38
Speaker 1: the letter A or a game with a primarily green cover.
15:42
Speaker 1: But if I only played Altiplano once, I can only
15:44
Speaker 1: use it for one of those two categories. That's what
15:46
Speaker 1: I need. However, you can double count plays on the
15:51
Speaker 1: table for the five place anyway, so five times on
15:54
Speaker 1: the table the I mentioned box cover color, the I
15:58
Speaker 1: have successfully I did successfully play all ten different box colors.
16:03
Speaker 1: That's red, orange, yellow, green, in blue, indigo, violet, black, brown,
16:08
Speaker 1: and white. The last one I fulfilled was Indigo and
16:11
Speaker 1: that was the the game which is brew last month.
16:15
Speaker 1: So that was ten for ten already coming in and
16:18
Speaker 1: ten games themed around mysteries. That one was easy. We
16:20
Speaker 1: play a lot of mystery games in my household. The
16:23
Speaker 1: other two categories that I fulfilled before this month were
16:27
Speaker 1: alphabet A through J, so picking games to start with
16:29
Speaker 1: each of those letters, and alphabet K through T. In
16:32
Speaker 1: both of those cases, I played games to start with
16:35
Speaker 1: each of those letters. So the categories I had left
16:37
Speaker 1: to do five continents. What this was is I picked
16:41
Speaker 1: out the five continents in which most board games sold
16:44
Speaker 1: in America don't take place, so North America and Europe
16:48
Speaker 1: are out of the other five continents. I needed to
16:51
Speaker 1: play two games that take place in each of those
16:53
Speaker 1: five continents, so I had two left to play. I
16:55
Speaker 1: had one for Africa and one for South America and
16:58
Speaker 1: I played Al Toplano and I played The Adventurers The
17:00
Speaker 1: Pyramid of Horus, which nominally takes place in Egypt, So
17:05
Speaker 1: check that category off as complete. The other three categories
17:08
Speaker 1: I did not complete. First one was games that have
17:11
Speaker 1: been on my shelf of opportunity since before twenty twenty one.
17:14
Speaker 1: There are four of these I had played four coming in.
17:18
Speaker 1: I also played MOA this month, which is a fifth
17:21
Speaker 1: and there were five left unplayed. I was also looking
17:24
Speaker 1: to finish up the shelf of opportunity since before twenty
17:27
Speaker 1: twenty four games. There were eight of these played already
17:31
Speaker 1: and I left the month with eight played. I did
17:33
Speaker 1: not play any new ones. And finally for the alphabet list,
17:36
Speaker 1: the last category is alphabet U through Z plus four numbers,
17:40
Speaker 1: and the numbers are a game that starts with one
17:41
Speaker 1: digit number, a game that starts with a two digit number,
17:44
Speaker 1: a three digit number, and a four digit number. So
17:46
Speaker 1: with those in mind, coming in, I had to play
17:48
Speaker 1: a game that started with a Y, a game that
17:50
Speaker 1: start with a two digit number, and a game that
17:52
Speaker 1: start with a three digit number, and I did not
17:54
Speaker 1: get any of those played. I was trying for a
17:56
Speaker 1: Y game but I just didn't have access to any
17:59
Speaker 1: other than you Yatzi, and Yogi and YACHTSI I played
18:02
Speaker 1: last year, so I'm not allowed to repeat the alphabet
18:05
Speaker 1: games and Yogi. I forgot about it until it was
18:08
Speaker 1: too late and it was at my wife's school, so
18:10
Speaker 1: we could not play that. So with that mind, I
18:13
Speaker 1: ended the ten for ten progress list at ninety percent,
18:16
Speaker 1: which I feel pretty good about. It was a complicated
18:18
Speaker 1: list with a lot of difficult categories, and so getting
18:21
Speaker 1: it done at ninety percent felt fine, good work for me.
18:24
Speaker 1: I did track my unplayed expansions this month, aside from
18:28
Speaker 1: the ones that I mentioned already in the new expansions played,
18:31
Speaker 1: I discovered that the Obsession character's expansion was already played
18:37
Speaker 1: and I had not marked that. And then at Christmas
18:40
Speaker 1: I acquired the Forest Shuffle Alpine expansion, which we did
18:43
Speaker 1: not get a chance to play in December. So I
18:45
Speaker 1: added two to my list while I was or I
18:47
Speaker 1: added one to my list while I was removing six
18:50
Speaker 1: the five I talked about before, plus Obsession, And finally,
18:53
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to monitor my collection size. At the
18:56
Speaker 1: start of the month, I was at six hundred and ten.
18:58
Speaker 1: I had a good day Goodwill and I found Beasts
19:01
Speaker 1: of Balance, Joe Name It Rolling America, and I dissent.
19:05
Speaker 1: I also discovered that I had four games marked as
19:07
Speaker 1: owned that I decided I don't want marked as owned
19:10
Speaker 1: because they're my son's and so I do want to
19:12
Speaker 1: mark them in my collections. I don't buy them, but
19:15
Speaker 1: when I think about games I own, I don't think
19:16
Speaker 1: it's correct to think about my son's games, especially because
19:20
Speaker 1: he's getting the age where he's going to move out soon.
19:22
Speaker 1: So both my sons and daughters games I have marked
19:25
Speaker 1: as wish list five, meaning which is marked don't buy this,
19:30
Speaker 1: which you can use either for a game you don't
19:31
Speaker 1: want to buy or in this case, for games that
19:34
Speaker 1: my children own. So I recategorized four games, the Dice
19:38
Speaker 1: Throne Games and the Spirit Island Games as wish lists
19:41
Speaker 1: don't buy. Finally, I did acquire five games at Christmas time.
19:46
Speaker 1: I got Bird Call, which is sort of like Call
19:49
Speaker 1: of the Wild if you remember that game. It's a
19:51
Speaker 1: game where you are making noises and trying to interpret
19:55
Speaker 1: the noise other people are making, in the same category
19:57
Speaker 1: as like Happy Salmon or Dude. I also got La
20:03
Speaker 1: Patisseur Eurococo, Sultan, Sea Sanctuary, and Endurance. So those are
20:08
Speaker 1: my games that I got. Looking ahead to twenty twenty six,
20:12
Speaker 1: I've got a couple things to share. First off, I
20:15
Speaker 1: have my new ten for ten categories list, so obviously
20:20
Speaker 1: I'm obviously I'm going into the ten for ten season again,
20:23
Speaker 1: and I want to figure out what ten for ten
20:25
Speaker 1: lists am I going to do this time around. To
20:28
Speaker 1: start with, I am keeping color, but I'm going to
20:31
Speaker 1: do player color this time instead of box color. This
20:34
Speaker 1: one will probably be easier to resolve for the first seven,
20:38
Speaker 1: and then I bet the last three are going to
20:39
Speaker 1: take a little bit of deliberate effort, although to me
20:42
Speaker 1: too hard. I'm also not locking in which colors I use.
20:44
Speaker 1: So if there's a color that is distinct enough that
20:46
Speaker 1: it's reason like if I play a game where teal
20:49
Speaker 1: is a player color, I'm willing to call it say
20:51
Speaker 1: that I played teal, even if I also have blue
20:53
Speaker 1: and green later. So playing different player colors that one's
20:57
Speaker 1: kind of silly. Doesn't take a ton of effort, but
20:59
Speaker 1: it might take somewhere toward the end. Plus it means
21:01
Speaker 1: I also have to be very careful because they usually
21:03
Speaker 1: just play yellow for player count. Same thing. I want
21:07
Speaker 1: to play games at every player count between one and
21:11
Speaker 1: ten inclusive this year, So playing a game at one
21:15
Speaker 1: and playing a game at ten, I think both will
21:17
Speaker 1: be instructive and interesting, and probably toward the end I'm
21:21
Speaker 1: gonna have to specifically arrange, like, okay, I want to
21:23
Speaker 1: play a seven player game, or okay, I want to
21:25
Speaker 1: play a nine player game. I think it would be
21:27
Speaker 1: fun to play a nine player game of siderial Confluence.
21:30
Speaker 1: That might be something I'll try for at toggle certainly
21:33
Speaker 1: should be doable. I'm going to keep the Continent's Challenge again.
21:37
Speaker 1: I thought that was really interesting, and I'm making it
21:39
Speaker 1: more challenging for myself by including the rule that I
21:41
Speaker 1: can't repeat a game that I played last time for
21:45
Speaker 1: that challenge, so that one will be interesting. I am
21:48
Speaker 1: going to try to play games that were on my
21:50
Speaker 1: Shelf of Opportunity before twenty twenty five, so this one's
21:53
Speaker 1: a little more flexible than last time. Last time I
21:55
Speaker 1: did kind of run out, but I do want to
21:57
Speaker 1: make sure, even as I am doing a lot of
22:00
Speaker 1: Shelf of Opportunity games, make sure that I'm making effort
22:03
Speaker 1: to play games that were on the shelf of opportunity
22:06
Speaker 1: more than a year ago. That those ones are getting
22:08
Speaker 1: stale and even better if they're older. But I'm not
22:11
Speaker 1: going to hold myself to that one this time. That's
22:14
Speaker 1: the thing. I want to repeat the three alphabet challenge
22:17
Speaker 1: from last time. As usual, I will say I cannot
22:20
Speaker 1: repeat a game that I played last time, but two
22:22
Speaker 1: years ago is fair game, So I could play Yachtzi
22:24
Speaker 1: again this year. For the why, I think the key
22:26
Speaker 1: to completing this challenge for these three rows will be
22:30
Speaker 1: to make sure I get the number games out of
22:33
Speaker 1: the way early. Those are the hardest to do and
22:35
Speaker 1: apparently why all right, So do you have three categories
22:38
Speaker 1: that feel very new or different? One of these is
22:41
Speaker 1: new board gamep geek Top two hundred and fifty games.
22:45
Speaker 1: So these are games I want to play that I
22:49
Speaker 1: have not played before and that are in the top
22:52
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty ranked games on board game Geek.
22:55
Speaker 1: I feel like there are a lot of games that
22:57
Speaker 1: are supposed to be great that I bet I would enjoy,
23:00
Speaker 1: but I just haven't played for various reasons, and part
23:02
Speaker 1: of it is motivation. So I'm motivating myself to find
23:05
Speaker 1: at least ten of those this year. That'll be interesting.
23:09
Speaker 1: I am not going to use it as an excuse
23:11
Speaker 1: to buy ten games, though I do have a couple
23:14
Speaker 1: of them, a couple games from the Top fifty in
23:17
Speaker 1: my collection that I've never played, so get I can
23:19
Speaker 1: get Shelf of Opportunity and Top two fifty taken care
23:23
Speaker 1: of at the same time. But remember I couldn't count
23:25
Speaker 1: that for both then I Finally, I want to introduce
23:30
Speaker 1: two games or two categories that are focused on designers. So,
23:35
Speaker 1: as you know, Vladimir Succi and Martin Wallace are my
23:38
Speaker 1: two favorite designers. It's often neck and neck enough that
23:41
Speaker 1: I can't really decide, so I've actually done an episode
23:44
Speaker 1: where I contemplate the two and wonder which one is
23:47
Speaker 1: my favorite. Usually the one whose games I've played most
23:50
Speaker 1: recently is my favorite, but it varies. So I want
23:53
Speaker 1: to play at least ten games by each of them
23:57
Speaker 1: on the table this year. My goal is to play
23:59
Speaker 1: ten different ones by each but I am going to
24:03
Speaker 1: allow myself to repeat if it turns out I can't
24:06
Speaker 1: play the ten different ones, so I'm gonna sort of
24:09
Speaker 1: fill in shadow success for those, So like if I
24:12
Speaker 1: play Brass Birmingham twice in the coming year. That could
24:16
Speaker 1: count as two Martin Wallace games, but my preference, my
24:19
Speaker 1: goal would be to play ten different Martin Wallace games. Vladimirs.
24:24
Speaker 1: Succi's a little harder in that regard because if I'm
24:27
Speaker 1: playing as far as I can, I think I have
24:29
Speaker 1: eleven of his published games, so playing ten of them
24:32
Speaker 1: will be tricky because some of them are a little
24:34
Speaker 1: old and hard to get to the table. I will
24:36
Speaker 1: also say I am only counting plays on the table
24:39
Speaker 1: for this category, whereas other categories I might count digital plays.
24:44
Speaker 1: So that is my ten for ten for twenty six.
24:47
Speaker 1: The last thing to share on this top of the
24:50
Speaker 1: Sack episode are the games I'm planning to play in January.
24:53
Speaker 1: So my top my four picks for January are La Patisseiri, Rococo, Praga,
24:59
Speaker 1: could put Regny, Deal or Duel sorry, Duel or Deal,
25:03
Speaker 1: and the Hobbit There and back again. I would like
25:05
Speaker 1: to try to get each of those played this month.
25:07
Speaker 1: If I do, that'll be a mega success, because just
25:09
Speaker 1: getting three of them played would be a success. Well.
25:12
Speaker 1: That brings me to the end of the episode. Thanks
25:14
Speaker 1: for joining me. I've got one more episode coming this
25:16
Speaker 1: season in which I'm going to talk about my I'm
25:20
Speaker 1: gonna reflect on the season and talk about the upcoming season,
25:23
Speaker 1: so be sure to tune in for that. If you'd
25:25
Speaker 1: like to share what you played in December, head over
25:28
Speaker 1: to board game Geek Guild three two sixty nine and
25:30
Speaker 1: look for the pick Up and Deliver guild. The post
25:33
Speaker 1: started by John yesterday or this morning called Top of
25:37
Speaker 1: the Stack January twenty twenty five or twenty six, in
25:40
Speaker 1: which John talks about the games that he played last month.
25:44
Speaker 1: It's a great way to start the conversation and join
25:46
Speaker 1: in them the new year. Well, I want to say
25:48
Speaker 1: thank you for joining me on my walk today. I
25:50
Speaker 1: hope that year next walk is as pleasant as mine was.
25:53
Speaker 1: Bye bye,