As promised,  here are some thoughts on my 2017 played boardgames. Being the second year that I do this, it is possible to make some comparisons. I am again using boardgamegeek to record all my game sessions.

In 2017 I played a total of 55 different games, 5 more than the previous year. I was also able to play more sessions (118 against around 100 in 2016). The main reason for this was two-fold, and shows in the top-played games.  First, I restarted to have a semi-regular second weekly session. This second session allowed for something I had been missing for a long time: the return of the "monster" games...

I define monster games as games that take more than 20 hours to play, that is, they need more than 4 sessions to play by a dedicated group.

A few years ago I was studying the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and come across the work of Hydatius, bishop of Aquae Flaviae (modern day Chaves, in Portugal), in the the 5th century AD, who wrote the Chronicon, a chronicle of the events of what he thought were the last years before the end of the world. In fact, this text is one of the few contemporary texts offering us a glimpse into that time. Unfortunately the text consists usually of just a very short entry for each year.

It is the end of one year, the beginning of another, that time when one can take a retrospective view of experiences. At the beginning of 2016 I decided to record on boardgamegeek all my boardgame plays, so now we can look at that list for some thoughts.

Being the first year I am systematically recording my plays allows no comparisons with years past, but we can get some statistics.
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Playing MHG woke in me the longing for the WW2 strategy games, nurtured in thousands of hours of my teens  playing boardgame classics like World in Flames, Advanced Squad Leader and others. So I bought the heavily discounted collection of Hearts of Iron II (2006) and Hearts of Iron III (2009) from Paradox, which are contemporary with MHG, whose initial edition came out in 2007 and the gold edition in 2008.

After the marathon that was The Witcher 3, and before entering another (Fallout 4 is waiting), I decided to try some of the games I have been collecting in my Steam collection. I usually buy games only in promotions. With such a backlog of games to play, it makes no sense to pay launch price for a game I will probably play only one year later...

Meanwhile, I was asked to play and discuss some aspects of the game Making History: The Calm and the Storm for scientific purposes.

Steam's counter marks 148 hours of play. While the actual numbers are certainly lower, there is no doubt that I spent at least 120 hours of my recent life on Gerald's shoes, until the Wild Hunt was finally defeated. After the disappointment that was Dragon Age 3 (I wanted to write a post about it, but never found the time), I found Witcher 3 the best roleplaying game of recent memory.

I was navigating an asteroid field in my spaceship, the big rocks passing around me, slowing rotating. I could look up or to the side to see them pass the ship... Looking around me, there was the ship's spacious cockpit, in all naked detail, with the co-pilot empty seat reminding me of my solitude in space. I came out of the asteroid field, which in fact was a gas giant planet ring, and tried to engage "supercruise", so that my ship would travel to the other side of the giant planet.

After the Tour-de-Force that was playing the Witcher 2 to the end, and before entering a similar  endeavour, I decided to play a few short games, that have been coming out in the last years. My brother was so nice as to offer me the 9 game Steam wishlist for Xmas, using the season discounts.

So, here I am, with nine games to play. This first post will be on the two first games.

Papers, Please: A game about being a border public worker in the Republic of Arstotzka.

Last day of the year 2014. While making my end-of-year balance, I couldn't recall making posts in this Blog. Decided to check, and gasp, my last published post was on the first day of 2013! So, it is time to make one for 2014. What should I write about? I could make the third instalment of the series Politikards Design Diaries, but I will leave that for later and just make a quick recap of my gaming 2013 and 2014.

This is the second of a series of posts dedicated to a new game series, called "Politikards", that I have been creating together with Carlos Mesquita, and whose first game, was recently published by our new company, Tabletip Games.

In this second post I will talk about inspiration and the cards basic elements.
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