Plays for the 2nd half of 2008

I started tracking my plays on boardgamegeek in the latter half of last year in hope of assessing some trends in the preferences of my gaming community. Plays recorded are all face-to-face plays and do not include plays on BSW (which wasn't significant in in 2008 except for an initial fascination with Dominion). Here are they, in order of most plays to least:

26 plays - Battle Line

I counted plays for Battle Line according to the tournament style which means 1 play for a best of 3 game. If I were to count individual games, the plays would easily surpass 60 or 70.

26 plays - Race for the Galaxy

With the lukewarmness shown towards RftG by Van, I was surprised to see so many plays with this. I suppose Van was rather obliging to my whims of trying the game initially so we did clock quite a few plays. The short play time also helped and I'm not surprised to see geek forumers with hundreds of plays in 2008. Nonetheless, I foresee it be harder to bring it to the table in 2009. Ben and Weilong seem like the ones amongst my gaming partners who are most receptive to the game currently.

10 plays - Agricola

A game loaned to me by Lawrence which I'm immensely grateful. While I'm not sure if it's truly deserving of its no. 1 ranking on geek, it has indeed been a game Van and I have enjoyed immensely. I still enjoying playing it best with 2 or 3.

9 plays - Ra, Glory to Rome, Mr. Jack

Ra is a nice middle-weight game to have in the collection - scales well with a short playing time. As mentioned, Glory to Rome has risen quickly to the top of my list of games and 9 plays alone in the month of December is no surprise.

Mr. Jack is a game I have decided to sell/trade off but which I have faced difficulty due to the hole in the corner of the box made by my dog. The mechanics are interesting but it is limited as strictly a 2 player game and I have issues with the downtime since you can't make any meaningful analysis during your opponent's turn and will have to wait till his or her moves are complete before you can decide yours. Despite that, 8 plays are impressive considering I counted one play with each player having a go at both the detective and Jack.

8 plays - Pandemic 

Also a game just acquired in December. We played 4 times the first day we tried it. Scales well and plays in a short time. I'm starting to tire of it slightly but the responses from the rest are good so I suspect it will see more plays in 2009.

7 plays - Settlers of Catan

A perennial favourite but been seeing less plays with the influx of new games.

5 plays - Tichu

A game to 500 points counts as 1 play.

3 plays - Puerto Rico, Taj Mahal, Galaxy Trucker

Galaxy Trucker is the rising star that also came in the December game package while the other 2 are solid Euros that I hope to bring out more often in 2009.

2 plays - El Grande, No Thanks!, Stone Age, Princes of Florence

El Grande and Princes are amongst my favourite games and am somewhat disappointed not to have seen more plays with them, especially El Grande since I personally own the game. Stone Age appears promising after 2 plays with a weight somewhat similar to Settlers so I suspect I will be introducing it to new gamer friends in the new year.

1 play - Power Grid, Citadels, Saint Petersburg, Tigris & Euphrates

Power Grid and Tigris while excellent games can be somewhat heavy going - difficult to bring to the table without the right group. It was my first face-to-face try of Saint Petersburg and it reinforced my views of it on BSW - reasonably enjoyable for its length but nothing I need to own.