And I’ve been picking up games, I got a bunch of games at GenCon on August, I’ve gotten Lords of Hellas, Blood Rage, and Deep Madness from a local game store, used, to add to my collection. How can you keep a collection under control to have what you really want in it? And not to have games that are just going to sit around and never be played?

There are a few different factors that I look at when I consider what board games I want to keep or what games I want to get rid of. I think the mindset has to be there that you are looking for games to get rid of, not just games to keep, because I could make an argument to keep all of the games. Instead, look for the games that you can remove, not just to keep the collection smaller, but also to open up more room in your collection.

The first thing that I look at, and even though I find the extreme version of this dumb, is, does it give me joy. A lot of people take that to the extreme and end up getting rid of so much that they actually do miss it and realize it was and has given you joy. But, for a board game, I look at it this way, if I didn’t play it again, would I care that much? With the batch of culling that I’m doing right now, I considered the game Krosmaster Arena. While that game has adorable little figures, and I do enjoy the game, I won’t miss playing it. So, it doesn’t really bring me that much joy, but looking at another game I considered, Dead Men Tell No Tales. That game I’ve had more fun times with, and I would still pull it off the shelf and play it, even though I haven’t in a long time.

Next, when considering getting rid of a game, I also look at how much I have that is like it. Now, I have a number of deck builders, Xenoshyft: Onslaught, Clank! In! Space!, Ascension, and more, so I got rid of one of them? No, because I like all of those games and they give me joy, but when I considered the game Unspeakable Words, which the little chibi Cthulhu in it still entertain me, I realized that I have other word games, Quiddler and soon Letter Jam and I don’t think, when I want to play a word game, that I’d ever pull Unspeakable Words off of the shelf again. So there are times when a game might bring you some joy, but if you’re never going to play it again, it might be time to take it off of the shelf. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, because there will be times where you have some games that you just want to keep because of the memories that you have with those games.

I also consider if there is a new edition, and this ties into the previous point, but in some ways it’s a little bit different. For example, I am getting rid of Arkham Horror because I have the newest edition of Arkham Horror, and while I’ve had fun with the 5-6 hour game that the Arkham Horror was, I’m not going to get that to the table over a 3 hour or slightly less Arkham Horror 3rd Edition, or even a game like Arkham Horror The Card Game or Mansions of Madness. Or I’m getting rid of Machi Koro: Bright Lights Big City. Now, I don’t have another version or edition of that on my shelf, but I know that Machi Koro Legacy is out, and when you are done with Machi Koro Legacy, you still have a playable game of Machi Koro. So I’m not going to need both versions of the game in my collection, because they would fill the same need, and I can simply pull out the completed Legacy version.

I also ask myself if a game is still my taste or if I need a game like it still in my collection. Your collection can have only games that you love in it, and maybe only one type of game, but I personally think that you can have a breath of games and find some things out of your comfort zone that you kind of like, you should keep that in your collection or add it to your collection. Now, these games might not give you joy, but there are times and occasions to pull them out. I’m not a huge of Splendor, I think the game works decently, but it doesn’t excite me to play it. But that game came off the shelf a few weeks ago, because we needed a short game that is easy to teach. So sometimes you keep a game that you don’t love and you maybe have other versions of it that you like better, Century: Golem Edition scratches the same itch that Splendor does for me, but you keep the game because it is easy to get to the table in certain situations.

Finally, it might be a game that you’ve never played and never will play. Maybe there is a game so important to keep in your collection just to have collected it, that isn’t a thing for me, but sometimes, if a game has sat around long enough, it’s time to move on from it, because you won’t be able to play it. This is especially the case if you’ve tried to play it or tried to learn it and it just doesn’t look interesting or you can’t find the group. If you’ve tried to play it and you can’t find people to play it with, you have to decide if it’s worth keeping in your collection and if it’s stopping you from adding something you can play to your collection. Now, it might be that it is worth having it, and that is cool, because there will probably be a time, sometime in the future, where you find the right group to play it with, but if you don’t care that much, it might be time to move on from it instead of letting it eat up space.

So, let’s talk a little bit about what I’m getting rid of and why:
KrosMaster Arena: I think this game is the hardest to explain why. I enjoy the game, but I just know that I’m not going to consistently get it to the table again. And I think when it comes down to it, I have other dice chucking fighting games that I like better.
Rise of Queensdale: I was looking forward to playing this legacy game, because it’s a legacy game. With that said, the group I was going to play this with fell apart and I haven’t even removed it from the shrink, and that was about a year ago. So I don’t think I’ll find a group to play it and I have other legacy games, Betrayal Legacy, and probably in the future Clank! Legacy, Machi Koro Legacy, and Pandemic Legacy Season 3 that I’m going to prefer to play.
Unspeakable Words: This game was mainly kept around because the Cthulhu minis were cute. I have other word games that I’d pull out before it, and for me, the game is too random with it’s dice.
Forbidden Desert: A lot of people would keep this game as an introductory coop game in their collection. And I considered it for that reason, especially since I got rid of Forbidden Island before, but I have Pandemic, and I can teach and play that game as an introductory coop game.
Machi Koro: Bright Lights, Big City: Machi Koro Legacy is a thing that I’m going to want to play.
Albion’s Legacy: An interesting one to get rid of, because I haven’t played it, nor have I tried to play it. I got it for free at GenCon, and I wasn’t really that interested in it, but free things. So might as well get rid of it instead of having it take up space on my shelf.
Arkham Horror 2nd Edition: I have the 3rd Edition, and it just takes too long. I’m not going to get it to the table again over the 3rd edition because of the amount of time. I’d prefer to open up room for expansions for 3rd Edition.

That’s all of the games that are leaving this time. I could have maybe found a couple more small box games, but the small box game area still had room, so I didn’t look too hard at it.

Now, what I didn’t talk about was where to get rid of these games. I think that’ll be a separate post, but I sell mine for store credit, you know, to get more games.

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Pandemic Legacy

As I have talked about it before, it’s the first to enter the ring for the board game throw down. Pandemic Legacy is a strong contender as it works in a great story line with nice cooperative play. Season 1 is very similar to regular Pandemic where each person takes on the role of a CDC member and you are fighting various outbreaks. However, soon after you’ve started, you get a lot of twists and turns. The second season is much the same continuing after the first game by a little ways and able to be played without having played the first, but you’ll appreciate it more if you have played the first season.

Seafall

Now, I’ve written about this game as well, and I will say that I haven’t played through whole game, and likely never will. SeaFall is an exploring sea faring game where you take on different tribes and try and expand explore the unknown. There is a story running through the game, though, it can be a bit tricky to find all of the story in the correct order or to feel like there is a ton of story to it.

Risk Legacy

This variation on classic Risk takes you to an alien planet, that somehow looks exactly like Earth, except that all the borders are made up of short straight  lines. At that start of every game you pick your group of people and where you want to start, but instead of it being a slog to total world domination, it’s a race to see who can be the first to the victory point total. This move cuts the game time down a long long ways and makes the game much easier to get to the table than regular risk.

Charterstone

The final game in the battle is a worker placement game where you are competing against others to win the favor of the king as you work and build up a town for him. You build buildings, use what comes out of them to build more buildings, and you can explore crates which open up more opportunities to build and develop your section of the town into something unique. The game board evolves as the buildings you place are stickers, so everyone’s game is going to be unique.

Let’s talk about the tale of the tape with these games:

Time: Seafall games are by far the longest of any of these games. I don’t think that any others come close, in fact, Risk Legacy, the next longest game time, is probably about half the length of a single game of Seafall. Charterstone and Pandemic Legacy both generally clock in at under an hour, and Risk Legacy is just over an hour, whereas Seafall is probably three hours per game.

Story: Only in one of these legacy games would I say that there is a ton of story. Pandemic Legacy is full of story and twists and turns. I might get some disagreement, but Seafall has the next most story. While the story isn’t told the best, and you can get story out of order, there is definitely story in Seafall, it just isn’t presented or paced all that well. Risk Legacy and Charterstone basically have no story. Charterstone has a story slapped on the game, but the game wouldn’t play any different without the story, so I consider it completely optional, though it does pace out better than Seafalls, seeing as the story doesn’t really make a difference, it goes lower on the tape.

Ease of Play: Risk Legacy is probably the easiest out of all of them to play because it is just Risk with victory points. There’s plenty of familiarity with Risk out there in the world, and while not everyone might like it, they can probably pick it up easily. Charterstone is the next easiest as the mechanics of the game, while they do grow more complicated, still basically always remain, place a worker, or pick your workers up, so turns go by quickly. Pandemic Legacy is next, while at the start of the game it might be easier to grasp than Charterstone, Pandemic Legacy quickly adds in a lot of rules that you have to remember. Finally, Seafall, to no surprise, is a beast when ti comes to play, you have a lot of hard decisions to make every turn, and there is a decent amount of luck involved. Add in a poorly written rule book, and Seafall is not a game to pull out with beginners.

Now, I think that all of these games can be okay games. I have plenty of issues with Seafall, mainly a horrible rule book, and a poorly paced story, there are some solid mechanics behind it, and a lot of interesting and tough choices to make. However, it’s also the only one that is prone to a ton of analysis paralysis. So it’s the first out of the match, which is a shame, because I had high expectations for the game, which is some of the problem, because the game didn’t align with those expectations at all. Next out of the match is actually a double count out, so we’re getting to the winner which is Pandemic Legacy. No surprise there, but Pandemic Legacy has the story element and thematic ties that I look for in games. I will say this, though, about Charterstone and Risk Legacy, if your group is going to play a couple of games of it every other month, they are going to be better games to play, because you aren’t going to add in rules that vastly change the game between plays. However, the speed of play of Pandemic Legacy, the cooperative nature, and the great story telling makes it the winner.

On the horizon I’m hoping to play Rise of Queensdale and Betrayal Legacy. And I have yet again massive expectations for a Legacy game with Betrayal Legacy.

How many legacy games have you played, are there some that you haven’t that look interesting to you?

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