I love having a nose around in other people’s board game collections, so it seems apparent to me that other people will be interested in mine. So here we go.
Let us start with this bookcase in my dining room, shall we?
Up until about two years ago it had actual books on it, but then, I said to myself, Steve, how likely are you to need immediate access to these novels (all of which you have already read) any time soon?
The answer I gave myself resulted in the books being moved into the loft, and my board games going onto the shelf instead.
This bookcase is where I keep my current favourite games – the ones I choose from whenever I have a game night. My personal all-time favourites are all here (Keyflower, Istanbul and the criminally under-rated Shakespeare) as well as a few games that I know will go down well with visitors who might not enjoy strategic Eurogames as much as I do (such as Sheriff of Nottingham, Perudo, and Mysterium).
Quite a few games on this bookcase are ones that I got for Christmas, and have not actually played yet – Orleans, Manhattan Project, Great Western Trail, and Mombasa. I am looking forward to spending a few evenings over the coming weeks getting them out, setting up the board, punching out those cardboard tokens, and figuring out what we are supposed to do with them.
Now, until quite recently, my entire collection of modern games fitted quite nicely onto these shelves. Over the past few months however, I have gotten a bit carried away with all the new releases, and they no longer fit on the bookcase – some of them have had to be moved.
(And, yes, whenever I buy a new game now, I have to apply a one-in-one-out rule.)
This is the loft:
The loft is where I send games to be “rested”.
If I have played a game more than about ten times, such as Stone Age or Pandemic, I tell myself that it is time to give some other poor games a chance, and it’s up to the loft they go.
Some of the games up there are ones that I have had for decades, and will probably never play again. They date back to before the time I considered myself a hobbyist, but still had some good times having game nights with friends (only with a much more limited selection of games). I had so much fun playing Carrot’s Canny Captions and Lose Your Shirt in the nineties that I just can’t bring myself to throw them away.
Also in the loft are my empty expansion boxes – Carcassonne, Village, Kingdom Builder, Istanbul – the boxes’ original contents are now mixed in with the base games. I have no idea why I am incapable of throwing these empty boxes away, but I am.
It always makes me a little sad to send a game to the loft. It’s a bit like when a beloved footballer reaches a certain age, and moves to a team in a lower division – yes, he is still around, but you know in your heart that his best playing days are behind him.
(By the way, shortly after I took this picture, I decided it would be a good idea to bag these games up in supermarket carrier bags to stop them getting dusty. It was the right thing to do, but the pile of games does not look as pretty now.)
This is my locker at work:
I run a weekly lunchtime board game session at work – four or five of us book out a meeting room every Thursday, at the back of the building, away from passers-by. I find it useful to have a few games on hand, in case I forget to bring one in from home one week. Also, it means I have to move fewer games into the loft.
These are not the only games we play at work, but they are the ones that my work friends like playing, and that I don’t think I will play much at home.
I wanted to keep Ra in here, as it is collectively our favourite lunchtime game, but there wasn’t room.
(I used to keep all of these in the boot of my car, until I had the locker idea.)
Finally, this is my daughter’s bedroom wardrobe:
Quite a few of these games are actually mine, but they are the ones that she says she really likes. I managed to persuade her that she should keep them in her room, by saying that if she did not take them I was going to put them all in the loft.
Don’t judge me.
***STOP PRESS***
I just had my birthday and I got these lovely things.
I am not complaining, but where the hell am I going to put them?
Ticket to Carcassonne 