After my boardgame epiphany, I was very excited to try as many different board games mechanics as possible, and the only way I had to do it, was inviting my friends to come over and play some games together.
I have to say they liked the idea since all of them are passionate video gamers. We started gathering once a month, but I soon realized that my learning progress was going too slow compared to my will to understand and join the board game industry. They were always busy with work or studies and some weekends they just preferred to go out instead of playing games, fair enough.
I had to think of something that could trigger the necessity of playing more games, you know, like a drug, so one day I created a facebook group called GameNight and invited them to the first real competition.
Every time someone won a game, they could have little dices as a reward depending on the difficulty of the game and the duration. At the end of the year, we would gather and roll all the dices up to three times. The one with the best score would be the winner of the year.
It was a very simple and not so balanced mechanic, but it created an amazing competition and we started playing twice a month. My plan to get a few of my friends addicted to board games was working just as I expected, perfectly.
After the first year, since we are out of the world geeks, like many board gamers actually, we created a new concept for our GameNights. I thought about replacing the dice system with a more balanced format. Basically we would earn credits for each game we won based on difficulty.
We started saving a little money in each GameNight we did, and from time to time we auctioned those games we brought with the credits earned. This system was a huge success, and we started playing almost every week, finding time even during week days!
Half of my friends are programmers, and the other half is very creative, so we started taking GameNights very seriously, with score tracking, winning rates, achievements and graphs.
We now have a google sheet that we keep updating week by week with all this relevant information. I created a copy of it and made it public so you could see our craziness.
I have to say that board games made us became even closer friends, and personally made my brain, memory and thinking way more effective as before, or at least that’s what I want to believe.
I have to say I can’t be more happy to have found this hobby and to share it with this amazing group of friends.
How often do you play board games, and how do you live the experience?
That’s a super neat idea to decide the yearly board game winner by rolling winners dice accumulated throughout the year! My wife and I want to spend more time with our grandchildren and they are very competitive. I will keep this in mind as we find games for sale so we can utilize this strategy!