Board Game Friday: April 2024 Board Game Arena Plays!

My in-person board gaming has taken a bit of a back seat this year mostly due to the fact that my son is no longer board game obsessed!  In fairness to him, he's in Kindergarten this year and by the time he gets home from the day he is pretty tired.  I can't blame him for not wanting to engage in "real" board games at that point.  Luckily, there is an alternative board gaming route for me to get my fix though and that's over on Board Game Arena.  

In the month of April 2024, I managed to complete 59 games over on BGA.  I'm still not what most people would consider a "good player" at many games (I won 24/59 or about 40.7% of the time).  Not great, but I am seeing some slow improvement in my own play for a variety of games over on the site.  

Speaking of the variety of games, here's the full list of what I played in April:

As you can see, I'm still playing Lost Ruins of Arnak heavily (that was my most played game in March 2024 as well).  

This month, I tried Dice Forge for the first time.  

I went into my lone play of that game having not read the instructions at all...so I basically played a full game not having any real sense of strategy or pacing.  It was fun enough, I guess, but I think the gimmick of the game might be more fun in person (basically you take off sides of dice and replace them with "better" options for future rolls).  You kind of lose a lot of the novelty factor when played online with digital dice rolling!

I also played 7 Wonders Duel for the first time (in digital form).  

I actually own 7 Wonders Duel and had played it once in person years ago.  After playing it online a few times in early April, I ended up digging out my physical copy and getting that to the table as well.  All told, I played 7 Wonders Duel eight times in April, good enough to be my third most played game of the month!  Personally, while I think the game works fine both online and in person, I do think the online implementation is actually a bit better than playing in person!  For one, the computer does the setting up of the grid each age automatically (and the cards don't slide around like they do in person).  Second, and perhaps more importantly, the computer automatically calculates the cost of each revealed card for you to play as well as what it will cost for your opponent to play the card.  A big part of the game is money management and the online version makes keeping track of everything much, much smoother!

Overall, April ended up being a solid month for board gaming!  I'm super happy to have the BGA option, it definitely allows me to both try lots of new games as well as really dive into some of my favorites.  I usually have multiple games going at once so there's almost always something for me to do (i.e., a turn to take) every time I log into the site!  

If you are into board games and haven't yet tried Board Game Arena, I highly encourage checking it out.  You don't even have to pay anything to play the games (you do need to pay to start "premium" games but you can join in games started by other players for free which is great).  Highly encouraged - and feel free to send me a friend request if you are on the site!  I'm always up for playing old favorites or trying out new games.