Board Game Friday: March 2023 Board Game Plays Recap!

I have started keeping track of my plays of board games using an app on my phone.  Using that same app, I'm now able to create images of the board games along with the number of times I played each game for the month.  

Here's the results for the month of March:

As you can see, my board game playing for the month was dominated with plays involving my son.  My son turns five next month, but he's already playing a number of games that are proper additions to my personal board game collection (Karuba and Draftosaurus, in particular).  My son also loves Quest Kids though that one is firmly a "kid game."  

Other highlights of the month for me was two more plays of Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion...I'm (slowly) going through that game with a friend and I think we are within two or three scenarios from having the campaign finished!  I also gave the game Fleet another chance this month after dismissing it a few years ago after a single less-than-desirable play.  I have to admit, this time around I enjoyed that game quite a bit and it's definitely one I hope to get to the table again soon.  

While March ended up a great month for me in terms of playing board games, I also wanted to get "caught up" on games played from the rest of the year so far. 

Here's what I got to play in February:

As you can see, more games with my son but overall quite a few less different games than in March.  That Jurassic Park game is part of the Unmatched series - a series that will probably show up quite a bit in the future as I'm really digging that particular game style!

It's more of the same story for the month of January as well:

I had kind of "outgrown" Ticket to Ride but now that my son is starting to get into the game (and with that, my wife as well), I'm also enjoying that game again.  My son hasn't quite moved on from the Ticket to Ride:  First Journey game (basically a "kiddie" version of the regular Ticket to Ride game) but I think he'll be ready to move on up sooner than later.  You may notice that I don't include most true "kiddie" games in my board game play stats - I find those plays distort my statistics way too much!

In total, I played 17 different games from January through March 2023 with a total of 76 different plays.  At the moment, Karuba leads the way with 19 plays followed closely by Quest Kids (17 plays).  After that, it's Draftosaurus (6 plays), Keep the Heroes Out (5 plays), and then Arboretum and Unmatched:  Battle of Legends Vol 1 (4 plays each).

Another fun benefit of all this game playing is that it gives me more opportunities to write board game reviews.  This year alone, I've already written reviews for both Draftosaurus and Arboretum, two of my more played games in 2023!

What will April bring?  My best guess is less game playing than March...mostly because April is a super busy month for me with work (it's the final month of the spring semester).  That said, I've probably already played more games in 2023 than I did any year prior to this year so I really can't complain!