Board Game Friday: 15 Board Game Challenges for 2024!

Happy Friday, everyone!  This week marked my first week back at work and while the week went fine, I can't help but to be excited for the weekend.  As usual, I hope to get a board game or two played this weekend, but unlike last year, this year I have some specific board game-centric goals to shoot for throughout 2024.

You see, the app I use to track my board game plays is called bgstats.  That app has a module called challenges that basically lets you set up a bunch of different challenges or goals for the upcoming year.  Since the year has still barely begun, I thought it might be fun to take a look at some of my goals...and who knows, maybe by the time December rolls around I'll return to this post with an update on how successful (or not) I was.

Challenge 1:  500 Plays Challenge

The goal here is simple, play at least 500 games in 2024.  Note, this is 500 plays of a game, not play 500 different games (that'd be crazy).  500 plays is probably going to be a stretch as it is!

Challenge 2:  Alphabet Challenge

This is one of the original board game challenges that I remember hearing about years ago.  The concept is simple, play a board game that starts with each letter of the alphabet (plus I added play a game that starts with a number).  I don't have any expectation I'll actually complete this one (I don't currently own any games that start with the letters V or X).  If I can get at least 20 of the 27 letters/number games played I'll call this one a success!

Challenge 3:  10x10 Challenge

The other classic board game challenge that's been around forever.  Pick 10 games and play each game at least 10 times.  Sounds easy until you realize that that's 100 different plays right there!  Some people will do this challenge with the goal of playing any 10 games 10 times each while other people specifically pick their 10 games and then strive to play each of those 10 times.  I kind of hedged my bets a bit and picked 5 games specifically and then I'm going with the other 5 being whatever games I get to the table the most!

Challenge 4:  Complete 150 Plays with my Son

My son is five, going on six in a few months so he and I can play a bunch of different games together.  I actually had him pick the goal number this year figuring that might help keep him interested in playing with his dad!  

Challenge 5:  Play 5 games from the year 2018

Challenge 6:  Play 5 games from the year 2019

Challenge 7:  Play 5 games from the year 2020

Challenge 8:  Play 5 games from the year 2021

Challenge 9:  Play 5 games from the year 2022

Challenge 10:  Play 5 games from the year 2023

I lumped those challenges all together because they are all a riff on the same concept, play 5 different games that were published in a certain year.  These are goofy challenges but I figured why not see what happens?!

Challenge 11:  Play Every Game in my Collection

Yeah, this one won't actually happen but it's fun to try and play as many games in my collection as possible!  The size of my collection is (I believe) determined on the day that I started the challenge which, according to the app, means I need to play 202 unique games this year.  Definitely not going to happen but we'll see how high I can get that number.

Challenge 12:  Play my Unplayed Owned Games

A slightly more reasonable goal, I "only" have 102 games in my collection that are currently marked as unplayed.  Of course, the real number is much lower than that as I only recently started tracking my board game plays in the app.  I'd wager the real number here is closer to 50...but that's still a lot of unplayed games!

Challenge 13:  A Solo Game 10x10

Another play 10 games 10 times challenge, though this is solo game specific.  I also went through and picked the ten games for the challenge (though I reserve the right to change my mind)!  My ten choices are featured in the grid below.

Challenge 14:  5x5 Challenge with my Son

My son wanted in on a second challenge so I had him pick 5 games that we need to play 5 times each before the end of the year.  His five games he picked are:

• Catapult Feud
• Keep the Heroes Out!
• Kingdomino
• Ticket to Ride:  Europe 
• Zombie Dice

Now, he originally picked a different version of Ticket to Ride but has already switched over to TtR:  Europe.  Who knows how many other games he'll switch out before the year is over?!  I will say that we've already played three of the five games above at least once so we have made some solid progress already!

Challenge 15:  H-Index Challenge

A board game H-index of say 10 means that you have 10 different games that you've played at least 10 times each.  As you increase your H-Index by 1, you are exponentially increasing the number of board game plays that need to happen (i.e. an H-Index of 11 means you've played 11 different games at least 11 times each).  Heading into 2024, my H-Index was 14 but I was only two plays away from having an H-Index of 15.  I already accomplished that goal so now I'm working towards an H-Index of 16 (of which I'm currently only 5 plays away from, but obviously those five plays have to be for very specific games)!

That's 15 different challenges for me to work on in 2024.  As a guy who loves statistics and keeping track of things, it's kind of satisfying to log a board game play and have multiple boxes from challenges get checked off as complete.  I'm not treating any of the challenges as actual goals, but rather I'm thinking of them as fun things to work towards and/or when I can't make up my mind the challenges can act as a bit of a guidepost for my decision making.

Happy gaming in 2024!