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The Challenge With Challenges

There are a lot of challenges for boardgamers who want to do more that just play games;

– The classic 10×10 Boardgame Challenge. The idea is to play 10 games 10 times each in a year. You should end up playing a minimum of 100 games. We attempted this last year, even recording out stats. We played a total of 48 games from that list. Oops! If wanted you can go easy and do the 5×5 challenge, just the five games, five times each.

 – Play through your collection. If like us you have a huge collection, over 300 games, this is a bit of a daunting task! However it could be a great way to decide what games could go to a new home. Even better, you get to play games that sit on the shelf and gather dust. We are totally guilty of getting games home, looking through them and then leaving them on the shelf unplayed. 🙁

 – Log 356 games in a year. (bonus if 365 unique items) A game a day feels do-able, so long as it is not Twilight Impirium, lol!

There are plenty of others, especially if you look around on Board Game Geek. Last year we took part in the BGG 2017 Advent Challenge. Although, to be honest we found it a slog. Trying to get through a game every day with all the other festive demands was hard. However it was a great way to count down to Christmas, and we made it extra fun by taking pictures of our naughty elf’s with each play.

BGG 2017 Advent Challenge

 

See, we struggle to play games at the best of times. Life seems to get in the way. Once we get home from work in the evenings we are shattered and cannot drag ourselves to the games room. We do try to book games nights with various friends and family. We even have a fortnightly games night with the same buddies. It is surprising how many times these events get cancelled though. That’s life! The worst part is Mike. He hates boardgame challenges. He then gets really irate when I try to get him involved. He hates being forced to play certain games at certain times. He wants to play what he wants when he wants! Playing the same games over and over is a forced repetition that spoils his enjoyment of playing games.

So what can we do to complete challenges?

We are not hard on ourselves. If we do not complete a challenge we still enjoy all the fun we had trying. We accept that there will be times we skip, hopefully we catch up at a later date. If not, we change it up a bit as we go. We are realistic. We set small goals. We keep track of all games we play on a neat little app called BG Stats. (You could also use BGG but this can be a little unweidly on a smartphone) The app has a challenges section where we set up realistic goals that we think we can manage. Recording what you play and sharing it with others can encourage you to continue. We had a great time interacting with others in the gaming community on the Advent Challenge. Even our friends ask about the games when we share on Facebook.

What challenges will we face in 2018? Well, we are just going to play as many games as possible. No challenge, no drama!

If you do fancy a challenge, check out –

The Art of Boardgaming, they have great free print outs to check your progress

BGG 365 Challenge, see how others are getting on and maybe take part too?

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