2006 Resolution Review

While I focused primarily on my unplayed games burndown throughout 2006, I actually set 5 distinct goals back in January 2006. Let's review how I did on each goal.

1. Attend at least one mid-week gaming session a month (besides my own). This is mostly a matter of putting it on my schedule and making it a priority. I’m lucky to attend every other month, mostly due to my travel schedule.

   • I estimate that I made about 9-10 mid-month gaming sessions. I started tracking my games played during the second half of the year, but have to guestimate for the first half. I'm making more of Mike's sessions (closer to home) but still have a hard time making it to Doug's and have never made a trip to Matt's.

2. Play through my current owned but un-played list. I’ll probably post this next week with some comments. I’m allowed to add new games that go right into my un-played list. Maybe I’ll get to those next year. I think I might put a big burn-down chart on my game-room wall to track my progress.

   • This one got the most attention last year, and you can read my final 2006 burndown report. I got through all but 2 of my unplayed games.

3. Play significantly more casual, short games at home with the family. I’ve already had some good success with this in the past week, playing Lost Cities twice with Jacob and Blink with Matthew. We also squeezed in a three-player game of Wyatt Earp this evening. This is hard to measure (not a very SMART goal) but the intent will pay off.

   • True, this was hard to measure. I don't think I did very well in this area, especially playing lighter games with Matthew. What I have done is play a lot more heavy 2-player games with Jacob, which has been a real treat for both of us. Games we played in the last year include Twilight Struggle, Command & Colors: Ancients, ASL Starter Kit #1, and Through the Ages. Hardly casual, short fare.

4. Organize and run sessions at GameStorm. I did this two years ago but didn’t last year. Not sure what I’ll run – any suggestions? We will definitely run some prototype playtestings for Sunriver Games, but I’d like to run something unusual/unlikely. Perhaps Battlestations would be a good choice.

   • I did some prototype playtesting and helped run the 2-player game tournament. I also managed to run a number of unscheduled casual games like Can't Stop, Byzantium, and Munchkin. This year I may help run a Kniziathon.

5. Improve my critical writing skills, particularly when reviewing and evaluating games. This takes time (that I’m not sure I have), practice, and personal content review/editing. I’d like be able to decompose a game as well as Chris Farrell but be a little less of a curmudgeon.

   • Talk about unmeasurable! I'll let you, the reader, judge this. I do know that I have not fundamentally changed my writing process in that I don't spend any more time editing or reviewing when I post then I did in 2005.

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I've done some 2007 goal setting, but none of those are really focused on gaming. One of those is to finish 2007 with no unplayed games in my collection - should be easier this year given that I'm starting with only two! Julie and I have also set some financial goals that will limit my game purchasing, which is just fine by me. I suspect I'll be buying more wargames this year than euros, partly because I've already P500'd a number of games that will eventually show up on my doorstep. I will post shortly on games that I'm most interested in seeing in 2007.