Second Chances

It’s crazy how many board games there are in existence. For someone not heavily invested in the tabletop hobby, you might only be aware of the games found at Barnes & Noble or in the game section of Target, but that is only a fraction of what’s out there. BoardGameGeek has over 140,000 entries that they accept as board games. 5,000+ of which were released just last year in 2022. Many of these entries might not be playable due to a small release, or it was just an idea for a game that never panned out. Expansions and promos to games are also logged as separate entries. 

If we are ambitious and say that half of those entries fall into one of those two categories, we are left with approximately 70,000 board games in a published state that I could potentially find and play. This means that I will die having never played every board game published….

This pacing of games being released yearly also means that almost all games get judged by their first play. A first impression of a game is so important because, most times, that is the only play a game will get. There are so many published games out there, so why keep playing a game that you don’t like?

The simple answer is sometimes a first impression is a wrong impression. 

Player count, who you play with, where you play the game, if you invested money into the game, and your mental state when you played the game are just a few of the many factors that influence that first play of a game.  None of these factors is a problem; they are just innate factors that will influence all first plays. Alex Radcliff from Boardgameco has a really good video that goes deeper into biases in games from a reviewer perspective that applies to this topic.

Over the last five years of getting to dive into the board game hobby space with Mikayla, I’ve probably had around 500-600 “first” plays. Since I am the primary “researcher” in our relationship (The one who finds and acquires the games we play), I usually have an expectation going into most plays. I would say 90% of the first experiences with these games have matched the expectation. I wanted to focus on five games that did not match that expectation today.

Five Games We Gave a second chance.

Since so many factors go into a first play, I wanted to highlight five games that our first play of wasn’t that great. What makes these five games different than other games we don’t enjoy is they got a second chance. Fortunately, they got a second play because all five games are games I’d consider to be house favorites now.

Vindication (Stayed in our collection between plays)

The game's variance in length (some games can last 20 minutes, some last an hour or more) was what caused our initial play to fall flat. Having a first play end in 20 minutes made both of us question at first if it was a game for us.

Unmatched (Left our collection, then was reacquired)

Our first game of Unmatched involved the character Alice. Part of her strategy is based on fatiguing the other player. This gave us the perception that every game would end this way, which is not a style we tend to enjoy. I’m glad we got a chance to try other characters.

Obsession (Stayed in our collection between plays)

This game is fantastic, but learning from the rule book is challenging. In our first play, I was flipping in the rulebook every other turn that it was hard to want to pull it off the shelf for a second play. Now that we have the rules down, it’s a go-to for when we want to play a game during the week.

Dune: Imperium (Left our collection, then was reacquired)

Our first play of Dune: Imperium was at a 2-player count. Dune Shines at 3-4 players. The automa held us back from realizing how great the game is. Luckily, our second play was at four players, and it is now a staple for us on game nights when we have 4 to play.

Spirit Island (Stayed in our collection between plays)

Our first play of Spirit Island was a bummer due to having the same terrain flipped from the invader deck about three rounds in. This left us seeing that the game was lost but we still had six rounds before we would officially lose. We are now 20 games into spirit island, and all 19 other plays haven’t left us feeling as helpless. 

What is a game you’ve given a second chance to that has changed your opinion on it for the better?