New Year’s Gaming Resolutions 2024

Happy New Year everyone!

As we settle into the delights that 2024 has to offer us It’s time to add the latest chapter of the ZATU tradition of New Year Gaming Resolutions. Some of our top bloggers consider what they may resolve to do in 2024 and possibly reflect on how they did against their last year’s ones. Don’t forget if you sometimes struggle to meet your resolutions that in 2024 you’ve got an extra day to play with!

Steven Gilbey - New Year Resolution: Play More Expansions

Last summer, my wife and I moved closer to some of our board game friends, and we squeezed a lot more gaming meet-ups into the back half of the year. As part of these sessions, we wanted to play as many new games as we could. This means that my collection grew significantly last year, to the point that I had to find more shelving space to store them. Based on that, I have decided to reduce the number of games that I purchase this year. Instead, I am making it my goal for the New Year to focus on playing expansions to the games that I already own.

My first goal is to try at least one of the Scythe expansions. Across three expansions, you have the option to include additional factions, game mechanics, and story content. This turns what is already a big game into a massive undertaking. There is also the option to use a board expansion to increase the playing area, although I may need to buy a larger gaming table if I go down this route.

This year, I also want to pick up expansions for one of my favorite medium-sized games, Carcassonne. Currently, there are 10 expansions that I am aware of but no doubt there are more that I have missed. I was kindly given the first expansion, Inns and Cathedrals, for Christmas, and really enjoyed adding it to the base game. I already have my eye on subsequent expansions, which are as varied as they are wild, adding anything from kings and robbers to wild animals and dragons.

Overall for the year ahead, I’m looking forward to focusing on adding to the games that I already own, although I have no doubt that a few new games will creep in!

Rob Wright - NYR- The Returnering

Another turn of the year, another time for reflection, another look at my resolutions for the year previous, and the realisation that… yeah, that didn’t happen.

I think I said something about thinning out my collection. Well, I made a good start at Airecon in March, but apart from that… It still remains pretty significant. I have managed to play more through my back catalogue, finally getting to play Underwater Cities against another human and not going overboard at UKGE with the purchases, which is good. My vlogging dreams remain unfulfilled though. I am never going to get discovered by Dice Tower at this rate…

But we have a new year ahead, so what to do? Well, I am still going to trim my collection… cycle my collection… gift my collection? Not all of it, silly – just the games that I have either superseded or completed. There comes a time when even the best of friends must part.

Leading neatly into my second resolution is… complete more games. We had a real good go at JOTL last year, but since one of our party left town… literally… we have experienced a hiatus. It is time to send out the call and rally the troops. Mansions of Madness also needs to be given another airing – I have had it for a good while and have only completed the first encounter – focus, Rob, focus!

Finally, a kinda related to board games – do something other than play board games. I know, I know, but sometimes if you overdo something, you end up not enjoying it as much – familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt, and I don’t want to end up hating board gaming. See? I managed to get through that without mentioning my shaving resolution once.

Oh. (Ed’s note: Rob’s first piece was 5 paragraphs on shaving more than once a week!😊)

FavouriteFoe

In 2022, my gaming resolution was to play co-operative games. I put aside my competitive urges and steadied myself to be alpha-gamed by my superiorly skilled husband. Turns out that we can play nicely together (admittedly usually when too tired to try and smash each other!) and so a wondrous new section of this hobby opened up to us.

In 2023, I flip reversed the challenge and resolved to play more games solo. Not as a reaction to 2022. Just because life was getting busier, and I didn’t want to rely on others for fun. And I have to say this was the best resolution I have made to date. I created some hashtags on social media and embarked upon #2023solochallege #saturdaymorningsolo and #sundaymorningsolo. Over 365 days, I aimed to play every solo mode in our collection, and whilst I missed the mark, I have had a blast! In some cases, I have even had more fun playing solo than with others!

So in 2024, buoyed by the success of 2023, I have vowed to play more of the games that we love. The games in our collection that make us feel like we are home. Those which make our hearts flutter, brains tick, and fill us to the brim with satisfaction. Not chasing the hotness (although some of them are coincidentally super popular right now), but instead focusing on the games we would always play if time and space allowed. Five Tribes, Planet Unknown, Targi, The White Castle, Battle Line, Hadrian’s Wall, Earth, and more make the list. Euros, flip/roll and writes, card games, mancala, tile laying, engine building, worker placement……big mechanics are represented. The ultimate goal is to play ten of our favourite games ten times each. 100 plays of our go-to games over the course of 366 days. Wow! What a best-worst problem to have!

Hannah Blacknell

Last year we had a bunch of challenges running concurrently, and I felt that this really shaped the way that we chose what to play throughout the year. We had an alphabet challenge where we needed to play a game from each letter of the alphabet, and a 14x14 where we needed to play 14 games 14 times, as well as a standard play everything that we own, and all our unplayed games too.

It was A LOT. So this year we have pared things back, and instead our focus is going to be on our favourite games. We want to play our top ten collective favourite games (me and my husband) 5 times each across the year. Last year we simply did not play our favourite games all that many times, once or twice for most of them. But we love these games, so why not more?! Well they are all big games that take quite a long time to play and we were focused on the other challenges instead.

So what are the games for 2024, we will be playing, in alphabetical order, 10 of these 11 games 5 times each. These are fixed and are the 11 games that are in both of our top 20 games. Ark Nova, Everdell, Grand Austria Hotel, Hallertau, It’s A Wonderful World, Lost Ruins of Arnak, Root, Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, The White Castle, Viticulture, Wingspan. I love all of these games and so am really looking forward to getting these bangers to the table more.

Ross Coulbeck

Some people might say new year, new games. Well not me! My main New Year's resolution is to play more of the games I enjoy. Too often I'm distracted by new games or miniatures that appear, and not only is that bad for my bank balance, but also I end up not playing the great games I already own. Let's also not let those massive games on our shelf get us down. We’d all love to get a big group together and play that game that takes 2 hours to set up over a weekend, but often we can get just as much if not more enjoyment from the smaller games. I quite enjoy playing Fox in the Forest with my partner, or Cockroach Poker with a few friends.

As someone who collects miniatures, we often tend to be magpies looking for new shinies, and while I will be buying some new miniatures this year, I aim to go about it in a sensible way. My pile of shame is quite reasonable if I'm honest, I never leave stuff unbuilt and I'm down to my last dozen characters or units unpainted, so I'm determined to keep up a regular place this year painting wise. Regarding new miniatures, there will likely be some additions to my Votann army in there, but what I'm most excited about is Legions Imperialis. This is the year of the super tiny soldiers. I can't wait to get my hands on some and hopefully they should be straightforward to paint too.

Last but not least I don't want to neglect the best thing about games like Warhammer, the lore. The Warhammer universe is vast and there are some fantastic stories written in it. I want to pick up several books this year to read, especially my favourite character, Ciaphas Cain. Maybe even write some short stories of my own.