State of the Collection Part 1

Borrowing a page from Dicetower News videos where Tom Vasel talks about a gaming shelf and why he's keeping each game on that shelf, I wanted to do a series of posts where I discuss why I'm keeping the games I am, what I like about those games, and even some of the games I might consider trading/selling.  

To make things easy, ratings will be out of 6.

1 - Ready to trade/sell

2 - Considering trading/selling, willing to give another chance

3 - Might trade/sell, not my favorite, but has a time and place to play. Perhaps is around more for others than myself.

4 - I like the game but there's something that stops me from liking it more.  Maybe I don't get to play it often enough, maybe there's a minor irritation with some rules or the way something works.  

5 - I enjoy the game. It works well in most situations. I would be hard pressed to let it go, but it could happen in the distant future.

6 - Love the game, keeping it, never letting it go.

First, let's look at what's currently in my to go bag.  This is my go to set of games that I take with me to just about any gaming event.  Some games will change, but most are staples of the bag.  

• Article 27 - 5. A big hit with my Friday night group.  One of the only pure negotiation games I own.  Players have so much freedom with this game, it's fun to watch everyone's behavior.
• Coloretto - 3.  More often than not, I forget I have it around.  I like the set collection aspect, and the choice of when to take cards.  It's a deep card game and one I should play more often.
• Eight-Minute Empire - 5.  It's just too easy to pull this out at the start of game night while we wait for other people to show up.  Yes, it always takes longer than 8 minutes, but it's a fast game and very enjoyable for the short time.
• For Sale - 5.  A quick auction filler game.  There isn't a ton of strategy, which is good for new players, but there's enough that I still enjoy it 20+ games in.
• Hanabi - 4.  Since I've only had this game for a week and a half, it's hard to rate it perfectly, but I'm enjoying it so far.  In ways, it's more of a challenge than a game, yet that makes it unique in my collection.  Trying to maximize your clues and deduce things about your hand while trying to stay on the course for a perfect game is a huge challenge.
• Incan Gold - 6.  A great push your luck game that stretches up to 8 players, making it very versatile.
• King of Tokyo (w/ Power Up exp) - 6.  KoT is one of those games that I can play in any gaming situation.  It's a fun and relatively fast dice chucking game with an engaging theme.
• No Thanks - 5.  A quick filler card game.  There's luck with what cards come out, and when players decide to take cards.  There's also enough strategy to keep things interesting.
• Resistance Avalon - 6.  This game is only a week and a half old for me, but in the 4 games I've played of it, I love it.  It's an absolutely fascinating experience of trying to figure out who's who based on every little thing that they do.  The game certainly makes you think, but I really enjoy it.
• Smash Up (w/ Awesome Level 9000 exp) 3.  This card game still has me on the fence.  I love the ideas in the game, but it always seems to take too long to play.  Maybe we're all just thinking too long, but I still think things could be done to speed it up.
• Tiki Topple - 4.  This isn't a perfect game, some would even say this isn't even a good game, but something about it just makes me smile.  Maybe it's saying the names of the Tiki's like Wikiwiki or Huhu.  This game brings out a silly side of me, and I enjoy playing it near the end of the night.
• TransAmerica - 4.  This has been a hit with the Friday night group because of the subtle strategy.  The two big choices are when to connect to other players and when to use your colored tracks to block.  I try to play with the Vexation expansion as often as I can, but I do still enjoy the game without it.
• Tsuro - 5.  It's seeing less play lately as compared to last year, but that's ok.  It still gets played from time to time.  It's a quick tile game, that is really easy to teach anyone.

So that's what's in my to go bag.  As you'd figure, it's a lot of the best games for me right now, and a lot of what I've been playing lately.  I'm going to try to get a post out a day, I'll probably look at 10 games per day, so it should take me a little more than a week to get them all out.