boardgame chain

Oct 2019. I decided to do a minor purge of my collection. I got into the hobby around 2003, and over 16 years I had acquired about 250 games. Many of them had not been played for years. So I wanted to give them away to people who would play them. Why giving away instead of selling? I had thought about my objective. My objective was to have the games played. Boardgames should be played, and they should bring joy to people. I also wanted to declutter my home and make space. Another consideration was I didn't want to deal with the hassle. I imagined if I tried to sell the games, the buyer would ask for photos and component checks (which were reasonable). Finding buyers would likely take time too. When I listed the games as free, they were all claimed within 12 hours. Later, I found that even when giving games away, there was much effort required - making appointments, reminding people, needing to stay home to wait.

After picking all the games I was ready to give away, the first thing I did was getting approval from the board - my family. Sure enough, they vetoed a few games. Next, I offered the games to a few gamer friends. They claimed some. Finally I went to the Facebook group Board Games To-Go (MY) to offer the rest. I set two conditions. (1) You have to come pick it up yourself. (2) You will play the game within 30 days, take a photo, and send it to me. In every box I put a sheet of paper. On that sheet of paper I wrote my email address, as the first item of a list. I asked the recipient of the game to add his email, then play the game and take a photo, and finally send the photo to every email address on the list, i.e. to all past owners of the game. I asked that when he or she no longer played the game, to give it to someone who would play it. This was how I wanted to create boardgame chains. I set my own expectations that this might not work as I hoped. Afterall, the people whom I was giving games to were mostly strangers. These below are some of the games I gifted, and friends I made along the way.

These were the initially shortlisted games. Games vetoed by my wife and children were Monopoly Express, Rabbit Hunt, Carcassonne: Discovery and Confetti.

These are Spielbox mini expansions. Log from Meeples Cafe has been giving me copies of the Spielbox magazine for years, and I stash away every mini expansion that comes with the magazines. However I rarely get to use them, because I usually don't own the corresponding games. I decided to give these away. I offered them to friends I know, then fellow boardgamers I met at boardgame sessions, and finally I asked Meeples Cafe for permission to leave the box with them, to allow their customers to take any expansion they fancy.

Caesar & Cleopatra was gifted to Ong Dun Chuan. I bought this around 2003 when I was in Taipei. It was one of my earliest games, and there is certainly some sentimental value, but I am happy to see it get played again.

Sblap went to Yusup. This is a children's game / casual game and a word game.

Mykerinos went to Jason Law. This is one of the earlier worker placement games. It was published by Ystari (who published Caylus).

Zombie Tower 3D went to Sea Lin Yao. This is one eye-catching game because of that 3D tower.

Trias went to Abraham from Vivae Boardgame Cafe. This is an older game. It has dinosaurs and tectonic shifts. Something a little different.

Kingdoms of Crusaders went to Choe Chee Kong. This is a 2-player card game from Russia. It has some similarities to Lost Cities.

Victory: The Blocks of War went to C. E. Chua. This is an old Columbia Games block game. This has sentimental value too, because I bought it even before I became a boardgame hobbyist. I had only played it a few times. After I got into the hobby, I never played it again, because by then there were plenty of other games I chased after. So I never revisited it. It is great to see it played again.