My Shelfie

If not for BoardGameArena.com I probably would not have known about My Shelfie. The theme is absolutely relevant for boardgamers. Someone should have made a game about this a long time ago. This is a light family game about arranging your shelf. It’s not just a game shelf. You have different types of collectibles. You want to arrange them in specific ways in order to score points. Everyone has their own shelf. Every turn you add one to three items to your shelf. The game ends when a player fills their shelf. 

On your turn you pick one to three items from a shared grid. They must be on the outside edge of the grid, and if you pick more than one, they must be adjacent and form a straight line. These items are then added to your shelf via a dropping mechanism. Imagine playing Connect Four. You pick a column, and then you “drop” the items from the top. They will “land” on the lowest empty compartments. I must admit in terms of connecting with the theme, this is a bit of a stretch. 

You score points in several different ways. Some conditions are known to everyone. When you can group multiple items of the same type together, the bigger the group, the more points you will earn. Some scoring criteria are randomly picked every game. You need to race for these because whoever is first to achieve them gets more points. You also have a secret private objective. Your secret objective specifies certain compartments which need to hold specific item types. You want to fulfil these as much as possible so that you can score more points.

This is a straightforward game that can be played in a relaxed manner. You can watch what your opponents are doing and try to deny them items they want. That is, if you are the competitive type. You can also just focus on your own shelf and still have a good time. There should be a gamer version of this where the item types are Carcassonne series, Pandemic series, Ticket to Ride series and GMT games.