Tabletop

I’ve played BGs for nearly 20 years, and never cared much about who won. It’s always been about the fun.

Recently I became curious: if I had kept stats for these last 20 years, what insights would they show?

So I did some research on tracking boardgame stats and here is what I learned…

The best boardgame stats app I’ve found is BGStats: https://www.bgstatsapp.com

It is able to track every stat I’d care about for any game, and I started to log my plays with my friends. 

This was the first step down a rabbit hole that I didn’t realize was so deep…

I love boardgames, music, travel, and bitcoin

Enter SharedGameTimer (SGT) https://sharedgametimer.com

This unassuming little web application is incredibly full featured—and 100% free. 

Made by a friendly German BGer named Gustav, this web app connects to a variety of devices to make turn order and time tracking a breeze

I purchased a couple of Flic buttons https://flic.io and connected them to my iPad that sat on the table during our plays. 

Each player tapped their Flic when they finished their turn. 

The web app announced the name of the next player, and kept track of even the most complex turn ordering (Eclipse)

I was now collecting turn time information in addition to win/loss stats of games, and it was surprisingly easy to do. 

An unexpected side benefit was: all turns became shorter. With the tablet barking our names after each turn, everyone knew immediately whose turn it was and our games got faster!

And that has been my journey into board game stats and time tracking. 

I’ve only logged ~40 games or so, and of those I only have ~10 games worth of time data attached. 

I look forward to the day when I can use real data to prove that Colin should shut up and take his turn already 😉🤗

Next, I wanted to settle a friendly rivalry amongst my play group: which of us takes the longest turns?

I was convinced it was Colin (it’s always Colin), but he seemed convinced it was me!

Was there an easy way to track turn times that wasn’t a burden or inconvenience?

It turns out there was…