I get the board game geek weekly emails, and I saw a post about 30 games for 30 years. I loved the idea (even though I had never played most of the games on his list), so I decided to make my own. These are in no particular order, just as I thought of them, or of the memories associated with them. Growing up, my dad and his good friend Paul loved playing games, and some of these are games I remember from playing as a child with them, or with my cousins. The first game (Biergarten) I’ve only played once, but it is high in my memory banks because I won it, playing against Dad, Paul and my sister Abigail. I rarely won, so this was extremely momentous - I even wrote a college essay about that particular game because of it. Other games on here are from playing with my good friends Andrew & Bethanie from college. Some are games I discovered at board game cafes (These include The Board and Brew and The Board Room in the MD/VA area, or Thirsty Dice and Queen & Rook in Philadelphia, where A&B live). Others are games I discovered due to Tabletop, Wil Wheaton’s amazing YouTube series. At least one is a game that my brother-in-law taught me to play (he’s also a big board gamer), and another is from my husband’s friend Matt. Some are from the board game club at work - we meet for quick games at lunch time (or we used to, before the pandemic). And the very last one (Murder of Crows) is a game that Ryan and I purchased at PAX Unplugged in 2019 which we went to at the recommendation of our next door neighbors, who also love board games. (photo below shows one of many Game of Thrones skins applied to games that year at PAX - we bought "Gloom of Thrones" which is an especially fun take on number 26 in my list below).
It would take a long time to put each memory that I associate with each game, so I have not done that in the list below - but I hope you get the sense that board games has been one of the fun constants in my 30 years of life, and are something I look forward to continuing to collect and play in the upcoming decades. And with that, here is my “30 for 30” games list:
Biergarten https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/178335/biergarten
Love Letter https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129622/love-letter
Kingdomino https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/204583/kingdomino
Go Nuts for Donuts https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/184346/go-nuts-donuts
Sushi Go https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/133473/sushi-go
Mysterium https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/181304/mysterium
Kill Dr. Lucky https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/257/kill-doctor-lucky
7 Wonders https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/68448/7-wonders
Forbidden Island https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/65244/forbidden-island
Zombicide https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/113924/zombicide
Ticket to Ride https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9209/ticket-ride
Century Spice Road https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/209685/century-spice-road
Through the Desert https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/503/through-desert
Organ Attack https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/201406/organattack
Pack & Stack https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37120/pack-stack
Captain Sonar https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/171131/captain-sonar
Lovelace & Babbage https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/257056/lovelace-babbage
Carcassone https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/822/carcassonne
Chrononauts https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/815/chrononauts
Murder Of Crows https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128475/murder-crows
