Second Chances.
It’s wild how many board games there are in existence. For someone not heavily invested in the tabletop hobby, you might only be aware of the games found at Barnes & Noble or in the game section of Target, but that is only a fraction of what’s out there. BoardGameGeek has over 140,000 entries that they accept as board games. 5,000+ of which were released just last year in 2022. Many of these entries might not be playable due to a minor release, or it was just an idea for a game that never panned out. Expansions and promos to games are also logged as separate entries.
If we are ambitious and say that half of those entries fall into one of those two categories, we are left with approximately 70,000 board games in a published state that I could find and play. This means that I will die having never played every board game published….
That’s a lot of games.
This pacing of games being released yearly also means that almost all games get judged by their first play. A first impression of a game is so important because, most times, that is the only play a game will get. There are so many published games out there, so why keep playing a game that you don’t like?
The simple answer is sometimes a first impression is a wrong impression.
Dune: Imperium is a game that didn’t hit for us the first TWO times we played it. Many factors unintentionally caused this. These subpar plays caused us to end up trading the game away.
It would have been unfortunate if our experience ended there because, funny enough, I now consider it to be one of my favorite games to play.
What happened to change my opinion?
In short, two things changed my opinion, the expansions they released for it and playing it with a higher player count. Playing Dune: Imperium at two requires an automa for players to control to balance the rest of the game. It’s well-developed and easy to use. It’s a sound system. The challenge for us was remembering to flip the next card between turns. Playing the game at a higher player count allowed us not to worry about floating a third player, which allowed us to focus solely on our gameplay. The two expansions added more of what I like in games, More ways to win outside of combat and a heavy push into the deck building in the game.
What is the point of this post?
I think the point is that first plays will generally be the only play titles get. With so many games you can choose from, an average or rough play is enough to not worry about playing the game a second time. Pointing out our experience with Dune: Imperium was to show that sometimes there are anomalies to the philosophy of not “wasting” a second play on games you didn’t enjoy. In closing, play the games that make you the happiest. If your gut tells you that a first play wasn’t the accurate representation of how you believe the game is, it doesn’t hurt to give it another go.
What is a game that, when you played it a second time, reversed your opinion on it?
