Dale Yu: My New Year Resolutions

Another year has come and gone, and 2009 was a great year for gaming.  There were plenty of great releases that I have enjoyed playing, and I think there were more than a few games that will find a permanent place in the game collection.  It was also a great year professionally as well.  As you may already know, I’ve been involved with Dominion as a developer, and this was a fantastic year for the game including, but not limited to, winning the Spiel des Jahres award this July.  Thanks again to Donald Vaccarino (the game’s designer), Valerie Putman (my development partner) and Rio Grande Games (the game’s publisher) for allowing me to be part of the whole experience! As the end of the year grows near, it’s time for my gaming New Year’s resolutions for the year 2010.

1. Play more games - While this year was a great year for games, I honestly didn’t have a lot of time to play them!  Due to growing family obligations, I didn’t make as many conventions as I have in previous years.  My regular group play has also become a bit sporadic as well (just about everyone in the group has kids - and it’s turned out to be impossible to coordinate our schedules to game regularly). 


2. Continue to work on Dominion - Work on Dominion continues ever onwards!  I’ve played more than 2,000 games of Dominion thus far in my developing/playtesting of the game and its expansions - and I still look forward to playing it! 


3. Create a regular group - As I mentioned above, my old core group of gamers has started to dissolve as our schedules haven’t seemed to mesh.  One of the things I’d like to do this year is find myself a new group of gamers to join (or possibly form a group on my own).  If anyone out there is in the Cincinnati/Dayton area who’s reading this - just let me know!  I am a dues paying member of the fantastic Columbus Area Boardgaming Society – but it’s just too far to make regularly.


4. Regularly write BGN columns - I’ve actually done a pretty good job this year at writing columns in advance this year (my resolution for 2009 was to try to write columns earlier than late night on Tuesday).  I’d like to continue that trend, but also trying write each week.  Finally, I do have a goal to try to eclipse my Mindflex review - this review came out just after GenCon, and it has been read over 12,000 times and I’ve found it indexed on a number of aggregator blogs (Digg, etc).  Normally, I think of this column as a hobby space, but it is nice to see some of the articles make it closer to the “mainstream”.


5. More puzzles - In the past few weeks, I’ve included little puzzles as part of this column.  I’m a big fan of puzzles - both solving and designing them.  I’d like to try to get some sort of puzzle in here, maybe about once a month.  The feedback that I’ve had of the recent puzzles has been quite positive, so I’d like to keep that up


6. Re-catalog the game collection - Last year, I tried to catalog my entire game inventory - both the identity and location of each game.  However, this system fell apart during the year as I re-organized the basement a few times as I made space for new games.  The system needs a complete overhaul, and hopefully I can get to it this winter.


7. Resist the urge to buy every cool game that I see - I have too many games, and as I’ve mentioned earlier, not enough time to play them all!  I need to personally do a better job of trying before buying.  The basement simply can’t store many more games!


8. Empty the basement! - So, as it’s apparent that I have too many games—I need to try to reduce the number.  To that end, it’s almost time to start the campaign to sell/lend games out of the basement!  Looks like CRAZY DALE’S 2010 GAME BAZAAR isn’t too far in the future!  Ebay, BGG Marketplace, game convention flea markets and Goodwill will also not be spared.


9. Live in Twenty-Ten, not Two-Thousand-and-Ten.  Twenty Ten sounds normal, Two-Thousand-and-Ten does not… Think about it.  When you read the book title “1984” - do you say Nineteen-Eighty-Four or do you say One-Thousand-Nine-Hundred-and-Eighty-Four.  Join me in this crusade against formality in date pronounciation!


10.  Make more lists. The world needs more lists.

** Answers from last week’s puzzle --

If you haven’t already done the puzzle, you can click here to try it for yourself before seeing the answers.  Thanks again to all the folks who posted the great pictures on BGG that I used in the puzzle.

1. Twilight Struggle
2. Roborally
3. Age of Steam
4. Nexus Ops
5. Stone Age
6. Lost Cities
7. Agricola
8. Thurn and Taxis
9. Evo
10. Nefertiti
11. Arkadia
12. Modern Art
13. Endeavor
14. On the Underground
15. Formula De
16. Fury of Dracula
17. Ingenious: Travel Edition
18. Notre Dame
19. Age of Empires
20. Le Havre
21. Goa
22. Antiquity
23. Magic: The Gathering
24. El Grande
25. Geschenkt

Congratulations to the hidden contest winners: If you didn’t run across it, there was a hidden contest last week – INITIALLY 4 gamers submitted the correct answer.  I’ll leave the details of the hidden contest hidden for a bit longer in case people want to keep at it.

The winners thus far (in order of submission):  Jeroen Harkes, David Lund, Mike Selinker, Patrick Korner, Shaun Klein.

Well, I hope that everyone has had a great 2009, and here’s to a great year in Twenty-Ten!

Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor








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