Valerie Putman: Using MiniBGG

I mentioned last week that I bought an AT&T Tilt and that I’m using it to log my games played on BoardGameGeek while I play them.  The process isn’t quite as straightforward as you (or I) might have thought, so after a column last week that celebrated the luddite, this week I’m talking to you, techie. 

The first thing I learned about logging games on a phone is that the main BGG website isn’t the place to do it.  Derk and Aldie (or one of their extremely talented moderators) created a secondary website, minibgg.com.  When you first open the website, you have a very basic search engine that allows you to find games in the database.  You are then directed to a pared down version of a game homepage.  For example, here is the minibgg page for Caylus.  You get the average rating, game rank, default picture of the game, designer, publisher, number of players, playing time, and a brief description.  You also get a box with some basic stats, including a link to the BGG user comments for the game.  Below that is two more links—one to the original BGG entry for the game and one that says “log play.” If you click on that link, you get a very simple page with today’s date (which you can change), the number of plays (default is 1), and a place for your User ID.  But below that is one more very important box that must be filled in before you can press the button to Submit.

The empty box has a link above it that says BGG Pass Hatch.  This box is where you might be tempted to put your normal BGG password, since the box for your BGG ID is right above it.  But if you start typing in your password, you’ll note that you actually see the letters you are typing instead of the encrypted asterisks that you are used to.  In fact, your normal BGG ID doesn’t work on miniBGG and you need to click on the link for the Pass Hatch to get your miniBGG ID.

I recommend getting your Pass Hatch while you are on a full size computer, not your phone.  Go to miniBGG and bring up an entry for any game and click on the log play button.  (Don’t worry if you didn’t actually play that game today—you can abandon the process before it actually logs your play.) Enter your BGG ID and click on the BGG Pass Hatch link.  You will get a screen with some old fashioned computer code.  The first line will look like this:

[bggpassword] => (your miniBGG password here)

Copy the entire password down.  Mine is 13 characters with both capital and lower case letters, numbers, and even some punctuation.  Now, when you are ready to log games played on miniBGG (either on your phone or on any computer), use that as your password.  I also recommend checking the Remember Info box—unless you’ve got a great memory for 13 random letter, numbers and symbols.  I also found that every once in a while my phone would “uncheck” the box and so I watch that carefully, now.  I also saved a word file on my phone with the password in case I accidently send a game played without the box checked.  You can always go back through the Pass Hatch link to get it again, but I find that easier on a full sized computer.

I don’t always log games while I play them, but my new phone and miniBGG has made the job really easy when I want to.

I’d rather be gaming,
Valerie Putman

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