Bailey

What is your earliest gaming memory? 

My dad played Checkers, Chess, and Candy Land with me when I was very young. My first really striking gaming memory, though, is from my 7th birthday. I had a pool party, but it rained so we had to cut things short. My parents had bought me a copy of Rummikub for my birthday, and we broke that out for a couple plays…then ended up playing the entire rest of the day. For hours, we pored over the brightly colored tiles in their sets & runs. It was my first taste of puzzly games, and I couldn’t get enough. Rummikub is a family favorite to this day.

What game is objectively bad but you love it anyway? 

Definitely Betrayal at House on the Hill. The first phase of the game can be kind of boring. The second phase of the game can be wildly unbalanced and hard to teach. And yet. Somehow two questionable halves come together to make a super fun whole. I’ll never say no to a game of this, and Betrayal Legacy is among my top game experiences ever.

Who’s your favorite artist? 

I have a few, but Weberson Santiago and Sai Beppu top the list. Weberson Santiago favorites include The Bloody Inn, Dracula vs. Van Helsing, and Kelp. Sai Beppu is extraordinarily prolific in the Japanese card game scene, but I particularly love the art of nana, 13 Animals, and Bested Another Time.

What game in your collection do you most wish you could play more often?

Firefly: The Game, hands down. I have all of the original content for the game (pre-anniversary edition), including the wooden crate, and I only get to play it multiplayer once every couple of years. I have played many times with the Crowded Sky fanmade solo variant, and it’s a ton of fun, but multiplayer is still better.

How big is your collection?

I maintain a collection of around 650 games, with about half of them being unplayed at any given time. I’m a collector as well as a player, so there are quite a few games I have as art pieces that I may never play, or games that don’t fit my current play opportunities but I want to hopefully try them later. Half my collection is solo games, too, because I’m largely a solo gamer these days. I do a lot of buying, selling, and trading, so things are always moving in & out!

Do you prefer playing games over and over or learning new games? 

Given the size of my collection, you might guess that I like learning new games. And you would be correct! In the last few years I’ve averaged 160 new-to-me games played annually. That number is beginning to fall, but it will always be pretty high. I seek out new gaming experiences all the time, because for me, that’s what board gaming is about. It’s finding new puzzles to solve and new ways to think about the same problems.

What is a game you sold and bought back? 

I actually do this quite a bit as a result of having a large collection with lots of buying, selling, and trading going on. Three recent re-acquisitions are Creature Caravan, Wondrous Creatures, and Reforest. Each of those games I played once or twice and moved on because I didn’t feel the spark I wanted to feel when I played them, but I found myself continuing to think about them months after they were gone. So back they came. And so far they all seem to have been good decisions.

What player color do you choose, or are you indifferent? 

For a very long time, I always played blue. My favorite color was blue, everything was blue. In the last few years I’ve realized my favorite color has changed. It’s now green! So I try to play green as often as I can. It’s taking a mental switch because I’m so used to seeing blue as my pieces, but I’m working on it.

Do you have a preferred player count?

Solo 🙂 But my other favorite is probably 2. I love the feeling of intellect vs. intellect, plan vs. plan. Some of my favorite games are best 5-player, though, so maybe I just love games!