quick ranking of the 30 tabletop games i played in-person in 2023

15.25. Splendor
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/148228/splendor

1 play in 2023 with 2 players

Oops, forgot this one as well! Played it on the same day that I played Ghost Blitz.

Splendor is a super-simple set collection/engine-builder where you can take your turn to either collect gems (resources) from the limited supply, reserve a card from an open market for yourself to purchase, or purchase one of the cards either from the market or from your supply.

This was one of the first few dozen games I played when a friend got me jump-started in the hobby and one of the most famous games on this list. I actually disliked the passive-aggressive silence of it back then, but since then I've eased up on taking eurogames as seriously and can chat and play quickly with it, win or lose. The game plays very quickly and has meaningful decisions. It's not big on visuals but has a fantastic tactile element with heavy poker chips to represent your resources, and it's got both a nice engine-building arc and a nice sense of tension since it's a VP-race (which goes against trying to extend the game by building a giant engine).

I have played a little Splendor on BGA, and it's a good implementation, but I don't think I'm willing to invest the time to become truly great at it. High-level play seems to be fairly block-y, which is not something I enjoy much in games. However, at the level where I play, I enjoy the quick bit of tension and utter simplicity of the setup and gameplay. If only my partner enjoyed it, but the lack of theme or "cool stuff" to do is a turnoff for her.