Top Board Game Stats App Features
The first thing I do after playing a board game is pull out my phone and open the Board Game Stats app and log the just played board game. Some have asked, why even bother? What's the point? I use the Board Game Stats app for various reasons that I'll outline here.
#1 Statistics and Insights
I'm a person that likes to look at various stats and numbers. Find connections and patterns. Get rid of things I don't like and start doing things I do like. I do this with the TV Shows and Movies I watch (go checkout Trakt.tv if you're unfamiliar with it). And just after I started playing Boardgames more regularly I found out about the Board Game Stats app. The app keeps track of various parameters and statistics when registering plays and can present you with a wide range of insights. Some insights I like the most:
- How may (new) games did I play last month (or year, or ever)?
- With how many different players did I play games?
- What days of the week did I play the most games?
- What is my H-index (for example: 5 games were played at least 5 times)?
All these insights can be filtered by players, player count, locations, dates and more.
#2 Record of Plays
When you start to enter a new play into the app it prompts you with a screen where you can enter various details. However what I like about Board Game Stats is that the barrier for entry is very low. The only required fields are what game did you play and at what day. All other information is optional, so you can start with just the basic information while you find out what other information is important to you. Besides the game and date you can enter the players for the game, what roles they played, expansions used, what location you played at, scores and much more.
Once you start registering plays with the Board Game Stats app you'll start to see useful information appearing at the games detail screen. Do you ever get the question: What is the average score for Wingspan? Or what is your High score? Who holds the records for most wins with this game? The Board Game Stats app can answer these questions for you.
#3 Collection Management
Once you get into the board game hobby you'll probably discover the vast amounts of games that are out there. If you're like me, you've build up a considerable collection over the years. With Board Game Stats you can record all your games in one place, along with what version and language you have.
Now that I have my collection in my pocket I can use it to find games we would like to play. For example if I have a game night planned I can look through my collection to find a game we want to play matching the number of players. You can also get insights into how many time you've played certain games. A statistic I use to determine if a game should stay in my collection or not. I can answer questions, why did I not play this game for over a year? Don't I like it enough?
#4 Challenges
Another thing I like to do is challenge myself. Each year I try to think of a few board game related challenges I would like to do. For example we're currently trying the following two challenges:
- Play Every Game in my Collection (From Z-A)
- Play a Game Every Day of the Year (2022)
You can read my progress on the challenges on this website:
Besides these challenges there are various other pre-configured challenges you can start, for example:
- Play 10 games 10 times each
- Play my Unplayed Owned games (the Shelf of Shame)
- Replay 20 old favorites
Closing Thoughts
Overall BGStats is everything I wished for in a Board Game tracking app. It has a wide variety of features, good support and new functionality gets added frequently. Eerko and Suzan from Board Game Stats are so kind to provide the app (or its expansions) for free to some of my followers. Head on over to my instagram to participate in the giveaway:
Or you can checkout the app in the app stores