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A Gaming Life
Book Review – Island Infernos by John C. McManus
In my 2025 Notable books post, I noted that one of the great World War II books I read in 2025 was Fire and Fortitude, an examination of the US Army in the Pacific Theater in World War II.
So many of the popular history books take the war in total, and give short shrift to the actual Army in favour of the Marines.
Not that the Marines didn’t do anything in the Pacific. They were quite dominant.
But John C. McManus looks at the Army in the Pacific in this trilogy (of which I haven’t read the third book yet).
Island Infernos is the second book in the trilogy and it covers the 1944 invasions of various Pacific islands as well as General Douglas MacArthur’s push through New Guinea and into the Philippines, fulfilling his promise to return one day.
However, McManus pulls no punches in his story of the Army units.
This book gripped me as much as the first book did, and while it did take a while to read (almost 2 weeks, which actually is pretty good for me with a large history book!), there is just so much good stuff in here that I enjoyed every minute reading it.
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 1701 Through 1800
We’re starting to get down into the dregs of the Boardgame Geek Top 2000 games.
Not dregs in that these are bad games, because considering there are thousands of games in the BGG database, the top 2000 are still fairly highly rated.
But just “dregs” in that I haven’t played many of the games, and the ones that I did play I didn’t really care for!
That, and there aren’t that many games in the list that I really want to play either.
However, these are still in the Top 2000, so we can still take a look at them.
In this batch, I’ve played 8 of them and have owned (or still own) three.
That’s not much!
This might be a short post.
(spoiler alert: I lied)
So let’s get started and see what we have here!
Read MoreTop 50 Games Played of All Time – 2026 Edition (#40-31)
This year’s second installment of the Top 50 games played of all time and it’s the second on two weeks!
I’m on a roll.
Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up the weekly basis for this so I can be done in early February.
The whole idea of doing a Top 50 list is just so thrilling to me, because it means that I’ve actually played enough to make one.
Did I think, almost 9 years ago, that I would be doing this and have played over 650 games?
I don’t think so.
One of the neat things about doing the comparisons for a list like this is seeing the movement from one year to the next list two years later.
Some of it was really amazing.
My biggest drop off of the Top 50 from 2024 was Heaven & Ale, which had a massive nosedive from 50 down to 258!
I’m not sure exactly why that is, except I haven’t played it since 2022 and just thinking about trying to score the thing makes my head hurt.
It was intriguing to me back in the day, and I certainly wouldn’t say no to trying it again to see if I can rekindle the fire.
But I’m not eager to.
Which is too bad, because the mechanics of it are quite interesting.
Oh well, you can’t have everything.
Anyway, before we get started on this week’s 10 games, I just want to repeat the caveat that while I have played a hefty number of games, I haven’t played that many.
A large number of well-regarded games are not going to be represented here.
So you Skyteam fans are just going to have to land the damned plane yourselves!
However, I am rooting for you.
Also, many of the ratings are after one play, so things can change drastically in another two years.
With that, let’s begin!
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 1601 Through 1700
Another break in the weekly schedule, but that’s because of New Years, a new month, some end of the year stuff, and all of that.
I hope your new 2026 year has been treating you well so far!
We’re back with another century of boardgaming goodness, checking the latest Boardgame Geek rankings from 1601 through 1700!
This list returns to form a little bit, because while I still haven’t played that many of them, there are definitely some notable ones on the list.
I can actually talk about some of these!
In this batch of games, I’ve played 12 of them, with 10 either owned or previously owned.
While I have played (and owned) a few of these, there aren’t that many that I haven’t played and really wanted to, so this might be a shorter post than normal!
Yeah, like that happens.
Let’s get this list started so I can move on to my Top 50!
Here’s the BGG page this is taken from, though the rankings can obviously change over time.
Read MoreRock Hard 1977 – Ear Candy – Coming in August 2026
This isn’t exactly “news,” because designer Jackie Fox has been talking about it for a while on Boardgame Geek.
But hearing more detail (including a relative release date, which may have been announced before but it didn’t register in my brain) made me decide that I wanted to talk about it briefly!
One of my favourite games of 2024 was Rock Hard: 1977, a game designed by Jackie Fox (a former guitarist for the 1970s rock band The Runaways).
You can read my rave review of the game here!
Jackie’s been talking about an expansion for this game for a while now, and she also says that it will fit in the Folded Space insert that I bought for the base game, which is music to my ears!
The expansion, now called Ear Candy, has its own Boardgame Geek page now, so you can keep tabs on stuff as it comes out.
Jackie has mentioned (and maybe previously has on November 17, but as I said, it hasn’t registered with me until I saw Jackie’s post about it today) that it will be coming out for GenCon 2026, so sometime in August.
That’s not that far away now!
In the post I’m referencing, she details a little more about what is coming in the expansion, and it’s piqued my interest even more.
Read MoreNew to Me – December 2025
This is going to be an unusual “new to me” post, because there is literally only one game on it!
December was a really slow month, as shown on Friday’s post.
A really low amount of games, covered only because of a bunch of plays of two different games.
A couple of Sundays were cancelled, especially Sundays that I was hoping/planning to bring out a new game (though it is only a “new” game because I haven’t played it, since I bought it in 2024), but those game days were cancelled due to a low number of people able/willing to join us.
Thus, the Cult of the New to Me gave me a pass this month.
No rebellion, no trying to take me out (though they did take me out to Christmas dinner, which was amazing!).
(though I do miss my grandma’s deviled eggs!)
I think it helped that the one game was from 2022, so while it’s not “old,” it’s certainly not “new” in the boardgame sense.
Let’s make this short and sweet.
Without further ado (all of my ado was lost down in the dungeon anyway), let’s get this minor post started!
Read MoreTop 50 Games Played of All Time – 2026 Edition (#50-41)
Two years goes by so fast.
Hell, even a month goes by so fast, as I remember looking forward to all of the holiday fun and time off in December, and now it’s January and where did the time go?
However, it has been two years since I did a Top 50 Games Played of All Time list, and it’s that time again!
The Top 50 in 2024 was based on me having played 534 games in total by the end of 2023.
At the end of 2025, I have now played 687 unique games, so it’s time to look back and see which ones are the best ones out there, at least in my opinion.
Last time I expanded to a Top 50 (instead of Top 25) because I had played so many games finally. It didn’t feel weird doing a list that was more than 10% of the games I’d played.
I won’t be doing a Top 100 until I get to 1000 games, so it won’t be for another 4-5 years, I don’t think.
At least not at this rate.
How did I compile this list?
Much thanks to the wonderful PubMeeple ranking engine for letting me choose all of the Boardgame Geek games that I’ve rated and then compare two of them at a time for a total of almost 3400 comparisons.
Yes, that is me.
It takes a long time, and will take longer as there are more games.
But I love seeing not only the Top 50, but also the rankings below that and how things change.
Maybe something dropped from 189 to 286!
How am I to know that unless I compare them all?
One day I may get too tired to do all of that, though at least PubMeeple lets you do it over a series of days so you don’t have to do it all at once.
Anyway, we both know that you just want to see what games are on my list, so let me say a couple of things before we get started.
First, many of these games were only played once, so my rankings/feelings about the game are based on that play.
Subsequent plays may increase/decrease my regard for them, so next time there may be a lot of movement.
Secondly, because I’ve only played 687 games (and only just over half of the Top 100 on BGG), many games that are highly-regarded will just not appear here because I haven’t played them.
So you Star Wars: Rebellion fans are just going to have to come to a Canadian convention that I’m going to so we can play it.
Ok?
Finally, this list was compiled on December 31st, 2025, so rest assured that by the time the final installment has been posted in early February, I will have played something new to me that I would have included in the Top 50 if I had only played it.
Check out this list in 2028 and see it!
There will be some surprises in this list for long-time followers of this blog.
Big surprises.
One thing that’s not a surprise?
Lucky Loop is still at the bottom, at #687
With that, let’s begin!
Oh, shut up.
Read MoreDecember 2025 Gaming
December turned out to be a gaming lost cause for the most part.
Two Sundays cancelled for various reasons, one shortened one, and a bunch of work stuff going on so lunches weren’t always available as well.
In fact, if it wasn’t for my Final Girl plays (6) and four games of the very short Werewords in one lunch period, it would have been a wasteland!
I also didn’t really get to use my 3 days between Christmas and New Year’s for much gaming (just one Final Girl game) because of having to take care of computer issues and the like.
It looks even worse compared to November, because of the November convention.
Still, it was a restful month in other ways, and I do love the holidays.
In December, I managed to play just 13 unique games a total of 24 times (and remember, 10 of those were for 2 games!).
Here’s what I played last month.
And here it is in grid format.
Many thanks to the wonderful Boardgame Stats for the app that provides these images and lets us track our plays so efficiently!
As you can see, only one new to me game last month!
That post is going to be incredibly short.
However, there were some highlights for the month, so let’s look at those.
Read MoreBlog in Review – 2025
Happy New Year, everybody!
I hope you had a wonderful and safe holiday season and new year’s celebration last night.
Maybe you were out celebrating, or just having drinks with friends?
Or maybe you were even asleep?
Whichever it was, I hope it was good for you.
As I did last year, and for the last 6 years as well, this is a Blog Review post for 2025, looking back at my gaming and blogging and reflecting on the changes from year to year.
It’s not a full year in review post, since that would seriously depress me.
I mean, 2025 was a real shitshow overall.
Instead, it’s just me, my personal stuff, gaming and blogging.
Which, while not a shitshow, was really up and down.
Let’s take a real look and see what’s what.
Read MoreHorrifying Christmas – Final Girl – North Pole Nightmare Review
Just in time to miss Christmas by a few days, how about checking out a Christmas-themed Final Girl feature film with all the bells and whistles of cheer and good tidings to you!
Oh, and some evil monster wanting to kill everybody (including you) at the North Pole.
It’s time for Mrs. Claus and one of the Elves to step up and fight him off!
Yes, North Pole Nightmare is a Final Girl feature film set in Santa’s Village with the maniacal Krampus as the villain.
Let’s nail all of those Christmas traditions!
This feature film was designed by A. J. Porfirio with art by Vincent Dutrait (what a catch!) and was published in 2023.
It’s a “Special Feature” for Series 2.
This one is a straightforward bloodbath, except that it has a few extra twists which really make this one engaging.
Before Krampus steals all of our presents away (those left over from Christmas because I’m lame and couldn’t get enough plays done in time), let’s take a look at it.
Read More
Dude! Take Your Turn! 