August 2025 Gaming

It’s nice when a month of gaming comes together in unexpected ways is better than you expected it to be.

I was surprised by July’s gaming numbers, considering I was off.

August came around and I was going to be missing one Sunday due to a no-ship math trade (I received some money and one Final Girl film for five games I was never going to play again).

Combine that with one of my gaming co-workers being away for a week, so I thought that the lunch-time gaming would be slower this month as well.

But it all worked out really well!

A new 2-player game to play with my other game-playing co-worker, a new solo game I wanted to try, and multiple games on some of the other days, all added up to a very good month!

Not convention-worthy or anything, but very solid.

I ended with a total of 28 plays of 22 different games.

Here’s what I played.

And here it is in grid format!

Many thanks to the incredible BG Stats app for helping get this information.

There were quite a few highlights this month, including six great new to me games that will be mentioned in this week’s post about them.

Other highlights included my first play of Five Tribes since 2017.

That’s, like, 100 years ago!

Give or take.

This game makes it on a lot of Top 100 lists and while I like it fine, this play reminded me of why I’m not a huge fan of it.

It’s just way too chaotic, with you picking up meeples and sprinkling them in a path to the tile that you’re going for.

It’s definitely a good game, and I enjoyed my play of it, but it’s not a game I’ll be wanting to play regularly.

Another game I haven’t played in a while is Castles of Mad King Ludwig, which sadly I didn’t get a picture of because I played it on Boardgame Arena.

Remember, if I play live, then I do count my online plays!

I just don’t count my asynchronous ones in my stats.

Anyway, this game is a really good one and I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it.

The Boardgame Arena implementation is really good too.

I do agonize over the pricing of the tiles, but it’s one of the rare “tile-laying and connecting” games that I really do like.

Probably because you’re not trying to fill a grid.

Your castle can look like anything!

Yeah, like that.

Then there was my first live play (also on Boardgame Arena, alas) of Wingspan in over two years.

I’ve played async on the app numerous times as the expansions have come out, but I just haven’t gotten it to the table since OrcaCon 2023.

I do wish they’d implement some of the expansions on BGA, but I understand that they don’t want to do that and take away from the app.

Which is too bad.

As good as the app is, I’d love to also play it on BGA!

Just yesterday, we played The Gang, which is a wonderful cooperative poker game (and if that makes you go “WHAT????” then you gotta see it).

I have already played it this year, but this is “filler” game that just sings at 4-6 players. We played it at 4 yesterday and it was a lot of fun, but it’s even better at 5 or 6.

I love it not just because of the interesting way that you have to indicate to the other players the strength of your hand without outright telling them, but also of how the bonuses and penalties can work.

We almost won yesterday, winning the first and fourth hands but losing the other three (it’s best 3 out of 5).

I may have to review this at some point, just to share the love.

As always there’s my monthly Combat Commander ladder game which went really well.

It actually went down to the final card draw!

You can’t get much more tense than that.

Finally, it was nice to get two plays of Wayfarers of the South Tigris in.

Especially nice because it gave me an opportunity to get the Tides of Trade expansion to the table so I could review it.

It’s such a great expansion!

Now the last Garphill South Tigris expansion I need to play and review is the one for Inventors of the South Tigris.

Maybe in September.

To date in 2025 I have played 127 games a total of 212 times.

With four months left in the year, I think I’m on track to beat 2024’s 136 games 256 times!

Definitely the unique games, though I might have to work a little on the number of plays.

But there is a 4-day convention in November which will help with that.

What did you play in September?

Feel free to include “new to me” games or wait until my post for that.

Did you have a good gaming month?

Let me know in the comments!