October 2025 Gaming

Who knew that after my 1000th post celebration, the next one would just be a regular “hey, what did Dave play last month?” post?

In other words, we’re back to normal. The cake has been eaten, the ado has been stored so nobody can steal it (though that doesn’t stop them for some reason), and now I’m working on getting to the 2000th post.

In another 7 years, maybe?

Anyway, October was a lighter than normal gaming month, with two of our Sundays cancelled and not as many lunchtime games as there are some months.

I did make up for that with 7 (!) Final Girl games, racing through the feature films so I can review them (and more so to justify how much money I’ve spent on Final Girl in the last few months).

Here’s what I played last month (or I guess I should say this month, since technically it’s still the 31st, and Happy Halloween!).

And here it is in grid format.

Many thanks to the wonderful BG Stats app for its assistance in putting this post together (and just for being all-around great and responsive people).

And the Hypnagogue Podcast for providing the ambient music I’m listening to while writing. This is the first time I’ve listened to that podcast, and if you like ambient, electronic music to just relax to, or write to, or what have you, I have to say that after two episodes, I’m hooked!

Definitely going to use this when writing, if I can.

Anyway, let’s talk about the games!

Only two new to me games this month, which will be in their own post on Sunday (hopefully).

Even with only 17 unique games this month, there were a few noteworthy ones.

I already mentioned Final Girl, a solo boardgame that has Dr. Fright’s claws stuck in me, dragging me along through horror after horror.

But I can’t get enough!

The biggest game of note, though, was a surprise Friday night invite to a friend’s home, where three of us played Dead Reckoning.

I haven’t played this John D. Clair card-crafting, cube tower pirate game since I played the prototype with Clair and some other Alderac folks at Dice Tower West in 2020.

It can be a massive table hog, especially if you use any of the expansions, and I just haven’t had the chance to play it again until that night.

I love the card-crafting mechanic used here, and the cube tower for battle (though we only did a couple of battles, concentrating mainly on exploring and taking control of islands).

Two games of the wonderful Cat in the Box trick-taking game were also unique plays in 2025 as we hadn’t played it since March of 2024.

This was also one of our new co-worker’s first games played with us at lunch (there were a few before, but not many).

I have to say she picks these games up quickly and I love that.

More people to play at lunch!

The other game that I hadn’t played yet this year was a quick game of Can’t Stop on Boardgame Arena.

I did that last night because I wanted to get one more game on my list and didn’t realize it would also count as a unique 2025 play because I haven’t played it live since last year.

Who knew?

It’s also unusual for me to get two plays of Combat Commander done in a month, this time the Pacific expansion.

Usually it’s only my monthly game, but I also played a practice game of this month’s scenario beforehand.

You can never have too much!

It would have been three (well, two of Pacific and one of Europe) if my game with my friend Zilla Blitz hadn’t fallen through due to date misunderstandings.

But we’re playing tomorrow. So there will once again be at least two games in November.

Finally, I have to comment yet again on SETI, a game which I’ve now played three times so I’ve reviewed it.

And the comment is…how the hell am I getting worse at it with each play?

If I keep playing this otherwise marvelous game, I’m going to somehow end up with negative points.

The other games I played were definitely good, but not as noteworthy as the above.

I don’t think I played a bad game this month, thankfully.

For 2025, that makes 270 plays of 144 unique games, well ahead of last year (256 of 136).

I don’t know how I’m going to top that in 2026.

What did you play in October?

Any spooky games?

The only thing spooky for me was how bad I am at some games.

Anyway, let me know in the comments.