August 2026 Gaming

August was a booming month for gaming, despite there not being any conventions or anything.

Well, maybe not “booming,” but certainly better than last month!

Lunch time games at work certainly helped matters, plus there were a few Sundays where multiple games got played.

Of course, six games of Final Girl also assisted in that total, but that’s only one game, so didn’t contribute much to the actual game count (just the plays).

Overall, I played 20 games a total of 33 times (as compared to 15 games 24 times last month), which is pretty good.

Six new to me games really did contribute to that, though I’ll talk about them in next week’s post.

Here are the games I played in August 2024.

And here they are in grid format.

Many thanks to Boardgame Stats for the great app that lets me get these figures.

There were a few games that hadn’t been played in a while, so I’ll make note of those.

Don’t forget that you can click on the pictures to expand them if you want.

The first game of note is a twofer in a way.

The Castles of Mad King Ludwig, I hadn’t played since last August.

However, I hadn’t played it on the table since July 2019.

That’s 7 whole years!

The 2025 play was on Boardgame Arena.

I’m still not very good at this game, but it’s one of the few spatial relationship tile-laying games that I actually like.

Probably because I can think about things rather than having it happen in real time.

James got a money engine going and just blew us away, being able to afford pretty much every room he wanted.

It is a fun game, though, and one of these days I’ll actually unwrap my Special Edition.

I’ve just become averse to Big Boxes because they’re so hard to get to a game day. They’re so big and heavy!

I did also get another play in of Inventors of the South Tigris.

That’s really only of note (since I also played it in July) because of the Era of Experts expansion, which gave me enough plays to review it.

The expansion really makes this game a lot more playable (or maybe it’s just that you’re force to play the short game). The long game is just way too long.

Plus, I love the asymmetry that the different inventor characters bring to the game!

Another game which had a welcome return after a long hiatus is Vegas Showdown.

This one hasn’t been played in almost 2 years, which isn’t that much of a drought but is still notable.

(Note, the picture is from the original edition, not the updated Renegade version).

This is a game where you are building your hotel and casino, bidding on rooms to add to it, or maybe choosing to rearrange (or add a building you’ve previously purchased) in order to get as many points as possible.

This is a fun game, but I think every couple of years is good enough for it.

The gap between the 2024 play and my first play was 3 years, so there you go!

Then again, I have played it three times now, so I could review it.

I would need more pictures, though, so maybe another play is warranted.

Believe it or not, it’s actually been almost exactly a year since I’ve played 7 Wonders Duel.

This month’s play also gave me the pleasure of welcoming a new victim player to our lunch time game group at work!

She has played some games, but not that many.

And she crushed me with a military victory.

I was so ashamed…

But I do love this game.

One of these days, I’ll get it played again with the expansions, but even the base game is fun.

I also got a few more plays in of Up or Down, the greatest card game ever made about elevator shafts.

You can take that to the bank.

I now have enough plays to review it, so look for that in a week or two!

Two more plays of Rumble Nation also got me enough plays to review it.

This is a really sweet (meant in the slang way, not in the “oh, she’s so cute and sweet” way) and underrated game that I really enjoy.

It packs a lot of decisions into its very short gameplay and extremely random dice rolls.

You wouldn’t think all of those would mesh very well, but in Rumble Nation, they do.

I know some people hate the game with a passion though.

And that’s ok!

As usual, there was my monthly Combat Commander ladder game, where this time I came out victorious in a scenario that’s very slanted against the Americans (though apparently not this month, as they are winning a lot more than they did in June).

I actually managed to take the chateau! Though that was because it was mostly abandoned.

I love the stories this game can tell.

This time, a squad that came back from the dead appeared in the chateau and actually managed to take it over!

That’s some good zombie action.

There were three Final Girl film reviews done in August, though with only six plays, I think all of the plays for the first review were done in July.

I’ve also done my first play of the final film that I have left!

I still have three vignettes to do, but the end of my Final Girl reviews is coming, at least for now.

Don’t all cheer at once.

I’m not going to ramble on any further on this month, but it was definitely a good month for playing games.

What does September hold?

Probably close to the same, though one of our Summer regulars won’t be coming after Labour Day weekend, until probably around Christmas.

Which is too bad.

What games did you play in August?

What do you think of some of these?

Let me know in the comments.