Board game shelves around the world #11

Analog Games aren’t just fun. They also often come in interesting boxes featuring beautiful artwork. It’s no surprise that a lot of us love to proudly showcase our board game collection on a shelf. In this series, every week one of our fellow board game enthusiasts will exhibit their board game shelves and tell us something about their favorite board and card games. Today we are going to look at the board game shelves of Yves from Belgium!

This is the best picture of me I could find.

Hi Yves, please introduce yourself.
“Hello my name is Yves and I’m 37 years old. I’m from Belgium, the land of beer, chocolate and cyclists who like to ride on cobblestones. My profile on Instagram is @discardthiscard. I’m addicted to coffee and board games and there isn’t a day when I’m not reading rules, reorganizing my shelves, reading blogs or visiting the BGG site many times. I’m very into the “cult of the new” and have a severe case of acquisition disorder. I love discovering new games but hate arguing about a rule.”

When my analysis paralysis kicks in, people start checking mails and playing FarmVille… no just kidding! I hate arguing about rules so the best option for us is to check the BGG page for answers.

How did you get into this world of non-digital games?
“At home we had a few games such as Monopoly and Four in a Row and we played Clue occasionally. But the game that was played most of the time was Chess. My father and brothers were avid players. I understood the rules but I wasn’t really good at it. I still remember that old worn down Bobby Fisher chess puzzles book lying on the coffee table.”

“My first game with my friends was probably Risk, we played it a lot back in the day and thought it was the best game ever. Little did we know about all these other games we were going to play later.”

Some Sunday farming.

“Like so many people one of my first ‘gamer’ games was probably Catan or Carcassonne, it’s such a long time ago (probably end of the nineties or something). I can’t remember which one it was specifically. One of my friends had a few board games and he’s the one who infected me with the ‘gamers disease’. He was (and still is) a big fan of Euro-style games. So we played games like El Grande, Power Grid, Catan, Puerto Rico, … games with wooden cubes! I think we played only once in awhile back then and I don’t know what triggered us to become the players we are now.”

It ain’t easy to lose when you’re 5 years old.

How often do you play?
“I try to play as much as I can, but my biggest problem is that my wife really doesn’t like playing board games. I tried so many times but she keeps refusing. So the only time I can play is when I’m with two of my closest friends or with my two daughters who are 5 and 8 years old at this point. My friends and I try to play two times a week. My daughters and I can only play during weekends because of school and my work. There are weekends with no gaming but usually we play many games if we feel so. We play all kinds of children’s games from HABA, and family games like Carcassonne, Zooloretto, and Geister, Geister, Schatzsuchmeister! (I love that game) to ‘heavier’ games like Agricola and Caverna. My oldest daughter loves playing these farm games, I guess for the Animeeples and the house building. I think these games are so thematic that the rules are logical and easy to understand and every time she gets even better at it! My youngest daughter’s favorites are Dixit and Glastonbury, and everything with horses and princesses of course!”

Of course games about and with my princesses.

“At work we play lunchtime games. A few years ago it was just the two of us and we played a game of Memoir ’44 every day. I think we played every scenario, even the overlord ones. I have the worn down dice to prove it. Now we are with three and play ‘gateway’ games like New York 1901, Pocket Rockets and T.I.M.E Stories which was so much fun.”

Animeeples!

“Lately I’ve also been trying out solo games, looking for a game to become my favorite. I love playing Friday from Friedemann Friese and the games from the Oniverse series such as Onirim and Urbion, but also liked my plays of Imperial Settlers and At the Gates of Loyang as a solo experience.”

Board game corner.

Can you tell us something about your shelves?
“Because my wife doesn’t like games I don’t have, or am allowed to have (like so many of you) a big beautiful looking shelf in the living room. I have to store them upstairs in a small storage room. I’m so jealous of all these previously posted great looking shelves. Because I don’t have that much space, I store them in two Kewlox closets in the corner of the room.”

What to do on a rainy Monday morning? Listening to some records, drinking coffee and reading rulebooks for next Gamenight. Having some well deserved #MEtime taking care of my 3 addictions in 1 time.

My rulebooks in binders.

“I keep all my rulebooks in binders so when I get bored I start reading rules. 2 of them are with rulebooks of games I still have to play for the first time. The others are by alphabet. Maybe it’s unusual and not practical at all but I like doing it like this. I browse my binders, pick a rulebook start reading it and maybe later that week we play it.”

Patchwork inside the box cover. Someday my name will be in there, wait and see!

“I love to write down the scores of each player and the date we played a game on the inside of the box. So the next time we play we can see who won the last time and what the score was. I noticed it’s a good motivation to play a game more then once and sets a goal to get your name written on the inside of the box. My daughters are usually so proud when they finally see their name written in their color. I have to admit there aren’t that many blue Yves on the inside of my boxes.”

Fillers.

“If I look at my shelves I can see the evolution I went through over the years. At first I was a ‘filler-man’ in our game group. Because one of us bought all the heavy Euro games I bought only lighter games. For Sale, Archaeology, Dominion, etc. Then I see I have a period where I was interested in heavier games. I got into Feld and Uwe Rosemberg.”

Pile of unplayed games.

“Two years ago I had a severe case of acquisition disorder and bought way too many games and fell into the “Rahdo-trap” were you buy everything he says he likes. (If you don’t know who he is, Rahdo is a board game reviewer who is very good at making you want to buy the games he reviews.) This all led to me still having many unplayed games on my shelves. Now I try to be more selective but it’s so fun to buy new games and unpunish them. One thing I notice is that I don’t have many war and Ameritrash games. It’s just not my taste I guess. I have Runebound and I like that one but that’s about it. Or maybe it’s because the boxes are too large to fit in with the rest.”

Lunch break game of T.I.M.E Stories.

What is your favorite game at the moment?
“This is such a difficult question! It’s impossible to compare a game like Geister, Geister, Schatzsuchmeister! to a game like Ginkgopolis. The most fun I had the previous year was definitely playing T.I.M.E Stories with my colleagues at work during our lunch breaks. We kept talking about it during work hours. (I think we even sent text messages about it in the evening to each other.) I know it has some flaws but it’s so immersive that I can look past that.”

Geister, geister,… My favorite kids game.

“I really like Mysterium but also love brainburners such as Madeira, Tzolk’in or Concordia. But I also like games such as Win, Lose, or Banana or PitchCar. These are just pure fun. As for 2 player games I still really enjoy Lost Cities, Jaipur and Patchwork.”

Bowling dice game.

What is your most special or obscure game?
“I don’t have any obscure games or special ones I think. The only one I can think of is Bowling. I got it as a birthday present from my friends. Probably because they like making fun of my awesome bowling move when I throw the bowling ball. It’s a game from ’79, all worn down with an old score pad that turned brown from old age. We only played it once for fun. Surprise: it wasn’t that great but somehow I can’t get rid of it.”

It doesn’t have to be so serious all the time.

Thank you so much for sharing your story! Something you would like to add?
“I would like to thank you for hosting these series. I really enjoy reading them and I’m honored you asked me for one of them. I wish everyone lots of happy gaming and fun times doing the things we love.”

Would you like to present your board game shelf to the world? Please answer the above questions and include some good quality pictures to your story. Go to this page to submit your story. Subscribe to our online magazine here!