In January of 2017 our family jumped into the 10 x 10 Challenge. There were many reasons we wanted to try this, you can check out our original post to understand why.
In a lot of ways, I wanted to make sure our family was spending time together without the digital distractions all around us. This is one of the reasons why committing to the 10 x 10 Challenge made so much sense.
Where We Failed
In January we all made choices of what games we wanted on this challenge. It seemed to make sense that everyone got to pick 2 games and that would give us our 10 games for the list. Being extremely shortsighted, we didn’t consider how many great games would come out in 2017! Even though we played a lot of Downforce, Fuji Flush, Photosynthesis, Clank!, and Kingdomino, none of these games were in our collection in January.
We approached this challenge a little too rigidly. Filling in the game choices at the beginning of the year seemed to be our downfall.
We also made the mistake of requiring everyone to play when it was a 5 player game. There were plenty of times this year where we didn’t play a game on our 10 x 10 Challenge because not everyone was available or someone just didn’t want to play. This happened more than expected.
What We Learned
Taking time to game together is important. This year, we had so many great times playing games as a family.
The first time our youngest child beat everyone at Ticket to Ride with over 120 points was super cool.
We had many competitive matches of Flip City and Castles of Burgundy between Erin and myself. These were so much fun and brought us closer together.
Hearing our oldest daughter suggest a specific game after dinner was really exciting because she started connecting with certain board games.
I think this year we’re going to approach this challenge a little differently. Our 10 x 10 Challenge list will be a little more organic as we add games when we feel like they are a good fit. Gaming shouldn’t feel like work and this challenge isn’t something that has to be “conquered”. Looking at this chart, we should remember the amount of fun we’ve had around the table as a family.
Here is to another great year gaming and building relationships around the table.