How Small Can You Go?

Mr. White wrote:

Bull Nakano wrote: Funny enough I've been thinking about this recently because in March I'm going to Utah to stay in a yurt in the middle of nowhere for a weekend and the games I'm planning on packing (and treking for miles in snow shoes with) are Decktet, Cribbage, Mystery Rummmy, Paperback, and SOS Titanic.

I wanna hear more about this.

I'll be sure to post how it went in late March/early April (not sure when I'm traveling back east yet).

For selection of games they obviously had to be light, good with two, and easy to get into as my traveling companion isn't a gamer, though enjoys games. I'd have loved to bring RftG, but alas. She particularly likes games that have a historical or old world trappings (Jack, Titanic), classic feel (Cribbage, Jack again), and she's a writer so I figured we'd enjoy some co-op Paperback. Decktet is what I'm most unsure of but figured it might work out.

I do actually sort of think like this when buying games. I get to most gaming eves or days via either motorbike or cycle and generally fill my rucksack with games. So anything bigger than a AH bookshelf sized game gets a question mark over it and anything smaller gets a thumbs up. Part of the reason a game like Fleet has lasted so long on my shelf is its size.

DukeofChutney wrote: I do actually sort of think like this when buying games. I get to most gaming eves or days via either motorbike or cycle and generally fill my rucksack with games. So anything bigger than a AH bookshelf sized game gets a question mark over it and anything smaller gets a thumbs up. Part of the reason a game like Fleet has lasted so long on my shelf is its size.

totally agreed. Anything bigger than an Alea big box or AH bookshelf raises an eyebrow, I don't have a lot of room for many of them, and they tend to be traded off faster. Small card games go in this small VHS cabinet I keep them in, I love small card games, so unless I didn't enjoy something about it, it'll probably stay in there for a long while.

Mr. White wrote: Could you replace your collection with _smaller_, somewhat comparable games?

This isn't meant for anyone to do seriously, but a fun mental exercise.

Actually, Ive been trying to figure this out for the past few months. My wife and I bought a fair sized house last year (2500 sq feet on 1.2 acres), but were recently offered almost double what we paid for it. In looking at other houses with more acreage, we would have to downsize to 1500ish sq feet on 20-60 acres with the option of expanding the house later. Because of this, I have been looking at my collection that at one time was 600 titles, and is now 300ish and have been trying to figure out how I could fit the essentials into one 15inch deep double doored Billy bookcase - not counting Heroscape tiles or RPG minis (those are stored in my painting area) or my Carrom board (since it will be on the wall as "art").

When looking at the collection, there are a couple things I wont ever get rid of, my AH and 3m Bookcase games for example and games given to me by my now deceased grandparents, and the copy of Risk that my wife's great grandmother gave her. But those take up about a shelf. Ogre DE, Rebound, and Crossbows and Catapults will sit on top, but that leaves four shelves of roughly Fantasy Flight big box size, and one that is one and a half sized.

Since my collection is all over the place the games I know I would keep are:
Mississippi Queen & Black Rose
Memoir 44 (with one of each expansion), Battlecry, Battlelore 1.0 (with one of each expansion) - thats three game boxes and two plano boxes. - pretty much one shelf.
Defenders of the Realm (with all expansions in box)
Pandemic
Nexus Ops
Rex
Pitchcar - 2x starter set with random extra pieces in the boxes
Titan
Wiz War - with expansions I have not bought yet
Xwing minis
Space Hulk
Through the Desert
Ascending Empires
Pillars of the Earth
Power Grid
Munchkin
Awful Green Things from Outer Space
Snit Smashing
Ravensburger Labyrinth 80s version

Then a bunch of small games in front of the others like:
Bang
Netrunner CCG starter
Attribute
Wizard
Rook
Forbidden Island
Travel Carcassone
Pocket Ogre - 6x...

My wife loves the Pandemic style multiplayer puzzle, so Pandemic and Defenders are played fairly often. Forbidden Island is obviously the one to play with younger gamers who have never played a game like it. And while owning both Dune and Rex is overkill, Rex is what we play if I dont trust my opponents. You can never have too many copies of Pocket Ogre.

That is actually a shockingly small list for me from 300 to about 50. I would still have space to cycle through some other games, but those are really the core ones we play. Now paring down the video games from the 5,000 it is at now is the big trick