Geekway 2022: Overview

And just in time for Geekway 2023, kicking off this Thursday, here’s my review of Geekway 2022. I previously wrote about Geekway 2018, 2019 and 2021.

Geekway 2022 kicked off Thursday, May 12 and finished Sunday, May 15. My wife and I managed to play 28 different games, a new high for us.

The convention required attendees to show proof of vaccination, and all public areas (and some gaming areas) were mask-required. This differed from the convention they held last fall where the whole thing was mask-required. The organizers sent out a survey a couple weeks ago asking folks whether they preferred mask-required or mask-optional for playing, and allocated space accordingly. From what I could tell, people were pretty cognizant of the space they were in and acted accordingly.

Aside from our first year (IIRC), we’ve always gotten patron tickets to support the convention and also to get early access to the hotel room block. But another benefit is that Geekway always does a great job with the patron swag. This year’s was an extremely soft blanket, printed with the theme this year, a dinosaur background with a Jurassic Park-style logo. Previous years have included, among other things, nice game bags and snap-together dice trays, both of which we got use out of at this convention.

Some stats: All but 8 of the 28 games we played were published in 2021 or 2022. The average Board Game Geek rating — how good folks who rank games on that website think it is — was 7.5. We played games ranging from 6.4 (Murano Light Masters) to 8.7 (Ark Nova). The average weight — how difficult people who rank the game think it is to play, on a scale of 1 to 5 — was 2.2. This ranged from 1.0 (Berried Treasure) to 3.72 (Ark Nova again). The median rank — out of all the games, the website knows about, where does this one place on a list sorted by rating — was 1,782. The lowest ranking was Mountains Out of Molehills, at 14,000+, while the highest was, you guessed it, Ark Nova, placing 15th out of the 20,000+ games the site has ranked.

These ratings and rankings can change over time, of course — games that are new have been played, and therefore rated, by fewer people. Conversely, initial enthusiasm for a game can wear off.

Anyhow, all the games we played except the final two on Sunday were from the Play and Win library, where after playing a game, you can choose to be entered to win a copy of it after the convention is over. These are usually the newest games, and there are five or six copies of each in the library. There were 80 different games in the Play and Win, so we got to play through nearly one out of three.

We wound up winning copies of Dinosaur Island: Rawr and Write, and Furnace. Previous wins have included Root, Holi and Blossoms, among others.

Here’s a full list of what we played (everything at 2 players, unless otherwise noted):

Thursday:

Caper: Europe

New York Zoo

Savannah Park

Curious Cargo

Welcome to the Moon (6 players)

Furnace

Friday:

Azul: Queen’s Garden

Murano Light Masters

Long Shot: The Dice Game (4 players)

Creature Comforts

Switch & Signal

Café

Berried Treasure

Saturday:

Free Ride

Museum: Pictura

Floriferous

Small Islands

Momiji

The Red Cathedral

Dinosaur Island: Rawr and Write

Cascadia

7 Wonders: Architects

Sunday:

Tenpenny Parks

Roar and Write

Mountains Out Of Molehills

Dodos Riding Dinos

Santorini

Ark Nova