Unplayed games coming out of the closet

The more I read of Chris "GamerChris" Norwood's blog and the more I hear of his podcast, the more I appreciate his thoughtful take on boardgaming.  Most recently, he posted an admission of his "secret shame" - a list of unplayed games.  I recognized a number of games on his list, and was just about to chastise him for having neglected some particularly good ones ... and then I thought that perhaps I ought to see just how much glass there was in my own house before casting stones in his direction.

And, oh, my boardgame house is made of glass indeed.  We just reorganized our utility room, where we keep the games that aren't played so frequently.  So it was easy for me to take stock and see what games I've truly never played at all.

Gifts - games we've received but not actually cracked open and tried out

• Sparta, a very recent birthday gift (really so recent as not to deserve being on this list)
• Sushi Roll, a gift that our 12-year-old received one Christmas
• 007 Scene It?
• James Ernst's Totally Renamed Spy Game

Mysteries - games whose origin I simply can not recall

• Rivets, a 1977 Metagaming Concepts microgame
• Operation Grenade, a 1981 SPI folio game
• Sequence, which I'm really interested in playing now since it I found it on a Board Game Family Top Ten list from last year
• Beans, a card game with beans - really, no idea where this came from
• Tripoley, which might actually have been my wife's before we got married

Good intentions - purchased games that I thought surely I would have played by now

• Cowboys, picked up during a Worthington Games sale because my sons had expressed an interest in Western-themed gaming
• Battle of Nations: Encirclement at Leipzig, an SPI folio game that I bought from the adjacent table when I was selling stuff at a Northern Virginia Gamers (NoVaG) game day flea market
• Here Come the Rebels, the second game in Avalon Hill's Great Campaigns of the Civil War series, the first of which (Stonewall Jackson's Way) is the best ACW game I've ever played
• Tech Bubble, a Worthington Games push-your-luck title that I'm still curious about, but somehow not enough to have torn open the shrink-wrap yet

Role-playing games - a genre that I keep thinking I'll get my sons involved in but never seem to have time to prepare for

• Aces and Eights, that Western theme again;
• Universe, picked up from a friend when I got a science-fiction RPG itch, along with...
• Metamorphosis Alpha and
• Traveller;
• Top Secret, which previously belonged to my little brother

Played others', but not my own - games that I bought because I enjoyed playing other people's copies, then never got my own to the table

• Viva Java
• Axis and Allies: Pacific
• Acquire

Kids games - the theory being, get something the kids will like so they will play

• Name 5 
• Square Shooters, a dice game where the faces of the dice represent playing cards
• Sorry Revenge Card Game
• Frag - not exactly a kid's game, but a skirmish game that I bought for my teenager at a Congress of Gamers bring-and-buy
• Zombie Dice

Miniatures rules - the purpose of money being God's way of telling us that we need more miniatures.  I'll point out here that I am not listing all the unpainted miniatures that I have.  That would be just depressing.  Besides, this is a boardgaming blog.

• Spearhead, which I picked up when I was on a micro-armor kick
• Horse Foot Guns, a Phil Barker gunpowder-era rules set that I downloaded after I'd seen the Mel Gibson movie The Patriot and decided that I wanted to wargame the American War of Independence.  

What was I thinking - a category that speaks for itself (these being auction impulse buys)

• Stock Market Guru, which I think I confused with Avalon Hill's 1970 title The Stock Market Game
• 30-second Mysteries, which I assumed my wife the mystery writer would like, along with ...
• 221B Baker Street

Game design research - games I bought because they were relevant to something I was working on, not necessarily because I wanted to play them

• Successors, the Avalon Hill game on the Wars of the Diadochi, the subject of my first major game design (which I have since shelved), along with ...
• Alexander's Generals;
• High Frontier, Phil Eklund's 2010 ridiculously realistic space exploration game that essentially stopped my work on "Gold on Mars" dead in its tracks, at least until I rethemed it

Sentimental purchases - games I bought on eBay because I remembered liking them as a kid

• Origins of World War II, which I played avidly as a teenager, then traded to a friend for PanzerBlitz
• Masterpiece, the Parker Brothers art auction game, which my family played frequently as I recall
• Stock Market Game, published by Whitman, which I really liked playing in junior high school with friends

One other unplayed game I have is "Senet," a home-made wooden version of the ancient Egyptian game that I assembled when I was on an ancient boardgame kick.

So there are 38 items on my list, almost as many as Chris's.  It's interesting to realize how much of my unplayed collection was acquired on impulse or in pursuit of a temporary fascination with a particular genre or interest.  Some of these might actually get to the table now that I've been reminded of them; others could show up in the WBC math trade if I get my act together.