There’s no single agreed upon rating system for all things. Sometime we use a 5 star scale. Sometimes a 10 point scale. Sometimes A-F letter grades (where maybe “S” is part of system). Sometimes thumbs up or thumbs down. Sometimes a heart vs. the absence of one.
Different rating systems may be preferred depending on how much time we spend with media. A song, averaging around 3 minutes long, probably doesn’t require a detailed 5 star scale; a simple “heart or not” system is plenty. Movies we spend a couple hours with, so they seem to warrant more. Video games may get a dozen or more hours, and that seems more likely to land a 10 point scale. But hey, each reviewer is going to do their own thing. And review aggregation sites are going to turn that into number soup. But there is some rhyme to which rating scales we pick for which things.
The predominant resource on board games is Board Game Geek, and BGG asks its users to rate games on a 10 point scale. Not only that, but they provide suggested definitions for those values.
10 - Outstanding. Always want to play and expect this will never change.
9 - Excellent game. Always want to play it.
8 - Very good game. I like to play. Probably I’ll suggest it and will never turn down a game.
7 - Good game, usually willing to play.
6 - Ok game, some fun or challenge at least, will play sporadically if in the right mood.
5 - Average game, slightly boring, take it or leave it.
4 - Not so good, it doesn’t get me but could be talked into it on occasion.
3 - Likely won’t play this again although could be convinced. Bad.
2 - Extremely annoying game, won’t play this ever again.
1 - Defies description of a game. You won’t catch me dead playing this. Clearly broken.
You may notice that this scale is mostly oriented around desire to play. That’s a reasonable index, but not the only one. It’d be weird if we primarily reviewed movies based on your interest in seeing them again. We fully accept that a movie can be seen once and never returned to, but still be great. But as physical objects that take up space in your home, board games seem held to this standard of “how much value are you getting out that shelf space?”
So, how do I rate my games? Since BGG has definitions for their rating system, I try to adhere to that as closely as possible when rating on their site. But there are other factors. It’d be uninteresting to me to have a perfect 10 game only be a function of endless desire to return to it. How the game makes me feel? What memories does it has the capacity to form? Does community flow from the game, can it make bonds? And yes, is it an appropriate price for the quality of experience? All of this factors in.
So, here are some representative examples for each rating.
10
Outstanding. Always want to play and expect this will never change.
Anything at this rating has to be truly special. Dare I say… meaningful? Impactful, sustaining, and something that really captures my identity.
Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game. I have played close to two hundred matches of this game. I have played in tournaments. I have made various after-market customizations to enhance my experience playing the game. I followed its evolution over many years, eagerly tracking every news article. I have fond memories of playing with specific people and leaning into the whole experience of this game. It’s captured my imagination and brought me real joy. It’s a 10. What else could it be?
Another example: Skull, in my opinion, a perfect game.
9
Excellent game. Always want to play it.
This rating is only for great games that stand above most, but maybe don’t quite get into the truly rarified air of my greatest of all time.
Just One. I’ve never not had a delightful experience playing this simple word game. It works for kids and adults. You can drop in and out. It doesn’t exactly capture my imagination and live rent free in my head. But it’s a reliable good time. Incredibly solid.
Alternate example: Kemet, a heavier game by comparison that has shown itself to hold up to dozens of plays.
8
Very good game. I like to play. Probably I’ll suggest it and will never turn down a game.
A game that garners an 8 is truly solid. It’s going to be beloved by me, but not entirely unconditionally.
Root. I can’t picture myself turning down a game of Root. It’s such an interest piece of design and art. But for sure it’s not for everyone. It can be hard to teach (although not as hard as people think). I’ve heard it described as too clever for its own good. But I love it.
Alternate example: King of Tokyo is worth acknowledging as a popular late night game with many of my friends. I’ve cooled on it, but only after it wracked up almost a hundred plays.
7
Good game, usually willing to play.
I own a lot of 7’s. They’re good. They’re just not quite great for one reason or another.
Ra. I very much enjoy this classic auction game. But I’ve seen firsthand how the random swings and missed opportunities can really frustrate and alienate other players. I think my experience with this one would be rated higher than others, but it’s not a solo game and I have to recognize that something keeps it from landing.
Alternate example: Android: Infiltration. Is a push-your-luck heist game that has shown surprising longevity. It has real flaws, but it’s got some magic too.
6
Ok game, some fun or challenge at least, will play sporadically if in the right mood.
A lot of games are going to sit at this rating. I’ll play them if someone else is feeling drawn to it, but I’m not often going out of my way.
Citadels. I’ve certainly had fun with this one. But it’s got some mean edges. And the building aspect is pretty thin. There are other role selection games that are often going to be a better use of my time (like Libertalia or Mission: Red Planet).
Another example: Kingdomino is perfectly fine. It has an interesting drafting mechanism and is easy to teach. But it’s not pulling me in.
5
Average game, slightly boring, take it or leave it.
Average games are average. There’s nothing terrible here, but we deserve better than average for our time.
Century: Spice Road comes to mind for this rating. It’s a bunch of resource conversions and recipe fulfillment. It’s fine. It’s decidedly average.
Another example: Catan was once exceptional, and is now average in the robust feast of modern board games we have available today.
4
Not so good, it doesn’t get me but could be talked into it on occasion.
A 4 rating means is not for me but is for someone.
Talisman is not something I’m interested in. It’s a role-to-move with fantasy adventure theming. I’ve never felt like winning was the product of clever play.
Another example: Canvas fell flat for me as a component gimmick without much game behind it.
3
Likely won’t play this again although could be convinced. Bad.
If a game is a 3 then that means I’m pretty sure it’s terrible but I hold a small sliver of hope that I’m wrong.
Munchkin is not my jam. The entire experience devolves into tearing someone down in their moment of joy. It has a humor to it, but not enough to make me want to play.
Another example: Steam Up: A Feast of Dim Sum has the most lovely components with its steam trays. But I found the act of watching other players rotate my agency away turn after turn infuriating.
2
Extremely annoying game, won’t play this ever again.
To earn a 2 rating you need the confidence of being never worth another look.
Exploding Kittens has its audience. To me it’s just some random shit happening. No thanks.
1
Defies description of a game. You won’t catch me dead playing this. Clearly broken.
I’d guess that most 1 ratings on BGG are hateful review bombing, not actual thoughtful criticism. I’ve only ever given it out for this literal description… is this even a game? Am I missing something because it doesn’t even seem to function.
Doggy Go! is the only example I found where I gave out a 1. I grabbed it from a convention library and literally couldn’t figure out if it was a game or just some objects you were expected to use to find your own path to fun.
My first electric guitar was a hand-me-down from my uncle, given a few years after I started playing guitar in elementary school. It was the era of grunge, and much of the music I was listening to was filled to the brim with distortion. A stark contrast with my modest electric setup. And yet, when I assembled my own money to buy my first ever guitar pedal… I hipstered myself. I could have bought a distortion pedal like the Boss DS-1, used prominently by Nirvana and so many others. Or a Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal, used heavily by the Smashing Pumpkins. Or I even could have bought a delay pedal to do my best impression of U2’s The Edge. But no… I decided at the last minute to get something quirky and “unique”: an octave pedal, the DOD Octoplus. It was immediately clear I had made a mistake. An octave pedal can have its uses, but as a first and only pedal? A dismal choice. And I had no money for a second pedal.
The end result? I spent the next 25 years primarily only playing acoustic guitar.
It wasn’t until I was 40 years old that I actually bought myself my very own electric guitar (a Fender Stratocaster, classic and versatile). It only took a global pandemic to push me to make the purchase, stuck inside with an evaporated social calendar. But I was ready to do it right, and get pedals too. I did a lot more research this time (thanks dramatically more developed internet!). So without spending too much money I got some classic building blocks.
It was enough to let me fool around and enjoy myself. But in time, life started to normalize. I couldn’t continue to leave this awkwardly daisy-chained cluster of pedals and wires out on the floor. They got shuffled away, to come out sporadically. Inconvenient set-up and clean-up prevented this from being a regular practice.
Years later, I moved into a bigger house. Literally the first things I moved over were my instruments. After breaking it in with my acoustic guitar, I realized I could set up my electric guitar, amp, and pedals in this new space. The moving boxes hadn’t yet arrived, but I filled that empty house with some epic fuzz. For a moment, it was glorious. But the pedals were still a mess of tangled wires, so I moved everything into the basement. Sadly out of sight, out of mind, and underloved.
After over a year of being in the new house, with the financial pressure reduced, I felt like I could explore solutions to this problem. I had long ago learned that an instrument in a case never gets played but an instrument on a stand does. You have to remove the friction between you and the behavior you want. An effects-free electric guitar is okay, but never is going to be a draw over my acoustic. However, an electric guitar connected with all sorts of toys is a totally different story. So I needed a way to organize the toys.
Enter the pedalboard.
I was aware of the concept of a pedalboard, but having no experience I turned to YouTube. I sampled a few tutorial videos, but the one that got me there was this one from JHS. Not only did it walk me through everything I needed to build my pedalboard, but it also sent me down a rabbit hole of an incredibly entertaining and well-produced channel all about pedals. It was not a cheap discovery.
Knowledge in hand, I waltzed into Guitar Center to pick up the board (a Pedaltrain Metro 24), the power supply (Voodoo Lab Pedal Power X8), and some patch cables. And while I was there… I grabbed a pair of used pedals to round out my options:
For some reason the sales associate tried to talk me out of buying any TC Electronic pedals. Which is funny, because their looper would become the single most effective tool in getting me to play my guitar. More on that later. So the internet provided 2 more pedals to round out the rig:
Imagine a time lapse here of lots of velcro, threading power cables through the board, and maneuvering stiff patch cables. But I emerged victorious.
But most importantly, it solved my problem by enabling everything to be put neatly away at a moment’s notice. Immediately I started playing a lot more. I had my looper pedal to give me a way to layer my creativity. I had fun noise machines at my feet. Mission accomplished.
But Pandora’s box had been opened. I had created a platform for experimentation, and introduced to myself to a whole field of guitar effects to lust after. What followed was a period of rapid experimentation and expansion fueled by the combination of The JHS Show and reverb.com.
If I’m being honest, the majority of the reason I’m making this post is so I have an excuse to gush about Hadestown. But once I started thinking about it, 2023 was a real return to form for me for seeing musicals, theater shows, and concerts. So let’s talk about what I managed to experience this year.
I first heard about Hadestown through the excellent Strong Songs podcast. Similar to Kirk’s breakdown of Hamilton’s “Satisfied”, the podcast introduced the musical themes and walked through a key moment of the performance. And the music was… not what I’d expect. The musical opens with a trombone groove; this is not normal. I was very intrigued, but at the time we were in the middle of a pandemic and seeing the show was not an option. As life resumed, the show made its way to Seattle… last year. I saw Hadestown then, loved it, and I saw it again this year. Yep, I liked it that much.
As a kid I was a big Greek mythology nerd. I remember my grandparents using me as a resource to finish their crossword puzzles. So a musical about the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice is thematically in my wheelhouse. Combine that with good music… yes please. It’s also inherently a story about a musician, and this adaptation makes it about writing a song, so the musical trappings are an excellent fit. And the performance leans into that. There’s no pit here; the band is on stage. The actors themselves contribute to the music as well, with Orpheus playing his “lyre” and the fates stalking the stage with violin and accordion.
Last year when I saw this performance, it moved me. It was the first time going to see something in a big theater in years. Seeing it with my family was really special, and really emotional. When considering seeing it a second time (not something I’d generally do)… I thought maybe the impact was just due to that specific moment in time? Well, after bringing more loved ones along and seeing it a second time… nope. This musical still absolutely cuts me deep. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.
I knew nothing about this show going in, other than the title. It’s nice to have no expectations sometimes. Well it turns out it’s about the six wives of Henry the VIII, largely known for their fate in marriage with him (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, and survived). If I hadn’t seen that Tudors show years ago, I would have been lost.
The structure of the show is a competition among the wives for who had it worse, a real expression of their sister wound. Each one is a pop diva, and belts out one persuasive song that tells their story. Here’s the thing… compared to something like Hadestown, this isn’t the music that I’m going to take home with me. These jams are not my jams. But that’s a personal preference, not a judgement of the execution. The performers were talented and varied, the storytelling within the songs was clever.
I like how the tenor of the show changed in the latter half. At some point they realize they’re all cutting each other down and defining themselves by their relationship to one (problematic) man. And they put that down and pull together.
But to me there’s one song that defines this musical, and that’s All You Wanna Do. The song starts out playfully and flirty and ends worn-down, feeling violated, and over it. All within the same song structure; the progression is in the performance. It’s powerful.
This tour was for two bands, unified under their shared singer Ben Gibbard. It was a linear performance of two iconic albums from 20 years ago: Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism, and Postal Service’s Give Up. These are both albums that have a strong pull on me… and clearly everyone else in the audience. In general, I’m not a fan of people singing along, unless that’s the vibe. In this case, that was that vibe. The crowd wasn’t singing along to their latest crush of a newly released album… this was a battle-tested and established long-term relationship. It was moving for everyone, including the band. Not only had the band created these songs in Seattle not far from where we were, this specific night was the exact 20 year anniversary of Transatlanticism’s release date. Gibbard was visibly moved. It was a special show.
This musical adapts the Baz Luhrmann movie. It’s probably been 20 years since I’ve seen the original film, but it left a pretty strong imprint on me and this stage performance lined up with my memory of it. But woah… it’s a bit much. When they kicked of the performance with “CAN CAN CAN!” I squirmed in my chair against the assault on my eyeballs and my ear holes. Spectacle, indeed. Minimalist, this is not. Other than being perhaps overly stimulating at times, my main complaint is that the performance leaned a bit too hard into its gimmick. Which is a rapid remixing of teasers from modern songs as a way for the characters to communicate emotion. It’s there in the original film, but here it’s turned up to eleven. No, thirteen. This is probably best captured by Elephant Love Medley, which in the movie was 10 songs in 4 minutes but in the musical is 19 songs in 5 minutes. It’s more, but definitely not better. Do you want musical whiplash? I personally tired of the gimmick before the end. Overall, it’s a performance with great vibrant costumes and sets, but I wouldn’t strongly recommend it.
This was billed as a burlesque show. I’ve seen plenty of burlesque in Seattle. This show sparked significant debate in our group about whether it met the definition. What are the essential components of burlesque female empowerment versus just something that’s a classy stripper show? In the spectrum from celebratory fun to creepy, this show trended towards the wrong pole. Why? I started with a bit of “you know it when you see it”, but lots of discussion helped me put my finger on some reasons why.
The performers weren’t introduced or named. No silly burlesque moniker, no persistent identity, no cheering for them. They were treated like sexy interchangeable cogs, with a suspiciously heterogenous body type. Additionally, perhaps leaning into the wrong aspects of the subject matter, a lot of them were literally masked (helmeted)… providing a faceless anonymity. This upped the creep factor and dehumanization. It was getting really awkward until the first Han and Chewie number, which relieved some of the tension from such a sustained male gaze. Those two scoundrels were essential relief, because overall there’s a queerness and fluidity to burlesque that was sorely missing from this show.
There were some amazing moments too. There was nothing sexy about the emperor riding the death star, and it was glorious. The Jabba “Biggie” number was hilarious. There were some amazing sets and lighting tricks (like dancing by saber light). And the dancers were certainly all very talented. But if you’ve become used to the feeling of sex positivity from Seattle’s quirky burlesque scene, you’re not going to see that from this show. Be warned.
My first electric guitar was a hand-me-down from my uncle, given a few years after I started playing guitar in elementary school. It was the era of grunge, and much of the music I was listening to was filled to the brim with distortion. A stark contrast with my modest electric setup. And yet, when I assembled my own money to buy my first ever guitar pedal… I hipstered myself. I could have bought a distortion pedal like the Boss DS-1, used prominently by Nirvana and so many others. Or a Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal, used heavily by the Smashing Pumpkins. Or I even could have bought a delay pedal to do my best impression of U2’s The Edge. But no… I decided at the last minute to get something quirky and “unique”: an octave pedal, the 
