Board Game App Achievements

This will be a short post—my summer school agenda is massively tiring, and I'm easily walking 8-10 miles per day right now. Whew!

But I have not forgotten board games. When I'm on the bus being transported to a site, I still enjoy playing them on my iPad (current faves: Splendor and Carcassonne). Unfortunately, though, my Splendor app is doing something I truly despise: Every so often, I will receive a notification that I've earned an achievement.

I absolutely hate trophies and achievements. They are dangerous for me because I have perfectionistic tendencies that make it very challenging for me to ignore checklists. When I trophy hunt in video games, I end up making myself miserable. It irritates me that this feature is now showing up in my digital board games. Many people enjoy achievements, and some claim that they help to extend gameplay and maximize a player's experience with a game. I disagree. There is nothing fun about "maximizing" gameplay by completing an annoying list of chores.

Fortunately, I've been able to ignore the achievements so far. I haven't looked at the list to see what I've earned and haven't earned, and I'm trying not to. I don't want that knowledge to influence the way I'm playing. I otherwise really enjoy my apps, especially because I don't have access to anything analog right now. Hopefully next weekend I'll be able to visit a board game store, since I have a Saturday off!