I've got a lot of unplayed games in my loft. Too many. And there's more games on my wishlisht too.

In order to sort this out I sat down and had a good old think about what each game that I was looking at actually achieved for me - what gaming itch did it scratch when I played it? For example I'd been looking at buying a whole lot of games that could be loosely classified as "Empire Building Games" but really how many games in that mold did I need?

After applying this to a few oversubscribed categories in my collection, I started to think it might be interesting just to see how I felt about categorising other games. There's been a bit of a debate going on recently about how a lot of the popular games on the 'geek are very similar and how "Ameritrash" fans like myself prefer to play a wider range of games. So I wanted to see if I really was playing a wider range of games. I'd be interested to know whether you think there's a lot of overlap here - if you wanted to define things differently there's certainly a lot of mediumweight combat and negotiation games, because that's what I favour, but I do feel that the different categories fulfil different requirements. I also feel that across my different categories I've selected a wide range of different approaches and mechanics - in some cases that was the very reason I selected some games over others.

So here's the result. In each entry I've listed the category, what I seek to get out of games in that category followed by the two or three games that I feel best represent what I want from that category. I've then listed a few good looking games I rejected from the category with a brief reason as to why. Some of these rejects are marked with a * - they're games I own but am considering getting rid of after this reclassification.

You should note I've not played all the games on this list. Those that I haven't I've arrived at a classification for after careful research here on the 'geek.

So, in no particular order, my categories are: