Five & Dime 2005: Joining the "In" Crowd

These are games that have appeared on the Five & Dime lists before... and have risen in overall playing percentages.

Game	percentage gain from 2004
For Sale	+23.54%
Around the World in 80 Days (Kosmos)	+12.32%
Jambo	+10.91%
Fairy Tale	+10.71%
Samurai	+8.79%
Niagara	+8.18%
Schotten-Totten/Battleline	+6.97%
Blokus	+6.87%
Titan: The Arena/Colossal Arena	+4.55%
Reef Encounter	+4.14%
Boggle	+4.04%
Hamsterrolle	+4.04%
RoboRally	+3.94%
Torres	+3.54%
Settlers of Catan	+3.43%

There are two main reasons that games appear on this list:

1. They were reprinted this year (For Sale, Fairy Tale, Titan the Arena, RoboRally, Torres, Reef Encounter, Battleline)
2. They were "Essen" games... they were released late in 2003 in Germany and were only played 5+ times by a couple of folks in 2003 (Around the World in 80 Days, Jambo, Niagara, Reef Encounter)

The interesting games here are the ones that can not be explained by these reasons:

• Why the sudden interest in Samurai? (Great game, btw...)
• Settlers of Catan is just reclaiming some ground - it's been a solid contender on the Five & Dime lists since I started collecting them. It's also probably affected by the larger sample of gamers this year.)
• Blokus is growing in popularity each year - is this a "classic" in the making?
• Where in the heck did Boggle & Hamsterrolle come from?! (Again, both great games.)