Technical/device/purchases

Do I have to purchase BG Stats for every device separately?
Once purchased, BG Stats can be freely downloaded on all your devices that use the same platform (iOS or Android) and store login (App store or Play store). If you use family sharing, members in your family can download the app for free as well, on iOS including the in-app purchases (the Play store does not yet have support for this). If you use different platforms you’ll have to purchase the app once per platform. BG Stats is not compatible with other types of app-sharing, like sending it directly to other devices. We do not currently support other stores or distribution methods.

Can I get the app outside of the Google Play or iOS App Stores?
No, for now Board Game Stats is only available via the Google Play Store and via the iOS App Store. We do not currently support other stores or distribution methods. This is due to the added complexity of handling payment, distribution, updates, and piracy protection ourself. If you purchased the app through one of the supported stores, your purchase will remain available through the store you bought it from.

Can I sync between iOS and Android with Cloud sync?
Yes, you can sync between all your devices; phones, tablets, iOS and Android with one Cloud sync account.

What happens when I go to Android from iOS, or vice versa?
Unfortunately, you will need to purchase the app and its in-app-purchases again (just like most other paid apps, and e.g. video games on consoles). Both platforms have completely separate stores, and both apps are developed in separate environments. Only your Cloud-sync subscription, if you have it, will transfer between platforms without repurchasing. Your purchase will still be there when you return to your original platform.

How to transfer data to a new phone?
You can transfer your data in three ways:

• with Cloud sync (it’s free for the first two weeks);
• make an export, and import the created .json file;
• import your plays from BGG if you’ve posted them there (not recommended).

The easiest and most complete transfer is provided by Cloud sync (excluding play images and custom game images).
The export-import contains the same except for custom player images. These are included in the separate image export-import.
The BGG import is the least complete, because BGG doesn’t store your game settings, not all custom play data, nor your challenges.

To transfer images saved in BG Stats, a separate images export-import is available. This is currently the only way to transfer those images to another device.

You can read more about it here: Moving to a new device or reinstalling.

Can I change my Cloud sync’s email address, or permanently delete all my data?
Yes, contact support and if we can verify your ownership of the account, we can change the connected email address, or permanently delete the account including all data if you wish so. Note that the data will still exist in our host’s rolling backup up to two weeks after deleting the account, but we do not support restoring the account from this backup.

How do I keep my data after I lost access to the app via Family sharing?
If you lose access to the app you previously used via Family sharing, you’ll have to purchase the app on your own account. If the store doesn’t let you purchase the app because you already have it installed, try purchasing the app with the same account on another device. After you’ve done this, on iOS, follow the link to the App Store you see when you try opening the app, to update the app to your account.

Why doesn’t dark mode work on my Android phone?
For Dark mode to work you’ll need Android 10 or newer. For some systems, like the Redmi / MIUI, you’ll need to follow these steps to enable dark mode for BG Stats: Go into Settings -> Display -> Dark Mode. At least temporarily turn on the global Dark Mode to get access to advanced dark mode setting. Go into Advanced settings -> Individual App, find BG Stats and move the slider next to it turning it on.

The app is not displaying game names, a lot of texts are white on light grey, I can’t read the contents of the screen (Android, most often with MIUI)
This is probably an issue with dark mode. Sometimes after updating the app or the system Android mixes dark and light themes in the app. Go to the in-app settings and switch between dark mode settings. If this doesn’t help immediately, please try restarting the app, and restarting your phone. It can be necessary to enable dark mode for BG Stats in the phone’s setting as described in the previous point.

Setting a specific language on Android does not actually change the language
When you choose a language that is not configured in the settings of your Android phone, BG Stats can’t load that language either. Add the language to your list of language in your phone’s settings first. Due to download optimisation from Google Play, it can then take some time for the language to become available in BG Stats, sometimes until the next update of the app.

Does BG Stats track me?
No. BG Stats doesn’t share your personal data with third parties, except the ones you specifically choose. If you choose to post or sync your data to BoardGameGeek, we send it there, to your profile. If you use Cloud sync, we save your data on our servers, accessible only to you. We can access this data on your request. Aggregated data can be used to display general stats about played games by all users. You can send an email to our support address to request your data is excluded from aggregated stats.
If the app crashes, details of the crash without personal information is sent to Google’s Firebase Crashlytics, for debugging purposes.
Connections from the app for all these purposes can go to domains from bgstatsapp.com, boardgamegeek.com, geekdo-images.com (for loading BGG images), firebase.google.com and sometimes r3.o.lencr.org (for checking Let’s encrypt secure certificates).

General

Why are games not marked as new on the Insights screen?
Games are only marked as New if they are new to the player marked as ‘Me’.
Games are only marked as New if there are Plays that are marked as New for you.
You can read more about this here: New to Me

How do I mark a Game as new for players?
When adding a play, tap a player’s name and tap the New player switch.
The app can do this automatically if you enable this in the Settings.
You can read more about this here: New to Me

What does the green bullet or open circle mean on the Plays list?
A filled green circle means: the play is not posted to BGG.
An open green circle means: the play is posted to BGG, but updated in the app since then.
You can enable display of the circles in the BGG settings in the app.

Why can’t I find the game I want to add to the app?
Board Game Stats uses the BoardGameGeek search to look for games.

• Sometimes this search function can be down (while the rest of the BGG website still functions).
  You can check this by going to the BoardGameGeek website, typing “catan” in the search field and pressing enter. If you don’t get results, the search is down. If that’s the case, the BGG admins will be on top of it already and fix it as soon as possible.
• Alternatively, the game is not available on BoardGameGeek (with the name you are searching for). You can check this by searching for the game directly on BGG.

I’m missing data
Most of the time, when you expect to see data, but it is not showing up, this is because of an active filter. Please check if no (other) filters are active.
If you are sure no (other) filter is active and you still have this issue, please contact us and send a screenshot so we can try to see what’s going on.

What do I do when I have duplicates in my data?
You can read more about preventing and fixing duplicates here: Fixing duplicates.

How do I post to BGG?

• You can post a play to BGG by pressing the little BGG button on a play’s overview screen. The first time your BGG credentials will be asked.
• You can enable Auto-post in the BGG settings to post a play to BGG automatically as soon as you save it.
• To post a lot of plays at once, use multiple-select in the list of plays and select Share > Post or Update to BGG…

Why do I have Ignored plays?
When importing plays from BGG, plays that have missing data are set to Ignored for stats. This is to prevent your win percentage from being skewed. You can turn this behaviour on or off on the Import plays from BGG screen.

Can I log multiple plays at the same time?
It’s not possible to log multiple plays at the same time. Each play in BG Stats is unique so it can have its own wins and scores. You can however easily copy a play. Press the Add play button when viewing an existing play’s overview screen, and most data will be copied into the new play. If you want to copy the date as well at this time, you can configure so in the Settings. You can read more about copying plays here: Copying play data.

What’s the best way for bulk-inputting plays?
If you create a new play from the Overview screen, it will be completely blank. If you’re entering multiple plays with the same players/locations/game, you can create a new play while viewing the last play you entered. This will copy those details into the new play. It can also be useful to use the option ‘Also copy date when copying a Play’ in the Settings, so the date for the next play isn’t automatically set to today. Don’t forget to turn this back off when you’re done. You can read more about copying plays here: Copying play data.

What’s the best way for bulk-inputting games?
When you’re adding multiple games with the same status (e.g. Owned), make sure you select the ‘Owned games’ filter on the Games list first. The selected filter defines the default collection status suggested for new games. This way you can add a lot of Wishlist (and other status) items as well.

I want my calendars to start on Monday, not Sunday
Board Game Stats follows your phone’s settings for this. On Android this follows the selected language, iOS has separate Region system settings. On Android, if you select a different language in the app (via Setting > Language) that setting is followed instead. The default English language in BG Stats is US English, so if your phone is set to UK English make sure you set the app’s language to ‘System’ to have Monday as first day of the week.

My game images are not loaded correctly, can I refresh them?
You can clear the image cache of BG Stats. On iOS, go to Settings -> Help, About and Contact and scroll down to the Maintenance section. Tap ‘Clear Game Image cache…’ there. On Android, get App Info in the Launcher by long-pressing the app icon, and choose Storage & Cache in the dialog that appears. Tap the ‘Clear cache’ button there. Don’t use the Clear storage button – this would erase all data in the app.

The custom name and image I selected on BGG isn’t showing up.
Make sure you also select a specific version for each collection item you add custom names or image id’s for on BGG. Without this the custom information isn’t sent towards BG Stats. Alternatively, for any game in BG Stats you can edit the name and change the image in the app without it affecting BGG.

The highest win percentage of a game doesn’t track everybody
In the highest (total) win percentage stats for a game players are only counted when they have reached a significant number of plays, depending on the total number of plays of the game.
If the game has more than 1 play, the minimum number of plays for a player to be included is 2. For 10 plays, this is 3. For 50 plays 5 and for 100 or more plays a player is only counted from their 10th play on. In the list of players at the bottom, this filter on number of plays is not applied. It’s on the wishlist to do that there too.

How is the cost per player calculated? The number of players seems high.
See Cost per Play.

What is the difference between the “Number of unposted plays” in Backup Check and the number of plays selected in the All Plays list when I choose “Select all unposted plays”?
The “Number of unposted plays” counts all plays that do not have a copy on BGG at all, and includes plays of games that are not linked to BGG.
When you choose “Select all unposted plays” in the All plays list, all plays are selected of games that are linked to BGG, but are not posted to BGG or have been modified since the last post to BGG.

How to log

How can I best log (solo) games that have no winner but do have scores?
You can set the solo plays to ‘Nobody lost/won’. This way they are not counted as a win or loss for statistics.

How can I log scores of an AI?
You can use a Non-player.

How do I log games that integrate with each other (like Imperium: Legends and Imperium: Classics for instance)?

This is entirely up to you, and how you would like to see your plays logged.
Two popular options are:

• Option 1: Give each of the games the same tag. For example, you could tag both games with “Imperium”.
  When you log a play choose one of the games to log it on. Look at the stats for the “Imperium” tag to see stats (like player count) for both games combined.
  This requires the Tagging expansion.
• Option 2: Choose one of the games to be your ‘base’ game. For example, you could choose Classics as ‘base’.
  When you log a play, always log it on Imperium: Classics, and add Imperium: Legends as expansion. On the Game page of both games you will be able to see the play count.

The first option will keep your plays completely separate, and both games will count separately for play count and H-index and such.
The second option will only count the chosen ‘base’ game for play count and H-index. You can always see the play count of the expansion on that Game page.

What is the best way to log plays for games with Big boxes / Special / Deluxe / etc. versions

This is entirely up to you, and how you would like to see your plays logged.
A few popular options are:

• Option 1: Give each of the games the same tag.
  When you log a play, log it on the base game you are playing.
• Option 2: Log everything on the original base game.
  When you log a play add plays with the Big box / Special / Deluxe / etc. version as an expansion.
• Option 3: Like option 2, but move the original plays to the big box / Special / Deluxe / etc. version as expansion plays and log future plays on the Big box / Special / Deluxe / etc. version.

The first option will keep your plays completely separate, and both games will count separately for play count and H-index and such.
The second option will only count the original game for play count and H-index. You can always see the play count of the expansion (Big box / Special / Deluxe / etc. version) on that Game page.
The third option will only count the Big box / Special / Deluxe / etc. version of the game for play count and H-index. You can always see the play count of the original game on that Game page.

Sharing

Why is there no default text when I post a play to Facebook?
BG Stats uses the default sharing implementation of Facebook to share a play to Facebook. Facebook doesn’t allow default text to be set via this method, presumably to prevent bots from posting or from too many similar posts from appearing. The image you added to a play or of the played game will be posted to Facebook though.

How do I get that cool overview in the app?
To learn how to create an image and read about all possible options:

• 3×3 image: Creating and sharing a 3×3 image
• Stats-o-grafic: Stats-o-graphic

Other

Can I post a play to another BGG user’s account?
No, BGG doesn’t support that, even though you can enter the BGG username for a player.

Can I track and log plays for games from RPG Geek?
RPG Geek is not supported by BG Stats at the moment, just BoardGameGeek. There are some workarounds to be able to log plays on RPG Items, described here. Adding support for RPG Geek is on the wishlist though. You can still add any game or RPG to BG Stats without linking to BGG or RPG Geek, so you can log all your plays in BG Stats.

Can the Playing time from Board Game Arena (BGA) be imported?
Unfortunately the BoardGameArena playing time cannot be imported reliably.