How to track your board game plays

What to record for every play

Whatever you use, the same five things do most of the work:

1. The date
2. The game
3. Who played
4. The scores
5. Who won (or, for a cooperative game, whether the table won)

Nice to have: where you played, how long it took, the expansion or variant, whether it was anyone's first time, a short note, and a photo. Write down who won even on nights nobody kept score. It is the line people look for later. (For the story of the night as well as the numbers, see our game night journal ideas.)

Five ways, side by side

BG Stats prices are US prices from the App Store and Google Play, checked on 19 October 2026.

1. Paper

A notebook, or printed score sheets kept in a folder. Write the date and the names at the top, the scores below, and circle the winner. We have free printable score sheets for games like Rummy 500 and Hearts.

• Good: nothing to charge, anyone can write in it, and it is lovely to flip through.
• Less good: no totals or counts unless you do the math, there is only one copy, and the photos live somewhere else.
• Suits: families, casual groups, and tables that keep phones away.

2. A spreadsheet

Free in Google Sheets or Apple Numbers, and Excel works too. The trick is the layout: one row per player, per play.

Laid out this way, a filter or a pivot table can count plays per game and wins per person without any rework.

• Good: free, fully yours, and any statistic you can think of.
• Less good: typing at the table is fiddly, photos do not fit well, and you build and maintain it yourself.
• Suits: people who enjoy building their own charts.

3. BoardGameGeek's play log

BoardGameGeek (BGG) is the big online database of board games. With a free account, you can log a play from any game's page using its Log Play button, on the BGG website or in BGG's own app. A logged play can hold the date, where you played, how long it took and a comment, and for each player their name or BGG username, their score, their color and starting seat, whether it was their first play, and who won. BGG keeps count of how many times you have logged each game.

Other apps can post plays to BGG or bring them in from it (BG Stats does both), so a BGG log can travel with you.

• Good: free, long-term, tied to your game collection, and readable by other tools.
• Less good: it is a form for the final result, with one score per player rather than the round-by-round math.
• Suits: BGG regulars, and anyone who wants every play in one long-term record.

4. BG Stats

BG Stats (listed in the app stores as Board Game Stats) is a paid app for iPhone, iPad and Android. When we checked on 19 October 2026, it cost $5.99 on both the US App Store and Google Play, with optional in-app purchases. The main ones are the Power Expansion (more statistics, filters and tags), Challenges, and Cloud Sync, which keeps your devices in step and backs your data up.

• Logging: players (including anonymous ones), places, scores with plus and minus math as you type, teams and co-op games, roles, expansions, a play timer, and pictures attached to plays.
• Statistics: the deepest in this list. Stats per game, per player and per player in each game, charts, win percentages, head-to-head records, an H-index, and cost per play.
• BoardGameGeek: it syncs your BGG collection, can post each play to BGG as you save it, and imports plays from BGG, Board Game Arena and Yucata.
• Score sheets: thousands of game-specific score sheets.
• Sharing: you can send plays to other BG Stats users, so only one person at the table enters them.

In short:

• Good: serious statistics, BGG sync, and Android.
• Less good: it costs money, and its focus is the numbers. You can attach pictures to plays, but it is not built as a scrapbook.
• Suits: people who love numbers, BGG users, Android users and collectors.

We compare the two apps in more detail in Tabletales and BG Stats.

5. Tabletales

Tabletales is our app, so weigh this section with that in mind. It is free on iPhone and iPad, with Android coming soon.

Tabletales saves the night, not just the play: when and where, who hosted, who played and who watched, every game with its scores, and photos from the table.

• Keeping score: the Scorepad works at the table. Highest or lowest score wins, finishing places, teams, co-op, or simply who won. Track every round or just the final totals, add a messy score on the keypad, and play to a target such as 500.
• History: every game gets a history, with how many times you have played it, who you play it with and who holds the high score.
• Stats: most-played games, nights remembered, and who you have shared the most tables with. Quietly tallied, with no percentages.
• People: add friends who are not on the app as guests. They can claim their nights later with an invite link.
• Privacy: nothing you save is public. The people who were there always keep the night.

In short:

• Good: free, built around the night and its photos, and easy for a whole table to share.
• Less good: lighter statistics than BG Stats. Game details come from BoardGameGeek, but Tabletales does not post plays to BGG or import them. No Android app yet.
• Suits: groups who care most about the night itself: who was there, the photos, the story.

How to choose

• You want every number: BG Stats.
• You already live on BoardGameGeek: BGG's play log, or BG Stats to post there for you.
• You want it free and exactly your way: a spreadsheet.
• You want no screens at the table: paper.
• You want the night remembered, with the photos and the people: Tabletales.

You can also mix them. Keep score on paper at the table and enter it into an app afterward. Or keep the night in Tabletales and log the play on BGG too. It means typing it twice, but each tool does its own job well.

Sources

Checked on 19 October 2026. BG Stats: its App Store listing, its Google Play listing, and bgstatsapp.com. BoardGameGeek: the BoardGameGeek app listing and the bgg-api documentation of what a logged play holds. Prices and features change, so check the stores before you buy.