Every game you own, on your phone

Type a title: your own shelf answers first, and BoardGameGeek is asked only when it has nothing. Tap the game, answer Do you own it? (Have is already picked) and put it on the shelf. Tick Want to play or I've played it on the way, if you like. The exact edition, what you paid and photos go on from the game's page afterwards. Adding a game that's already on your shelf says so, and it can still go on as a second copy.

On the game's page, Which printing? lists BGG's printings with their year, language, publisher, box size and weight. When there's more than one, photograph the back of the box: Claude, Anthropic's AI, reads the publisher, year, language and edition wording off it, and the printings that match are suggested, each with the facts it agrees with. You pick.

Other ways in:

• Add many: search, tap, search again, and up to 100 go on in one go.
• Paste a list: up to 500 names, one to a line. A line goes on as Have when it matches a game's name, or when only one game turns up; the rest are named back to you.
• Snap the shelf: take a photo of a shelf, or choose one, and Claude reads up to 40 titles off it. You check the list, fix or delete any line, and only names that match the catalogue go on. The photo isn't kept.
• By hand: a game that isn't on BoardGameGeek goes on with just its name, and can be linked to BGG later.
• A whole BGG collection: BoardGameGeek, both ways.

What do the AI features send?

Instead of a single status, each game answers two questions. The first is whether you own it:

Pre-ordered

Paid for, not here yet. Friends see it as on its way.

Pledged

Backed, waiting to see what happens; it keeps the pledge link. Friends see it as on its way too.

Have

It's yours and it's here.

Had

It's gone. How and when it left stay with the game.

Radar

Not yours: one to follow, or one you've played elsewhere. Private, unless you want to buy it.

The second is what you're doing with it: Keeping it, Selling, Trading, Sell or trade. Only a game you own, or have paid for, can be up for selling or trading. Want to buy is a tick on Radar, and it's your wishlist. A game that's gone keeps how it left (Sold, Traded, Given away, Lost or Other) and when; a sale also keeps its price and where.

Whatever a game's answers, friends can see whether you've played it: a yes or no, never when or with whom.

The shelf opens on what you have. Filter by Own it? and Doing (selling, trading, lent out, want to play, want to buy), then by type, players, best player count, time, weight, mechanics, designer, condition, whether it's been played, how the last play went, and where it lives. Every choice shows how many games you'd see with it, and the long lists, mechanics and designers, find any name as you type.

A game a filter can't judge (no playing time on record, say) isn't passed off as a match or quietly dropped: the shelf says how many it couldn't judge.

Sort by name, least recently played, most played, lightest, shortest, BGG rank or rating, recently added, or asking price. Save a view you use often, up to 12 of them. Expansions stay out of the way until you ask for them.

Boxes stand at one height, each in its own shape, like a real shelf: more on that.

Each game's page puts yours beside BoardGameGeek's. Yours: the edition; what you paid and when; what it's worth to you; your own top player count and minutes, for when BGG's are wrong for your table (the shelf's filters and game night go by yours); notes; and where it lives, in your own words. Worth to you is your figure: nothing estimates it for you.

Its condition (In shrink, Unpunched, New, Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor) and whether it's all there are set under Sell it, even for a game you're keeping, and show on the game's page once set.

Photos of your copy: a front, a back and more for a listing, up to 12 a game. They're private to your shelf, unless you publish a listing to eBay, which copies them to a public folder eBay fetches them from.

Lend a copy and the shelf remembers who has it: lending and borrowing. Pick several games on the shelf at once to mark them all played, set their condition or say where they all live, up to 300 at a time.

It's a website that works like an app: add it to your phone's home screen and it opens on its own, without the browser around it. Your own shelf can open without a signal on that phone, with a line saying when it was saved; other pages say they need a connection. The answer to Does it work without a signal? says when a copy is saved and when it goes.

A shelf holds up to 5,000 games and 3,000 photos. Settings has the whole shelf as one CSV whenever you want it: every game, with your answers, what you paid, asking and sold prices, conditions and notes.

Live with another gamer? Share one shelf: see Friends.