Play log

The Play Log is where you record game sessions, track scores and winners, and build your personal play history. Access it from the Plays link in the navigation bar.

Logging a play

Tap + New game to open the log form.

You can also start from the game itself: every card in your collection — and in a shelf you are browsing from your Crew or from someone's shared link — has a + Log a play button, which opens this form with that game already chosen. If you already had a play in progress, deshelved asks before replacing it, so an evening's scoring is never swapped out by accident. The button only appears when you are signed in, because a play is saved to your own history.

Date — defaults to today. Change it to log a past session.
Location — prefills automatically: it uses the event's location when you log from an event, otherwise the location of your most recent same-day play (so logging several plays in one sitting doesn't mean re-typing the venue), falling back to your most recently used location. You can type a different one or pick from your history. The box says Filter or add a location… because that is all it does — it narrows the locations you have already saved, and anything else you type becomes a new location under that name. It is not an address lookup, so a postcode or street address is just saved as the name. With nothing saved yet it says Add a location…. Turn on Location autofill in Settings and Deshelved fills this in from your device automatically — matched to places you've logged before (no address lookups, no third parties). Your device reads a precise position but it's rounded straight away, and only the rounded coordinate is stored — never your exact position. You choose the rounding (100 m, 500 m or 1 km) in Settings; it asks for location permission when you enable the setting.
Game — search your collection, or tap Not in your collection? Search BGG → to find any game. The search matches on title and shows every game in your collection — it is not narrowed by player count, so you don't have to add the players first. If you pick a game from BGG, an Add to my collection checkbox appears so you can add it in the same step.
Players — you are added automatically. Pick from your Crew or type a name to add anyone. Like the location box, Filter crew or add by name… only narrows your own Crew — it doesn't search for people on Deshelved.

Crew suggestions

deshelved shows your Crew — the people you play with most — as quick-add chips below the player search box. When you have a location selected, the list narrows to people you usually play with at that location. If you logged a session for the same game earlier today, the players from that session are pre-filled.

Scores and winner

Enter scores in the Score column. The winner is calculated automatically as each score is entered.
Toggle Least points wins for games where the lowest score wins (e.g. golf-scoring games).
If you're not tracking scores, mark the winner manually by clicking the ★ button next to their name.

Games with no scores at all

Some games are decided by what happened, not by a number — Tinderblox, and most co-ops. Choose Win or lose (no scores) under the players and the Score column goes away completely, along with the Score sheet option. The ★ becomes the whole record.

Several winners are allowed here, and only here. A co-op where you all won — or all lost — records honestly. In the two scored modes the ★ still moves to one player at a time, because the scores decide it.
Nothing is saved in the Score column in this mode, even if you typed something before switching. Switch back and what you typed is still there.
The play card shows win / lose under the players, so a play with no scores does not look like one you forgot to finish.
On the game's stats card these plays count towards plays and win rate, but they add no best score — there isn't one.
BoardGameGeek has no equivalent setting. The play pushes across correctly as a win or a loss, but a play imported back from BGG arrives as an ordinary scored play, because "every score is blank" is also what an unfinished play looks like.

Adding players once you have started

The crew list tucks itself away as soon as you enter a score — you are past picking players by then, and it was taking up half the form. If somebody turns up late, Add more players brings it back, and Done adding players puts it away again.

Switching back to Final score after using the sheet fills in each player's total, so you see where everyone stands rather than a blank column. The sheet keeps its rows either way, so you can flip between the two. The one thing to know: the sheet wins. If you type a score by hand, then use the sheet, switching back replaces what you typed with the sheet's total.

Scoring by rounds

Some games need more than one number per player — several rounds, or several things that each score. Choose Score sheet above the players and a grid appears: one row per round (or per whatever the game scores), one column per player, and a running Total under each column. The rows are numbered rather than named, so the sheet suits anything you score in parts, not only rounds.

Add row adds the next row as the game goes on; Remove last row takes one back.
Set a Target score and deshelved announces it the moment someone's total reaches it. The target ends the game; it does not decide it. The highest total wins, even if somebody else crossed the line a round earlier.
The target is remembered per game: log Flip 7 with a target of 200 once and it is filled in for you next time.
With the score sheet on, the player list is put away — the sheet already shows each player's running total, so keeping both would print the same number twice. The 🎲 marker for who goes first moves onto the sheet's column headings, and the ★ winner button is not needed because the sheet decides the winner. To remove somebody, switch back to Final score.
A target only applies when most points wins. With Least points wins on, the lowest total takes it and the target is ignored.

Round scores are yours alone: BoardGameGeek records a single score per play, so a play synced to BGG carries the total, not the breakdown.

First player

The 🎲 Pick first button randomly selects who goes first, rotating through players who haven't had the first-player spot yet across your session history. Tap it to let deshelved decide fairly.

Syncing to BGG

After saving a play, a Sync → button appears on the session card. Tapping it pushes the play to your BoardGameGeek account so your BGG history stays current. The button shows BGG ✓ once the sync is confirmed. You need a BGG username linked in Settings for this button to appear.

Shared plays

If someone else logged a session that includes you, it appears in your Play Log marked with their name. Tap Save on a shared play to add your own copy to your history — useful if you want to record your own score or sync it to BGG independently.

To bring over a whole run of them at once, long-press any shared play to start selecting, tap the others you want (or Select all for everything currently shown), then tap Save. Up to 50 at a time. Selecting a mix of your own plays and shared ones offers no batch action — the two mean different things, so pick one or the other.

Filtering

Click any game title or player name in the list to filter down to plays featuring that game or person. Active filters appear as chips at the top — click a chip to remove it.

Editing a play

Tap the ✎ button on any session card to open the edit modal. From there you can:

Date and location — change when and where the session took place.
Players — add new players or remove existing ones. Scores, winner, and first-player flags are all editable.
Least points wins — toggle the scoring direction.
Score sheet — switch between one score each and the sheet, edit any row, and change the target score. The totals and the winner are recalculated as you type.

If the play was previously synced to BGG, saving your edits pushes the updated details to your BGG account automatically.

Scoring together on one sheet

When several of you are at the same table, you can all fill in one scoresheet from your own phones. Add a game to a play, add crew members who have a Deshelved account, and the shared sheet starts itself — there is nothing to switch on and no invitation to send.

Everyone at the table can type in any cell, not just their own row, exactly as if you were passing a scorepad around. Scores appear on everyone's phone within a few seconds.

You will be told. Everyone named on a sheet gets a notification saying who is scoring what, with a link straight to it. The sheet is also offered on your play log whenever the screen loads, so you will find it either way.
You can turn those off in Settings → Shared scoresheet notifications. They are on to begin with. Turning them off does not take you off anyone's scoresheet — you simply find them on your play screen instead.
If the game finished before you looked, tapping the notification tells you the scoresheet has been closed. Nothing is wrong and nothing was lost — the person who started it has already saved their copy, and yours is still on your own play screen.
Only crew, or people at the same event. Adding someone puts the sheet on their phone, so it is not open to strangers.
The person who started it owns the details. Game, date, location and who is playing belong to them. Scores are shared.
Everyone saves their own copy, and that is right: the play belongs in each person's history. Deshelved already hides a crew member's copy of a play you logged too.
Nothing is lost if the wifi drops. Your phone keeps its own copy the whole time and you can always save.

When the person who started the sheet saves or discards the play, the shared sheet closes for everyone. Your own scores stay on your screen and you can still save the play as your own.

Deleting a play

The delete button is inside the edit modal, at the bottom left. Tap it once to reveal a confirmation prompt, then confirm to permanently remove the session from your history.

Game stats

Tap View stats (or swipe) on any play to flip the card over and see all-time stats for that game — each player's number of plays, win rate, and best score across your history.

If you've played a game at more than one player count, a Players filter appears at the bottom of the stats card (All, Solo, 2, 3…). Pick a count to see stats for just those plays — handy for games that play very differently solo versus in a full group.

At the top of the stats card you can switch between My plays and + Crew's. Turn on + Crew's to fold in the own logged plays of crew members who have added you back, turning the card into a shared leaderboard — great for comparing solo scores with friends, since everyone's solo plays live in their own account. A crew member's plays appear only if they've also added you and left play-stat sharing on (Settings → Privacy) — so it's mutual and opt-out. You can turn your own sharing off there too.

Exporting your plays

Settings → Your data → Export plays (CSV) downloads every play you have logged as a spreadsheet file. There is no limit — the export contains your whole history, not only the recent plays shown on screen.

It reads Deshelved's own records only, so it works even when BoardGameGeek is unavailable. Each row carries an on_bgg column showing whether that play reached your BGG account, so you can see at a glance what is still waiting to be pushed.

Exporting is available on the web at deshelved.com. The app cannot save files to your device yet.

Other help articles: Hosting an event · Joining as a guest · Why sign up? · Voting & results · Availability & dates · BoardGameGeek sync · Your collection · Passwords & security · FAQ · Sharing a shelf · Households · Mobile apps