Julie just wrapped a redecorating project in the game room (formerly the play room – the boys informed me that they are too old to have one of those).  The project started a while back as Julie and I discussed a way to introduce board game box covers into the decorations.  I had seen a similar decorating approach in Greg Schloesser’s game room down in New Orleans and quite liked it.

Our approach was to do color copies of the box covers and have a friend of a friend do a high quality vacuum mounting job on foam core followed by lamination and a precise cut job around the outside.  The results were fantastic – in many cases the art looks better than the original.  The cost per piece was $10, but that was a discounted price that I don’t think we’ll be able to get again.

Julie brought in a friend who specializes in interior design and did some brainstorming and decided that using the Power Grid style for the room would work best.  Think 1950s government green, brushed metal, industrial look.  She found some cool storage cabinets at Home Depot, some great lighting fixtures to replace the boring dome lights on the ceiling, and some wire frame shelves for game overflow (heh heh).  She painted our two wooden computer desks (we have three computers in the room for LAN gaming goodness) glossy black and bought 4 black/chrome chairs and 4 brushed aluminum chairs.

We arranged the game art mostly by theme.  Note that we chose the games to mount for their style and graphical quality, not necessarily the quality of the game!

The Memoir ‘44 box was a bit of a challenge to scan, but we found that we could clip the bottom a bit and it would still look fine.

The most expensive part of the process was the set of built-in shelves we added earlier this year to house my game collection.  Amazingly, this vast array of shelves filled up easily and I’m forced to use the closet (where the games used to live) and the wire shelves for overflow.

Overall I love the results and want to publicly thank Julie for her efforts bringing this to fruition.

That’s what we’ve been hoping for… a break from the rain.  Don’t get me wrong, I love winter storms on the coast but we’ve been itching to get outside to do some non-rainy activities.  Looks like things might get better today as we could actually see the sunrise and it is looking like we’ll see some scattered showers but no continuous rain.   The boys and I plan to play some basketball outdoors this morning after breakfast, and we have a low tide mid afternoon so it’s a perfect opportunity to drive down the coast and visit the Yaquina Head tide pools.

Yesterday was full of rain and wind so we stayed indoors most of the day.  We did see the latest Harry Potter movie and had quite a good time.  Very good effects and a good treatment of the story.  Now I feel caught up enough to read the latest two books.  One complaint – Emma Watson as Hermione.  Was she intentionally over-acting to portray the high drama of an adolescent teenage girl, or is she just having troubles acting?

Before dinner last night we got in a few games of For Sale (thanks Yehuda for the last-minute recommendation to bring this out).  David has spent a career in real estate so I thought this would be a good fit.  He and Jan picked up on the rules quickly and had fun playing I think – this is definitely my favorite filler and intro game.

We might also try and fit in a game of Railroad Tycoon today in between b-ball and the tide pools.  The boys are anxious to play Duel of Ages again but having lugged RR Tycoon out here I’d like to see it hit the table at least once.

OK, all you Duel of Ages experts out there – what expansion brings the most bang for the buck?  Tom, you said in a review on BGG that people should buy the Masters Addendum if they buy only one expansion.  You also said that (1–2 years earlier) about set 2!  It looks like Set 2 contains additional platters, which I think is important for replayability and bigger setups.  The Masters Addendum doesn’t contain platters, right?  So I’m leaning towards set 2.  Thoughts?

I worked a half day on Wednesday and we hit the road by about 2pm, arriving at the coast around 4pm.  Surprisingly, we beat Jan and David here by about 30 minutes; they spent a decent amount of time shopping in the midst of their drive from PDX to the coast.

Last night the boys and I took a stab at Duel of Ages.  I picked this one up from Doug and I thought it might hit a sweet spot with the boys.  There are a few fiddly rules that we didn’t get right until our second play today, but overall it was easy to dive right in and play.  Matthew and I took on Jacob with four characters on a team.  The luck went Jacob’s way for the first 2/3 of the game and it looked like Jacob would run away with a victory.  The dice started rolling our way and Matthew and I made an amazing comeback (we were down 3–1 I think), partly due to an ill-advised attack by Jacob which allowed us to tie the game just before time ran out.  We entered sudden death and Matthew and I were able to advance one of our guardians to pull out the victory.  The boys (and I) came away from the game eager to play again, and we were able to get in another play today with David.

Before that play we tried a 6–player game of Pickomino (aka Heckmeck Am Bratwurmeck), a game Julie chose and brought home from Essen.  This is a fun little press-your-luck dice and collection game that has a nice amount of take-that and we found to be quite enjoyable.

This afternoon we played 2v2 Duel of Ages with David and Matthew defeating Jacob and me soundly.  We fixed a few of our mis-played rules this time around – we weren’t doing separate rolls for damage, instead using the attack roll to also determine damage.  Our fun didn’t diminish at all in the second playing so now I suspect I’ll need to anxiously go out and get all of the expansions.  Where should I start?

Julie and Jan once again prepared a tasty Thanksgiving turkey with great side dishes.  Extremely well timed as well, as we sat down just as half-time for the Cowboy game started.  You’d think they had been trained by the Boni Maroni.

Jacob was checking out the weather outside to see if it was still raining, and noticed a salamander sitting in the pine needles just outside the window.  He decided to venture out to bring him in out of the cold – he was quite sluggish as you might expect. Matthew of course had to wear it.

Here he is on Jacob’s hand.

Tomorrow afternoon we’ll load up the car and drive out to the coast for Thanksgiving weekend, which we’ll spend with Jan and David.  We’ll be sure to get some gaming in, so it is time to decide what to load up in the crate.  We have a decent selection of party games out there already, but I’m hoping to get in a few meatier games.  Here’s what I’m thinking:

• Railroad Tycoon – the kids are loving this one as am I, and I think it will be an easy sell to get David to play this one.
• Time’s Up – a rematch!  Maybe we’ll switch teams up this time, as Julie and I won handily last time.
• Lost Valley – I managed a few plays at BGG.CON but the boys haven’t played it yet and I think they’ll love it.
• Cribbage – Jacob’s been enjoying this one lately so why not run with it for a while?
• Drive – Curious to see how this plays with four players.

Probably not worth trying to bring Indonesia, Antike, Caylus, or Byzantium though I’d love to play any of these over the weekend.  Hmmm… Matthew did love Caylus, maybe I should reconsider.

I wish I had a decent football boardgame to bring out during the Cowboys game on Thursday.  I’ve heard good things about Pizza Box Football but haven’t tried it yet.

Any other suggestions?

 

KC, Rita, and I held a Havoc launch event at our friendly local game store, Rainy Day Games.  We did this on Sunday to kick off National Games Week.  Turnout was, well, “meh” but we did have non-stop demos going on and it was fun to just hang out with friends (the Rudes, Loops, Deans’s’s).

We did a drawing at the end and give away a gift card for RDG and a copy of Havoc with all of the expansions.  Steve Ellis, owner / manager of RDG, is such a nice guy and we always have great conversations about game industry trends, distribution, game store profitability, and more.

Ken, Brandon, and Jacob played some CribbGolf, a game I picked up at Goodwill earlier this year for $1.99.  As Ken put it, “this is a great way to ruin cribbage.”  Oh well… maybe I spent too much.

Steve showed a few of us how to play Tsuro, the new abstract release from WizKids.  The production on this game is very nice, and the play isn’t too bad either.  It reminds me a bit of Metro but it plays quickly and should be a big hit for these guys.

What’s amazing is the price-point on this game – about $25.  Just goes to show how volume production can get the cost (and price) down on what looks to be a high quality game.

Football season for Jacob and Matthew ended this Saturday as Jacob’s team lost in their championship bid against a tough Canby team 6–0.  The only touchdown was a defensive score off of a fumble – this was a tough defensive battle!  Jacob did a great job this year on the line, playing offensive center and tackle and a number of different line positions on defense.  Matthew also had a great year, playing fullback and scoring over five touchdowns and putting in some great play at cornerback.  He’ll be playing again at the same level next year so should be a dominant force at running back.

One of my only purchases at BGG.CON was the new Eagle Games release Railroad Tycoon.  I held off on purchasing Age of Steam once I knew this was coming out, as I believed it would be a better fit for my family given the production style of Eagle Games.  Jacob and I played a prototype demo at GenCon last summer.

Friday was a holiday for all of us, so we broke out the game for a 3–player session at home.  The game was easy to setup and teach and we were off and running within 20 minutes.  I was especially pleased with how easy it was for Matthew to grasp the mechanics of the game.

We started off with a battle over the northeastern links, and I managed to get the best return on investment there and jumped into the lead.  Getting hotels in Boston and Baltimore didn’t hurt.

Jacob was the first to try a new area, building around Louisville and starting to accumulate some nice links there.  We took notice of the number of empty cities and I realized we were close to finishing the game after only an hour of play.  This was not good for me as I was behind Matthew in total number of links, and I knew that I needed my Tycoon bonus to beat Jacob.  Unfortunately Matthew’s bonus entailed building links out of Chicago so he wasn’t slowing down his track construction any time soon, making it impossible for me to catch up.  I tried to bluff Jacob out of ending the game quickly, but he wisely ignored me and forced the ending, pulling out a four point victory.  Very satisfying game for all of us, and I was especially impressed with the short 75 minute playing time for our first game.

The three of us along with Ken and Brandon trekked over to Tim and Carrie’s place for some Saturday evening gaming.  I brought several of my new games, including RR Tycoon, Caylus, Antike, and Wits and Wagers (Eagle Games was kind enough to send me a review copy of the game).

I set up Ken, Brandon, Jacob, Tim and Doug for Railroad Tycoon.  Again, the game was easy to teach and they were off and running without much more assistance from me.  Tim pulled out a narrow victory over Ken, and impressions all around the table were positive.

I give Eagle Games a B+ on the bits.  The empty city markers are a bit gratuitous, and one of them doesn’t even fit in a hex.

Meanwhile, I taught Doug, Matthew, and Carrie how to play Caylus.  Caylus takes a while to teach – plan on 20 minutes or so, but it clicks quickly once you start playing.  I warned everyone that they would likely make a sequencing error at some point in the game (e.g., not having the right resources at the right time when the buildings activate), but of course everyone did fine in this area but me.

Matthew focused on generating lots of cash early in the game.  Eventually I reminded him that he’ll need to generate prestige at some point, so he switched gears to castle building and did quite well.  I pulled out a narrow victory over Matthew, with Doug and Carrie a short distance back from him.  Caylus is the kind of game where you need at least one play to start formulating any sort of strategy, so it wasn’t surprising that I won.  Most surprising was how well Matthew did.

We wrapped up the evening with a game of Wits and Wagers.  This is a trivia game where all of the answers are numeric, positive numbers.  A question is read and each player writes on a little dry erase board an answer (e.g., how tall in feet is the Empire State Building?); players have 30 seconds to answer.  The answers are arranged smallest to largest on the betting mat.  Players then have the opportunity (again, for 30 seconds) to place up to 2 bets on the answers.  The bets that are further away from the median answer will have a bigger payoff.

This is a very light trivia game, but is reasonably forgiving to those that don’t know trivia.  There are opportunities to guess and get big payoffs, but in the end I think the more you know the better you’ll do.  Tim finished in first place with Matthew and I (team) a close second.  This will get some more play over Thanksgiving weekend and I’ll post more thoughts then.

This will be my final report on BGG.CON.

 We started the morning with a game of Alhambra down in the plaza courtyard (apropos, yes?).  This was a six-player match with KC, Rita, Jim, Jill, and Yehuda.  Sadly, I left my CF card in the laptop and didn’t get any snapshots.  This game is a fun pastime but I’m still mostly convinced it is a luckfest.  I specialized in just a few colors and did fairly well, but couldn’t manage to build a decent wall.  Rita came out ahead by a single point over me for the victory.

KC took another stab at Yehuda’s prototype, which was nice as he was able to get some rules clarifications.  We’ll be giving this one another player over the next few weeks to make sure we give it a fair evaluation.

Mark Johnson and I were finally able to hook up for our pre-arranged playing of Verräter.  Mark did an all-about podcast on this game a while back and it sparked my interest enough to pick up a copy at Essen.  The rules aren’t trivial for this game so I figured this would be a good chance to learn it from an expert.

The game didn’t disappoint – very deep for a seemingly light cardgame.  I can see now how this game has likely influenced a few others (Puerto Rico and Citadels come to mind).  I did horribly but had fun and look forward to trying it with my group.

As the convention started winding down, Ed and Susan wandered over to our booth and I talked them into trying Northwest Trek, one of KC’s prototypes.  This is a very light game that allows for conversation so it was nice to just relax and chat with them.  It is a shame we live so far apart because I think our families have a lot in common and that our kids would hit it off.  Maybe we’ll see them at Gulf Games in the future…

Around noon all of the vendors started packing up their goods for the return trip.  Havoc is easily transported in our luggage… the other vendors boxed up their goods for shipment.

Our flight wasn’t until 7:30pm, so we hung out in the plaza with Kevin Nunn to try out another of his prototypes.  This one is a deeper boardgame that has some real promise and we’ll be taking a closer look at it over the next few weeks.

BGG.CON is a great convention and I think it will get better (and bigger) in the coming years.  The community is so self-selecting that I suspect it has the feel of some of the more prominent exclusive invitations without being, well exclusive.  Great job Derk and Aldie and I hope you outdo yourselves next year.  We plan on returning.

Note: For those of you that have been following the Flickr photo set for BGG.CON, please note that my camera’s date/time was off by about 12 hours (forward), so some of the dates taken are wrong on the photos.  Sorry.  The camera is fixed so things should be fine going forward.

I let KC and Rita sleep in on Saturday morning and took over booth duties during and after the flea market.  My reaction to the flea market was “eh” but several folks found some good deals.  I know Jim picked up a much wanted copy of Battle Cry that should be good fun with his kids.

Around 11am I taught and played in one of my few scheduled events of the weekend – Antike.  Joining me were sedgtroll,  Edbryan, JosephDowell, and sbabcock.

Antike is a relatively light-weight euro-style conquest game.  It does involve conflict between nations (I don’t think you can win this game without attacking) so is technically a wargame, though it clearly isn’t a simulation.  Players take on the role of civilizations.  There are multiple paths to victory as players compete to earn historical figure cards for accomplishments like having 5 (or 10, or 15) cities, destroying other players’ temples, being the first to acquire a certain kind of know-how, or for building temples.

On a player’s turn, a player chooses between 1 of 3 types of actions – produce, build, or maneuver.  The way actions are chosen is, to my knowledge, a unique mechanic in Antike.  There is a wheel on the board where each player places a colored marker indicating their chosen action.  At the start of the game, each player chooses any of the available actions.  Thereafter, you must advance your marker around the wheel clockwise from 1 to 8 spaces to choose your next action.  Advancing 1–3 spaces costs nothing; each space beyond that costs 1 resource per space.  This is significant because the related production / consumption activities are always 4 spaces away.  So if you want to produce marble one turn, then build a temple (which requires marble) the next turn, you’ll have to pay an extra resource to choose that action.  Same thing if you want to maneuver two turns in a row.  This encourages players to pace themselves and work on a diverse set of activities, such as producing gold one turn, expanding their armies the next turn, then increasing know-how on the third (which uses the gold produced two turns ago).  You can see the rondell in the upper left corner of the image:

What I love about this game is that there’s very little downtime for players (though it does increase throughout the game) and it plays easily in under two hours.  The game board comes with two distinct maps, with the player aids on one side in English and the other side in German.  This gives owners of the game two different maps to play, which is a nice bonus.  Definitely consider Antike if you are looking for a short duration, low downtime conquest game.

I talked Eric Hautemont into trying out Havoc mid day on Saturday.  I think he enjoyed it quite a bit and he did buy a copy.  Thanks to Jill for serving as our demo monkey on Saturday.

KC spent some more time with the Beatnik Turtle folks and taught them Basecamp Delta, one of his prototypes that he recently submitted for the Hippodice competition.

More on this later, but I did finally get some time on Sunday to play games with Ed and Susan as well as Mark Johnson.  I managed to get a snapshot of Ed, Greg Wilzbach, and Mark Johnson playing the yet-to-be-released Mission: Planète Rouge with Asmodée Editions.

On Saturday night they held the Texas Hold ‘Em tournament.  I got taken out fairly early while trying to stupidly complete a flush draw.  Rita did very well and ended up taking the seat I vacated shortly after I “went home”.

I was eager to get some rest Saturday night so I opted out of late-night gaming.  I did help Jim, Jill, KC, and Rita get going in their Hoity Toity game, teaching them the rules and explaining in depth why I detest the game.  I think they had the same impression, stopping the game 2 or 3 turns into it.