BGG Impressions
Had a very fun BGG.Con. Hung out with merc from the thread and met some other folks I know from past BGGs and the Bay-area gaming scene. Stray observations:
-Picked up Colt Express (preorder) and Camel Up (Z-Man booth) straightaway. Really enjoyed these games and they're right up my alley.
-Paperback is a really cool word game too. Like Scrabble+Dominion. I preordered that too as I guess it was a KS before. (Hadn't heard of it -- there are just way too many KSes for me to pay attention
.)
-Open gaming, by far the best part of BGG, is getting a bit tougher unless you have a large enough group to just camp tables all day (which we all did on Saturday). They increased the exhibitor space and decreased the table space so most evenings it could get difficult to find a table (there were still hundreds, but for thousands of people). As a side effect, I feel like there were fewer people just casually grabbing games and putting up "Players Needed/Teacher Wanted" signs because nobody could afford to just give up a table like that while looking for a game. I really hope they add more table space next year.
-Ooh, also won the NR tourney!
Planning on going again next year of course (would be my sixth in a row) and hoping Stooge and Flynn can make it out for a reunion.
It was the first BGG.con for the wife and I. We had a blast! We stayed at the Hyatt outside the airport since the other filled up fast. Wasn't too bad of a drive ~10min.
We met some awesomely cool people, in addition to Tom Vassel. Got to play some great games.
Diamonds: Played and bought straight away. Trick taking game like Hearts and Spades with additional mechanics. Basically try to get the most diamond pieces after a set amount of rounds.
King of New York at the Iello booth: Super fun! More choices than Tokyo. A little bit more strategic than just rolling the dice with the addition of buildings and military units. Some persistent goals on the two cards, Statue of Liberty and Superstar keep things interesting.
Love Letter
Trains: Boring!
Werewolves One Night: What? Not my type of game. Get a character, Wolf or Villager. Then close your eyes shuffle all of them and lie/guess who you or your neighbors were. Again fell flat for me.
Downfall of Pompeii: Never heard of this game. But totally ordered right after playing it at the Con. Light game of placing your people down around the city, when the volcano erupts (a card that gets pullled) get the F outta Dodge and hope you don't get burned up by the lava tiles that get pulled at random from a bag. Best of all you get to throw your opponents people in a volcano that sits of to the side of the board.
Five Tribes: Do not play with people that have an AP problem. One hour game lasted over two hours. We even played at the Hot Games area with a Days of Wonder teacher. This one gets a NOPE!
Takenoko: Really fun lightweight game. Easy to learn. You get cards that you complete if you eat enough bamboo, make the correct territory shape or grow bamboo. Beautiful game with colorful components and a Panda.
Istanbul: Played a demo with the folks from AEG. A better version of Five Tribes. Less prone to AP. Insta bought.
Imperial Settlers: Cool Civ building game. Didn't get to finish the full game since it was approaching 1am on Sunday morning. Had to catch an early flight out. I'd play again.
La Isla: Fun game of collecting extinct animals for points. It's a light to mid weight Feld game, Euro.
Overall it was a fantastic time. We won La Isla off the bat at registration. My wife loved the vendor area. She like the one on ones with the booth teachers. Open gaming was fun. I mostly just walked around looking for games just starting out. Was lucky early on. But once 7pm hit you couldn't find an open table in the main area. But new this year was the two big rooms upstairs. There were all kinds of open tables to setup at.
We will definitely go again next year.
