Wow! What a great time!
I have to say that I didn’t play as many games as I expected. Five days was just not enough time for everything there is to do. But looking back, I did play quite a few. Some highlights of the games I played
Revolution! — A playtest version of a board game soon to be published by Steve Jackson Games. Played this at PSI Game Night on Trade Day. Loved it.
Perfect — An RPG played at Games on Demand. GM was Darcy Burgess. Takes place in a dystopian version of Victorian England. Players commit crimes and always succeed. The question is how long will they get away with it. My first RPG in a long time, and my first story-game type RPG. Very entertaining. Lots of fun. Real exercise of one’s imagination.
Wealth of Nations — Played this board game late at night in the open board gaming room on a supersized 3-D board brought by the publisher. I’ve played this game once before. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it after the first time. But after this play, it’s grown on me. Now, I’d really like to have my own copy. It’s not too difficult to learn, and if you stop wasting time bargaining over petty change, the game progresses quickly. Also, made friends with TableStar’s demo people. Gave Jennifer a large supply of Purple Pawns. She said she might send me a game after the show (they needed to sell stock on hand to cover expenses). We’ll see.
Traveller — That old RPG. But the new version from Mongoose. It’s pretty much Classic Traveller with some updates to smooth out the kinks. This was a scheduled event. Also, it was officially “Introduction to Mongoose Traveller,” so we spent most of the time going through character creation and discussing the basic mechanics. Still, I had a good time. I like the lifepath character generation method of Traveller. You get to guide your character’s development, but many things, like in real life, are beyond your control. I tried to create a criminal-type character but failed out of that career path. Ended up with some sort of shady scout/explorer type with many years in the service—and an excellent marksman. In a short scenario we did play through, a poisonous creature was standing on my ship-capatain’s shoulder. There was much debate in the party about what to do. I took aim and rolled an 11 on 2d6, shooting it off without a scratch to the captain.
Memoir ’44 — Starting about midnight Friday night in the open board gaming room, I joined a group of friends (that is, they all knew each other for years) to play an Overlord scenario. The thing is we didn’t have the Overlord rules with us. No problem. We had a great time making it up as we went along. In fact, even when my side lost, everyone decided to continue playing. And then we extended the scenario two or three more times. Again, a great time. And it’d be great to meet up with these guys again next year
Battlelore — Saturday afternoon I sat down for a full-length demo game of the epic scenario For Troll and Country. The game was actually being set up by the designer, Richard Borg. But it turns out an epic scenario with new players takes a lot longer than the basic scenarios. I left early to make the Media Meet & Greet event. Thankfully, my teamates were very understanding. Another example of why even better than the games, was all the people I met.
Kingsburg — Wandering around the Embassy Suites lobby late Saturday night, I was invited by another group of strangers to a board game. It’s a recent Euro-style game (but with dice) from Fantasy Flight. I’d never heard of it, but again I really liked it. And again, I had a great time meeting Brian, Chris, and Dave.
Spirit of the Century — Just a demo of this RPG, but with Leonard Balsera, one of the designers. This guy has energy and excitement to spare. The scenario was short but fun. I own and have read the game, but actually playing it, even for a short time, puts a very different perspective on the game.
La Strada — A light/medium tile-laying board game from Mayfair. From Martin Wallace, though not what you usually think of as a Martin Wallace design. I played this game Sunday evening (after the show officially ended) with Don Dehm and Jeremiah Lynch of the Pulp Gamer Podcast network. The tile laying reminded me of laying tracks in Railroad Tycoon. The scoring reminded me of Kingdoms. I listen to Pulp Gamer but I haven’t found hardly any Mayfair games that I like. So this was a surprise hit. It’s a simple, mostly abstract game with some interesting strategic decisions. It’s something that would probably fit well when the game group has a little extrat time to spare, or when non-gamer family or fiends are visiting. I think I’ll be buying it soon
Other games I played, mostly as demos of varying length include: