Congress of Gamers

The Congress of Gamers convention in Rockville, Maryland was last weekend (September 26h-27th). I was able to attend on the Saturday with Jef. I had hoped to meet up with Ben Stephenson and Simon Halder for a game or two of Age of Steam. Sadly, convention timing issues negated those plans. Still, I had a great time despite the lack of AoS action.

Cosmic Encounter: We arrived at the convention around 9 am and were talked into a game of Cosmic Encounter by Noah, a young chap rearing for a game. I have only played Cosmic once before and Jef has never played it. Noah did a good job of teaching the game, and I did a good job of not putting my ships into the drop ship. I was the virus, which gave me an incredibly advantage in just about every aspect of the game. As such, I was able to utilize absolutely no skill to ride out the character ability to the win.

Unpublished Prototypes: After checking out the games for sale, Jef and I were joined by Perrianne for a playtest of one of Emanuele's games. Then, with about 15 minutes before Perianne had to jet, we played another prototype with Simon.

Sushizock im Gockelwok: With the hope that Ben would arrive soon, we pulled out Sushizock, one of my staple convention games. This was Jef's first try at the game but we were soon up and rolling. Jef pulled out the win, but fun was had by all.

Perikles: Ah. Full disclosure time. For about a year now, I have ridiculed the rules for this game. They are too tough, they stink, they are too vague. All of those phrases have exited my mouth. And, I will now admit that I was too tough on them. I was able to do a pretty solid teaching job just by reading quickly through the rules and then we were up and running. No sir! A good game, especially if you simply stay away from the rules question forums on the geek. I think they just make it more confusing than it has to be.

Hau La: Simon, Jef, and myself were joined by Ken for this crazy dexterity type game. It has some incredibly neat components, twisty foam type things that you bend and insert into holes on the board and in the pieces themselves. The goal is to have a marker of your color higher than all of the other player's markers. This is done by first inserting one of your pieces into other pieces and then plugging a hole with your marker. Check out a picture of the game on the geek, it will make more sense then. I liked the game as a novel concept, but it seems to offer tremendous advantages to players based on their turn order. If you fall behind early, you will never catch up (or I never could).

Und Tschuss: I then introduced one of my favorite Wallace games to both Simon and Jef. It continues to be one of my favorites afterwards. In fact, Ken informed me that you could find in print copies of the game in Japan! I will have to check with my friend Misa to see if she can scrounge up an extra copy for me.

Ricochet Robots: Ken then introduced us to Ricochet Robots. He is a pro at this game, with well over 100 plays. And Jef and I were new to the game. He creamed us! Over and over again Ken took us to school. I enjoyed the game, and I am glad that I have played this classic, but I don't know if I would seek it out again.

Handelsfursten: Herren der Meere: Ken, a Knizia fanatic, showed Jef, Myself, and Gary this excellent game. Each player starts out with 2 ships and they will soon be loaded with 1 of the 5 different wares. Then 5 cards are laid out in the center of the table. Each card depicts one of the 5 wares. The value of each ware is determined by how many cards it has in the center of the table. A basic turn consists of playing a new card to the center, thus covering an older card and altering values. If a player has one of the ware types of the card that was just played, they get cash/vp equal to the new value of that good. It is definitely a fun game and one that I would play again. It was neat to try to figure out what other wares people were invested in and also to try to manipulate the market yourself. I may try to find a copy of this game.

Escalation!: Next up was another small Knizia game, this time themed after suburban warfare. The artwork is interesting, but the game was also fun. The deck of cards is essentially composed of numbers ranging from 1 to 15. On your turn, you play a card or cards (they must all be the same value). But, you must play cards that have a higher value/sum than the previous card(s) played. It is similar to a trick taking ladder game. If you cannot play the cards, or you choose not to, you take all of the cards that have been played up to that point. These go into your score pile. At the end of the game, the person with the smallest pile wins. I don't know if I would purchase this game, but it was fun to play. I just wish that Zev would use card stock more similar to the Amigo games. These cards were so thick that they were hard to shuffle.

Dragon Strike: Next up was a classic dungeon crawl with Nick and Ben. So, this is me we are talking about, and if you know my tastes, you will also know that I don't go for dungeon crawls. Yet the company was great, which meant that the game was great. Our goal was to rescue a dwarf from the dungeon and to also break the sun stone. We had almost accomplished that task when the timer ran out and the dragon broke loose into the dungeon. Jef escaped with the dwarf and broke the sun stone. Sadly, I was destroyed and so was Ben.

After Dragon Strike, we went out to eat with Ben and Nick. While waiting to eat, however, we played...

Gother than Thou: And this game....well....the company was good. The cards were somewhat amusing but I was left to ponder why such a game existed.

So, that's my convention report. I had a great time and was glad that I went.

Tonight, I play Age of Steam with Pierce, John, and Jef!