Gathering Day 2

The second day for me at the Gathering began fairly early. Becky and I arrived at the game room about 9 A.M. and while there were a few groups going, things were quieter than the night before.

Deciding we should jump right into games, we found Scott who had a few minutes before he was to be part of teaching 18xx (I think they ended up with two games of 18FL going). So, we agreed a game to fill the small gap in time was appropriate. Out came Cheeky Monkey and we set about the not so serious business of drawing animals out of a bag. Overall it was an entertaining little press your luck game. Not a lot of extraneous stuff going on which I liked. On the other hand it didn't catch me as something I'd be likely to come back to.

Next up, we ran into Charlie and suggested Agricola. He was game, but hadn't played in a few months, so he recruited Travis in to help cover the rules. Becky and I had to go meet family for lunch/dinner and it was our first game, so we decided to play the simpler family version to get a taste for the basic system without the occupation and minor improvement cards. Much as been said about this game recently so I won't go into any details, check the game link above for that. Personally, the game is definitely a keeper, one I'm glad I jumped into pre-order from Zeb. It has a lot of choices available, and an element of conflict in who takes which actions, and in which order. Even without the cards that would keep it fresh for a long time. Could easily be the best of the newly learned games of the Gathering for me, so living up to reputation. Unfortunately I forgot to photograph my game winning farm, but the flock of sheep and boar was impressive.

Becky and headed off then for dinner with her family. It is worth noting that a great thing about so much time at an event like this is that you don't mind taking half a day away from things. In this case a chance to see relatives, some of whom we hadn't seen in a couple years. She stayed with her family for a couple days, so I was on my own in the evening.

After returning to the game room I was standing around chatting with some folks and Eric came by looking for a fourth to play a game. I jumped in sight unseen and it turns out that the game was none other than Game X, the prototype Valerie Putnam is developing. Doug, Eric, Sean and I played the game twice in a row, and followed up with some discussion of the game play. I think (and hope!) it resulted in useful feedback for Eric to let Valerie know.

At that point, I had gabbed quite a bit and traveled and so Sean and I ended up back out for a good dinner. It was a great meal, and rewarding to get to know another attendee while having an interesting discussion on the development of games. We also ended up discussing the interesting and sometimes warped ways in which information and expectations evolve for games on the internet.

Returning to the gaming room I wandered into Jake, Kori and David again. They were looking to play a couple 'light card game' types experiences. So, we proceeded to march up and down the walls lined with games until something caught our eye.

First thing to catch our attention was the multi-colored Big Points. This game, which seems to share a heritage with Tutankhamen, involves moving any pawn you wish to the next disk matching its color, and then picking up one of the adjacent disks. The order of arrival of the pawns on the steps at the end determines the value of the color disks. In the first game I tried a one color strategy and ignored the white disks (which are worth one point each for other color you have) and lost. Kori wanted a second play, as we now knew what were were doing, and I was able to grab two white disks, all the other colors and three of the most valuable color for the win. It was a deceptively brain-burning game for the simple box and colorful components. I enjoyed, but wasn't overwhelmed. In the picture below Jake's emoting has more to do with keeping his hands out of the photo than intense excitement at the game play.


Having only fulfilled half of our intention of 'a couple light games' we kept wandering. Somewhere in track we picked up Satish, and then a bit farther around the room our expedition came across a copy of Saboteur. We decided to give that a try based upon Satish's comment that he had played before and could help teach. After a couple of sentences he added a 'mind you, everything I'm telling you might be wrong.' Jake read the rules. The game is about mining your way to a hidden gold treasure, except some of the other players are saboteurs. You can slow down other players by playing broken equipment on them, and then they can't add to the mine until the play the corresponding repair card, Mille Bornes style.

The first hand nobody realized how many maps there were and the two Saboteurs were fairly quickly flushed out. Despite this, the miners didn't seem to draw the right cards to actually build to their destination and so the saboteurs won. Second and third rounds the miners one. In the end, I like the idea of the game a lot more than the execution. With 5 players at least, it is a huge impact on the outcome whether there are one or two saboteurs in play, but that is based just on card draw. Likewise your ability to overcome a broken piece is totally dependent on drawing the right card (although your friends should help). Just wasn't my thing, I'd need to be talked into a second chance for this one.


Somehow a crowd had gathered and was up to eight people. Discussions of party games emerged and it wasn't really in line for my interests at that point, so I wandered off. After saying hi to Sheila and James who had just arrived, I was walking by at the right moment for Mark and Brian to bring me in as a third for Race for the Galaxy. We played twice, and I enjoyed both games, although I was clearly outclassed. The first game I barely had 55% of the winning score although the second game was at least a bit more respectable.

As we were playing our second game Tom Lehmann came by and asked if we'd play his expansion prototype. We agreed, and so after we finished he joined as a fourth, explained the new elements and we were off. My game with the expansion was much closer, although I suspect that was partly because while I was playing at the same level it brought the experienced guys down a peg. After we finished up the game Tom showed us the prototypes of all the stuff that will be in the first expansion. This was just playtest parts, not pre-production or anything so I don't know what it looks like, only what meat it contains. What I can say is that I think it is quite an impressive game expansion and I expect will do quite well.

While Tom was going through this discussion, Eric and Chris had wandered back over and wanted a go, so we played again five player. This time I tried a strategy that pushed the game to a quick conclusion, but not quick enough as my final score was pretty poor. All in all a sobering set of games of Race.

It was getting quite late so I intended to head to bed, but instead I ended up chatting a few moments with Nat who had just flown in, and then heading over to hear what all the shouting nearby was about. Turns out a heated game of Battling Tops was underway. In a true Gathering moment, this little gem from 40 years ago was not only being played by a vocal group urging on their tops, but a small crowd had formed to encourage the little fighters to go at it. All we really needed was someone keeping book and taking bets. After staying up far to long to watch the battle to final conclusion, it was off to bed. Tomorrow I hope to try some of the other new mid-weight games I've been seeing around.