Section 1: Introductory Game
BGG.con is associated with boardgamegeek.com, a great gaming resource that I'm a bit ashamed to admit I had never really looked into. I knew them mostly as an encyclopedia of games, but didn't realize they had their own convention until my coworker clued me in.
As a side note, I didn't think to start tracking games I played until sometime on Thursday, and even then didn't always write stuff down. I know I played more than I'm recounting here, I just don't remember when or what. Pro tip: record what you played!
My overflow hotel was the Hyatt Place Dallas/Grapevine, about a 10 minute drive away from the convention. Shuttles left my hotel on the hour and passed through a toll to get to the con, something to consider if you want to stay there and drive yourself.
My hotel served breakfast, which turned out to be a variety of muffin sandwich things, a yogurt bar, bagels/muffins, and some small pastries. Not super high quality (though the breakfast sandwiches were decent) but a nice unexpected perk.
I took the 10 AM shuttle over to the convention, arriving a little bit after registration opened. The line was out the door and moved at a slow pace. After getting inside, the line wound downstairs and lazily snaked in an S-curve along a wide hallway before reaching the registration desk. Along the way were posters with maps and information, and a large table with some hexagonal modular terrain setup for display.
Upon reaching the registration desk I received my badge and a bag with various flyers and a bingo ticket - visit a randomized set of companies, get stickers, turn in for raffle when done. There was also an actual raffle-style ticket for the final day and a choice of free games - one from group A and one from group B. I hadn't investigated BGG.con in depth and wasn't expecting this, so it was a nice surprise. Sure, the games were probably excess inventory that publishers were trying to unload, but there was a chance I'd like them anyway. I chose Uptown (apparently a rethemed version of Blockers!) and Caveman Curling, none of which I had heard of before.
After stepping aside for a minute to sort through the bag, it seemed like the proper way to start off a gaming convention was to actually play a game. The giant main open gaming room had ten rows and twenty six columns of tables, each of which could seat 6-8 people comfortably. For ease of finding people, tables were labeld with a number/letter grid. It was maybe only a third full, which would later turn out to be the emptiest I ever saw it.
As I wandered up and down the aisles, I overheard a conversation about a game being a deckbuilder. Their table had an open spot, and the game looked interesting, so I asked if I could join. They said yes, and it was time to begin my first game of the con.
The game was Pixel Lincoln: The Deckbuilding Game. Imagine a retro sidescrolling video game crossed with a deckbuilder and you have the basic atmosphere for the game. Players move along one of two tracks, buying items and beating up enemies. Your initial deck starts with 5 coin-like cards and 5 attack cards. I was the only one with an initial 4/1 split and the upper track seemed harder, so I opted for the upper track while my three opponents all chose the lower track. This turned out to work well for me; because you can discard any number of unused cards between turns and keep the remainder, and because the cards in the top and bottom tracks weren't that different, the upper track wasn't actually harder. Furthermore, because your actions change the state of the track, being the only person on a track made it much easier to plan for the next turn. In contrast, by the time my opponents' turns rolled around again the board would be pretty different, potentially sticking them with a suboptimal hand.
I won by 10 points, which came down to me being able to fulfill a bonus card's requirements and the runner up being unable to do the same. After the game was over, I realized none of us had made use of some of the card mechanics which would have made a big difference - there are small icons on some cards which indicate an additional card ability, like switching between tracks or taking cards out of your deck. It also seemed like it would give the game a bit more depth.
Perhaps some of the other cards were more interesting (as in Dominion, you only play with a subset of cards), and I'd be willing to play again, but I felt that the limited card selection (only three types of items and three types of monsters appear in a given track) and lack of direct player or card interactions made this a non-keeper for me.
The same players had another game, RoboDerby Express. Since it was already there, I stuck around for that game. It's a stripped down version of RoboRally. Instead of 5 command registers for 9 cards, you have 4 slots for 5 dice. Everyone rolls their dice and programs at least one command slot (but optionally as many more as you want). If you still have slots open, you reroll all the unplaced dice and repeat until all your command slots are filled. Once everyone is programmed, players resolve the commands and repeat this program-resolve loop until someone reaches the goal: completing one lap around a 4-board map. Most things will be familiar to RoboRally players: You have your move commands with varying priorities, some of which also fire lasers. Boards might have conveyer belts, gears, ramps, and other hazards.
There are, however, two new commands - Comments and Inversions. Comments nullify an opponents die for that action, while inversions flip the meaning (e.g. turn right becomes turn left, forward 2 becomes reverse 2). It doesn't matter where on the map your opponent is, you can still affect them.
On the plus side, I really liked the "affect anywhere" mechanic. One problem with RoboRally is that when someone gets ahead, it's hard for anyone else to catch up or even affect them (especilly if they're still stuck in a traffic jam the leader escaped). With the new commands, you still have a chance to do this. The new commands also made chaos more likely to ensue, while the rule that you can't fall off the board made things more forgiving.
On the minus side, we were playing with four players, which the rules only barely touched on. The rules were written for two and the included expansion was for a third player. However, the box had parts for four (and an insert and extra die which are only used for four players), so it was pretty obvious that it was intended to be playable as such. However, each board is only 5x5, so it was *very* uncomfortably cramped. It probably would have worked better with 2 or 3 players or with more open maps (we played with the basic wall-only maps).
I eventually won, but it wasn't a great feeling. While the midgame traffic jam was funny, it also lasted a bit too long and I would have enjoyed it more if there had been a faster way to resolve it. One player kept getting shot at and ended up repeatedly shutting down for repairs. Two of us eventually managed to shove her unmoving robot into a spot around which we could make progress.
I still prefer Walk the Plank as my chaotic turn programming game of choice.
Since we had completed the games they had checked out and I wanted to explore the convention, I thanked them for the games and wandered off.
The coworker who instigated all this was due to arrive soon, so I didn't want to get involved in anything long. I decided to pass the time by starting to work on my vendor bingo card. Being a newbie, I believed the text stating that to get a sticker, you had to have a meaningful 5-10 minute interaction with a vendor (e.g. get a demo or buy a product). I later learned that many (but not all) vendors were happy to just give out stickers for asking, but my initial thought was that I'd have to learn about all these new games. Oh no, the horror.
I found myself getting the pitch for Epic Resort, in which you're trying to build a better resort than your opponent. Except that monsters regularly attack the resort and devour tourists, fended off only by heros you have (hopefully) attracted. I'm not clear on why anyone would actually want to vacation at such a place; perhaps it's extremely well targeted advertising. Anyway, players choose what attractions to buy, how to staff them, how to upgrade workers, and when to attract tourists and heros.
By the time I had gotten the rules down, my coworker had arrived. He and I decided to play a game and managed to get through it without inadvertently breaking the rules too many times. He won by a landslide, having gotten a good hero attraction loop for an early lead and because I got a series of unfortunate draws late game.
The game seemed a little unweildy - I felt there was one too many systems going on (deckbuilder-ish to get/upgrade workers, money/fame tension, buying properties, heros vs monsters). While I like the idea that monsters attack players who are ahead, the actual implementation meant that a lot of them could end up attacking in one turn and could all target a player who happened to be ahead in ways that weren't actually important. This happened to me late game and felt very unpleasant. I think this game needs a little more tweaking.
Here's where my memory fails me and I wish I kept better notes. I know I went over to say hi to my coworker's friends, and I looked at some of the dexterity games in the large hall and at some more vendors, but I'm not quite sure what happened here.
I did go to the new attendee orientation, where organizers explained things about the con and pointed out events. The content of the orientation was stuff I had mostly already figured out, so from that perspective it was skippable. The useful thing about the meeting was that it put newbies in one place, so it was easy to find others in a similar situation. I thought it was a little weird that the newbie orientation was a 6 PM while the convention opened at 10 AM, but I guess that was to make sure everyone had time to arrive and get settled.
The parting assignment was to play a game with another newbie at our table.
I looked at the people around my table and we decided to play one of the free games one one of us had gotten at registration, Money. Money is a bidding game where you're trying to get large amounts (or particular subsets) of various currencies. Currency is used both for endgame scoring and for making bids, so you have to decide whether you really want to hold onto that $50 bill or use it to make a high bid.
I lost both times we played (the first time coming close, the second time far behind).
I liked the concept and exceution of the game, but I'm not sure I'm a general fan of bidding games like this.
I still wasn't sure what my transportation and food options were, so I decided to play it safe and went back to my hotel early, perhaps 8:45 PM. I wanted to make sure I got back before Chick-fil-a closed at 10. However, I also didn't want to be forced to do this again, so on my dinner run I ordered a bunch of extra sandwiches and tossed them in my room's mini-fridge. Now I could stay as late as I wanted and not have to worry about missing dinner.
Reading back over this entry, I think I might come across as negative and nitpicky on the games, but that's not the impression I want to give. By the first hour I knew I would have a fantastic time at the convention, and the rest of the day supported this.
Daily food intake: Hotel breakfast, 2 Chick-fil-a sandwiches, waffle fries
As a side note, I didn't think to start tracking games I played until sometime on Thursday, and even then didn't always write stuff down. I know I played more than I'm recounting here, I just don't remember when or what. Pro tip: record what you played!
My overflow hotel was the Hyatt Place Dallas/Grapevine, about a 10 minute drive away from the convention. Shuttles left my hotel on the hour and passed through a toll to get to the con, something to consider if you want to stay there and drive yourself.
My hotel served breakfast, which turned out to be a variety of muffin sandwich things, a yogurt bar, bagels/muffins, and some small pastries. Not super high quality (though the breakfast sandwiches were decent) but a nice unexpected perk.
I took the 10 AM shuttle over to the convention, arriving a little bit after registration opened. The line was out the door and moved at a slow pace. After getting inside, the line wound downstairs and lazily snaked in an S-curve along a wide hallway before reaching the registration desk. Along the way were posters with maps and information, and a large table with some hexagonal modular terrain setup for display.
Upon reaching the registration desk I received my badge and a bag with various flyers and a bingo ticket - visit a randomized set of companies, get stickers, turn in for raffle when done. There was also an actual raffle-style ticket for the final day and a choice of free games - one from group A and one from group B. I hadn't investigated BGG.con in depth and wasn't expecting this, so it was a nice surprise. Sure, the games were probably excess inventory that publishers were trying to unload, but there was a chance I'd like them anyway. I chose Uptown (apparently a rethemed version of Blockers!) and Caveman Curling, none of which I had heard of before.
After stepping aside for a minute to sort through the bag, it seemed like the proper way to start off a gaming convention was to actually play a game. The giant main open gaming room had ten rows and twenty six columns of tables, each of which could seat 6-8 people comfortably. For ease of finding people, tables were labeld with a number/letter grid. It was maybe only a third full, which would later turn out to be the emptiest I ever saw it.
As I wandered up and down the aisles, I overheard a conversation about a game being a deckbuilder. Their table had an open spot, and the game looked interesting, so I asked if I could join. They said yes, and it was time to begin my first game of the con.
The game was Pixel Lincoln: The Deckbuilding Game. Imagine a retro sidescrolling video game crossed with a deckbuilder and you have the basic atmosphere for the game. Players move along one of two tracks, buying items and beating up enemies. Your initial deck starts with 5 coin-like cards and 5 attack cards. I was the only one with an initial 4/1 split and the upper track seemed harder, so I opted for the upper track while my three opponents all chose the lower track. This turned out to work well for me; because you can discard any number of unused cards between turns and keep the remainder, and because the cards in the top and bottom tracks weren't that different, the upper track wasn't actually harder. Furthermore, because your actions change the state of the track, being the only person on a track made it much easier to plan for the next turn. In contrast, by the time my opponents' turns rolled around again the board would be pretty different, potentially sticking them with a suboptimal hand.
I won by 10 points, which came down to me being able to fulfill a bonus card's requirements and the runner up being unable to do the same. After the game was over, I realized none of us had made use of some of the card mechanics which would have made a big difference - there are small icons on some cards which indicate an additional card ability, like switching between tracks or taking cards out of your deck. It also seemed like it would give the game a bit more depth.
Perhaps some of the other cards were more interesting (as in Dominion, you only play with a subset of cards), and I'd be willing to play again, but I felt that the limited card selection (only three types of items and three types of monsters appear in a given track) and lack of direct player or card interactions made this a non-keeper for me.
The same players had another game, RoboDerby Express. Since it was already there, I stuck around for that game. It's a stripped down version of RoboRally. Instead of 5 command registers for 9 cards, you have 4 slots for 5 dice. Everyone rolls their dice and programs at least one command slot (but optionally as many more as you want). If you still have slots open, you reroll all the unplaced dice and repeat until all your command slots are filled. Once everyone is programmed, players resolve the commands and repeat this program-resolve loop until someone reaches the goal: completing one lap around a 4-board map. Most things will be familiar to RoboRally players: You have your move commands with varying priorities, some of which also fire lasers. Boards might have conveyer belts, gears, ramps, and other hazards.
There are, however, two new commands - Comments and Inversions. Comments nullify an opponents die for that action, while inversions flip the meaning (e.g. turn right becomes turn left, forward 2 becomes reverse 2). It doesn't matter where on the map your opponent is, you can still affect them.
On the plus side, I really liked the "affect anywhere" mechanic. One problem with RoboRally is that when someone gets ahead, it's hard for anyone else to catch up or even affect them (especilly if they're still stuck in a traffic jam the leader escaped). With the new commands, you still have a chance to do this. The new commands also made chaos more likely to ensue, while the rule that you can't fall off the board made things more forgiving.
On the minus side, we were playing with four players, which the rules only barely touched on. The rules were written for two and the included expansion was for a third player. However, the box had parts for four (and an insert and extra die which are only used for four players), so it was pretty obvious that it was intended to be playable as such. However, each board is only 5x5, so it was *very* uncomfortably cramped. It probably would have worked better with 2 or 3 players or with more open maps (we played with the basic wall-only maps).
I eventually won, but it wasn't a great feeling. While the midgame traffic jam was funny, it also lasted a bit too long and I would have enjoyed it more if there had been a faster way to resolve it. One player kept getting shot at and ended up repeatedly shutting down for repairs. Two of us eventually managed to shove her unmoving robot into a spot around which we could make progress.
I still prefer Walk the Plank as my chaotic turn programming game of choice.
Since we had completed the games they had checked out and I wanted to explore the convention, I thanked them for the games and wandered off.
The coworker who instigated all this was due to arrive soon, so I didn't want to get involved in anything long. I decided to pass the time by starting to work on my vendor bingo card. Being a newbie, I believed the text stating that to get a sticker, you had to have a meaningful 5-10 minute interaction with a vendor (e.g. get a demo or buy a product). I later learned that many (but not all) vendors were happy to just give out stickers for asking, but my initial thought was that I'd have to learn about all these new games. Oh no, the horror.
I found myself getting the pitch for Epic Resort, in which you're trying to build a better resort than your opponent. Except that monsters regularly attack the resort and devour tourists, fended off only by heros you have (hopefully) attracted. I'm not clear on why anyone would actually want to vacation at such a place; perhaps it's extremely well targeted advertising. Anyway, players choose what attractions to buy, how to staff them, how to upgrade workers, and when to attract tourists and heros.
By the time I had gotten the rules down, my coworker had arrived. He and I decided to play a game and managed to get through it without inadvertently breaking the rules too many times. He won by a landslide, having gotten a good hero attraction loop for an early lead and because I got a series of unfortunate draws late game.
The game seemed a little unweildy - I felt there was one too many systems going on (deckbuilder-ish to get/upgrade workers, money/fame tension, buying properties, heros vs monsters). While I like the idea that monsters attack players who are ahead, the actual implementation meant that a lot of them could end up attacking in one turn and could all target a player who happened to be ahead in ways that weren't actually important. This happened to me late game and felt very unpleasant. I think this game needs a little more tweaking.
Here's where my memory fails me and I wish I kept better notes. I know I went over to say hi to my coworker's friends, and I looked at some of the dexterity games in the large hall and at some more vendors, but I'm not quite sure what happened here.
I did go to the new attendee orientation, where organizers explained things about the con and pointed out events. The content of the orientation was stuff I had mostly already figured out, so from that perspective it was skippable. The useful thing about the meeting was that it put newbies in one place, so it was easy to find others in a similar situation. I thought it was a little weird that the newbie orientation was a 6 PM while the convention opened at 10 AM, but I guess that was to make sure everyone had time to arrive and get settled.
The parting assignment was to play a game with another newbie at our table.
I looked at the people around my table and we decided to play one of the free games one one of us had gotten at registration, Money. Money is a bidding game where you're trying to get large amounts (or particular subsets) of various currencies. Currency is used both for endgame scoring and for making bids, so you have to decide whether you really want to hold onto that $50 bill or use it to make a high bid.
I lost both times we played (the first time coming close, the second time far behind).
I liked the concept and exceution of the game, but I'm not sure I'm a general fan of bidding games like this.
I still wasn't sure what my transportation and food options were, so I decided to play it safe and went back to my hotel early, perhaps 8:45 PM. I wanted to make sure I got back before Chick-fil-a closed at 10. However, I also didn't want to be forced to do this again, so on my dinner run I ordered a bunch of extra sandwiches and tossed them in my room's mini-fridge. Now I could stay as late as I wanted and not have to worry about missing dinner.
Reading back over this entry, I think I might come across as negative and nitpicky on the games, but that's not the impression I want to give. By the first hour I knew I would have a fantastic time at the convention, and the rest of the day supported this.
Daily food intake: Hotel breakfast, 2 Chick-fil-a sandwiches, waffle fries