I was out of town last weekend for a wedding and of course, I had to stop by the local game store. I popped into Great Escape Games in Sacramento and picked up Lorenzo Il Magnifico. My guys and I got it on table this past week, and they all thought it was great. It’s a crunchy and tense euro, and can be played in about two hours, perfect for my group on a weeknight. I’m so glad I bought it!
About three hours north of Los Angeles is Hanford, California, home to GMT Games. GMT Games has been making quality strategy games for over 26 years. Twice a year, they hold a convention called “Weekend at the Warehouse,” where gamers literally sit for four days in the company warehouse, among rows and rows and towers of GMT cardboard gloriousness.
I went to RinCon for the first time last weekend down in Tucson and had an amazing time! I drove up Friday night to spend the night there so that I can game early in the morning. For those who know me in real life, I am so not a morning person and didn’t want to bother getting up early Saturday to make the 2-hour drive from Phoenix. I only got a day pass for Saturday. Next year, I hope to make it for the whole weekend!
My friends got me Dairyman about five months ago during their trip to Japan. They were drawn in by the cute artwork, and they thought that I would enjoy it. (Side note, my friends are the best!) This cute little push-your-luck dice game is all about milking cows in the barn and making cheese and ice cream. Plus, who doesn’t love ice cream?
I recently got a copy of Cthulhu Wars, a game I’ve been obsessed about since BGG Con 2014. Only one of my gaming friends owns this game and unfortunately he lives quite a distance from me so I don’t get to play Cthulhu Wars as often as I like. The last time we played it was at Friendship Con, our annual mini-convention in which we play Cthulhu-theme games and others. If you look closely, our T-shirts were even designed with official art of the different factions from Cthulhu Wars. For those of you guys unfamiliar with this game, it’s seriously epic.
Happy Fourth of July, America! The guys and I gathered last weekend to play Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection, designed by Harold Buchanan, who I met at Strategicon in Los Angeles at the end of May. My friends and I love playing war games, and this is the third in the COIN series that I’ve had the chance to play. The previous two are Falling Sky: The Gallic Revolt and A Distant Plain.
It’s super duper early Saturday morning in Chandler, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, and a neon-pink sign in the church parking lot that says “Sellers” points people toward a building on the back of the campus. Outside the auditorium, another sign greets you: “Welcome gamers!” Today is Arizona Con.
I had so much fun playing Celestia at BGG Con last November that I bought a copy there. I mean, seriously, who can resist that adorable aircraft? Plus, I’m always on the lookout for fun games that can accommodate a medium-sized group of gamers. Celestia is a fun 30-minute push-your-luck game that plays 2-6 players. You are traversing the clouds of the kingdom of Celestia, and the adventurer who travels the farthest on multiple journeys wins the game.
I recently played a game I knew nothing about, that through the randomness of a Christmas White Elephant gift exchange in December had been sitting in my stack of unopened games. Upon initial inspection, TMG’s Steam Works looks like a whimsy board game that had a steampunk theme. But what I learned from getting it on table last weekend is that it’s actually quite a heavy worker-placement game. I was surprised, and the guys I was playing with (who are all heavy gamers) were, too, and we had a lot of fun!