The following weekend after SDHistCon, my husband and I drove to Tucson for RinCon to game. This convention happened a little later than its usual late-September time slot, so, for the first time ever, I had two back-to-back weekend conventions to attend. I powered through because I love attending this convention every year. It’s so chill and friendly, a nice respite after a hectic few weeks. And this year it was held at the Casino Del Sol for the second year in a row. The casino has a great gaming space, and there’s a hotel attached to it, with lots of food options. Very convenient!
The convention was held at Casino Del Sol in Tucson.
In The Expanse, Earth, Mars and the Outer Planets Alliance are trying to take control of space.
The Expanse is a card-driven game where players are working to control sectors of outer space. You can take a card from the market either for an event you’re eligible for or for its action points. The game feels very similar to Pax Pamir and a mini-COIN, such as some cards benefit you and not others. The game is a tense area control, but it plays in just about an hour. The person who is in last place during each scoring card will get access to the Rocinante, which can assist with area control. I was such a huge fan of the show and was super excited to see this game out in the wild as it’s out of print.
I then stopped by Dan Rice’s latest game, Trailblazer: The Arizona Trail, on display for demos and it’s currently on preorder. The game is just gorgeous, with its Southwest colors and desert animal miniatures. I haven’t had a chance to play this yet, but will make plans to do so with Dan after the holidays.
I love the Southwestern colors of Trailblazer: The Arizona Trail.
Next up was a quick game of Penguin Party, a Reiner Knizia card game that I purchased in Japan. You are dealt a hand of very cute colorful penguin cards, and players are trying to empty out their hand by playing one card at a time in a pyramid formation on the table. The bottom row doesn’t have any restrictions for color placement — just a fixed number of cards, depending on the player count — but in subsequent rows above that, the card total gets smaller (like a pyramid) and the penguin card you play needs to have a matching color in one of its bases as it straddles two cards underneath. These Japanese penguins love to smoke, drink and party, as evidenced by the artwork on these cards. The U.S. version showcases more PG aquatic birds.
These penguins love to party.
I then played the card game Regicide where players are working together to take down the monarchy. Players have to use their cards to take down a stack of 12 monarchs who have a set number of hit points and get increasingly harder. The monarchs need to be defeated before the stack of cards runs out. And each suit (four, like a standard deck) has a different ability that makes this card game a tricky puzzle! We, unfortunately, did not win.
Regicide is your standard deck of cards with cool artwork.
The last game of Friday night was Arcs, which I taught a 4P game of. At that point, I had taught a game of it every weekend for the past four weeks, and each game has been such an enjoyable experience! I love the card play, which leads you down a specific set of actions following the leader, or you can take a single action with a different suited card you play.
Timing is key — as well as a useful set of cards — when seizing the initiative so that you can declare ambition, which are end-of-chapter goals that will score only when they’ve been declared. But be careful when declaring ambitions, as people will most definitely steal your resource tokens to get the majorities. I also love making decisions which battle dice to use. Do I go for the safe, yet lease-destructive choice, or go all out at the risk of suffering blowback? One thing’s for sure, if you go the safe route, there will be friendly teasing around the game table about being a chicken!
Arcs has such great table presence, and it’s pretty fun, too!
Saturday
The next morning, Chris and I woke up early to play in the Shobu tournament. It’s an abstract two-player game in which there are two boards facing each player (a light board and a dark board) with black and white stones on them, and you’re trying to maneuver the stones so that your opponent gets completely knocked off on one board.
I’m ready to push stones off boards! You can see that the two sets of boards are different colors.
Your turn is in two phases: the first phase is the passive phase in which you move one of your stones on your board, and then in the next phase, the active phase, the same exact move is replicated on the opposite colored board, either yours or your opponents. The game is easy to learn but setting up pieces to knock off your opponent requires some careful planning and strategy. Chris ended up in second place for the tournament and took home a copy of the game. I, too, took home a copy of the game, as the top four players received a game. Yeah, only four gamers showed up that morning, but we are all winners here. Nope, I will not be taking any questions, thank you.
What a clever little abstract!
I then taught and ran a 4P game of White Castle in the awesome women’s space. The Women’s Space is a relaxed and inclusive gaming, teaching and social environment for those who identify as female. It’s run by the wonderful Mari, and she works hard at each convention to make the space so awesome.
Mari is in charge of the Women’s Space at RinCon.
White Castle is a game of resource management, where you use the dice that are rolled at the start of the game to carry out actions on the main board and player board. You technically only do nine actions throughout the game – so a majority of it is spent making those combos to do more than one thing with the limited resources you have. It’s a crunchy euro, and I think the four ladies at my table enjoyed their game.
Every action counts in White Castle. That’s because you’re really just taking 9 of them.
I then played a 2P game of TransAmerica, a simple rail game that my husband owns but I have never played. You’re trying to connect your cities across America on your objective cards by placing two rails, or one rail across difficult terrain. It becomes tricky because you don’t want to inadvertently make it easier for your opponent to reach their destination. It’s a quick race across the country!
Everyone is building the same line, but it’s your job to connect to the cities you need.
We then played a 3P game of Salton Sea. I picked up this game from a local game store right before the convention. The Salton Sea is a real and very unique body of water located in California near the border with Mexico. As a toddler in LA, my family and I used to take day trips to the Salton Sea to picnic and go fishing for tilapia. In this game, players are drilling to extract geothermal energy and lithium, and selling them to companies and completing contracts. The game packs a lot into a tiny box, as per usual for many Devir games.
We are mining the Salton Sea for geothermal energy and lithium.
The last game of Saturday that we played was The Fox Experiment, which I also covered on The Five By Episode 147. I love how this game is rooted in a real-life Russian experiment to domesticate foxes. In this game, you’re breeding five generations of foxes with the friendliest attributes. Those fox pups then seed the next generation’s set of parents, eventually producing friendlier and cuter foxes.
I wish this experiment didn’t end and that we have cute domesticated foxes in our homes.
The game is so fun with all the dice chucking, the dice representing fox traits, and did I mention that you can name these new fox pups? Chris’ fox is, unfortunately, having an existential crisis.
Sometimes we all just have to scream into the void.
During our game was when the Saturday night Eegee’s snack happened. Oh man, I love this stuff. Eegee’s is a Tucson chain that sells creamy icy treats in lots of yummy flavors. The flavor of the month was Cherry Cider, and it was delectable.
I love me some Eegee’s!
Sunday
Sunday morning started with another game of The Fox Experiment, but this time in the women’s space. Thanks to the four ladies who showed up for that morning game!
After another quick game of Penguin Party, David Short arrived and taught us a 4P game of Raising Robots. What a delightful engine-building card game, with just the most adorable artwork! You’re a young famous inventor who is studying in their classes to get good grades and assemble robots.
It’s JJ (from left), David, me and Chris about to start Raising Robots.
The game is an equal mix of Wingspan and Race for the Galaxy, where you’re building robots into a tableau and can potentially activate them in a combo-tastic manner. During each turn, you get to choose two action phases you’d like to activate – as well how strong you want them to be, based on your energy cards in play. If someone chooses an action that places energy cubes on that action phase. You then all simultaneously activate action phases that apply to you in order to gain resources, build robots, activate robots, or upgrade your personal board.
My young genius was Jane, who, of course, had her robot chimp next to her on the card.
I then stopped by to say hello to Emily Vincent, designer of Pirates of the High Teas and Knitting Circle. I met her earlier this year at Phoenix Fan Fusion where she did a panel on how to get your games published. I’m very excited to try Knitting Circle!
It was good to see Emily! I’m bummed that I didn’t get a chance to play her games this con.
The last game I played was the prototype Festoon. When bees are creating honeycomb, they connect their legs together to form a chain, called a festoon, and players are competing to be the first to form one. I had met one of the designers, Daniel Dutra, earlier this year as well when this game was part of his senior project at ASU.
Players are working to first create a festoon.
And then it was time to go back home! Rincon was short and sweet, but after a chaotic few weeks before that, it was so lovely to chill in a very inclusive and friendly gaming space and play a few games with Tucson friends and others. It was the perfect way to end my year of convention travel.
I come down to RinCon every year because it’s such a great con. Con-chair Karen makes it so!
I think about the conventions I go to every year, and half of them are in the historical gaming sphere. Am I a wargamer? Some people would say I am not because I haven’t actually played a hex and counter game — like ever. But I love learning about history, I love learning about people’s design projects, and I love playing all types of games. And I’ve been lucky to have met and gamed with some of the coolest and interesting people in the hobby!
Earlier this month, I attended SDHistCon in San Diego, held in the SES Portuguese Hall in the Point Loma neighborhood. There is a good selection of hotels and food areas within walking distance from the convention, and it’s really close to the San Diego Airport. I arrived from Phoenix on Thursday late afternoon, checked into my hotel, and went over to the pre-convention meetup at Eppig Brewing.
The turnout at the Eppig Brewing pre-convention event on Thursday night.
I love this meetup as it gives people a chance to meet in person or catch up with old friends before all the gaming gets underway on Friday. This year, SDHistCon continued through Monday, Veterans Day, instead of ending on Sunday like previous years. I enjoyed having that extra day to game before driving back to Phoenix!
SDHistCon founder and game designer Harold Buchanan.
Friday
The first game on Friday was Queen of Spies, a prototype from Liz Davidson and David Thompson. Queen of Spies is a bag-pull game, inspired by female spies and their networks during the world wars. Alice is the leader, and the other women belong to different cells, and they move through the town to fulfill objectives, train up, research technology and deal with officials when one of them gets caught. Our mission for our game was to gather pigeons and train them to become spies. Players decide which spies enter which locations to take an action, but those decisions require time, which is in short supply. And if strangers meet at once location, an alert token gets placed into the bag, making them more susceptible to getting caught.
I really enjoyed the tension created by the limited number of time cubes. When you decide to place a spy at a location, a certain number of cubes get placed there as well, and they come off one at a time during turns. When different locations use different amounts of times, it delays that space’s activation, creating an interesting puzzle about where to place your resources. Can’t wait to see this printed!
Always a great time hanging out with David Thompson and Liz Davidson!
Next up was Gibberers. This game was bonkers — and so incredibly innovative! Taylor Shuss brought this gen of a Japanese game from Gen Con where players create a new language with a specific number of words, and they must use those new words to get other players to guess new words on a card. You always start with words for Yes, No, I and Understand. We then created new words for 14 more words. Some of the useful words we created were living, hot, thing, person, etc.
Gibberer was one of my favorite games this weekend. It’s the type of game that you’ll be talking about for a long time!
You then speak and try to communicate in this new made-up language that probably sounds like gibberish to someone walking by. And having yes and no to pair with new words helped communicate if the object is something that it’s not. And as you progress with each new round, you add words to your new dictionary. Readers, let me tell you that we were talking in this language throughout the rest of the con! What a lovely experience. Zeby lopa-lopa! (translation: I understand.)
I then attended a seminar called: Games as History: Academic Preservation of Board Games that featured three professors (2 from Stanford and 1 from UC Irvine) who digitally archive board games. Liz hosted the talk, and I learned about the challenges of collecting archival material for game preservation, which aren’t necessarily about the board game itself. The panelists also discussed the changing mindset about how libraries can indeed rent out board games like any other resource material they have on hand, but that sometimes they don’t have the hobby knowledge and/or space for them, and they don’t know where to start. Yay for libraries!
The panel included (from left) Aaron Trammel of UC Irvine, Henry Lowood of Stanford and Kathleen Smith of Stanford. Liz moderated the panel.
I then got a chance to play a prototype of Shakespeare’s First Folio. I love me some Shakespeare and this trick-taking, resource gathering card game fits the bill. Players start with a hand of cards (cards are divided into three suits: histories, tragedies and comedies), which are used to win tricks during the first phase of the game. If you win the trick, you collect that card into your score pile for later. For the rest who didn’t win the trick, you collect the resources printed on your card, either paper, type, ink or money.
Fort Circle Games said the artwork in the middle of this card is pretty final.
The second phase of the game starts with players trading resources (one of each) to publish a play from the market, or paying money to hire workers who give you special abilities. You can also take a gamble to draw chits from the bag, which could potentially net you more resources, or take a rolled dice from the market that also has resources on it. At the end of the game, the cards in your personal pile are scored if you have sets of the same number, or if you have straights of the same suit. I love the artwork for this game, and I can’t wait to play it in Washington, D.C., in 2025 at Fort Circle’s Circle DC convention, which will be held at the Folger Shakespeare Library in March.
The cards I had at the end of the game. I could not for the life of me make a run!
One of the restaurants we eat at frequently at the con is Ketch. It’s close and nearby, and the menu is large enough for all kinds of eaters. Unless it’s a busy Saturday night, you can usually just walk into here to get a meal.
Dan Bullock, Kathryn, Sebastian Bae and I at dinner at Ketch.
The last game of the night was Rock Hard: 1977. This game is a worker-placement euro, but was very surprised how well the theme was incorporated into its design. Gameplay just oozed rock ‘n’ roll! Players are up-and-coming musicians who have to work their regular job to pay for recording demos, create records or hire PR. And those jobs are either day, night or after-hours!
The hustle of an up-and-coming musician! It’s a rock hard life!
As your chops, reputation and song list grows, which are tracked on these very cool dials on the player boards, you’ll be able to perform at bigger and bigger venues, gaining more money and potentially more chops or reputation. And yes, you can crank that dial to 11! If you want to make a second action during a phase, you can spend “candy” to do so, but if you use too much “candy,” your craving might get too high and you’ll end up in recovery. You might end up with a skiing problem. As the game progresses, you’ll be able to skip your regular job because gigs are paying enough, paving the way to become a full-fledged rock star. Rock on, party people!
I loved the dials and the character boards for this game. The money felt pretty authentic, too, with those nice design touches.
Saturday
I started the day with Pax Pamir, which has become a staple at every single convention I’ve gone to. It’s always so nice to slide into a game you’ve played before countless of times!
Love getting Pax Pamir on table! It’s such a beautiful game to look at.
It was a tense 4P game, which ended in a three-way tie, with yours truly a few points away from the rest of the pack. I should’ve switched my alliances!
Dan and I played with Brooks Barber (second from left) and Artur Carvalho.
I then got to meet this lovely gentleman in person. Pete Skaar always leaves a nice comment on my blog posts. We got a chance to talk about games and his family in the San Diego area. Thanks, Pete, for always reading along!
It was nice finally meeting you in person, Pete!
I then played a prototype from Taylor Shuss called Love Potion Factory. Players are placing meeples into a factory to collect resources and trade them in for potions and victory points. If you’re the first player to come into a space, you get one resource of that type. The second person then gets 2 resources, etc. As the main board fills up, there’s a danger that the meeples will come together because they’re magnetic, which then ends your turn and clears off the board. It starts to get a little stressful placing your meeples, and there were a few times I jumped because the meeples snapped together. Super duper fun!
When meeples get too close in the Love Potion Factory, it shuts down the factory and all the meeples go home.
I then taught a quick game of Bonsai, a tile laying game where each player is cultivating their own bonsai tree. I really enjoy the choices for this game (essentially gather resources or lay down resources), and the game creates such a gorgeous table presence when over. Each game randomly chooses three sets of objectives, where you can claim one or push your luck to claim a higher-valued one, skipping the lower-valued one permanently. If you want to learn more about the game, I did a review of Bonsai on The Five By Episode 148.
My bonsai tree may look wonky but I got achieved some high-value objective cards!
Next up was a pretty-finished prototype of Hell-Raisers of Kanawha County from Milda Mathilda and Luke Evison, coming next from Wehrlegig Games. This game is set during the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek Strike, a confrontation between striking coal miners and coal operators in Kanawha County, West Virginia: The strike lasted from April 18, 1912, through July 1913.
In Hell-Raisers of Kanawha County, two people are playing as the companies and one person is playing the side of the miners.
Games like this are exactly why I attend historic gaming conventions — to learn about these moments in history that affected a group of people and/or culture and how this event influenced present day. The strike was one of the most violent conflicts in American labor union history, and this game captured the tension between the miners and coal companies. The game also featured prominent labor figures such as Mary “Mother” Jones.
Drew Wehrle (second from right) and Joe Schmidt (right) teaching me and JP the game, with Amanda and Nathaniel looking on.
I then attended a seminar called How Professional and Hobby Wargames Connect. I learned a little bit about the unclassified processes of real life wargamers who work with the military and how they have turned some of that work into published games into the hobby industry. Liz also ran this panel, and I enjoyed attending these very academic seminars. Thanks, SDHistCon, for having these on the schedule!
Liz running the panel that includes Akar Bharadvaj (from left), Maurice Suckling and Sebastian.
I then played a quick demo of another game from Taylor Shuss, this time about parking requirement laws when creating a shopping area. You’re drafting various tetromino shapes and objectives to place on your board. The first half of the game features various businesses with a whole bunch of parking spaces. Then in the second phase of the game, you’re adding different businesses on top of those parking squares while trying to fulfill a second set of objectives.
This prototype deals with parking lots and shopping centers.
On Saturday night, I got invited to participate in the celeb game of giant John Company. This game was ginormous, including plastic ships, a substantial elephant, and our family members enclosed in these Victorian-looking photo frames. In John Company, players assume the roles of ambitious families attempting to use the British East India Company for personal gain. According to the Board Game Geek description, the wrestles many of the key themes of imperialism and globalization in the 19th and 19th centuries and how those developments were felt domestically.
Look at all the cool people I got to hang out with during our game! This was before the yelling started.
The game featured 16 players, split into four people per family. The Hastings family included venerable war game designers Mark Herman, Ananda Gupta, Sebastian Bae … and me. LOL Ananda suggested using the strategy of putting a bunch of writers out there on the board, which helped for a bit, but it did no good under the bad leadership of a chairman who seemed to just completely mismanage the funds.
The Hastings family: Mark Herman, Ananda Gupta, Sebastian and me.
The game included a lot of wheeling and dealing, and some forceful yelling to get the chairman to do our bidding. (The yelling mostly came from Sebastian.) What an awesome experience to play with all these cool people! Cole Wehrle did a great job of making his game ginormous!
Love all the work put into this giant game, including the Lego cannons!
Sunday
I started my morning attending a public SDHistCon board meeting. I wanted to hear about the state of the convention as board members discussed how to make it grow and be more accessible to all types of historical gamers. SDHistCon does online conventions a year, as well as SDHistCon East held in Newport, Rhode Island, at the U.S. Naval War College Museum.
The SDHistCon board had a public board meeting to talk about the organization
I then attended an announcement of the Zenobia award winner. The Zenobia Award is both a competition and a mentoring program in which game designers from underrepresented groups develop and submit historical tabletop game prototypes. This year’s winner was The Porters, designed by Lucas Cockburn, Neco Cockburn and Alex Goss. The game tells the story of Black porters on the Canadian railways who were working to organize unions. The grand prize for the award is $1,000 and a travel grant to a game convention of their choice.
Akar and Liz talked about the Zenobia finalists and announced this year’s winner.
I then taught a game of Arcs to Trevor and Treg. Arcs is quickly becoming one of my favorite games of the year, and I’ve been teaching this game every week for the past few weeks to different groups of people.
Arcs is just gorgeous! I’ve been teaching this game every week for the past month.
It’s a sci-fi strategy game where you seize initiative using multi-use cards and declare ambitions, while destroying opponent ships and capturing their workers. I love the gameplay mechanisms and the look of the board and components.
Had a great time playing with Trevor Bendor and Treg Julander, even if I did lose because people kept taking my resources, costing me majorities!
I then got a chance to play LetterLine Junction from Ido Magal, a roll-and-write railway game where you’re creating words with the limited number of letters you have in order to complete your path. If you love word puzzles, this was a fun challenge, as we did not get good letters! At the start of the game, you roll the dice to determine your letter pool, and as you collect more iron from the map, you can roll for more letters or buy shares in various columns or rows, from which letters in those columns will boost your share price. You also have to collect wood from the board in order to cross mountains, while making sure revenue is higher than your debt.
In LetterLine Junction, you use a small pool of letters to spell words and make a route between cities. We probably should not have used Q’s!
I always bring a couple of non-historic games to events like these because it amuses me a little bit to get a bunch of wargamers playing offbeat games. I mean, last year’s My Favorite Things was a big hit! After dinner, we played Wandering Towers, which, I think, is always a fun time. You move towers to fill your potions, and you move your wizards into the keep. But that darn keep won’t stop moving, and now you’re accidentally stuck inside a tower that someone moved over you. Sometimes people forget where their wizardis, which often leads to “Hmm, I thought my dude was in this tower.” It’s hilarious fun — and it’s a short game!
Did I park my wizard here? Who can remember in Wandering Towers!
The last game of the night was Phantom Ink. This game is AMAZING! It’s a clever party large-group game that manages to keep everyone engaged throughout the game. Players split off into two groups of mediums who try to guess an object that one person on their team, the designated spirits, knows. The mediums choose two cards from their hands that have random questions and give them to their spirit, and the spirit chooses one to answer — one letter at a time.
Can you guess the clues? Yeah, sometimes we couldn’t either, and it was hilarious.
The mediums at any time can say “Silencio!” if they can guess the answer. Or if they don’t want too much of their word revealed as it may give the other team a clue, even though they don’t know what the question is. It’s really entertaining when a round goes off the rails, but it rarely completely comes undone. One team usually ends up getting the word before the end of the game. I also did a review on it on The Five By Episode 150.
Phantom Ink was a big hit to close out Sunday night!
Monday
Monday was the last day of SDHistCon. Some friends had already flown out this morning, but I got a chance to play a few games before I drove back to Phoenix. I played Nathan Fullerton’s prototype of The Most Insignificant Office, a card game about who will become vice president to George Washington. The different suits represent different men, and players are playing one card into their scoring pile and, depending on the round, a card or two or three into the middle, which then will be shuffled. Players then vote for or against the cards to be tabulated into votes for a specific person, and if it gets approved, that person moves up on the track. Hopefully the cards you put into your pile match the person in second place behind George Washington at the end of the game. Because if George isn’t No. 1, then everyone loses.
Back during George Washington’s time, the person with the second-most votes became VP.
The last game of the convention I played was Bread by Xoe Allred. It’s the end of the world, and you need bread to survive. Players play through a deck of cards where they can gather or build in their bunker, but you need bread in order to quell unrest. I love the artwork on this, and working together is harder than it looks!
We are all looking for bread to survive the apocalypse.
And that ended my four-day convention in San Diego. It had been an exhausting few weeks leading up to this convection, so I was glad to step away and unplug for a few days with good company.
Taylor, Liz, Andrew Bucholtz and I before Taylor and Liz left town.
The convention is always so inviting, and I love meeting new people and learning about their game designs. By the time this post goes to print, I have already attended Rincon in Tucson (more on that coming soon), but the next historic gaming convention I’ll be going to will be Circle DC in March. Hope to see you there one day. And let me know which of these games you’re interested in!
The main gaming area at SDHistCon has tons of seating!
Last weekend, Chris and I got invited to Tucson to play some games for the weekend. It was a nice trip out of town to see board gamers, and while I was there, I played a dozen games, some of which were new to me! And by the way, I did not misspell Arizona; that’s from “What We Do In The Shadows.” Highly recommend that show!
We began Saturday morning by teaching a game of Iki. It’s been so long since I’ve pulled this from my shelf, as we have the first edition version. The game is set in feudal Japan, and you’re hiring professionals to set up storefronts with their trade, but you’ll have to watch out for fires, which can burn those stores to the ground! I really enjoy the rondel mechanism of this game, traveling across the streets of Edo, to take your turn.
It’s feudal Japan yet people still need to travel the streets of Edo for goods in Iki.
Next, we played Carnegie. This is a game I’ve been wanting to learn since its release, especially since it’s on Board Game Arena, but I never got around to it. It’s a strategic euro, so I knew it would be right up my alley. Carnegie was inspired by the life of Andrew Carnegie, who became one of the major players in the rise of the United States’ steel industry. During the game you will recruit and manage employees, expand your business, invest in real estate, produce and sell goods, and create transport chains across the U.S. as well as become an illustrious benefactor.
Trying to build connections among U.S. cities in Carnegie. And make philanthropic donations as well.
I really enjoyed the action-selection mechanism of the game. There’s an action board set up randomly for gameplay, and when it’s your turn, you choose a main action, which could also correspond to a section of the map activating or other actions, and then everyone else has the opportunity to follow through with those same actions. Meanwhile, you’re building out your player board to add buildings, hire workers and increase your income.
Next up was Montana. I have not played this game in forever (even though we actually own it!). And seriously, more gamers need spinners. Wheeee! In Montana, it’s a race to build your settlements on the wide open land. On your turn, you can recruit the right workers to later purchase matching goods, deliver goods on time, and choose your settlements tactically. The first player to build all their settlements onto the board wins the game.
This version of Montana is deluxified. Those cow meeples are so cute!
I then taught a game of My Favorite Things. This trick-taking game can always be so random but I like knowing more fun stuff about who I’m playing with. One didn’t like the work of taking a card out of the sleeve to write answers in the middle of the game, as it goes for two rounds, but I think the game is just delightful as it is.
I love the randomness of the categories in every game of Eye My Favorite Things.
We then played a quick game of Tinderbox, a tiny dexterity game about building a campfire using teeny tweezers. You draw a card on your turn, and you have to complete that structure and put it onto the existing campfire. Sometimes you have to use your non-dominant hand, too! It’s silly and short, and I like that it fits into a small tin about the size of a deck of cards.
Look at this demure campfire! Very mindful.
After dinner at Serial Grillers, a fun restaurant with menu items named after movie serial killers, we played a couple of party games. First was Belratti: Is This Art or Can It Go? This neat deduction game splits the group into buyers and painters, and they’re both playing against a dirty counterfeit painter rat named Belratti. Buyers ask for a certain number of cards from artists to match a theme, and artists submit paintings of items face down into a pile, as well as four cards from Belratti. Buyers must then pick which cards are from the artist. If you pick one of Belratti’s paintings, he scores the point, and if he scores too many points, everyone loses the game.
What is art and what is a counterfeit? The buyers have to figure it out themselves!
The next party game was Green Team Wins! This was super fun but I’m so bad at it! A card asks a question, and everyone has to write down an answer. It’s not about writing down the right answer; it’s about writing the answer that you think everyone else will write down. If you’re in the majority, then you get on the green team and score points. If there’s a tie among the answers, then Green Team Wins!
Whatever the answer is, Green Team Wins!
The last game of the night was Sandbag, a trick-taking game with a mechanism that allows you to delay playing cards, i.e. sandbagging, because you do not want to win any tricks. You can play a card from your hand, or play it face down in front of an opponent to play one of the two cards in front of them that are face-up. As these face-up cards get replaced and played, the trump card changes based on the majority of the colors showing. Players also have one face-down card that represents the actual sand bag, which then basically becomes almost zero when playing, thus preventing you from taking that trick.
Sandbagging your turns so you don’t win any tricks in Sandbag.
On Sunday, we played three games before heading back to Phoenix. Chris and I played a 2P game of Nanga Parbat, where you’re a member of the Sherpa community establishing base camps and trapping animals. On your turn, you take an animal off the board in the section where the guide is situated and replace it with one of your meeples. The guide then moves to the location matching the number of the space where you just placed your hiker meeple. Once you have meeples all lined up in a group, you can replace them with basecamps and score them. Also, once you have a certain number of matching or different sets of animals, you can score them as well . Each scoring threshold can only score once, so if your opponent has done it, you can only score something larger or smaller. I really enjoy the mechanism of choosing when to score things, as you only have a certain number of scoring cubes to do so.
Collecting animals and placing camps in Nanga Parbat.
We then played Isle of Skye, a bidding tile-laying game. Players draw three tiles each round, and behind a screen, they price out the cost of two tiles with money in their bank and ax one of them (to be returned to the bag). When ready, players go around buying tiles based on their cost, with the opponent’s money and the money you placed to price it going to you, to place into their landscape. If your tile doesn’t get purchased by another player, you send the coins placed to price it to the bank but you get to keep the tile. There are four scoring objectives chosen for each game, and for each round, two to three of those scoring objectives will be scored, so you can play your strategy around that.
Building my landscape with ships, stables and animals. Hope they all score big!
Next up was Wandering Towers. This game was a hoot! And like, I had never heard of this game before until that day. The game comes with these cute cardboard tower sections that can be stacked and it begins with everyone’s meeples placed on top of them. The black Ravenskeep then sits at the end of a circle of towers. Players get dealt a hand of cards, and using those cards, you can either run your meeple toward the Ravenskeep a certain number of steps, or move towers to stack on top of other ones, potentially trapping meeples that were originally at the top-most level of the tower. It’s up to you to remember where your meeples are because once they’re covered, they cannot be uncovered until you or someone else decides to move levels of the tower that will reveal you.
These meeples can leap tall towers in a single bound! Unfortunately, those towers keep wandering!
There’s nothing more satisfying than trapping meeples in the middle of a tower level. And once a meeple completes their way to the Ravenskeep, the Ravenskeep tower itself moves. The moving target makes for a fun race and its gorgeous table presence is an added bonus!
The last game of the weekend was Windmill Valley, where players take on the roles of tulip farmers and entrepreneurs to build and enhance windmills, look for tulip bulbs in foreign trade or among vendors, and plant them in your garden for VPs. This game also has a cool action mechanism board, in which your two wheels rotate based on the dyke’s water level, which then determines which one of the two actions you can do. I love timing out your movements, and the game somewhat forces you to move along your wheel faster than others so you can gain better end-of-season bonuses. It’s such a crunchy euro, one that I hope to play again soon!
Tiptoeing through the tulips and windmills in Windmill Valley.
I had a great two days in Tucson gaming with old and new friends. Which of these games have you played? For funsies, I’m sharing a photo that my husband took. He told me to stand in front of this giant saguaro cactus. I think it just wanted to give me a hug! 🌵
Every summer for the past few years, when the Arizona heat is often at its most brutal, I take a week off work to attend Consimworld in Tempe. The laid-back convention has consistently been one of my favorite cons, a weeklong event where you’ve seemingly got all the time in the world to play anything from a historical game to a trick-taker. This year CSW was held on July 12-20, 2024.
Consimworld took place on July 12-20 this year at the Tempe Mission Palms.
Saturday, July 13
My first day at Consimworld was that Saturday, and I taught a 3P game of White Castle to buddies Mark and Dan Bullock, who was in town for the con. I’ve been playing this game a lot for the past few months.
Me making Mark and Dan take photos!
I really enjoy White Castle, and we all decided to play the game again now that everyone knew what the rules were.
One of my recent favorites: White Castle! (Not a hamburger game)
The filler game of this convention, and a delightful gem of a game overall, is Cat in the Box. It’s a trick-taking game where you declare the suit as you play it. Each game is such a clever puzzle where you try not to cause a paradox by being unable to play a card because someone else had already claimed it on a previous turn.
See how there’s no colors on the cards? In Cat in the Box, you pick the suit when you play the card.
We then played another trick-taking game, Joraku. I really like how this trick-taking game incorporates area control with a map, with each section of the map changing value as the game progresses. By the end, soldiers are making their way toward Kyoto, the highest-value sector at the end. It’s a neat small-box game.
In Joraku, soldiers are making their way left toward Kyoto to score.
Sunday, July 14
We started the day with After Pablo, a unique game dealing with the aftermath of Pablo Escobar’s death. Yes, that Pablo Escobar. The Mexican and Colombian cartels are trying to gain control of the drug market and smuggle the illegal white powder into America. There’s area control, market manipulation and hand management, as smuggling the goods across the border requires certain cards that match the mode of transportation available at the checkpoint. You also want to avoid going to jail, as your cubes will get caught up on the “jail track.” Best to find that lawyer to get you out sooner than later! Such a weird game, and I mean that in the best possible way!
Running a cartel is hard work! Pablo Escobar knew what was up.
We then had lunch at our usual Mexican food spot across the street: Fuzzy’s Taco Shop. The margaritas are pretty nice.
The gang’s all here! Dan, Mark and Cory Graham and I all go to Fuzzy’s every year.
Next up was a game of Pax Pamir. This is one of the games we play at every Consimworld, and there is something so chill about playing a game you’ve played before, especially when you win on the last turn because the last Dominance Check is worth double the points.
I finally got a chance to bust out my copy of this game!
We then played Dan Bullock’s new prototype: Fruit. I played this game at Circle DC and each play of it has been memorable! Fruit is about United Fruit’s banana trade and its economic and political effects on Latin America during a period of 50 years in the early 1900s. We played this game twice during this year’s CSW. I really enjoy having secret priorities and trying to sus out who has a stake in which country, all while trying to keep countries afloat or not, so that they can possibly complete their national objectives. “There’s always grievances in the banana stand,” they say!
Dan Bullock’s gorgeous prototype. It’s also helpful for learning the geography of Central America.
Sunday night was the opening reception, as well as a raffle for all the conventiongoers! I did not win anything though. John Krantz, founder of the convention, likes to update us about the state of the con and other news.
A crowd shot of the Consimworld conventiongoers.
Monday, July 15
We started Monday with another convention classic: Maria! This 3P game based on the War of Austrian Succession, and, even though I feel like it was my best showing in the game as France and Bavaria, we still lost in turn 7 to Prussia, Saxony and the Pragmatic Army.
I love Maria! If anyone knows of a copy for sale, hit me up!
We then played Dynasty: The Era of Five Dynasties. Players spend action points to expand their military, build armies, collect taxes and play event cards. Ultimately, they are trying to overthrow the emperor, who has a different set of actions for the game.
In Dynasty, you’ve trying to overthrow the emperor — but then you’ll get a target on your back.
Lastly, we played another convention favorite: Dominant Species Marine. I like how you’re limited to taking action spots underneath ones you’ve already taken, so timing is critical in the game, unless you gain a special pawn because you have a majority. Such a good game, but dang, it’s hard to stay alive and dominant in the ocean!
Always a good time playing this game! And the board is just so pretty to look at.
Tuesday, July 16
Our first game of the day was a demo of VUCA Simulations’ new game: New Cold War. They had a gorgeous prototype at the con of a world map.The game is a card-driven game about the global geopolitical events from 1989-2019. Players are one of the four world powers: Russia, China, U.S. and EU, and you get three cards each round to play, with objective goals you can score during each round. The world powers are somewhat aligned, but ultimately, it’s each world power for themselves. I completed two objective cards so I was able to win on the 8th turn. Go, EU!
VUCA Simulations was at the convention, and I got to demo their newest game: New Cold War.
I then successfully took a game off my Shelf of Opportunity. My husband owns Fate of the Elder Gods, but I had never played it before. Dan and Cory both thought there was a really interesting mechanism in the game, the one where bad things could occur if an opponent did a specific thing at a very specific time. The game is set in the Cthulhu world, and you’re a cultist trying to summon a Great Old One by collecting spell cards and traveling to locations on the altar board. It’s a neat system playing matching spell cards to go to the location you want to activate and place your cultists. The game comes with lots of colorful minis, too!
First time playing Fate of the Elder Gods! I could not summon my Great Old One fast enough.
The last game of the day was Crisis: 1914. I was super excited to play this game, which just came out. In June 28, 1914, the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophie Duchess of Hohenberg, plunged Europe into a diplomatic crisis that turned into a war that engulfed the world. Players are using their diplomatic pressure to score prestige, and most importantly, prevent WWI from happening. Crisis: 1914 is a card-driven tableau-builder for 1 to 5 players. The game is so incredibly tense in its card play, yet accessible at about a two-hour run time.
Trying to stop World War I from happening in Crisis: 1914.
Tuesday night was a treat as the guys and I went to UnderTow in Phoenix. It’s a dark immersive bar that’s Tiki themed like you’re sitting in a cargo hold of an old-world ship, complete with all kinds of sounds: a creaky boat, rain and thunder, and the occasional cannon explosion. I liked how the portholes made it seem like you’re sailing the seven seas!
We had such a fun experience at UnderTow!
The drink menu, which was printed in this fun old-time pirate-ship map, offered all types of artistically crafted libations. I made reservations a month prior, and each reservation is a 90-minute seating. What a fun night out!
Looks at this gorgeous drink!
Wednesday, July 17
Wednesday morning started with another playtest of Fruit. And then we played Let’s Make a Bus Route. I love this game and have played it often already ever since buying it from Japan in June. It’s a roll and write where you’re completing bus routes on the same map as everyone else. You score points for picking up commuters and tourists, as well as elderly passengers, and taking them to see what they want to see. But if you circle back onto a street that someone’s already marked, you’re creating traffic. It’s fine to create traffic but don’t be the person who creates the most traffic, as that’ll be negative points at the end.
I bought this charming roll and write from when I went to Japan in June.
I then taught a game of Dune: Imperium with the Rise of Ix expansion. Dune: Imperium is such a perfect game, and even though there are a few expansions of the game, I like Ix the best. I love having those airships out, and it doesn’t overly complicate the game like the most recent expansion of it does, in my opinion. Don’t at me, people!
I really like the Rise of Ix expansion for Dune: Imperium.
We then ended the day with another game of Let’s Make a Bus Route and Cat in the Box, which is most definitely the filler MVP of the convention.
Thursday, July 18
On Thursday, I had time just for one game: Red Dust Rebellion, which should be released at the end of the year. You all know I love me some COIN, and this latest COIN is set on Mars! How cool is that?! There’s even a haboob chit, which is another name for a dust storm, something us Arizonans are very well acquainted with, that occur on Mars.
Red Dust Rebellion is the new COIN game from GMT that’s coming out at the of this year.
Red Dust Rebellion tells the story of the Martian revolts of the 2250’s and the rise of Martian nationalism. The four factions are Martian Government, the Corporations, the Red Dust Movement, and the Church of the Reclaimer. As with other COINS, some of the factions are semi-allied, but the Church of the Reclaimer plays completely different than any other faction I’ve encountered. The Church of the Reclaimer can actually spend its hand of cards to skip the line to take a turn! I also learned about the Aldrin Cycler, because it really does take that long to ship supplies from Earth to Mars, a neat mechanism that the Corporations, which are Earth-controlled, must contend with. I’m so looking forward to this game!
It was so fun playing with Kai Jensen and Jeff Carr!
And that was the last game I played at Consimworld this year. I enjoy everything about Consimworld – the length of it, the convenience of the con in relation to walk-able restaurants and transportation, and just the overall chill vibe of it. It’s what keeps me coming back every year to hang out with friends and play games. And maybe next year will be the year I’ll try a Monster Game!
Last month, my husband and I went to Japan! It was our first time visiting the country, and it was such an amazing trip! Chris and I spent 6 days in Tokyo, and then we took a cruise with family members around Japan, with stops in Kagoshima, Akita and Aomori in Japan, as well as Busan, South Korea. I loved every minute of it!
Visiting the Sensoji Temple.
The months leading up to our trip really did feel like Let’s Go To Japan, a darling board game about planning your visit to Tokyo and Kyoto. We didn’t make it to Kyoto, but we definitely will be back again!
A few things I learned about Japan during my trip:
It’s hot in June and very, very humid. (This desert lady was struggling!)
A digital Suica card does not work on Android phones. I had to purchase a physical card and load it up at kiosks inside the stations. The card is also very handy for buying drinks from vending machines.
If you want to make reservations at popular places, reservations open on the 10th the previous month you’ll be going. Our trip was in June, so I made sure to log into places on May 10 to make reservations. Reddit is a good source of information to secure in-demand reservations. I wanted Studio Ghibli Museum tickets. We tried on three computers, and we still couldn’t get tickets.
Tokyo is ginormous, but it’s very easy to navigate using their train system. We only knew a few key Japanese phrases, but didn’t encounter any difficulties in communicating.
Trip highlights
The moment you set foot in Tokyo, the image of Mt. Fuji is everywhere! But nothing compares to seeing it in person. We lucked out and it was a clear day during our day tour, which included a visit to Hakone, a boat ride on Lake Ashi and taking the bullet train back to Tokyo.
It was a good day to see Mt. Fuji!
Chris and I got to see a baseball game at the Tokyo Dome. The Yomiuri Giants were playing the Orix Buffaloes. Baseball is serious business in Japan, and the energy at the game was nonstop! There were sections for each team that included musicians and hard-core fans who all had some kind of choreographed cheer.
Our baseball game was packed! Lots of food options, too, from bento boxes to American fare, including alcoholic drinks, which workers with mini-kegs on their backs will pour at your seat.
We also got tickets to the Kirby Cafe. I got these tickets by staying up at 2 a.m. on May 10 since they released reservations at 6 p.m. May 10 Tokyo time, and frantically hoping for a time slot that fit our schedule. And we succeeded! This place was just so adorable!
I wish they had giant utensils for sale! It would be perfect for my Filipino kitchen. #iykyk
The food isn’t anything fancy, but the experience was just delightful. Since it required reservations, the place was not too crowded, unusual for most of the places in Japan we visited. They also had a Kirby Cafe, where you can buy lots of Kirby souvenirs. I bought a Kirby Cafe kitchen towel, among other things.
This very sleepy Waddle Dee was too almost too cute not to eat!
And what’s a trip to Tokyo without shopping! I brought a carry-on backpack with my clothes, which I then stuffed into a giant suitcase, which was essentially empty for all the souvenirs, Japanese beauty products and board games I wanted to buy there.
One of the Yellow Submarines in Tokyo.
We visited Yellow Submarine in Akihabara. It was so cool seeing all the games that aren’t readily available in America, as well as Japanese versions of popular board games.
I wanted to buy all of them!
I was on the lookout for Nokosu Dice and Come Sail Away, but alas, they were both sold out. We did, however, buy a bunch of games! Our lovely vacation haul!
Our Yellow Submarine haul. Which games have you played?
Lastly, what’s a trip to Tokyo without visiting Don Quijote. This massive store has endless flavors of kitkats, beauty products, Sanrio and Nintendo merchandise, all the snacks you can imagine and so much more. A lot of tourists visit this store, and I can see why. It’s a one-stop shop for a lot of things you’d want to bring back home. I bought so many face masks, skincare products and makeup here.
It’s seriously sensory overload at Don Quijote. Make sure you stick to your shopping list!
I also visited not one, but two Sanrio stores. There’s a cool stamp machine where you can create your own Sanrio stamp. I bought two: one of Hello Kitty and one of Keroppi, both with my name on it. I also bought a cool black Hello Kitty purse that I used for the rest of my trip.
I love Sanrio almost as much as I love board games!
The second week of my trip was aboard the Diamond Princess, which was an 8-day cruise that included four ports of call. Chris and I played a lot of trivia during our sea days, and it was nice hanging out and traveling with family.
Dressing up for formal night on the cruise.
Our first port was Kagoshima, known for their sweet potatoes and green tea. We visited the Chiran Peace Museum and Sengan-en, a Japanese garden attached to a former Shimazu clan residence.
Chris being the perfect height to take this funny photo in Kagoshima.
Our one visit outside of Japan was to Busan, South Korea. It was my first time visiting Korea but Chris’ second time. The day’s highlights included Haedong Yonggungsa, a large temple built overlooking the ocean, and Gamcheon Culture Village, dubbed the “Machu Picchu of Korea,” a densely populated community built on a very steep hillside that’s accessible by narrow roadways. I could’ve walked around there for the whole day!
You can barely see the narrow winding streets, but they’re down there!
In Akita, we got to see Akita dogs, visit a geisha house and enjoy a tea ceremony, and learn about the Kanto Festival, where people would balance a bamboo pole that held a large number of paper lanterns, at the Neburi-nagashi Museum.
Me trying to balance a bamboo pole with a small amount of lanterns.
Lastly, in Aomori, we rode the Hakkoda Ropeway up the mountain, and visited both the Nebuta Museum and the Jomon World Heritage Site. The Nebuta Museum Wa Rasse exhibits the four Nebuta floats from the previous year’s festival. The artistry in these exhibits was a sight to see, and to have a dedicated space for them year-round showcased how high these artists were held and how important the festival was for the prefecture.
These lanterns were massive and so detailed!
The Jomon people were hunter gatherers during 14000 to 300 BC, and remnants of their coastal village, as well as tons of pottery, were excavated in Aomori. The Sannai-Maruyama Site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021.
This is a replica of one of their structures.
The room where they excavated the original foundation, which still had remnants of wood inside.
Chris and I were on vacation for two weeks and a day. We flew to Tokyo out of LAX, and then caught the cruise out of Yokohama, which is still in the greater Tokyo area. I can’t wait to go back and explore even more of Japan — and buy more games! I’ve already played Let’s Make a Bus Route twice, and each time I’ve introduced it to new players, they enjoyed it.
Walking around in Yokohama. For those who play Yakuza: Like A Dragon, this area would be familiar.
If you do make it to Japan, wear comfy shoes (you’ll be doing so much walking!) and bring a coin purse. There’s endless machines for refreshing drinks and capsule machines, which pop out little toys and charms. I may or may not have come back with lots of Hello Kitty and Kirby figurines. Have you all been to Japan? And for those who have, what’s your favorite thing about visiting?
Last week, I traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend Circle DC, a convention held on April 5-7 hosted by Fort Circle in the nation’s capital! Votes for Women was my top game of 2023, so I wanted to support the game’s publisher, plus check out some sights and sounds in D.C. One of my goals this year is to attend more conventions. Circle DC is a great convention for historical game designers; I actually played more prototypes than published games!
Spring in Washington, D.C.
Prior to the convention’s start, Fort Circle hosted a reception at Astro Beer Hall, where we got to meet fellow convention-goers and eat some yummy food. These mixers are always a nice start before all the gaming about to take place for the next few days.
Hanging out with Drew Wehrle, Yoni Goldstein, Dan Bullock and Liz Davidson.
Friday
The convention was held at Planet Word museum in a private events room. I stayed a hotel a little over a mile away and walked to the convention.
The Planet Word museum, where Circle DC was held this year.
I first played a prototype by Liz Davidson of Beyond Solitaire and David Thompson called Night Witches. This is coming to Kickstarter soon from Fort Circle, and the game is about the all-female pilots of the Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment working together to fly harassment missions on the Eastern Front during WWII. The game will include a 10-mission campaign, with individual maps bound together in a spiral notebook. Players go on missions as pilots to avoid spotlights, evade attacks and ultimately kill Nazis, while managing their resources such as fuel, stress levels and bombs. This is Liz’s first design and I can’t wait for it to come out!
Liz Davidson and David Thompson’s prototype of Night Witches.
Next up was Volko Ruhnke’s newest prototype, Hunt for Blackbeard, which will also be published by Fort Circle. I’ve played multiple COIN games from Volko and this was quite a departure from those usual games. This is a 2-player hidden movement game where the colony of Virginia and its Royal Navy are tracking down the notorious pirate Blackbeard, whose fleet is living that pirate life down in North Carolina. The game is set up with blocks placed in a recessed board, with the Royal Navy side seeing all blanks, while Blackbeard is sailing from point to point carrying out his piracy.
Blackbeard hiding from the Royal Navy in North Carolina.
A big group of us went out to dinner to Ella’s Wood Fired Kitchen with Sebastian Bae and friends, some of whom are members of the Georgetown University Wargaming Society.
The last game of the night was Fruit, Dan Bullock’s latest prototype, about United Fruit in Latin America during a period of 50 years during the early 1900s. Each country has its own national objective, and the players, as business people, have secret priorities, ranked in priority The game begins with drafting cards and then taking actions with those cards while triggering events on the card itself. This is a very early playtest, but I’m excited to see how this game develops!
Exporting bananas in Fruit.
We ended Friday night with drinks at the Moxy Hotel at Lucha Rosa. Cheers!
Cheers! Dan, Yoni and I found a rooftop bar in the Moxy Hotel near the convention.
Saturday
The first game I played on Saturday was Chicago ’68 by Yoni Goldstein. This game takes place during the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests. One side plays as the Establishment, and the other side plays as the Demonstrators. The game takes place over five rounds; each round has two phases that is daytime and nighttime. Each player plays from two decks of action cards, depending on daytime or nighttime. Players are attempting to seed the bag with their delegates, as one delegate is pulled at the end of each round. Whoever controls the majority at the end of the game wins. I really enjoyed this game, and while this is a prototype, the game feels pretty solid to me.
Chicago ’68 is a historical game about the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests.
Next up was Rafter Five, a cute little Oink game that I’ve been carrying around recently. Players are building planks with skinny strips of paper that one of the rafters have to stand on. The rafters are originally standing on top of the two Oink game boxes stacked on top of each other, and the game quickly evolves into a dexterity game of paper, rafters and placing a treasure chest on the newly placed plank. Placing all your treasure chests are required for victory.
Trying not to drop any treasure chests or rafters in Rafter Five.
It’s a delightful yet nerve-wracking dexterity game in which you’ll eventually have to pick up a rafter meeple that may or may not be keeping a bunch of planks in place. Or if you’re really mean, you place the plank in a precarious place so it’ll fall off and penalize your opponent.
Ryan Heilman, Tim Densham of Catastrophe Games, Chris and Wendy from Dice Tower, and I play Rafter Five before it all came tumbling down.
I then played a prototype for Peace 1905, which is about the Treaty of Portsmouth during the Russo-Japanese war. It can be played as a 2P game with Japan vs Russia, or a 3P game, adding Teddy Roosevelt as the third nation who is trying to achieve balance between the issues the other countries are negotiating. Players place face-down cards one at a time to vote on issues, and if there’s a giant difference between the two sides, the tension increases between the two nations. If tensions are really high, an event card will trigger where the two countries can participate in some party or billiards to reduce the tension. Teddy wins if both sides are in a tie.
Negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth to end the Russo-Japanese War.
I then played Union Stockyards, an economic game about the meatpacking district in Chicago during the Gilded Age. I had such a hard time making money in this game, as the livestock market was constantly in flux! Players are also increasing brand recognition, building polyomino shaped buildings to connect to a network, and constructing houses in various cities in the hopes the train network will enter that market. But if there is worker dissatisfaction, they strike, essentially losing one action during the round.
The meatpacking industry in Union Stockyards.
Circle DC held a raffle each day; the grand prize for Saturday’s raffle was the Dune bucket.
The crowd on Saturday night at Circle DC.
I totally put all my tickets for this but did not win. Liz Davidson was the lucky recipient!
You know I totally stuck my hand in this. It’s much softer than it looks!
I then played Arcs, the latest game from Leder Games and designed by Cole Wehrle, who taught us how to play. I enjoyed playing this game so much – I think it’s now my favorite Leder game! Set in space, Arcs is a sci-fi strategy game that uses multi-use cards to construct ships, battle, move and repair.
Playing Arcs with Mark Herman, Dan Bullock and Brook, with Cole Wehrle teaching us.
Players play cards to take actions, and if you can beat the initiative order and suit of a previous player, you can play multiple actions related to that suit. Players also need to declare ambitions, which are objectives by which you can score VPs, but each round starts with a blank slate as to which ambitions will score. The board and components are gorgeous, and I can see a lto of replayability with this game, as your actions are tied to the hand of cards dealt to you each round. Cole said this game will be shipping soon to backers.
The Arcs board is just gorgeous.
Sunday
On the last day of the convention, I signed up to play Bosses of the Senate from Chonky Fire Games, a prototype set in the ambitious political world of the Gilded Age. Players take on the roles of different political ideologies and play as teams in order to pass your faction’s legislative goals and balance that with the will of the people. I love historical games that are team-based (e.g. Angola, a game I love to play at Consimworld), and this one did not disappoint. There was negotiation and trash-talking, and I enjoyed the back and forth of the politics to control seats in Congress. It also had some luck regarding how different types of agendas gain approval points, which was a fun touch.
Placing our tokens on various agendas that may or may not benefit you, but would benefit your team.
I stuck around for the Sunday raffle, held at 2 p.m. that day since people were heading home and eventually, I made my trek to the airport to catch my flight back to Phoenix. I had a great time at Circle DC and met so many new people and got to hang out with some of my favorite people in the industry.
I didn’t get a chance to game with Tory Brown but we were able to hang out at other events.
The convention was nonstop, and it seriously felt like most everyone I talked to was working on some type of historical game. I loved hearing about their projects, their interests, how they got into game design and just hanging out with so many smart and interesting people. I definitely have plans to attend Circle DC next year, and hopefully explore more of the city!
Me with Kevin Bertram, owner and founder of Fort Circle.
And the touristy stuff …
I landed in DC a day prior to the start of the convention and was able to do some exploring. I took a nice long walk from my hotel to visit the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.
A very, very expensive and rare stamp: the Inverted Jenny.
I then walked by the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court and took some photos there.
Stopping by the U.S. Capitol to take a photo.
Lastly, I joined some board gamers at the Nationals Game that Kevin had organized. We got some sweet seats, even though I was a little unnerved by the foul balls coming over the net. We were that close!
About 10 minutes after this photo, it started pouring the game was on rain delay!
It was so easy getting around the D.C. area via subway and bus. I love being in a walkable city! There’s so much more to see for next time. And with that, the next historical gaming convention I’m attending will be Consimworld here in the Phoenix area, which will be in July. Hope to see you there!
My husband and I took a trip to New England earlier this month to attend Granite Game Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire, which is an hour north of Boston. The convention was on March 7-10, 2024. I had never been to Granite Game Summit, but Chris had and enjoyed attending a few times when he lived on the East Coast.
The convention is held at the Doubletree Hotel in Nashua every year, and attendance is capped at 525 people. We also got to explore Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, before the convention. More on that at the end of this post! And before we begin, this is probably one of the longest convention recaps I’ve written. I played 30 different games — mostly card games and trick-takers, with a sprinkling of euros and party games — over the course of 3.5 days, which made my little gamer heart very, very happy.
Our lovely hotel for the convention.
Thursday
We checked into the convention Thursday night after some sightseeing in Massachusetts, and yup, I did get a chocolate chip cookie — the best! First and foremost, Granite Game Summit organizers required masks in the main rooms of the convention hall. Upon checking in, you sign the giant convention poster and at the end of the convention, organizers flip a coin onto it and one person gets a free badge for next year.
The convention this year was space themed.
There was also Granite Game Summit backdrop, which of course I took photos in front of, and there were raffles for lots of games, as well as a convention library and gamer library.
Chris and I taking a photo in front of the convention backdrop!
It was so good to see our friend Kimberly, whom we hadn’t seen since before the pandemic. She’s one of the organizers of Granite Game Summit and is a wonderful person all around.
Me and Kimberly, one of the Granite Game Summit organizers. She’s the best!
All along the main room are tables with gamers’ games situated on them and numbers. You are free to play any game that’s on those tables as long as you return it. There are also little paper numbers next to each pile of games to take with you so you remember where to return that game. The main room closes each night at midnight but the room with the convention library is open 24/7, as well as other rooms and areas that are mask optional at the other side of the lobby.
The Granite Game Summit library, which is available 24/7 during the convention.
After grabbing a late dinner, we attended the Getting Tricky With It & Newcomer Meetup, which was all about trick-taking games (mostly).
The schedule for the convention.
First up was Scout, one of my top 10 games of 2023. Love Scout! It’s a very solid ladder-climbing game and not technically a trick-taker, but it has an added twist that you can’t rearrange your hand of cards. The cards have numbers on the top and bottom of it, and when you get your hand, you must decide right then and there if you want to play it that side up, or turn the entire hand upside down and play with those numbers. As you pull cards from the middle of your hand, you can potentially line up pairs, triples or runs.
Scout is one of those games that I keep coming back to. It’s super portable, too!
We then played Cat in the Box, a true trick-taking game that takes the genre, dare I say, out of the box! The cards in your hand are in black and white, and as you play them, you declare what suit they are and mark it with your token on the main player board. You also need to declare when you’re out of a specific colored card to play a priority suit. As cards get played to win tricks and tokens fill up the board, there comes a point when no cards can be played – as there’s only one card of each suit and number in the deck – thus creating a paradox where everyone loses. The cat artwork is too cute.
Don’t cause a paradox! Cat in the Hat is a unique twist on trick-taking games.
Next up is Inflation, also a trick-taking game played out over 12 rounds where you’re trying to win the exact number of tricks you bid on. Tricks are won by forming the highest number from your cards played. But with each round, you play each subsequent card to the left of your previous card, adding another digit to your overall number. The cards go up to 10, but as soon as you play your 10, the 1 of the 10 is covered, turning the card into a zero.
Making very big numbers in Inflation.
Up next was Chicken!, a game I reviewed on The Five By. This is a quick push-your-luck game where you’re trying to roll more chickens than foxes. But your roll can also lay eggs, which adds dice to your roll. As more dice get added to your roll, it’s likelihood of getting more foxes increases, but then so do the rewards. I dig the retro orange artwork of the game. And it comes in a little tube.
Don’t let too many foxes into your henhouse!
We then played Nokosu Dice. Oh man, I still totally regret not backing the Kickstarter for this! It’s a trick-taking game where you also draft dice, which then count as cards during game play. The last remaining dice after drafting will then become the leading suit color and number. Such a fun game, and I hope to find one in my upcoming trip to Japan later this summer.
Nokosu Dice is such a great game! I need to track down a copy of this!
Charms was the next trick-taker we played. There are two decks of cards, charms and numbers, and they are shuffled together and dealt out. On your first turn, you play two cards, one number and one charm. On subsequent turns, you play one card, either changing a number or the charm in order to win tricks. A charming game!
Charms is a neat trick-taker where you can affect the number or the charm suit.
We played these games late into the night. Our first day at Granite Game Summit was a success!
Gamer friends with boxes upon boxes of trick-taking games.
Friday
On Friday morning, I ran into Chip Beauvais, designer of Jackpot Payout, a game I had worked on the rules for a few years back. Jackpot Payout is a light deck-building game where you flip cards like you’re at a slot machine. It’s a fast-paced game and very family-friendly!
We’re playing Jackpot Payout with the game’s designer, Chip Beauvais.
We then played Chroma Cube, another game from Chip. Chroma Cubes is a roll-and color game. Roll these chonky dice with various symbols, and decide how you want to spend them by coloring in sections of a coloring sheet. This game was so delightful and very chill! I forget how much fun coloring is! We bought this game from Chip.
Chroma Cubes is a roll-and-color that’s so satisfying!
Chris and I then took a lunch break from the food trucks outside. Wicked Tasty Trucks was there Friday through Sunday during the day through 5 p.m. This made it very easy to get food while at the con, and there were also numerous other options within walking distance from the hotel as well as the small convenience store inside the DoubleTree.
One of the food trucks that showed up at the convention. Very convenient for gamers!
After lunch, we played Don’t Llama Dice. My husband enjoys Renier Knezia games so tried it, with neither of us having played the original Llama game. The artwork has lots of colorful rainbows. Players are trying to shed their hand of cards. On their turn, they can roll the dice or quit the round. If you roll the dice, you can discard one card from your hand of six cards that match each die. If you roll dice that don’t match anything they have, they must take a card from llama row. If you can’t take anything from llama row, then it’s llama drama, which forces you to take the rest of the llama row cards and the round ends. Each numbered card counts only once for scoring negative points, and llamas count was negative 10 points.
Don’t Llama Dice is so colorful!
We then played White Castle (and no, it is not a hamburger game). I really liked this publisher’s Red Cathedral so I had high hopes for this game. And it did not disappoint! Players are working to become the most influential clan in Japan’s Himeji stronghold. It’s a Euro-style game where you take three actions in each round, a total of nine actions in the entire game, but of course, you may be able to combo actions depending on which of the dice you choose for your action.
The main board for White Castle.
The red, white and black dice (equal to the total number of players plus 1) sit on these dainty cardboard bridges in ascending order, and you may have to pay to place a dice on an action slot or receive money depending on what dice is sitting there already. Overall, players can tend the gardens, defend the castle or progress up the social ladder of the nobility. The economy is extremely tight and if there’s a bad roll, everyone is choosing from less-than-ideal dice, but I love how crunchy the game is for a game that’s under 2 hours, even shorter with 2P! Chris and I immediately played the game again after playing it.
As you place meeples onto the board, you unlock more resources to potentially gain.
For dinner that night, a group of us walked a few blocks over to Chen Yang Li for drinks and dinner, including peking duck.
They cut the duck right at your table when you order it.
The dinner was so tasty, and we had so much food! With the duck order, you get duck pancakes, a duck stir fry with veggies and duck soup. Yums!
Cheers to gamer friends!
After dinner, we played this ridiculously fun game called Himmelsstürmer, a Parker Bros game from 1991 that’s also known as the Great Balloon Race. It’s a roll-and-move game with hot-air balloons, and each player has an objective for three balloons to get to the finish line. On their turn, they roll the dice and can move any one of the balloons — and hope an opponent unknowingly moves your balloons, too. There are a few spots on the board that will make the balloon go backwards or get struck by lightning and start over. Fun times!
Will your balloons make it to the finish line?
We then played a big game of 6 Nimmt. This game is a classic and can accommodate so many people. Always a fun crowd pleaser.
I haven’t seen some of these people since before the pandemic!
Players simultaneously play a card and cards in sequential order get added to the row its closest in number to. Rows can only hold five cards, so the sixth one will bust it. It’s fast-paced, easy to teach and nothing beats seeing your opponent’s agony over picking up a bunch of bulls because they busted a row.
In 6 Nimmt, avoid the bulls!
After that, we played Letter Tricks, a trick-taking card game that features suited cards with letters instead of numbers. When you win a trick, you take all the letter cards, and at the end of the game you try to create the largest word you can with your letters. What a clever twist to this genre! I love word games in all forms!
A trick-taker with letters instead of numbers so you can spell words? Count me in!
The next game we played was Don’t Drop Your Ring. Players are trying to complete their bids for winning a number of tricks or else the ring will fall off their finger, which is represented by a clear card with a ring on it placed over a card of a hand. This had some cool components but it kind of fell flat as the bidding and drafting mechanism made this game more fiddly than it was worth.
The clear card on top of the hand in Don’t Drop Your Ring moves closer and closer to falling off.
The last game we played on Friday night was Trump, Tricks, Game! a trick-taking game with bear, wolf, wild boar and mouflon cards . A different animal is the leading suit in one of four rounds, and the cards you gain from the tricks you win will create the hand of cards for the next round.
Different animals are the leading suit in this game depending on the round.
Saturday
On Saturday morning, we decided to stop by Designer Alley. Granite Game Summit set up a few tables for designers to showcase their up-and-coming games. We played Chip Beauvais’ daughter’s game Peep Over, and it was so cute! She hand-drew teenage peeps trying to have a sleepover, not get into arguments with mom and provide the right type of snacks. The movie posters were excellent. Chef’s kiss!
Who doesn’t want to watch this movie?
Chris and I then played Surrealist Dinner Party. The Edward Gorey-esque artwork of surrealist characters in history drew us in as did the components, including a silver platter where resources for the multi-course menu are placed. The Surrealists are invited to the table where they can socialize, dine and then leave when satiated. In the end though, the game did not have as much substance as we would’ve liked.
Love the artwork style on Surrealist Dinner Party but the game wasn’t for me.
We then learned Crisis, a game I actually own but have never played. I really enjoyed this one! It’s a crunchy economic game that plays in about 2 hours where players assume the role of business leaders trying to rebuild their companies and create value at a particularly challenging time in Axia.
I had never played Crisis before (even though I own it), but I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to play again!
If players fail to prosper or meet certain benchmarks, the game gets incrementally harder. Our game didn’t get punishing at all thought since we were playing at the basic level but I cannot wait to teach this to my gaming group at home on hard mode! Thanks Gil Hova for teaching the game!
It was nice to meet game designer Gil Hova and game with him!
I then got a chance to play the most adorable push-your-luck game ever Spots! Players roll dice to place on their spotted dogs (and one cow) but if you have too many dice pips buried in the doghouse that you can’t place on your cards, all your progress on your animal cards get wiped. You can also collect bones to reroll your dice. Super enjoyable!
Spots is the cutest push-your-luck game that delightfully uses dice pips in a thematic way!
We then played Nana, in the original Korean version and animal artwork, and people have described this game as a combination between Go Fish and Memory. The object of the game is to win three sets of three cards, or two sets of cards that equal seven, or a set of 7s. On your turn, you play your highest or lowest card, or you can ask your opponent to play their highest or lowest card. As the round continues, you’ll start to deduce which cards your opponents have and force them to play so that you can complete your sets.
Nana, which is called Trio in America, is a blend between Go Fish and Memory.
Maskmen, a ladder climbing game from Oink Games, is also a neat puzzle game. Players play one to three cards on their turn of the same type of wrestler and resolve the strength of the wrestler. At the start of the round, we don’t know which wrestler is the strongest, but as cards are played, more information is declared and sorted, which can help you shed more cards quicker, if you have the right cards in your hand. So basically, you’re seeding the strength of the wrestlers with the cards you play in the hopes of being able to shed your entire hand.
Maskmen is also from Oink Game, the makers of Scout.
Up next was Billabong, a racing game in which kangaroos are leaping across the board to cross the finish line. Kangaroos can move one space in any direction, or leap over a single kangaroo and land an equal number of spaces on the other side of that guy. If you line up kangaroos, you can keep jumping over them to get ahead. So fun! And just found out it’s available to play online on Yucata.de.
Hop over kangaroos to get to the finish line in Billabong!
I then played An Infamous Trafic for the first time. This game was brutal. Players are creating supply chains to conduct opium trades in 19th century China. The economy is so fragile as players rely on smugglers to get their product onto land while ensuring that the region doesn’t become a failed state, which will affect your company’s investments and bottom line. I honestly had no idea how to succeed in this game.
I played An Infamous Traffic for the first time. This economy in this game is so fragile!
Next up was Towers of Am’Harb. The rulebook for this game was substantial and in the end, we realized that it was just a Tower of Hanoi game where you activated sectors in this manner to place pieces for area control. The artwork looked great, but the font on the box cover was hard to read. This was a miss for me.
Towers of Am’Harb is an area majority game that uses the Tower of Hanoi mechanism to activate sectors.
We then played NMR9, a very fun spatial puzzle game where you stack polyominoes higher and higher without leaving gaps underneath. The polyominoes are number shaped, and on each turn, a card is flipped over to determine which number everyone simultaneously places onto their tableau.
NMB9 is an excellent puzzly filler game.
We then played a big game of Phantom Ink. This is a great party game that can accommodate up to eight players. Players split up into two teams, with one spirit for each team. The rest of the players are mediums trying to figure out the one clue that the two spirits know. In order to deduce an answer, each team gives their spirit question cards to answer and the spirit reveals the answer one letter at a time to their table, with their team telling the spirit to stop at any time if they think they know the answer to the question. The other team may not know what question you gave your spirit but you don’t want to reveal too much for the other team to deduce. Our team was on a roll that night!
Some of the questions we gave to our spirit to figure out the clue. Our team rocked!
We closed out Saturday night with Hamsterrolle, a dexterity game that involves a giant wheel. Players are trying to be first to place all their pieces onto the wheel, but as more pieces get placed on it, the wheel starts to roll, and eventually gravity will take over and pieces will fall out on your turn. Think Animal Upon Animal but with a wheel!
I honesty love this photo. Thanks, Kimberly for taking this!
Sunday
Sunday was our last morning in Nashua, as we had to drive back to fly out of Logan Airport in Boston that evening. We started the day with a quick and silly game, Pirates’ Blast. It’s a kids game where you’re trying to shoot cannons to move your pirate ship into your opponent’s cove. I can see why kids love this.
Chris squeezing air into his cannon to propel his ship.
We then played Dandelions, a cute area control game where you’re spreading your dandelion seeds across different gardens. Players roll a group of dice and draft them into gardens. But you can also float, puff and gust to move around the seeds.
Spread your dandelions across the fields!
Chris and I then played another game of Billabong. I am so bad at maneuvering my kangaroos to do combo jumps across the board.
The last game we played at Granite Game Summit was Pick-A-Pepper, a game about collecting chiles and making hot sauces! The game is divided into two phases: the first phase is collecting chiles by playing cards in front of them. The highest combination gets first pick at the cards in the market to put into their ingredient display. This continues until the second phase where players are making hot sauces or collecting more cards in the display.
Making hot sauces in Pick-A-Pepper.
And then it was time to say goodbye to friends. Womp womp. Chris and I had a great time at the convention. Flying into Boston and heading north into Nashua was not a problem, and the hotel had a fair number of restaurants within walking distance, in addition to the daily food trucks. There are also a few grocery stores nearby, including a Whole Foods and a Target.
Saying our goodbyes at Granite Games Summit.
The convention library as well as gamers’ personal game library made it a nonstop four days of gaming and discovering lots of new-to-me games. Chris and I didn’t even bring any games to the con, and there was never not a time we weren’t gaming, unless we were getting food. We can’t wait to go back. And we definitely will, as Chris won a free badge for next year! Remember that coin flip I mentioned at the beginning? Thanks, Granite Game Summit!
Our badges had a QR code on the back that made it easy to sign up for things and enter the raffles.
And for the touristy stuff …
Before Granite Game Summit, we flew in a few days before to explore Boston and squeeze in a day visit to Salem, Massachusetts, before heading to Nashua.
One highlight was visiting the Boston Library to have tea in the Courtyard Tea Room. I made reservations a month prior to the visit so that the hubby and I could enjoy tea, cute sandwiches and darling pastries. Pinkies up!
Afternoon tea at the Boston Library was such a fun experience! The teeny sandwiches and desserts were delightful!
We also took a look around the library itself, which had an older section and the gorgeous Bates Hall, and a more modern lively section that included a live taping of a Boston Public Radio interview.
I love me some gorgeous libraries!
Another highlight was walking on the Freedom Trail to visit historic landmarks from American history (and Assassin’s Creed 3, apparently!). The red-brick line across the city makes it easy to navigate! Boston is a very walkable city, and public transportation is so easy and convenient!
The Old South Meeting House was the organizing point for the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
We then rented a car when we left Boston to drive up to Salem (but before heading to Nashua) to visit the House of Seven Gables, an iconic house made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book of the same name. I even got to climb the secret staircase. I learned a little bit about the history of the area as well as how this iconic house came to be.
Me in front of the iconic House of Seven Gables, made famous by the author Nathaniel Hawthorne.
We also visited the Salem Witch Museum. The first half was a little hokey, with its outdated display of life-size figurines whose stages lit up when the film-projector-type voice narrated what happened in Salem in the late-1690s. But the second half of the exhibit had some interesting factoids and the connotations of being a witch.
The Salem Witch Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
And that sums up our trip back east. I’m so glad we got to spend a little bit of time. in Boston but there’s so much more I want to see! I’m already adding to my to-see list for next year’s trip. If you made it down this far, thanks for reading! And stay tuned for another game convention I’m going to in April (also on the East Coast).
Hello, friends! You’ve made it to the end of 2023. Pat yourselves on the back for surviving the year! I feel so lucky for all that happened this past year, including going back to the Philippines and attending several gaming conventions! And of course lots of gaming in between. Here are the top 10 games I played for the first time this past year.
I often keep Scout in my purse because it’s such a compact game and easy to each others.
Scout is a delightful ladder-climbing game in which cards have two potential values, players may not rearrange their hand of cards, and players may pass their turn to take a card from the current high set of cards into their hand. At the start of the game, you receive a hand of cards, and you can decide if you want to play the values on the top of the card or the bottom of the card — but you must rotate the entire hand, not just the individual cards. When it’s your turn, you must play a card or set of cards (without rearranging your hand) in order to beat what’s already been played, or you’re out of the round. The game plays up to 5, it lasts about 15 minutes, and not at all difficult for new gamers to understand. Plus, the box fits neatly in your purse so it’s easy to travel with.
The Gods Will Have Blood is such a unique solitaire gaming experience.
The Gods Will Have Blood, a solitaire game from Dan Bullock based on the book by Anatole France’s 1912 Novel “Les Dieux Ont Soif, The Gods Will Have Blood” is such a unique and grim gaming experience. As an appointed magistrate in 1793 France, you are presiding over show trials of accused royalists and counterrevolutionaries, with the goal of elevating your reputation without tanking the legitimacy of the court. You make some tough decisions in deciding who is guilty and not guilty, and dealing with the consequences — and court momentum — of those choices. The game is artfully designed and comes in a small box, making it easy to bust out a solo game almost anywhere.
Voidfall is a beast of a game, one that I’ve enjoyed playing time and again.
In all honesty, I kept going back and forth about adding Voidfall to this list. I’ve enjoyed each game of Voidfall I’ve played but the overwhelming giant-ness of the game can be a turnoff for some. First off, it comes in a giant square box, it takes possibly about 45 minutes to set up a scenario, and there’s endless amounts of icons, which over several plays become more intuitive. What looks like a classic galactic space 4x game really plays like a euro. As the leader of a Great House (complete with house-specific abilities), you play through three cycles, each with a game-altering galactic event, a new scoring condition, and a set number of focus cards that can be played. On each focus card, you select two of the three actions printed on it. You can advance your civilization tracks; manage your sectors’ infrastructure, population and production; or conquer new sectors with your space fleets. It’s an epic game that I’m glad a friend of mine owns and sets up when we decide to play it.
Revive is a game that I want to play over and over again.
Revive features a lot of game mechanisms I enjoy: multi-use cards, tech trees, card-tucking and deckbuilding, all while using dual-layered player boards. The game is set 5,000 years after the destruction of Earth and tribes are now exploring the frozen earth in order to repopulate it and survive. The game is for 1 to 4 players, with each tribe having its own asymmetrical powers. The game is a table hog though, with the main player board, and each player’s tribe board and player board, which holds giant tracks of various machines. Play cards into your board, manage your resources, go up on machine tracks for bonus actions, unlock your tribal abilities and collect artifacts, which counts down the end of the game — there are multiple paths to victory and lots of options to combo your actions, making your turns extremely satisfying.
Building my zoo requires the perfect combination of animal cards and conservation projects.
I’ve logged countless games of this online at Board Game Arena and in person. In Ark Nova, you’re working to build and design a zoo, and support conservation projects around the world. The game consists of five actions, and the strength of the actions depends on where the card is placed in your tableau. The game comes with 255 cards featuring animals, specialists, special enclosures, and conservation projects. As you specialize in partnerships with world zoos and increase your reputation, you’ll be able to increase the strength of your core five actions. If you’re looking for an immersive zoo game, this will not be for you, but as a dry euro fan, this puzzly game is worth checking out.
Planet Unknown is a fun puzzle where players pick the pieces for you, unless it’s your turn.
I’ve only played Planet Unknown on Board Game Arena but have greatly enjoyed it. Planet Unknown is a competitive game for 1-6 players in which players attempt to develop the best planet. Each round, each player places one polyomino-shaped, dual-resource tile on their planet. The tiles are situated on a Lazy Susan, in which there are two concentric circles holding the various shaped tiles. On your turn, you rotate the Lazy Susan so that you can have the option between two types of tiles – and force others to take the two tiles that result from your spin. When you place the tiles on your planet, you’ll go up the resource track of the type of the tiles you lay down. The Lazy Susan is such a neat mechanism, and the puzzly gameplay keeps everyone engaged at every turn.
I never thought I’d see a board game on a pivotal moment of history for my people.
In one of my most highly anticipated games of the year (for the past few years actually, since I wasn’t sure when this was going to come out!), People Power is a game about my people and the insurgency in the Philippines during 1981-1986. People Power plays in about 2 hours, which is fairly short for a COIN. And you know what that makes it? Accessible to more people. Seeing people of color in a board game as well as not needing a 30-minute video to explain the battle action are some of the very things that would help diversity this very niche area of board gaming. The actions in People Power are streamlined, the player aides are very easy to follow, and, with such a small map, it makes the game tense and fast-moving game to play. This is a COIN that I can actually teach to others — I could not have said that with previous COIN titles.
Feel the pressure of reporting and assembling a front page of a newspaper!
In Fit to Print, players take on the roles of editors-in-chief assembling the front page of the tiny town of Thistleville’s newspaper to be balanced with news stories, photos and advertising. All of these items are represented in over 130-plus unique block tiles, which are placed in the middle of the table face down. The game goes through three rounds: Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with each subsequent newspaper front page getting larger. Fit to Print captures the stress of a daily deadline when laying out your newspaper, all wrapped up in a cutesy theme of woodland creatures. When I brought this to a game night recently with some journalist friends to play, one lady said she had stress dreams later that night about missing the deadline. It’s an enjoyable real-time puzzle for 1-6 players, but it’s up to you how fast-paced you want your games to go.
This gorgeous euro is trying to continue Mozart’s legacy.
The theme drew me into Lacrimosa and it’s the gameplay that has me coming back to this game again and again. Mozart is dead and his final wish was to finish composing the Lacrimosa movement of his Opus Requiem. Players work as Mozart patrons helping to sell or exhibit his works, commission missing parts of the requiem and travel across Europe to various courts and theaters. Lacrimosa is a deckbuilder that isn’t a true deckbuilder but instead filled with multi-use cards that you can upgrade later by buying stronger cards. You draw a few action cards each turn and decide to use them for actions or rewards based on how you tuck them into your dual-layer player board. It’s a gorgeous board that beautifully merges a strong theme and euro-style gameplay, something that doesn’t happen too often in board games!
Did you guess my top game of 2023 was Votes for Women?
What can I say about this game that I haven’t already? I am constantly talking about this game and bring it with me to every convention I go to in order to teach it to whoever wants to play it. Votes for Women is a card-driven game in which each side has its own set of cards. The goal of the game is two-fold. The suffragists want to push to Congress the 19th Amendment and campaign to have 36 states ratify it. The Opposition will try to prevent Congress from proposing the amendment or if they fail to do that, have 13 states reject the amendment. Votes for Women is a game that I can see myself in (a rarity in this hobby). It’s a game that new gamers and experienced gamers alike can play. I like it best as a 2-player but it can be played 1-4 players, with various team options for the suffrage side and the opposition. The game is beautifully done with awesome components, with lots of history in the cards as well as replicas of historical documents relating to the historic moment in women’s rights.
So that’s my top 10 games that I played for the first time in 2023. Which ones have you played? And what is on your top 10 list? I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, and here’s to a wonderful 2024. Some of my new year’s resolutions include playing more games more regularly, and possibly attending a convention that I have yet to attend.
This review of Votes for Women is featured on Episode 134 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features HerStory, Detective Rummy, Steam Up and Don’t Talk to Strangers.
There are very few board games where I can imagine myself in. Did I, as a young Filipina lady growing up in Los Angeles, ever dream about trading in the Mediterranean or breeding sheep in the German countryside? No, of course not. But joining in the women’s suffrage movement and being eternally grateful for those people who helped usher in my right — and many other women’s rights — to vote? Sign me up! That’s a game I wholeheartedly support. Votes for Women, a game that came out in 2022, is equally educational and enjoyable.
And if you are the type of gamer that thinks, oh, this game is just so political (an actual review I’ve seen online about this), well feel free to skip ahead. Just move along, sir.
Votes for Women is a card-drive game that plays 1 to 4 players in about 60-75 minutes.
Votes for Women, designed by Tory Brown and art by Brigette Indelicato and Marc Rodrigue the second, is published by Fort Circle Game, which designs historical games with a particular focus on United States political and military history.
Indeed, the women’s suffrage movement that ended with the women’s right to vote in the United States happened just a little over a hundred years ago. That is not too long ago in the grand scheme of American history, and something we should work hard to not let the younger generation forget and take for granted.
Votes for Women is a card-drive game that plays 1 to 4 players in about 60-75 minutes. I’ve only played this game as two players — one for the suffrage movement and the other for the opposition — but you can play this game with either two suffrage players and/or two opposition players.
Each side has their own deck of cards for gameplay. Buttons also let you reroll dice.
Having that kind of flexibility is great because I foresee this game as being introduced to gamers and non-gamers alike. And having teams for two suffrage players can make the barrier to entry for playing this CDG less daunting. Additionally, the rulebook is 12 pages. How amazing is that? How many historical games can you say has a rulebook that’s easy to follow?
The game is beautifully designed, with a map of the U.S. and many wooden pieces that include an array of campaigners, green checkmarks, red X’s, influence cubes, and an assortment of dice. The game also includes a historical supplement and copies of historical documents during that time. Pretty neat for those who want to learn more about this!
The goal of the game is two-fold. The suffragists want to push to Congress the 19th Amendment and campaign to have 36 states ratify it. The Opposition will try to prevent Congress from proposing the amendment or if they fail to do that, have 13 states reject the amendment. Each side receives their own deck of cards to play during the game, which, if you’ve ever played other CDGs, eliminates the fraught decision making with playing cards that would benefit your opponent. The tension in this game comes from the tug-of-war campaigning across the U.S.
Cards are phased with events during the early, middle and late part of the movements, complete with snippets of history and/or historical figures in the flavor text. This shows that a lot of research and care went into the development of this game, and not just slapping a theme on a tried-and-true mechanism commonly seen in wargames.
Game play goes for six turns, in which there are 6 rounds for each turn. On each round, the suffrage player or the opposition player plays a card either for the event, to campaign, to organize or to lobby. Players start with 7 cards each turn.
The opposition (pictured) and suffragist side both have campaigner meeples.
Playing a card for an event is just that. Follow what’s written on the card and then end your turn. To campaign, players roll a specific dice based on how many campaigners they have on the board, and then they add cubes to those regions that the campaigners are in. To organize, players discard a card and collect a number of support buttons based on how many campaigners they have on the board. And lastly, to lobby, players roll a specific die and if they get a 6, they can either remove or add a congressional marker to the track on the board. The suffragists need 6 of these to achieve one of the victory conditions, whereas the opposition doesn’t want the suffragist side to send the 19th amendment to Congress.
Only 9 state cards are randomly in play for each game. There are 12 altogether.
There are state cards also in play. If a player places a fourth influence cube in a state that’s in play, they gain the state card and can use its benefit on a future turn. There are also strategy cards that also offer a benefit that players can bid on at the start of a turn using support buttons.
There is a lot of strategy in the order of the cards you play. The suffragist side is also racing to send the 19th Amendment to Congress as it’ll lock down states who vote for it once four cubes are placed into that state. The opposition side, though clearly on the wrong side of history, feels like it has an uphill battle fighting against the two suffragist movements, which are represented by the purple and yellow cubes. For the suffragists though, either cube works toward their influence goals. The suffragists also start with two campaigners on the board, increasing the amount of resources and the ability to campaign across the map.
Winning strategy cards can give you special abilities to help your cause.
If the game reaches the end of turn 6, and the suffragists haven’t sent the 19th Amendment to Congress, they immediately lose. If it did get sent to Congress, and neither side has placed all their x’s or checkmarks onto the board, players enter Final Voting where they will go state by state w;ho’s undecided and roll a die to see who wins that state. If there are influence cubes on that state, they’re added to the dice roll.
The player who places their final X or checkmark wins the game. If I’m being honest, it’s such a great feeling when the Suffragists win, and it’s pretty defeating when the Opposition wins.
I love how the game comes with replicas of historical documents from the era.
For those people not familiar with the United States’ geography, this game can be a little difficult to navigate but the game provides a reference sheet to help you with states’ locations.
There’s a beautiful quote from the game designer Tory Brown included in the game’s historical supplement book. It reads “I created Votes for Women as a love letter to one of the most successful movements in American history.” Votes for Women is a wonderful love letter that everyone should dive into.
I got a chance to meet Tory in person at SDHist Con, and it was such a pleasure hearing her talk about the design process and what inspired her. And just a few days ago, the convention announced that Votes for Women is the winner of this year’s Summit Award.
I got to meet Tory Brown during SD Hist Con this year!
And that’s Votes for Women! This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok as Meeple Lady, or on my website, boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to vote! Bye!
On Nov. 2, 2023, I made the trek from Phoenix to San Diego for SDHist Con, an annual historical board game convention that was founded by game designer Harold Buchanan. This year it was held on Nov. 3-5, 2023. It’s my second time attending the convention in person, and after last year’s convention, I knew this one was a must-attend-every-year convention for me. This year, about 150 tickets were handed out, a combination of gamers, designers and publishers alike. It’s the convention to playtest and pitch your game, meet with wargaming companies, and, just overall, enjoy the sea, sun and seafood that San Diego has to offer!
SDHist Con held a meet and greet the night before the convention at Eppig Brewing.
I arrived late Thursday afternoon, checked into my airbnb (though there are plenty of motels and hotels near the convention location), and met up with Dan Bullock before heading to Eppig Brewing for a pre-convention meet and greet. SDHist Con provided pizza and salad and reserved space for convention goers at an outdoor beer garden overlooking a San Diego marina. I tried all the sour beers Eppig had and they were all quite tasty.
Dan Bullock and I went over and ran into Candice Harris of BGG!
I met some cool people for the first time and I really enjoyed the evening. More conventions should schedule a meet and greet beforehand! It’s a great time to meet new people in a low-key social setting before diving head-first into nonstop gaming the following morning.
Me with Candice Harris (center) of BGG and Liz Davidson of Beyond Solitaire.
Friday
On Friday morning, SDHist Con began! This year’s convention was held at the S.E.S. Portuguese Hall of San Diego nestled in the Point Loma Marina area of San Diego. There are lots of restaurants, coffee shops and breweries within walking distance, including Point Loma Seafoods, a seafood counter place where you can buy food and eat at picnic tables overlooking the marina. The hall was such a great location, and it’s quite near the airport, so you don’t really need a car to get around, unless you’re exploring more of San Diego.
SDHist Con was held at the SES Portuguese Hall in San Diego.
First up, I ran into Alex Knight, designer of Land and Freedom: The Spanish Revolution and Civil War. I really enjoyed his game when I played at Consimworld this past fall and was excited to meet him in person and ask him to sign my game. It’s a great historical game that plays at 3P, fighting against a common enemy while trying to balance your faction’s needs.
Met designer Alex Knight for the first time!
My first game of the con was Shores of Tripoli from Fort Circle Games, a card-driven historical wargame on the First Barbary War. It’s a 2-player game (the Tripolitania and its allies, vs. American and its allies) and I played as the side of the Americans. Each side had their own deck, and the game takes place over 6 years,starting in 1801, with four seasons (a card play each season) in each year. Army. If neither player has achieved victory by the end of 1806, the game ends in a draw. It’s a neat card-driven game that plays in about an hour. Those who played Shorts of Tripoli (there were four games simultaneously going) were entered into a raffle, and I won a copy of the game!
Playing Shores of Tripoli by Fort Circle Games. I’ve been enjoying their games!
I stopped by to see Dan doing a demo of his game Blood and Treasure. This is such a great game, and I really hope a publisher picks it up soon! I’ve played it twice before and think it’s such a unique game.
Dan Bullock’s Blood and Treasure prototype about military contracts during the Afghanistan War.
I then signed up for a teach of Matthias Cramer’s The Promised Land, a game that covers the Israelian-Arabian conflict between 1960 (end of War of Independence) and 1978 (Camp David). It’s a card-driven mostly political game, but players can go to war while also negotiating the peace treaty as well. The game has a lot of tracks, and in addition to playing a card from your hand, some dice rolls can determine which actions you can take.
Matthias Cramer has a new prototype called The Promised Land.
I learned the game with all these cool people. We played through one war to get the gist of the game before our scheduled time was up. So many games, so little time!
A bunch of us learning The Promised Land with the designer himself! Matthias Cramer is on my left.
Next up was Molly House. This was the game I was most excited to check out at this convention! Molly House, which just wrapped up its BackerKit campaign, is the latest from Wehrlegig Games. Players take the roles of the gender-defying mollies of early 18th century London. Molly House has masquerade balls, back alleys for cruising and moments of joy within the queer community. But, there could be a constable among you that’s threatening to ruin all the fun!
Molly House was such a fun experience! I can’t wait until this comes out!
I love the inclusive and unique theme, and I know when the final product is released, the components will be top-notch. This demo included fun fancy pieces, and I immediately backed the game after playing it at the con.
I then attended a panel on creating written content, which was hosted by Andrew Bucholtz, and featured Dan Thurot, Candice Harris of Board Game Geek, and The Players Aid. SDHist Con has an entire schedule of panels and discussions in addition to scheduled gaming in the main hall.
SDHist Con had a whole schedule of panels during the con. Here, Andrew Bucholtz (from left) leads the panel with Dan Thurot, Candice Harris of BGG and the Players Aid.
It was really neat listening to all the panelists discuss their backgrounds and how they got into creating board-game content. I always love listening to fellow writers to get some inspiration! Plus, I got to meet the Players Aid guys for the first time!
I got to meet the guys at Players Aid! They have so much good wargaming content on their channels!
After dinner, I played an unnamed 2-player card prototype from Joe Schmidt. It’s a quick area control that is played out over three rounds, and the map itself is just four different cards, with the player first to 7 points wins the game. Meeples are either pawns (when they’re lying down) or knights (when they’re standing up) Your card has an initiative number, one of two actions you can do, and where the action can take place. It was really easy to pick up and doesn’t require a lot of space on table (or in your bag!), while still being tense and enjoyable.
Joe’s Schmidt’s prototype was a card game on area control where you use knights and pawns. Interested to see how this will develop!
I then played Lost Legacy, a spin-off of Love Letter, where you draw and play a card, with the hopes of finding the “Lost Legacy” card. I had so much fun playing with these cool folks that I actually forgot to take a photo of the game itself!
Joe Schmidt, Liz Davidson, Dan Thurot and Cole Wehrle are about to play Lost Legacy, and Drew Wehrle stopped by for the photo!
I then taught a game of My Favourite Things, a trick-taking icebreaker card game that’s one of my absolute favorites! You never really know how this game will play out when playing with people you don’t know too well, considering a lot of these people I met for the first time in real life at this convention. But it was a hit! My demo copy of the game was sent to me from the publisher, so this may or may not be the final look of the game.
My Favourite Things is just delightful chaos. Look at all the different categories written here.
Players pick a category and ask their neighbor to write down their top 5 favorite things in that category, plus one they hate, into these card sleeves, at the end covering up their number ranking when you slide the card back into the sleeve. You then play these cards as a trick-taking game, guessing the best way you can about which items are ranked more favorably than others. We got some absurd categories and even more absurd things. It was a riot! It was such a fun way to end the first day of SDHist Con.
Saturday
I began Saturday by teaching Lacrimosa. I always bring a few games with me to SDHist Con in case anyone would be interested in playing a non-wargame. I taught a 3P game and everyone seemed to enjoy it! The theme is unique – we did have a few “Weekend at Bernie’s” jokes about Mozart traveling across Germany – and the components and dual-layer player boards are just exquisite.
Growing Mozart’s legacy after his death in Lacrimosa.
I then had lunch at Point Loma Seafoods. SDHist Con actually had this place on the convention schedule, which provided an easy option for gamers to have lunch, plus a good reminder to get some food to fuel your day. I had some fish and chips. I was not disappointed!
I ordered some fish and chips are Point Loma Seafoods. So yum!
I then played Fire and Stone: Siege of Vienna 1683, which places you in one of the most dramatic sieges in history. Each player has their own set of cards, and you’ll be playing them to attack, dig tunnels and advance your forces, while your opponent is doing exactly that, or you can use the event written on the card. I enjoyed taking my Ottomans toward the Habsburgs in the Vienna capital.
Fire and Stone is a 2P wargame about sieging or defending the city of Vienna.
Fire and Stone plays in about 60-90 minutes, and with its familiar card-driven mechanism and large hex-based map (instead of a daunting map of teeny-tiny ones), it’s one that makes it perfect as a finalist for the 2023 Summit Awards.
SDHist Con founder and game designer Harold Buchanan!
The Summit Award aims to recognize a historical board game published in the preceding year that most broadened the hobby through the ease of teaching and/or play, uniqueness of topic, or novel approach. I’ve played all four of the Summit Awards nominees, and they’re all different yet fantastic games. I’ve reviews Stonewall Uprising and Votes for Women on The Five By, and John Company I had the pleasure of playing at last year’s SDHist Con with Cole and Drew Werhle! The diversity of these games’ themes and accessibility of gameplay are what I would love to see more of in the historical gaming corner of our hobby.
Tory Brown, designer of Votes for Women, talking about the game’s map.
I then attended a seminar from Tory Brown, the designer of Votes for Women! I seriously was fangirling the entire time. I’ve taught Votes for Women countless times, to experienced gamers and newer gamers alike. The game has appealed to my girlfriends simply because of the topic, and with that, they jumped into a wargame they wouldn’t otherwise and learned what a CDG is. Tory’s seminar also reiterated how much time and commitment it takes to design a game. She said she started in earnest in April 2020, in the midst of the early pandemic, and worked on the game full time, which was finally released earlier this year. I don’t know how all you designers do it! Props to you all and your time-management skills.
It was so lovely to meet Tory Brown! I asked her to sign my game.
I then stopped by to listen to the start of a demo for Tyranny of Blood: India’s Caste System Under British Colonialism, 1750-1947 by Akar Bharadvaj. The game is the winner of the 2021 Zenobia Award, which is both a competition and a mentoring program in which game designers from underrepresented groups develop and submit historical tabletop game prototypes. I didn’t get a chance to play Tyranny of Blood but hopefully next time!
A look at the Tyranny of Blood prototype by Zenobia winner Akar Bharadvaj.
I then played one of the new factions in Ahoy by Leder Games. Like with all Leder Games, this game just looks so darling, and I have fun playing the Blackfish Brigade. Ahoy is a lightly asymmetrical game where two to four players take the roles of swashbucklers and soldiers seeking fame on the high seas. The latest Backerkit campaign introduces four new factions, one of which is the Blackfish Brigade whales.
The Blackfish Brigade is one of the four new factions for Ahoy.
In Ahoy, you roll dice at the start of the round and use those dice to fill in sections of your board to take actions. The actions may have certain dice requirements, which will affect which actions you can do on your turn. I did a lot of moving my whale pod around and dropping off fins in order to score area-control points at the end of the round.
Look at all the cute components in Ahoy!
A big group of us went to get Asian dumplings for dinner down the street at Meet Dumpling. The sweet corn and chicken dumplings hit the spot for me. Look at this fun group!
Alex Knight (from left), Cole Wehrle, Liz Davidson, me, Dan Bullock, Taylor Shuss, Dan Thurot and Drew Wehrle get dinner at Meet Dumpling.
We then walked over to Craft Creamery for some ice cream, and I seriously squealed when the ice cream of my childhood was being sold at this shop. I spent a lot of time at Fosselman’s Ice Cream after school and totally had to order ube ice cream.
I had to get ube ice cream from Fosselman’s, which was being sold at Craft Creamery.
When we got back to the hall, the giant Liberty or Death board game was about to start. Look at the costumes!
Giant Liberty or Death, costumes optional!
I then ran my largest game of Fit to Print yet at 6P. This game is so, so fun! There’s nothing like being on deadline! Upkeep at 6P was a little daunting but everyone was having a good time analyzing their front page and what they could do better in the next round that nobody seemed to mind the time I spent adding up the scores.
My glorious Sunday front page! Just ignore the white space though.
Sunday
On Sunday morning, I attended the SDHist Con board meeting, as the public was invited! They talked about the state of the convention, what events are planned for next year, and just overall how they can increase diversity and accessibility at their events. I love hearing discussion on this because it’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. There have been countless times I’ve attended events where I’m the only person who looks like me and have even been asked if I’m waiting for my husband or boyfriend. I was not, thank you very much, I was there to play some games.
The awesome people who make up the SDHist Con member board and advisory board.
SDHIst Con is a convention where I’ve never felt out of place and have always been welcomed. I love schmoozing with all the game designers, listening to their design process, learning new games, and understanding the ins and outs of publishing without our hobby. There’s so much helpful knowledge and feedback being passed around at this intimate, laid-back and friendly convention. And bonus, you also learn a lot of about historical battles and moments in history that people are very passionate about!
The last game of the convention was Heat: Pedal to the Metal, which I was happy to play alongside Harold, fearless leader of SDHist Con! I’ve been playing Heat a lot on Board Game Arena lately, so I was familiar with the game, but it can’t compete with zooming your little plastic car around a hairpin turn and pressing luck by not spinning out.
The last game of the convention for me: Heat!
And with that, three days of gaming in San Diego came to a close and I began my drive back to Phoenix, which takes about 5.5 hours. Not too bad! I don’t have the dates yet for next year’s convention, but I’ll definitely be there again! I’d love to spend some extra time in San Diego, too, next year.
Lastly, here are the games I acquired during the convention. I purchased Dan’s The Gods Will Have Blood, a solo game set in France in April 1793 about presiding over trials and influencing the legitimacy of the court, a copy of Shores of Tripoli that I randomly won for playing, and Shikoku 1889. Thanks, Grand Trunk Games for giving me a copy! I can’t wait to get it on table!
I got a chance to play The Gods Will Have Blood a few days after leaving San Diego. What a cool solo experience! Shikoku 1889 is the last one of this group I haven’t played.
Thanks for reading, friends! Let me know if any of these games look interesting to you. And if you made it all the way down here, here’s a cute photo I took of a driver and his canine companion in San Diego. It’s a sunwoof!
