Growing up, my family would take lots of road trips to various points of interests, national parks and other cool locales. We all would even camp at Yosemite for an entire week during our summer vacations. For years, I was the sole setter-upper for my family’s tents. I actually had my own tent growing up, which ended up being really scary this one time bears terrorized our campsite. But that’s a story for another time.
My fondness for road trips and national parks still lingers to this day. And what better way to celebrate national parks by trekking across the country to visit them?
Trekkers travel across the U.S. visiting national parks and score victory points.
Trekking the National Parks is a 2-5 player game that plays in about 30-60 minutes. Designed by Charlie Bink, this second edition has been published by Underdog Games, a new publishing company that Bink has co-founded. The family-friendly and educational board game has players racing across the country to visit national parks and gain victory points.
Before the game starts, 45 stones are randomly drawn from the bag and placed on each location on the map. The game comes with six Major Park cards, but only three are randomly selected for each game. The Park cards are shuffled and placed face down next to the board, and three cards are picked from the deck and placed face up.
Each player then receives two Trek cards, and then five cards are placed face up next to the board to make a market. The rest of the Trek cards will be face down in a deck next to the board. Lastly, players take tents in the color of their choice and a player aid, and place their Trekker meeple on the Start position of the map.
Look at this adorable first-player marker and wooden tents! I also love that each person gets a player aid.
The person to most recently visit a national park becomes the first player. They receive the brown bear meeple. Isn’t he darling?
On a player’s turn, they can take exactly two actions. Players can take the same action and do each action in any order. The available actions are:
Draw a Trek card
Move
Claim a Park card
Occupy a Major Park
Drawing a Trek card allows you to take the other future actions, either move or collect icons to claim a Park card or Occupy a Major Park. Cards have a number on them as well as an icon. Note: the number on the card is not the quantity of the icon. Each card has exactly one icon on it. The hand size limit is 12.
Each card has a number, to be used for movement points, and a single icon, which will help you claim or occupy park cards.
To move your Trekker, you must spend one or more cards from your hand to move along a trail on the map. The combined value of your cards must exactly match the number of spaces you’re planning to move. You cannot move through other Trekkers.
If you finish your movement in a space where another Trekker is sitting, that Trekker gets bumped and placed back at the Start position. I’m not going to lie — that’s pretty fun to do. Lastly, if there’s a stone at your final landing spot, you can pick it up.
To claim a park card, you must reveal the exact number of icons from your hand to match one of the Park cards shown face up next to the board and be at the location of the card. Claiming these Park cards nets you victory points.
Each Park card has icon requirements, which will give you victory points when you claim it, and a fact about the national park itself.
The last action is Occupy a Major Park. To occupy a Major Park, you must be at the location of the Major Park and you must reveal cards from that hand that match the number of icons on the card. When you do this, you place one of your wooden tents on the card, unlocking a special ability for you and gaining victory points at the end of the game. This is a neat addition to this second edition. I like how only three Major Park cards are chosen for each game so each game is a bit different.
The red and yellow player have pitched their tent in the Everglades, one of the three Major Parks used in this game.
The game end is triggered when all the stones on the map are collected, or when a player claims their fifth Park card. When this happens, game play continues until everyone has had an equal number of turns for the game. You’ll remember who started the game as they have the bear meeple.
In addition to the victory points for Major Park and Park cards you’ve acquired, you also get bonuses for collecting the most stones. The first-place and second-place winners of each color will get bonus points.
Give me all the stones! Collecting the most of each color will get you VPs at the end of the game.
Trekking the National Parks is perfect for your game collection if you love national parks or are looking for a family game that has the same weight as Ticket to Ride. I also love the personal backstory from Bink and his parents, who had the goal of visiting all the major national parks in the U.S. The park cards contain a fact about each national park and feature photography from Bink’s dad, John. The rulebook also lists information about the rest of the parks that aren’t trail locations on the map.
The game does have some changes from the first edition. For starters, it only now plays five players instead of six. Occupying a Major Park is also new, and getting those extra powers is a nice touch to the game.
The bonuses for collecting the second-most stones of the different colors are also new. However, the stones are now made of plastic. I do miss the pretty gems of the old game, but I’ll gladly take these plastic stones for the wooden tents and the brown bear, which is the cutest first-player marker ever.
If you’re interested in purchasing the game, click here. And while you’re there, learn more about Underdog Games.
Thank you Underdog Games for sending me Trekking the National Parks!
I’ve recently been venturing down a road I’ve never been down before … Dungeons and Dragons.
When non-gamers first learn that I play board games, they often ask, “Oh, like Dungeons and Dragons?” And I would respond, “Nope, not exactly.” I wasn’t one of those gamers who grew up playing D&D or role-playing games. I actually didn’t know anyone who played D&D my entire childhood.
This is a module from Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition, which my buddy has a bunch of.
My only run-in with an RPG was at Game On Expo, and that was a complete accident. But I had such an exciting first-time experience that I wanted to explore what else RPGs had to offer. I’m also probably spoiled that my first dungeon master (DM) was friendly, helpful and wickedly creative. (I mean, he has to be if he’s a co-host of the RPG podcast Full Metal RPG, right?)
I mentioned to one of the guys in my core gaming group that I had fun playing an RPG. He’s like, let me know if you want to do a campaign.
Well, here we are folks, after a few sessions, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’m totally upping my nerd level. Woot woot!
Our DM Mark has an entire office library of D&D modules, guidebooks, miniatures and the whole nine yards to lead us on this journey. We are playing second edition D&D and doing “The Keep on the Borderlands.” (No spoilers, people!)
Lots of reading materials for Dungeons and Dragons! He seriously came over with two backpacks full of books and accoutrements.
We’ve only had a few sessions so far. The first session was strictly to generate characters and fill out our character sheets. Man, there are a lot of numbers for that! When I played Dungeon Worlds at Game On, the characters were mostly preset with minimal number filling.
When you start from scratch like we’re doing, we had to decide our characters’ race and class, and, based on that, roll to figure out their ability scores. That took some time because two of us had never played D&D before and we were thumbing through the player’s handbook to get a sense of what each character does. And when those are calculated out, we had to look up the breakdown of each ability based on their scores.
We then had to figure out what equipment each character was carrying and their proficiencies, and a whole host of other things. My two characters are Clara the Cleric, who is human, and Furiosa the Fighter, who is the dwarf. I do love alliteration and use it any chance I get.
Furiosa the Fighter has a cool fire ring. This sheet is double-sided and contains a lot of information.
One thing I realized when we were generating characters was that I had to acquaint myself with all the many different dice. Most people are accustomed to the typical 6-sided dice, but when our DM tells you to roll a d10, I honestly was spending a few seconds to count sides on my dice before picking it up.
To make things easier, I lined up my dice so that I can keep track of which is which. When I posted this photo last week, I was glad to hear that I’m not the only one who has difficulty differentiating the dice when they first enter the world of RPGs.
All the different dice. It took me so much willpower to not purchase any fancy dice at the last game convention I was at. There were some pretty sparkly ones. These ones came from Mark, and they’re lovely as well.
Anyway, wish us luck on our adventure! In addition to my weekly game night, we’re scheduling a separate D&D night, too. In the few sessions we’ve had, I’ve already learned that when there’s a fire, you should probably go over and help. That misstep sent our story zagging off into another indirect direction when we first set off.
Lastly, here’s a clip that we’ve been joking about in our group, saying this is how Mark probably feels DM-ing us newbies.
So, tell me about your first forays in D&D, and do you still play it?
I asked the guys what a mancatcher was and said I needed one of those, and NOBODY laughed at my joke. Sheesh.
I had the pleasure of dropping into one day of Strategicon in Los Angeles this past weekend. I love going to this convention, as I can visit family while board gaming, to make for a really productive weekend. I arrived early on Saturday morning ready to start gaming with wonderful folks from the board-gaming community. I was very excited to meet Jac, Ben and Albert, as well as see Ruel again, all of whom I had scheduled various games with.
We’re gaming early! Well, at 10 a.m. It was wonderful meeting Jac, Albert and Ben, who just moved to the U.S. recently, in real life!
Our first game for the day was Newton with Jac, Ben and Albert. Even though I had played this game already at Gila Monster, I totally didn’t mind playing it again. This game is super combo-tastic! Jac did an excellent job teaching Newton, and I loved being around her positive and enthusiastic energy. Albert and Ben were also equally fun to hang out with, as all of us ended up gaming together the entire day!
In this game of Newton, I didn’t do as well as my first play of it. My cards did not work as well together this time. We decided to draft cards for our masters, and it really helps even the playing field. (We didn’t draft in my first game of it.) So if you get a chance to play Newton, I highly recommend drafting so that no one player can be overpowered.
Newton is a great midweight game by the same designer who did Lorenzo Il Magnifico, which I love, and Grand Austria Hotel.
Next up was Trickerion, which I volunteered to teach. Ruel was supposed to join us, but his previous game and math trade ran long so he was unable to make it. I brought my beloved copy from home, which includes a gorgeous Meeple Realty insert. This game is a beast to teach, and I’m lucky that the group was patient with me, as there are so many things to remember. I do love this game so much.
Trickerion is one of my absolute favorite games! It’s a heavy worker-placement game that has programming and puzzly aspects. And the board is just gorgeous.
During our game of Trickerion, I ran into Michael of Unfiltered Gamers. We first met at Arizona Game Fair, where we were both part of the “So you want to be a game reviewer?” panel. Michael is a veteran content creator, and it’s always great talking shop with him and learning from him.
Got a chance to catch up with Michael of Unfiltered Gamers, who is based in Southern California, since meeting for the first time in February at Arizona Game Fair.
The gang and I then took a quick dinner break in shifts, as we didn’t want to lose our table in the basement. I love going to Strategicon, but my only complaint is that the basement is HOT AS BALLS. Either the air-conditioning isn’t as strong downstairs or the lack of air circulation, combined with the size of the crowds, makes the entire basement level really, really uncomfortable.
We found ourselves surfacing to the main level to get stronger air-conditioning and fresh air. The basement level holds open gaming and some RPGs, while the main convention floor is strictly for the scheduled gaming. That floor, by the way, is absolutely freezing. I hope the folks who run the convention either get fans in the basement or boost the air-conditioning down there. And this is coming from a person who says 100 degrees in Phoenix is a nice day!
The insanely warm and stuffy basement, in an otherwise wonderful and fun convention.
I then reconnected with Ruel, as our gaming schedules finally aligned, and he taught Welcome To … to me and five other folks.
I love meeting and hanging out with all these cool folks from board-gaming community!
Welcome To is a fun roll-and-write where you’re trying to place numbers into your neighborhood, score objectives and maximize your points, but instead of using dice, the game uses three different decks of cards that are flipped over at each turn. What a neat little game! We played it twice, and it’s a nice short game can play a bunch of folks. The box actually says 1-100 people!
Building my neighborhood in Welcome To. I didn’t realize the blank space is for the name of your city, not your name. Welcome to Meeple Lady sounds a bit odd …
After Welcome To, I impromptu taught a game of Gunkimono, a new retheme of an underrated game I adore, Heartland, which is a cut-throat tile-laying game about farming. Gunkimono uses samurais instead, but I personally love the look and theme of Heartland.
Gunkimono is a retheme of an old classic I love, Heartland. You’re trying to score victory points or honor points based on tiles you put on the board.
I wanted to grab some air and get a drink so I resurfaced up to the ground floor. I ran into the Brothers Murph, who are on one of my favorite podcasts, This Game Is Broken. I completely fangirled out and told them how much I enjoy their antics on the show. They were both super nice!
It’s me and the Brothers Murph! (This is me totally trying to be chill but secretly fangirling inside.)
Lastly, I had time for one more game and busted out Sidereal Confluence. This game is absolute bonkers, and I’ve secretly been wanting to play this at a convention so I wrangle up a lot of folks to play with me! It’s a live trading/negotiation game that plays up to nine players in about two hours. Each player is a unique asymmetrical alien race trying to use their technology converters to create resources.
The thing is, though, you don’t have the resources to run your converters, but the other aliens do. And this is where trading comes into play. Sidereal Confluence plays through six rounds, with each round comprised of 10 minutes of trading, as well as an economy phase and confluence phase. Anything goes during trading, and agreements are binding or else you’ll lose victory points.
Sidereal Confluence is an asymmetrical live-trading card game. And yep, it’s just as fun as it sounds!
If you like trading games, this game is soooo much fun! And while the game is strictly just cards, Sidereal grows into quite a table hog as more converters come into play. In each round, alien races can also research technologies, which will net victory points for the researcher, and then that technology will be available for all players in the next round. When I first stated teaching the game, I could see some confused looks and, to be honest, I wasn’t 100 percent sure folks would be down for it. But they assured me they wanted to play, and everyone ended up having a good time. I know I sure did!
I got to run a seven-player Sidereal Confluence game at Strategicon. Achievement unlocked!
Note to self: I am definitely bringing Sidereal to every convention I now to go. It’s so much fun! I also believe that a higher player count makes for a better experience, as the resource economy isn’t so starved. And with that, my very full day of hanging out with amazing gamers came to an end. I know I say it often, but I’m truly lucky to be part of such an awesome community. I can’t wait to hit up Strategicon next year!
This profile on Dice House Games is part of an ongoing series about Friendly Local Game Stores I’ve visited. Read other profiles here.
I’m originally from Los Angeles, so I visit Southern California often to visit family. Whenever I’m driving back to Phoenix, I love to stop by Dice House Games in Fullerton. I’ve purchased games there before because the selection is huge, with floor-to-ceiling shelves of games. I think I may have even bought the store’s second-the-the-last copy of Battlestar Galactica a while back.
Dice House Games in Fullerton, California, has been open for 10 years.
Dice House Games is owned by Tuan Le, and he opened it over 10 years ago. It was almost by accident that he ended up in the board game business. In 1995, an ex-girlfriend of his suggested that he get a job at the now-closed Game Castle because, at the time, he was an artist and she thought the game store had artwork similar to his style and that he’d enjoy working there.
Le got a job at Game Castle, and, while working at there, he learned the ins and outs of operating a game store, eventually moving up to become general manager. When Game Castle closed down in 2008, Le figured he had the knowledge and wherewithal to open up a board game shop himself — directly across the street from where Game Castle had originally operated. (Game Castle moved to another location prior to its closing.)
Dice House Games is stocked from ceiling to floor with board games, Magic the Gathering, gaming supplies and miniatures.
Dice House Games has over 2,000 board games for sale in a space that’s about 1,000 square feet. Le said that gamers tell him that the store has the best selection of board games in Southern California. The store also sells Magic the Gathering cards, X-Wing miniatures, gaming supplies and, of course, lots of dice.
Games, games and more games! I do love this Doctor Who door cover.
The store’s location is also a major perk. It’s located just a few miles from the busy campus of Cal State Fullerton, which means that there’s a new batch of customers every year to keep the board game community thriving. And those customers who shopped at Game Castle also ended up shopping at Dice House Games as well.
“I love talking to people,” he said. “I treat my store like a bar. People come in, and we talk about family, life and the job. I love having that face-to-face interaction with people.”
Gamers were at the Dice House Games playing on a recent Sunday. Fun fact: I’ve gamed with one of these guys at Strategicon for Advanced Civilization, an epic game that went for over 13 hours.
Different nights of the week have different scheduled events for X-Wing play, Magic the Gathering or RPGs, with Sundays reserved for open board gaming. Gamers can bring a game to play or borrow one from the gaming library.
Le doesn’t game as much as he’d like to because he’s busy running the store. His favorite games are co-ops, and he loves Pandemic, Last Night on Earth and pretty much anything zombie related.
Tuan Le owns Dice House Games. He loves talking with the people who come into his store.
“I don’t like arguing,” Le said. “I don’t get much out of winning, personally. The social aspect of board gaming is really the most appealing thing to me.”
“It’s all about building the community and the gaming experience,” he said.
Information and photos
Dice House Games is at 2493 E Chapman Ave., Fullerton, CA 92831. It’s open seven days a week. You can find more information on its website and Facebook page.
Correction: The story has been modified to correct the year and location Game Castle closed.
This past Saturday, a large-ish group of us decided to meet up and play games, specifically new releases from Gen Con. It was an informal gathering of gamer friends who decided to try something new and shell out money to reserve a room at the Mesa Convention Center for an event dubbed Gila Monster. It was great seeing local friends and friends from Tucson, and, more importantly, we all plan to expand the guest list for next year.
Choo-choo! Who doesn’t love Russian Railroads at 8 a.m.? Yes, it’s insanely early for me, but I love this game so much that I didn’t mind teaching.
The day started super early at 8 a.m., and first up was teaching Russian Railroads to three other folks. This game is one of my absolute favorites, and I am always down to teach it. It’s a classic worker-placement game, and I love how the scoring ramps up with each round. I also own the American Railroads expansion, which is also great, but I didn’t want to throw that expansion into our learning game. The group had fun, and one couple actually purchased the game from someone at Gila Monster who was selling it. Score!
Next up was My Little Scythe. OH. MY. GOODNESS. This game is just too adorable! It has the same mechanisms of Scythe, but it really encourages you to be friendly to go up the friendship track. You’re still moving along the board, collecting resources and racking up trophies. You can also pick a pie fight, but really only to claim a trophy for winning a fight. There are cute gems and apple pieces. One person on the table said that she wouldn’t have ever picked up this game to play, but was really glad that I suggested we play it. It was delightful!
Let’s have a pie fight! These figurines are adorbs. And like Scythe, you can’t take the same action twice in a row.
I then jumped into a game of Coimbra, a new Gen Con release. This game is tracks galore! The dice are rolled at the start of each round, and players take turns drafting dice. (Your player board actually comes with these cute little dice houses that you place the dice in, so that people will know which dice you picked on the board.) You place your dice on certain tracks, which resolve in a specific order based on the number of pips, so that you can collect cards. These cards increase your income on resource tracks and give you certain abilities.
Coimbra is a great dice-drafting action-selection card-collecting game with four different resource tracks.
At the end of the round, the color dice you picked will you give you resource income based on where you are on that track of the same dice color. Whoa, right?!? So good and thinky balancing which cards you want to take with which dice (because the pips matter for turn order), and then ultimately, which income track you want to go up on. And the board is just colorful and gorgeous. Plus, dice houses!
Dice in Coimbra sit in these little houses so people will know who drafted the dice.
Next up, I played Newton, also another Gen Con release. This game is combo-tastic! It has the same feeling of Lorenzo Il Magnifico or Council of Four of a tight euro game in about 2 hours. You play cards onto your player board, which allow you to take a specific action depending on the symbol of the card. If you play another card with the same symbol in the same round, then that action’s strength will increase — either moving farther along your route or accessing more powerful cards or covering harder-to-reach bookcases.
In Newton, you’re traveling across Europe to meet with scientists, build new tools and discover new theories.
At the end of each round, you tuck one of your cards under your player board so that you have an extra power of that action type. So if collect cards that work well together, you can really crush it with a specific strategy. My scientists helped me cover my bookcase quicker, and I ended up picking up a card that gave me points for all the books I had — ensuring my path to victory. It’s so satisfying playing cards that all work well together.
Look at my pretty bookcase and all my books! Players play cards one at a time on their board to activate actions. At the end of each round, you tuck one card to have an extra strength of that action.
I also got a chance to play Reef. In Reef, players collect pieces of coral to place on their board and score points based on patterns or stack requirements from cards in their hands. The game is quick to teach and quick to learn. On your turn, you either play a card to collect coral and possibly score the pattern listed on the card. Or you can collect a card from the market. That’s it. The key is to collect cards that will give you resources to score points from cards you also have. We played this game in about 20 minutes, and that includes teaching. The pieces are so colorful and vibrant! It’s definitely eye-catching.
Reef has these gorgeous components. It’s a light puzzly game where you score points from cards in your hand based on stacks or pattern formations.
I then took a quick dinner break with friends to Republica Empenada in Mesa. It was my first time going, and I immediately regret not stopping by this place sooner. This place is so yummy! I ordered two empanadas: a jalapeno potato popper and a chicken one. They were both yummy, but I loved the jalapeno popper one better. For dessert, I ordered a banana cream empanada. Heaven! (Banana cream pie is my favorite pie). And I got a Maui Brewing Co. Coconut Porter to wash it all down.
These empanadas are the bomb! Definitely worth checking out this place if you’re in downtown Mesa.
After dinner, I taught some folks Forbidden Sky, which, in my opinion, is the hardest of the Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert family. It has some neat elements we’re battling — literally! There’s wind trying to push you off the sky island, and lightning that will lower your health points. And then building the sky island with the tiles is much more puzzly because you have to get the rocket ship’s components out as well as the launch pad. I taught the game because I had recently played this game.
Once all the components are on the board, you’ll have to wire them together from lightning sources, and all the players need to get to the launch pad (cue my Arnold voice here) before someone dies or the storm threat level maxes out. One guy ended up dying, so we all lost. Womp womp. But the game has an awesome rocket ship! It makes a little blast-off noise when the components are all wired up, which is pretty neat! I totally forgot to take a photo of our game, but here’s a video of the rocket ship in a game I recently played. We also lost then.
The last game I played is an oldie but goodie: Tzolk’in. Full disclosure, I like lugging this game around because it’s excellent and also because I love my painted gears. Our three-player game played in about an hour because all three of us had played before. It was nice ending a full day of gaming with a game that was familiar and nobody had to teach it.
I love Tzolk’in! I think the wheel/timing mechanism is so unique!
And before you knew it, it was almost 10 p.m. and our room rental was about to expire. I had a lovely time gaming with good friends, friends I don’t usually see unless we’re at a convention. I’m also kicking myself for not learning rules for more games because there were a lot of new releases that I wanted to dig into but couldn’t find a teacher for. So for next year, I’ll plan on doing that.
And lastly, this event was an invite only among friends who wanted to try something new and if we’d have fun renting out a room to game. We definitely talked about expanding the guest list for next year with even more friendly gamers who play the types of games we do.
This past weekend, I was at the Game On Expo in downtown Phoenix at the convention center. Game On Expo is a large gaming convention that covers all types of gaming — from video games to arcades, to RPGs and board games.
The convention took place from Aug. 10-12, and among the big guests are voice actors from popular video games such as Overwatch and The Walking Dead series. There were guest panels, signings, a vendor hall, vintage arcade games and even a cosplay contest.
Lots of vendors sold artwork and other nerd-related merchandise. I think I see Link in this photo.
Attendees were also able to listen to music each night. I caught this band called Sergio and the Holograms, which literally was a dude and holograms of himself playing music. That’s actually kind of a brilliant idea, if you know how to play all the instruments!
it’s Sergio and the Holograms. This is a very cool concept, and the music was fun!
I also attended a panel hosted by voice actor Troy Baker. He told a story about how he initially rejected a gig to voice the Joker because he didn’t think he was good enough. The head of the video game finally convinced him that he was perfect for the part, and that was huge turning point in his career. The takeaway, he said, was to believe in yourself and don’t let doubt or fear get in the way of that.
Troy Baker gave some heartfelt advice regarding his career and his dreams during his panel.
Time for some board games
At Game On, the board-game library provided by Arizona Game Fair and Crit Hit organized scheduled board gaming among content creators in the Valley. My buddies GloryHoundd, Greg Dickson, and I were all on the schedule to showcase and teach some of our favorite games to conventiongoers.
It’s me with Andrew Long, who runs Arizona Game Fair and SpielPro.com, and GloryHoundd.
GloryHoundd taught me how to play Starship Samurai, an area-control and action-point game. The game comes with these detailed miniatures of all the samurai, which all have different abilities.
Here are two of the samurai miniatures for Starship Samurai.
For my scheduled demo, I picked Sentient because, in addition to it being my favorite, it’s a crunchy game that can be taught and played in about an hour, perfect for this convention’s atmosphere. There’s no way I’m busting out Lisboa to random passers-by — no matter how much I wanted to! A couple groups walked by looking interested in the game and sat down, so I was able to teach it and spread the love for this excellent, mathy game. Everyone ended up really enjoying, so that was a total win in my book!
One of the groups that came by to play Sentient. They all seemed to really enjoy the game.
A totally new experience
The biggest surprise for me at this convention was that I played an RPG — FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME. Yes, that’s probably a shocker to most of you folks, but I never grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons or anything of the like, and my core gaming group are all eurogamers, so it has NEVER EVER come up ever in any of my game days.
I randomly happened upon this game starting when I saw some friends sitting at a table. I asked them, “what are you guys playing?” Andrew Long of Arizona Game Fair responded, “An RPG.” I’m like, “I’ve never played an RPG before.” And he’s like, “Well, sit right down!” and before I could take off my backpack, a few character sheets were placed in front of me to pick from. I picked The Bard, and the GM, Adam of FullMetalRPG, was super friendly and helped me fill it out, and the game started. FYI, I named my Bard Lisboa. (You can take the lady out of board gaming but you cannot take the board gaming out of the lady.)
And we’re off on our Dungeon Worlds adventure!
I had no idea what to expect! It was like an interactive movie unfolding before my eyes. I kept staring down at my character sheet, trying to figure out all the different things my character could do, and a little freaked out as I had no idea what I should do next. As a true eurogamer at heart, I had to just let go and enjoy the ride on this chaotic adventure. We were playing out of Dungeon Worlds, which a lot of folks on Twitter said was a good one to get into as your first RPG.
One guy, another Andrew, kept randomly setting things on fire. (I think he was a giant lizard, but I wasn’t 100 percent sure). The arson kept angering the fish folk, leaving the Bard unable to use his true skills of conversation to diffuse the situation. One of the guys later was impaled by the giant trident, and in a deal with the God of Death, tried to kill me. The scenario then went downhill after that. I rolled for my last dying breath and was able to also make a pact with the God of Death, survived and took another traveling companion down. It was glorious. And lastly, there was a giant sea creature being ridden like a jet-ski by another character. End scene. It was loads of fun.
This cool guy hosts Crit Hit events all across the Valley.
Lastly, I’d like to thank Crit Hit for reaching out and having us showcase our favorite games. I had a fun time at Game On Expo and hope to see even more board gaming there next year!
Here’s Mario and me. Alas, still no love for Waluigi.
Last month, Jason Dinger did a giveaway on Twitter for a couple copies of Coal Baron: The Great Card Game, one of his favorite card games, and I won one of the copies! Thanks, Jason! How awesome is the board-game community! Prior to this giveaway, I had only vaguely heard of Coal Baron and didn’t even realize there was a card version of the original game. But man, this little card game really impressed me, and we’ve been having a great time playing it recently. Why aren’t more folks talking about this game?
Stacks of cards make up the various actions players can take in the game.
Coal Baron: The Great Card Game is 2-4 player game that plays in about 50-80 minutes. There’s no main board, just these long and narrow player boards that represent loading docks from which you collect lorries and build your trains. To begin, you sort the cards by types and place them face up on your table, with the lorry and wagon cards split into two piles each. But be warned, even though the game is essentially a bunch of cards, it does take up quite some space on your table.
The objective of the game is to efficiently collect lorries, build trains, complete orders and gain end-game scoring objectives. What I love most about this game is that it’s essentially a worker-placement game, in which your workers are represented by cards in your hand in various fix amounts. Each player has 10 worker cards: five 1s, two 2s, and one each of a 3, 4 and 5.
Each player has the same hand of worker cards. Spend them wisely or else you’ll get shut out of an action location.
To activate a location, you spend a worker card and take the card at the top of the stack. If you or another player wants to activate that same location, you must spend exactly one more worker to do. For example, if a location already has been activated with one worker, then you must spend two workers to activate that location — either by using two 1 cards or a 2 card.
Having a fixed amount of worker cards where you must spend exactly one more worker results in a pretty crunchy game regarding action selection. Do you activate this location now, or can you a wait a turn and spend more workers to do so — and have the exact amount of worker cards in your hand? Or maybe you’ll get shut out because you can’t add exactly one more worker to the action space. It’s such a tight balance of timing and hand management!
Here are examples of a lorry (left) and wagon card. The symbols have to match on the lorries, wagons and the row they’re being loaded into.
So what are the cards you can grab? You want to collect lorries, which will sit in a single row to the left of your player board. The order is important because you can only load the right-most lorries into your wagons. Wagon cards have symbols that can only sit to the right of your player board in the row that matches that symbol. Additionally, lorries have symbols on their cards, too, and can only be loaded into a matching wagons. Lastly, you collect one engine per row, and the row loads or expands until you make a delivery.
Players add lorry cards to the left of their player board, and build trains on the right side.
But before you make a delivery, which is an action spot in itself, you need to collect order cards. Order cards show where you’re delivering the goods and how many lorries are required before the order is complete. You collect the majority of your victory points through order cards and the VPs on most lorry cards.
Here are other cards players can get: engines, objectives, orders, innovation and share cards.
There are also innovation cards, which give you extra actions or workers. Lastly, there are share and objective cards, which work toward end-game scoring. In addition to the loading and delivery actions, there is a wild action card that allows you to look at the top four cards of any deck and keep one of them and placing the other three at the bottom of the pile. We call this the Scouting Action, a la Battlestar Galactica.
Different action cards dictate how many load actions you can do on your turn.
Players spend workers to take an action, and then pass if they have no more workers or are unable to spend the correct amount of workers to activate a location. After everyone passes, the shift ends, and the last player to activate a specific loading action takes an action-shift token, which is 1 VP each at the end of the game.
To take an action spot, you must spend worker cards. It gets more expensive the more the action is taken.
Depending on the number of players, the game continues for five, six or seven shifts. After the shifts are depleted, it’s the end of the game and players calculate their VPs and end-game scoring. Share cards are assigned to exactly one order that matches the location symbol on the card. The person with the most VPs wins the game. In the case of a tie, the person who received the last shift token wins the game.
I can’t say enough about how wonderful this card game is! I really enjoy the fact that it’s a true worker-placement game, but with workers as cards in your hand, which is a mechanism I don’t think I’ve specifically encountered before. Who else has played this game before?
It’s been two weeks since Consimworld (I had an LA trip in between since so I apologize for the write-up delay), and all I want to do is play more wargames! Consimworld, short for conflict simulation, is a wargame convention that lasts for eight days in Tempe, Arizona. You need eight days, because some of those games take literally three days to play!
I was lucky enough to be a special guest at the convention, now in its 18th year. I went the entire first weekend, and each day after I got off of work for the rest of the week. I got a lot of gaming in, folks! And of course, it was great seeing out-of-town friends and hanging out.
The front of the gorgeous Tempe Mission Palms, my home away from home for a week.
The convention is super informal; there isn’t a sign-up sheet for gaming. Instead, there’s an Excel file online and you can contact people who have expressed interest in playing a specific game. The only events scheduled are the Mega Games, which require official participation since they take a few days to play. There are also nightly seminars, a large flea market and an auction at the end of the week. I got an excellent deal for Thurn and Taxis at $20!
Consimworld is held at the Tempe Mission Palms, which is right off Mill Avenue in downtown Tempe. That means plenty of food options within walking distance and convenient light-rail access. Pretty darn sweet.
It was great seeing Harold Buchanan (center), of the San Diego area, and Dan Bullock, who is from Milwaukee.
My buddy Dan Bullock, designer of No Motherland Without, came into town and we started the first day by playing Pax Porfiriana, Churchill and John Company. I ended up losing Churchill on the die roll because I was 17 points ahead. It was a fun experience though as we played all 10 rounds, which was my first time playing the long scenario.
I ALMOST won Churchill as FDR in our long scenario. Alas, that die roll.
Harold Buchanan, podcaster and game designer of Liberty of Death, taught us the John Company. I ended up playing this game twice during the convention — first as a 6P and then as a 5P. I liked the experience much more as a 5P. John Company is so bonkers! There’s a lot of randomness in the game, but I’ve come to appreciate that at its heart, it’s a negotiation game moreso than an economic game, which is what I had originally thought it was going into the first game. I ended up winning my second game with zero points. ZERO?!?
Should we let the company burn? But I need to retire first! And watch out for that elephant. John Company is all kinds of bonkers.
Day 2 of Consimworld started with Fire in the Lake, my favorite COIN game from GMT Games. I’m most familiar with this war compared with the other COINs I’ve played, and the board is just gorgeous.
I love using my giant tweezers to pick up cubes.
Dan then picked up a copy of The Big Push, a new game from Hollandspiele, and he cracked it open and learned how to play the game right on the spot! I don’t think I could ever do that; the pressure would be so huge that I’d completely mess up a first play.
The Big Push is the newest game from Hollandspiele, who were at the convention selling games and gave a presentation.
The Big Push is a 2P World War I strategic card game in which you program your cards along various battle areas on the board, and resolve them. The order by which you resolve battles matters, and depending on which cards you play, you can add to your attack or defense value with leftover cards in your hands. Lots of tough decisions about timing and card play in a game that played in about 90 minutes. I’m still kicking myself for not picking up a copy. I did purchase Supply Lines of the American Revolution though!
Lots of tough decisions about where card placement, and if that battle is attacking or defending. Crunchy!
Dan, Harold and I then finished Day 2 with a game of play Battlestar Galactica, my favorite! I ended up being a cylon this time. One guy was being super shifty, so Harold brigged him and I became the CagMiral (Cag and Admiral). I was able to just let resources die down for the cylons to cruise into victory. It was marvelous!
About 270 people attended Consimworld, held at the same hotel for the past 18 years. There were 54 newcomers this year. Some attendees even came in as far as New Zealand and Japan!
I arrived on Day 3 after getting off work. I attended the Welcome Reception, where I learned that the convention has been going strong for 18 years! Even more impressive was that there were a group of folks who had attended every single year. The organizer, John Krantz, is now based out of Texas but used to live in Phoenix when he first started the convention and has kept it at the same location since its inception. Which is awesome for me as a local gamer! The reception also raffled off a lot of games!
Here’s me with John Krantz, organizer extraordinaire of Consimworld.
Dan and I also got a chance to play Flashpoint: South China Sea, Harold’s new game. Flashpoint is a 2P card-driven game that pits China and the U.S. in the hotly-contested area of the South China Sea. The Chinese player works to influence countries while the U.S. is works to maintain influence in the region and keep China in check. Meanwhile, tensions between the two countries can escalate through events and actions that take place.
We’re about to play Harold’s Flashpoint: South China Sea. And Tom Russell hung out with us, too!
The game takes place over four rounds in under 60 minutes, and Dan and I had the chance to play the prototype. At the start of each round, a new crisis card is flipped and the text is triggered. Each player then draws up to a hand size of seven event cards and selects a card to bid for initiative. On each event card, there’s a number for action points as well as an event. When bidding for initiative, the event does not trigger, and the person with the higher number on the selected card is the winner. The winner then gets to decide who goes first.
Here’s the prototype board for Flashpoint: South China Sea.
Players then take turns going back and forth playing a card and taking actions based on the action points on the card. In this phase, no matter what, the event always triggers first, and the text is supposed to be taken literally. Dan and I had to get out of the mindset, a la Twilight Struggle, that the event will only affect you negatively. Some of the event cards will say something like “Chinese remove 1 Economic influence from Vietnam,” which means that the Chinese player can remove either the U.S. or Chinese influence cube from the board. (They will likely remove their opponent’s cube, unless there aren’t any left. In that case, then they have to remove one of their own cubes.)
A sampling of the event cards for Flashpoint. The event always triggers first for this game.
After the round ends, countries are scored based on majorities, and players have the option to add add cubes from the Political Warfare track to boost majority. I really enjoyed playing Flashpoint! There’s so much tension in a relatively short game, making hard decisions about the order to play your cards or forgoing an action you had originally planned to instead reduce the Tension track so you can put influence cubes back on the map. Plus, it plays so quickly in 60 minutes, so every majority and VP matter. I can’t wait until this game comes out!
On Day 4, I attended an evening seminar from Hollandspiele. Tom talked about how he and Mary started the company, and how using a print-on-demand business model allowed them to enter the board-game publishing company. Thus, in having their own company, they can publish the idiosyncratic wargames that they want to.
Here’s me with Tom and Mary Russell, who are Hollandspiele. It was lovely meeting them and seeing how they work so well together.
On Day 5, I played The Grizzled twice and learned how to play Cataclysm: A Second World War. It’s a recent release from GMT Games, and the “learning round” took 2 hours to play. The game uses a chit-pulling mechanism, in which your flags and operations are placed into a cup or put on an initiative track. Play is determined by which chit is pulled, or if you’d like to use an interrupt with your chit on an initiative track.
One of GMT Games’ latest releases is Cataclysm. It’s a very long game, my friends.
I then spent the next two nights playing this game, and we only got to Round 5. The first two rounds breezed by, but by Round 3, whenever you do an action that’s next to another power, they get a flag that’s placed into the cup. So then the length of these future rounds exponentially gets longer as more and more chits need to be pulled from the cup. The box says the game lasts for 90-600 minutes. I believe that!
The Cataclysm maps usually go side by side, but we placed them this way because we were on a round table. So many chits!
On Day 6, I stopped by the room where Mr. President was on display. I sat with Gene Billingsley, Rick and Tom as they playtested a scenario for the upcoming title from GMT Games. Mr. President is a ginormous solo game about being president for four years, about advancing your agenda, dealing with diplomatic and war crises, and keeping the U.S. safe.
This is Mr. President. Not shown is a board to the left that dictates the round sequence and tracks your Cabinet, bipartisan cooperation, scandals and a whole host of other things.
This board is a giant map with a bunch of tracks that tell the story of your diplomatic relations and threat levels in various regions across the world. There are events from Crisis cards that come into play, and at its core, it’s a resource management game. It was so inspiring and humbling to sit in on the playtesting process where they were tinkering with various track values. These guys know so much about that point in history! Mr. President aims to give a deep and immersive experience for the solo gamer. But man, it looks so intimidating!
It’s always great seeing Gene! I hope to make it back to GMT Weekend one year.
Lastly, Harold interviewed me for his awesome podcast, Harold on Games. If I’m being honest, it’s always nerve wracking being on the opposite side of the interview chair. I’m used to interviewing people and asking the questions. Check out the episode and listen to all his other interviews as well!
I first met Harold over a year ago at Strategicon in LA. He hosts his own convention in San Diego in November called SD Historical Con.
And then just like that, an entire week of gaming passed. I had a great time at Consimworld, playing both old and new-to-me games. If you love wargaming, then this is the convention to be at. Next year’s dates are already set. Hope to see you there on June 22-29, 2019!
Thanks for having me, Consimworld! Can’t wait for next year!
I had heard about High Society from folks online because of its gorgeous artwork. Then the game went on sale for $10.99 from Book Depository (with free shipping!), and I immediately snatched up a copy without knowing anything about the game. And folks, I have no regrets!
Osprey Games reprinted this old Reiner Knizia game, which originally came out in 1995.
High Society is a bidding card game from Osprey Games that plays 2-5 people in about 20 minutes in which you’re hobnobbing with rich folks and showing off your fancy style while trying not to go broke. It’s designed by Reiner Knizia, and the artwork is done by Medusa Dollmaker in this 2018 reprint. The cards feature a diverse cast of characters, which is wonderful, all illustrated in an Art Nouveau-inspired style.
I seriously love this freaking artwork. Insert all the heart-eye emojis here.
There’s something about bidding games that makes my friends and me lose our freaking minds. It truly becomes this intense game of chicken, and we have so much fun egging on folks to make the next bid. Hilarious bidding escalation always ensures, but you cannot go broke or be the one with the least amount of money at the end of the game before the scoring phase or else you’re eliminated. The first time I played this, we immediately played it again a second time. It was that fun!
Up to five people can play High Society, and each player gets their own set of money cards.
Each player begins with their set of 11 money cards, in values from $1 to $25. As you can see, there aren’t cards for every value in this range. The money cards will be used to bid for various socialites as they come up in the deck. Socialites are worth different points, and some will double your points at the end of the game.
To bid, a player must play one or more money cards in an amount that’s higher than the previous bid. If you pass, you pick up all the money cards you just played and return it to your hand. You’re then out of the bid. The player who bids the most money wins the socialite and discards his or her money cards. The winner then flips over the next socialite card and starts the auction round again.
The disgrace cards. Check out that Scandale! card, also known as the panicked look of when you jump out of your lover’s window because their significant other has come home.
There are also three disgrace cards, which change the bidding ever so slightly. If you are unable to bid or outbid a previous bid on a disgrace card, you will end up taking the card. The disgrace cards either remove one of your socialites, reduce your score by 5 points or half the amount of points you have at the end of the game.
The four prestige cards, which work as the timer in the game. Geez, that Scandale! guy is seriously everywhere.
There are four cards with the green background in the deck, the prestige cards. When the fourth green card comes up, the game ends immediately. But before scoring can happen, the person with the least amount of money is instantly eliminated from the game. Then players can score their socialites, and the person with the most victory points wins the game!
High Society is a short, but delightful, bidding card game that’s easy to teach. The box is small and easily transportable, and the card quality is excellent. Plus, seriously, look at that art! The only people I see not liking this are those who don’t like bidding games. So if you don’t mind bidding games, High Society is a great card game to add to your collection. Who out there has played this?
On Jan. 1, 2018, my buddy Greg and I started a new podcast called Hooked On Geek. Every Monday morning since then, with the exception of June 4, a new Hooked On Geek episode came out. I had a great time doing it, but unfortunately, the time commitment was taking its toll on me, and this morning’s episode was my last one.
