Davecon 2014

 
As soon as the holidays are over I'm usually inundated with emails and Bookface messages that look a lot like this:

"When is Davecon this year?"

"Have you nailed down a date for Davecon yet?"

"Can Davecon be on a Saturday in late April or early May? My parents will be in town and I wanna use 'em as babysitters!"

"Why have you not responded to my previous four emails RE: Davecon?"

But it's a damned good thing that this happens. Every year I vow to hold this annual gaming event dedicated to my own galloping ego at the end of Winter for two reasons:

1. The fact that it's Shpringtime and I'm as happy as a little gurl. 
2. I don't wanna be stuck indoors on a day when the weather might even vaguely be nice. Sorry, but after I've been cooped up indoors for the past five months I feel a compulsion to crawl, Gollum-like, out into the sun and languish there for as long as I can stand it.

But, you know how it is, I always get super-busy and let things slide. Thank Bahamut that I've got so many enthusiastic and, *um*... email-savvy friends to light a fire underneath my lazy ass.

Knowing that people do need plenty of advanced notice to plan for such things in this wacky work-a-day world, I began the oft-protracted process of organization back on March 21'st. I started by surveying the group for an optimal date and April 26'th turned out to be the only Saturday in the foreseeable future which everyone had available.

Since things had gone rather well last year at Monster Comic Lounge I sent off the following missive to the store's owner on March 24'th:

Hey, Mike.
 
With the (theoretical) approach of Spring my people are bugging me for yet another all-day gaming thang at Monster Comic Lounge. Apparently last year's event went over really, really well with the horde.
 
As a refresher, here's the plan:

1. It's usually held on a Saturday in the month of April from open 'til close. 
2. I charge $5.00 a head which goes directly into a gift certificate purchased from the store.  This is given away as a door prize. 
3. I also do an "MVP" draw for the person who was the most fun to game with. If you wanted to donate some cheesy throwaway thing for a prize, that would be cool.  If not, I can provide something.
4. Last year we had just over 14 people attend.    

Would the back room be available a month from now: I.E. April 26'th?  

Thanks!

-Dave

Optimistically, I teased the group with the following Facebook message: 

"Stayed tuned folks, hopefully an official announcement is coming soon."

But then I waited. And waited. And waited. Pretty soon I started to get heat from the masses so I bashed out a follow-up on March 30'th:

Hey, Mike.

Did you get a chance to ponder this? The natives are getting restless.

Thanks!

Mercifully his reply came back later that same day:

This should be no problem. I'll double check the calendar tomorrow at the store and let you know. 

And then I waited. And waited. And waited.

Veteran attendee and chief under-ass-fire-lighter Dawn posted this passive-aggressive l'il missive on the event's Bookface page on April 1'st:

"No official announcement? Based on what people have said I tentatively booked the 26th with my parents. But I did say tentatively!! So no pressure, ha-ha!!"

"Ha-ha", indeed.

The next day I sent off another email, asking Mike if we were good to go. I heaved a sigh of relief when, just a few short hours later, the reply of "Yes, everything is set" came back.

So, for the record, Mike does answer email, he just doesn't answer the first email. He's kinda like a reverse Jacob Two-Two. Kidding! We love ya, Mike.

Anyway this was all I needed to make an official announcement to the group:

"It's official! Davecon 2014 will be held at Monster Comic Lounge (2091 Gottingen Street) from 10 AM until close on Saturday April 26'th!!!"

The event's Bookface page exploded with excitement. Commemorative photos and videos from past Davecons were shared. Transportation and luncheon plans were discussed. Most importantly, a speculative list of games that might be played were floated. This time out I vowed to make amends for my poor showing last year, so most of the titles I proposed to bring along would be quick to set up, teach and play.

But then, just six days later, I received the following troubling note from Mike:

Hi David,

I botched this date thing up royally. April 26th/27th is our Magic pre-release event, and we will be having 100+ people through those days for it.

We had not marked it on our calendar and somehow it slipped my mind. If you are ok with rescheduling we officially have April 19th and May 10th available if any of these are all right.
 
I will throw in some extra loot as a bribe for forgiveness for my blunder.

Let me know if this is all right with you.

Thanks,
Mike   

I sent this out to the group fully expecting a "TOO...MUCH...GUILT, MUST...LOG...OUT..OF... BOOKFACE..." communal reply. So color me relieved when everyone seemed to be okay with May 10'th as an alternative. Mike more then made up for his honest mistake by offering all Davecon attendees a tax-in deal for their purchases that day. Their reaction was understandable jubilant.

But despite my best efforts to to be pathologically inclusional, there would be a few conspicuous and unforeseen absences that day. Long time Davecon attendee / perennial Ultimate Werewolf moderator Dean got his wires crossed about the new date and ended up embroiled in some work-related obligations. To add to this, 2013 Door Prize Winner Chad (so memorable in last-years Werewolf game as "Anvil the Town's Blacksmith") and his son Malcolm (even more memorable as "Abs the Total Gym Salesman") had to bow out for an impromptu house showing.

I wont lie to you folks; this nearly killed me. Confession time: I'm kinda like John-Boy on The Waltons; I freak out whenever one of my extended family members are unaccounted for. For a moment I considered re-scheduling the whole shebang but I knew that wouldn't be fair to all the people who'd paid particular attention to the changes and made special arrangements to attend. As such, I decided to press on with the original plan.

Came the dawn, time to go. With Cheryl and Sabina in tow I raced down to the store.

As soon as the staff turned that front-door key, I bombed into the place to set up my orientation signage and snag some B-roll video footage.

People were already starting to arrive so I quickly finished up with this and scrambled back to the game room to set up the registration table. What I saw back there immediately made my heart sink. A good one-fifth of the space was occupied by an eight-foot-high stack of heavy comic book boxes.

"How many people do you have?" Mike casually asked.

"I'm not sure," I muttered in a daze. "Could be as few as ten or as many as twenty."

Mike winced and then gestured towards the cardboard elephant in the corner of the room.

"Sorry about all the boxes. Last Saturday was Free Comic Book Day and we were short on space, so we had to put some stuff back here temporarily. Eventually we're gonna move 'em out; we just need to find a place for it."

I made a concerted effort to tack a smile onto my face. Between my missing peeps and our lack of space, I was really starting to get pissed. This feeling intensified when several of my games fell off of the crowded registration table and landed on the floor.

'I'm done,' I silently vowed to myself. 'Done.'

After all of my obligatory housekeeping was done I finally started to calm down. By then, everyone who was going to show up, did. All told we had sixteen attendees this year: Angela, Audrey, Andrew, Cheryl, Claudia, me, Dawn, Jeremy, Joey, Mark, Matt, Mike, Sabina and three new peoples: Joey's friend Kelsey and some old work pals Ali and Shawn. My mood immediately lifted when I saw so many awesome people gathered together in one place, even if it did little for my claustrophobia.

After introductions were made and pleasantries were exchanged, people immediately got down to brass tacks. Jeremy, Cheryl and Audrey taught quick studies Shawn and Ali how to play the classic shuffleboard-esque die-chucker Tumblin' Dice. The great thing about tha' T-Dyce is that you can set it up in a corner of the room, play it for a little bit, move on to something else and then come back to it whenever you want.

The game got played three times in toto that day and here are the results:

GAME ONE

Start Time: "Early" End Time: "Later"

PARTICIPANTS: Jeremy, Cheryl, Shawn, Ali, Audrey. WINNER: AUDREY!

NOTES: Although Audrey was triumphant, Shawn just seemed pleased that he "took down" fellow noob Ali. Hope the couch was comfy that night, pal!   

GAME TWO 

Start Time: 11:25 am End Time: 11:40 am  

PARTICIPANTS: Ali, Shawn, Matt and Mark. WINNER: MARK! 

NOTES: Ali *quote/unquote* got her "ass kicked." In other news: Shawn, Matt and Mark are all big, smelly, jerk-faces for pickin' on a poor, defenseless girl like that. For shame, boys, for shame. LIFETIME DAVECON BAN ON THE THREE OF YOUZE!

GAME THREE

Start Time: 1:55 pm End time: 2:05 pm 

PARTICIPANTS: Kelsey, Joey, Dawn and Jeremy. WINNER: JOEY & JEREMY TIE! 

NOTES: ♪♫ Everyday we Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin' / Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin', Tumblin'..." ♪♫...etc, etc.    

This segued rather nicely into the Dramamine-friendly dexterity game Riff Raff. In this one, participants use a deck of cards numbered one to ten to load goods onto a wildly-swaying ship at sea. Players secretly chose one of the cards to reveal and the numbers determine both turn order and what section of the ship you store your crap on.

If flotsam starts tumbling off the masts, the active player can try and grab their bits (?) before they hit the box or the table. Successfully en-snatchified cargo are eliminated from the game while everything else becomes the tumbler's responsibility. The first player to successfully stow all of their goods away wins.

Riff Raff was played twice that day and here, then, are the hotly-contested results:

GAME ONE

Start Time: "Even Later" End Time: 11:25 am

PARTICIPANTS: Ali, Shawn, Matt and Mark. WINNER: SHAWN!

NOTES: By all accounts, Jeremy did a great job introducing this fantastic game to the new players. In what was described as a "nail biter", Shawn was the first to stash all of his detritus below deck and win the game!

GAME TWO 

Start Time: "Now" End Time: Um, also apparently "now".

PARTICIPANTS: Angela, Audrey, Mark and Sabina. WINNER: ANGELA! 

NOTES: Angela overcame a tsunami of motion sickness in order to win! 

 
A brain-munchin' frenzy broke out at another table with Zombie Dice. This one was played eight freakin' times that day, making it one of the quickest and most popular games of the event.

And here are all the deets:

GAME ONE 

Start Time: 10:50 am End time: 11:10 am  

PARTICIPANTS: Angela, Audrey, Cheryl and Sabina. WINNER: ANGELA! 

GAME TWO

Start Time: 11:10 am End Time: Who the fuck knows? 

PARTICIPANTS: Angela, Audrey, Cheryl and Sabina. WINNER: CHERYL!

GAME THREE

Start Time: 11:15 am End Time: Huh?

PARTICIPANTS: Angela, Audrey, Cheryl and Sabina. WINNER: CHERYL! 

GAME FOUR

Start Time: 11:45 End Time: 11:56 am  

PARTICIPANTS:  Ali, Cheryl, Claudia, Matt, Shawn. WINNER: MATT! 

NOTES: "Bam, Bam, Blam!"

GAME FIVE

Start Time: 11:56 End Time: 12:10 pm 

PARTICIPANTS:  Ali, Cheryl, Claudia, Matt, Shawn. WINNER: CHERYL! 

GAME SIX

Start time: 12:00 noon End Time: 12:10 pm 

PARTICIPANTS: Jeremy, Dawn, Kelsey, Mark and Joey. WINNER: JEREMY!

GAME SEVEN

Start Time: 2:50 pm End Time: 3:02 pm 

PARTICIPANTS: Angela and Matt WINNER: MATT!

NOTES: "Jerk!"  Hmmmm, methinks Angela was taking notes for this one. 

GAME EIGHT

Start Time: 3:03 pm End Time: 3:13 pm  

PARTICIPANTS: Angela and Matt WINNER: MATT!

NOTES: "Jerkwad!" Yep, Angela was definitely taking notes for this one.  

 
After working the room for a little bit I finally addressed my secret and selfish motivation for arranging this whole dog n' pony show in the first place: to play some motherfuckin' games, yo! As Kelsey, Joey and Dawn eased into the brown-acid-inspired tile-matcher Dizios (which eventually saw Dawn triumph), I squeezed into the seat across from Andrew at 10:50 am to show him how to play Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs. X-Men. By 11:20 we'd played our first game.

Despite the fact that I'd fielded an all-X-Men team consisting of Angel, Storm, Cyclops, Beast, Wolverine, Professor X, Colossus and Rogue and Andrew went with a completely schizophrenic mix of Fantastic Four, Avengers, Marvel Knights and a few random dirt-bags ("Spider-Man working with Doc Ock? Wha...?"), the wily bastard still managed to win. My tendency to attack without securing my defenses first clearly indicated that my head wasn't in the game.

After Andrew swapped out The Thing for Black Widow we dove into Game Two. Even though he managed to get his Hulk out (as Andrew is want to do from time to time), I battled back with a solo Wolverine. I managed to knock him down to four Life Points but eventually I succumbed to a rogues gallery of heavy hitters including the Punisher and Venom.

This second match started at 11:20 am and wrapped up at 11:45. You gotta love a game that's quick to explain, easy to set up and still provides a thematically-evocative experience! Yeah, I know it's luck based. Yeah, I know that the rich asshole with all the supa-dupa ultra-rares probably has an advantage. But I don't care; I friggin' love this game.

Needless to say, you can imagine my horror when Mike recently told me that WizKids will be producing a D&D version of the game. In a completely unrelated point, that Paypal "Donate" button in the upper right hand corner of the page ain't just for decoration, people!  

Andrew, Mike and I then segued right into a game of Splendor, which I purchased not long after demoing the game to people during International Tabletop Day.

Over the course of precisely forty-five minutes (the exact same play time promised on the tin!) I mapped out a devious plan for victory. I didn't bother with luring Nobles over to my side with promises of swanky accommodations and / or random sexual favors. No, this time out I went right for the low-level Developments that provide single Prestige Points and then decided where to go from there.

True to my word I picked up an Emerald and an Onyx mine and then used these two new acquisitions to make a Ruby deposit that much cheaper. This scored me three more Prestige Points and, more importantly, the chance to carve out another vein of cost-reduced Rubies. After a fortuitous two-of-a-kind chip score, I had just enough to procure a 7-Ruby Onyx Development which served up another four Prestige. Just like that I was already more then halfway to my goal!

With a treasure trove of permanent gems now padding my coffers I then branched out with some el cheapo Sapphire and Diamond mines. This snowballed into a discounted, three-Prestige Point structure and a third Onyx-related caravan that gave me two more. I hit fifteen Prestige with that last transaction and proudly proclaimed my victory when the turn cycle ended.

FINAL SCORES

Me...15 Prestige Points

Andrew...14 Prestige Points

Mike...9 Prestige Points

I really have a thing for Splendor. Maybe it's the casino-quality poker chips. Maybe it's the strategic path you have to map out for yourself. Maybe it's the game's runaway-snowball-rollin'-downhill pacing. Whatever it is, I really dig this game and it shows in my incongruously-respectable win/loss record.

Meanwhile, from 11:15 am to noon, Jeremy led Dawn, Joey and Kelsey through a game of the classic bluffing/deduction game Love Letter. 

Even though the photo above looks like the most boringest image ever committed to a memory card, Love Letter is a blast to play, as the participants that day would most likely attest. Jeremy and Kelsey battled back and forth for the affections of the Princess but ultimately it was Kelsey who emerged triumphant!

Meanwhile, at another table, Matt steered Sabina, Angela and Mark into a confrontation with the Boss Monster.

Although it didn't grab me the first time I played it, Boss Monster's whimsical art and O.C.D.-style game-play (which rewards players for optimizing their maze's lethality) could easily tempt me into trying it again. Everyone who played that afternoon seemed to dig it, particularly Mark who proved to be "DA BOSS".

The revelry continued at another table where Cheryl proposed a run-through of Timeline: Historic Events married with Timeline: Music & Cinema. The brilliant simplicity of the Timeline series actually makes me wonder why it took Frédéric Henry so long to invent it. 

The game is set up by thoroughly shuffling all one-hundred-and-ten cards contained within the spiffy-looking tin. Each card has an historical event depicted on both sides but only one side shows the year in which this occurred.

After each player is dealt four historic event cards with the date concealed one random card is then placed date-side-up on the table. Players then take turns selecting and placing one of their cards either to the left or to the right of the revealed card, indicating that it happened before or after that date. The card is then flipped over to see if the guess was correct. If it wasn't, the card is chucked out and the player picks a replacement off the top of the draw deck. If they were right, the player is one-quarter of the way to victory! The first person to successfully place all of their cards within the Timeline wins!

Naturally, as more and more cards go down, the Timeline becomes increasingly convoluted and it gets harder to wedge new cards in-between all the revealed dates. For example, most people know that the The Mutiny on the Bounty happened long after construction began on the Great Wall of China, but did the First Hot Air Balloon Channel Crossing happen before or after Captain Bligh was set adrift?

Timeline proved to be a big hit and no less then six games were played during the course of the day. Here's the official tally:

GAME ONE 

Start Time: 12:15 pm End Time: 12:27 pm  

PARTICIPANTS: Audrey, Cheryl, Claudia and Dawn. WINNER: CLAUDIA! 

NOTES: "Learning Is Fun!" was un-ironically recorded on the game record sheet. You can't get higher testimony then that...

GAME TWO 

Start Time: 12:27 pm End Time: 12:35 pm  

PARTICIPANTS: Audrey, Cheryl, Claudia and Dawn. WINNER: DAWN!

GAME THREE 

Start Time: 12:35 pm End time: 12:40 pm 

PARTICIPANTS: Audrey, Cheryl, and Claudia. WINNER: AUDREY! 

NOTES: Winner of the Davecon "No Shit, Sherlock!" Award goes to whoever wrote "The moon is old" on the game record sheet. 

GAME FOUR 

PARTICIPANTS: Sabina, Mike, Claudia and me. WINNER: CLAUDIA

NOTES: Claudia, Mike and Sabina enter "sudden death" but Claudia outlasts her opponents by drawing "The First Appearance of the Dinosaurs"! 

GAME FIVE

PARTICIPANTS: Sabina, Mike, Claudia and me. WINNER: ME!

NOTES: My finishing move was "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. Great, now that'll be stuck in my head for days.

GAME SIX

PARTICIPANTS: Sabina, Mike, Claudia and me. WINNER: ME!

NOTES: My encyclopaedic knowledge of horror films serves me well when I nestle the Texas Chainsaw Massacre card in between a bunch of 1970's dates.

I managed to resist the Timeline series until the Music & Cinema edition made me cave. And I'm sure glad that I did since I don't have any trivia games in my collection and the intuitive and simple mechanic at the heart of this one makes it easy to teach and play. This one's like a good movie: superficially fun on the surface but with a deeper meaning underneath.     

Between 12:20 pm and 12:35 pm, Joey, Kelsey and Jeremy dared to compare Martian Dice to the oft-played Zombie Dice. Once again, Jeremy played the role of instructor, but this didn't prevent him from annihilating his two competitors. No word as to which of the two games people preferred. 

When a bunch of games wrapped up all at the same time, it gave us a chance to play Bang! The Dice Game together.

This one marries the secret objectives and special character powers of the original Bang! card game with the Yahtzee-esque qualities of King of Tokyo. Here's the low-down on this particular varmint right from Board Game Geek:

Bang! The Dice Game keeps the core of the Bang! card game in place. At the start of the game, players each take a role card that secretly places them on a team: the Sheriff and deputies, outlaws, and renegades. The Sheriff and deputies need to kill the outlaws, the outlaws win by killing the Sheriff, and the renegades want to be the last players alive in the game.

Each player also receives a character card which grants him a special power in the game. The Sheriff reveals his role card and takes the first turn of the game. On a turn, a player can roll the five dice up to three times, using the results of the dice to shoot neighboring players, increase the range of his shots, heal his (or anyone else's) life points, or put him in range of the Indians, which are represented by nine tokens in the center of the table. Each time a player rolls an arrow, he takes one of these tokens; when the final token is taken, each player loses one life point for each token he holds, then the tokens are returned to the center of the table.

If a player collects a trio of Gatling symbols on the dice, he fires one shot at everyone else and rids himself of Indian tokens. Who'll get his shot off first? Play continues until one team meets its winning condition – and death won't necessarily keep you from winning as long as your teammates pull through!

GAME ONE - CHARACTERS

Andrew...Black Jack

Me...Lucky Duke

Dawn...Jourdonnais

Jeremy...Jesse Jones

Joey...Slab the Killer

Kelsey...Calamity Janet

Mike...Willy the Kid

In that first match I pardner-ed up with my slowly-revealed Outlaw allies to ventilate Deputy Slab. It soon became patently obvious that Mike was rockin' the Sheriff's tin star and between Indian Arrows and gettin' triple-teamed by me, Kelsey and Jeremy, Willy eventually went limp.

THE SECRET ROLES 

Sheriff: Mike 

Deputies: Andrew and Joey

Renegade: Dawn

WINNERS: "The (New Age) Outlaws": I.E. me, Jeremy and Kelsey! 

  

GAME TWO - THE CHARACTERS

Andrew...Paul Regret

Me...Vulture Sam

Dawn...El Gringo

Jeremy...Suzy Lafayette

Joey...Rose Doolan

Kelsey...Sid Ketchum

Mike...Kit Carlson

That second match proved to be a vicious and cut-throat affair. After tippin' her ten-gallon hat kinda early, Deputy Dawn got interred in Boot Hill by Kelsey, Jeremy and myself. Meanwhile, Mike got far too big fer his britches and found himself on the receiving end of a lead shower by the same pack o' desperadoes.

Kelsey started firing indiscriminate shots around the table and pretty soon she was put in the dirt by some sharp-shootin' Indians and long-range fire from Andrew. As Vulture Sam I'd been attacked on several occasions by Joey and Dawn but as each opponent dropped dead I regained two Life. Exactly how Sam does this I didn't wanna know.

Since Joey had engaged in a running gun battle with both Andrew and myself right from the get-go, it didn't take much to figger out who the law was 'round them there parts. Between Jeremy, Andrew and myself we quickly made short work of Joey for the win.  

THE SECRET ROLES 

Sheriff: Joey

Deputies: Mike and Dawn

Renegade: Kelsey

WINNERS: "The (Not-So-New Age) Outlaws": I.E. me, Jeremy and Andrew! 

So, what do I think of Bang! The Dice Game? I think it successfully encapsulates the spirit of Bang! without all of the confusing iconography or required head count. Yes, this newer version doesn't quite have the same interplay, depth or nuance, but it's easier to table and jump right into. Having said that, both games are different enough from one another that there's no need to purge the original from your collection.

From 2:10 pm to 2:45 pm Andrew took Jeremy, Audrey and Cheryl through a game of Splendor. Since Jeremy had already played this one before Andrew used this as an excuse to mercilessly destroy his inexperienced opponents, including newcomers Cheryl and Audrey. What an asshole, huh?

Not long after Dawn, Mark, Kelsey and Joey got into an epic contest of Seafarers of Catan which eventually saw Kelsey triumph.

Around 3 pm we ended and / or paused all active games to begin our traditional annual run of Ultimate Werewolf. Even though Dean, our esteemed and venerable narrator, was M.I.A. Mike did an awesome job hosting the hipster-y Kickstarted Max Temkin version of the game.  

Almost immediately Matt was horribly mauled by the secret cabal of lycanthropes. No-one was suprised when he revealed his "Seer" card since that seems to equate an immediate death sentence in every single one of our games.

Dawn then decided to go on the hunt, accusing Andrew, alias Sheriff J.T. Stone, of playing "psychological games" since he'd picked a role that he "thinks will protect him".

"Hey, my grandpappy founded this here town!" Andrew replied.

"Oh, he's definitely guilty," Mark intoned.

A flurry of accusations flew around the room. Andrew nominated Mark but it received no traction. Jeremy fingered Andrew (?) in response, which was immediately backed up by Mark. However, the resulting vote was dead even, sparing the Sheriff from the gallow's pole.   

That night Jeremy, A.K.A. the Sheriff's pimp, was hideously mauled.

"I'm free!" Andrew was heard to enthuse.

Dawn continued her vocal crusade as wolf-finder general. This time she cast aspirations on both Andrew and hubby Mark who was playing the role of Francis the town Priest.

"You can only do one at a time!" Mike asserted.

"Then let's start with the Priest," she growled. "Religion's gotta go!"

Just as soon as Mike's call for back up left his lips, Joey the town drunk jumped in to lend his support.

"But I couldn't possibly have affected them since I'm touched by God's holy light!" Mark said, raising a hand heavenward.

Even though moderator Mike was supposed to be completely neutral he couldn't help but say:

"Okay, I can't vote, but if I could..."

Mike's moment of candor was reflected in a unanimous vote to hang the Priest who, sadly, turned out to be completely innocent.

"Everyone wanted to kill Mark!" Mike noted.

"What can I say, I played my role too well. Everybody hated me anyway," Mark lamented.  

"When I was Seer I picked you first," Matt confessed from out of the blue and the entire room erupted in gales of laughter. 

That night, the Werewolves attempted to chow down on Angela but she was secretly spared by closeted physician Andrew!

The next day, after I said that Joey looked "a little slippery over there", Kelsey piled on to second my nomination. "You gotta get a job," Andrew chastised, instantly turning all of the Republican / Tea Party townspeople against him. After a weak-sauce "I didn't mean to vote thumbs down on Andrew last time" rebuttal, the town's liquored-up layabout was soon a-swingin' from the rafters, dead but incontrovertibly human.

The following morning, poor Claudia (A.K.A. Helga) was found disemboweled amidst the rose bushes.

"We gotta make something happen," J.T. insisted. "So I think it's clear; it's between Sabina and Kelsey."

I twisted Sabina's protestations of innocence around to second her nomination. By the time the prosecution was finished, all she could do was beg for mercy. 

"You voted to kill the town drunk!" Andrew insisted. "He was innocent, he wasn't hurting anybody!"

Then, from the corner of the room, Angela suddenly blurted: "I think he's wrong, I think it's Dave!" Mercifully Sabina was still entrenched in the hot seat.

"Okay, if it's not Sabina this time it is Andrew and Dave," Dawn insisted, failing to make friends with the currently accused.

"There might not be a next time," moderator Mike winced.

"They're comin' after you now!" Sabina warned Dawn.

"Doctor...save me!" she replied, evoking shades of a certain BBC sci-fi T.V. show.

Dawn's assumption that Sabina was the next neck on the hangin' parade seemed to generate some sympathy for her. As such, a 3 to 3 vote spared her life!

That self-same night poor Cheryl ended up as fertilizer in the potato patch.  

"Her arm was over there, her legs were over there...it was a mess, you guys didn't want to see it," Mike enthused, sounding like a bespectacled crypt-keeper.

"I'm going back to my original thing," Dawn asserted. "It has to be Andrew! It's Andrew and Dave!"

"It is absolutely Dawn," Andrew replied, pointing a finger at his accuser.

"It's not me!" she shot back.

"I accuse Dawn," Andrew immediately lobbed back.

"I second!" Sabina said, her hand shooting up.

"It's not me! IT'S NOT ME! IT'S NOT ME!" Dawn fought back, stomping her foot in frustration.

But the more she talked, the more she seemed to wriggle into an increasingly-snug invisible noose.

"I'm tellin' you guys...IT'S NOT ME!!! And I'm wishing I'd gone with my original instinct about Andrew 'cause we moved off of him and I still think it's him. He killed Jeremy! Jeremy was the first to die!"

"I did not!" Andrew countered. "He was a good pimp and I'm outta business! Now, I didn't like everything that went on, but..."

"I wanna win this game...it's not me!" Dawn wailed.

But it was too late. The back-lash was quick and decisive.

"You're a little too adamant," Kelsey ventured.

"Okay! I'll go to Joey," Dawn replied, lapsing into a spot-in impersonation of her deadpan brother.

"It's not me."  

After the resulting laughter finally died down, Dawn's fate was sealed with a vote to swing. After casting her "Villager" card on the table in disgust, she plunked down in her chair, muttering one last "It's not me" as a final 'fuck-you' to her blood-thirsty neighbors.

Overnight the still-at-large Werewolves had one last maulin' party, shredding poor Beans the Bartender into l'il giblets. And with that the lycanthropes achieved parity with the humans and won the game!

WINNERS

ME & KELSEY!

I only play Werewolf once a year at Davecon and frankly, that's plenty enough for me. I've been doing this event for years now and the Villagers never seem to come close to winning. As such, I want to introduce a new role every year to try and even the odds a little bit. Maybe after we've added a Seer, a Doctor, a Hunter, a Gypsy, a Silver Bullet Salesman and Kate Beckinsale we can finally achieve some balance in this game.

Having said that, Ultimate Werewolf will always be a Davecon tradition, if only because of the memorable and uproariously-funny moments it continues to provide. That late-game exchange between Andrew and Dawn could very well be the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life.

My quick-game parade kept on a-marchin' with two back-to-back plays of Hey, That's My Fish!  

The game starts with the random construction of an ice floe using cardboard hexes bearing images of one, two and three fish symbols. When the board is finished the youngest player places their first penguin on any tile with one fish. Placement continues clockwise until all penguins are on the board. In a four-player game each player has two penguins, in a three player game there's a matching number and all four are used in a two-player game.

Gameplay begins with the youngest player moving one of their penguins according to the following three rules:

1. Penguins always move in a straight line and can't change direction.
2. Penguins can stop anywhere along a legal path.
3. Penguins can't jump over other penguins or holes in the ice.

So where do these holes come from you might ask? Well, anytime you pick up a penguin to move it, you claim the tile it was sitting on. So the strategy, then, is three-fold:

1. Set your penguins up to capture all of those juicy two and three-fish tiles.
2. Eke out some extra moves for yourself at the end of the game by staking out plenty of free space.
3. Limit your opponent's end game moves with some well-placed holes in the ice.

GAME ONE - FINAL SCORES

 

Me (Red) - 29 Fish

Claudia (Blue) - 26 Fish

Jeremy (Yellow) - 24 Fish

Mike...(Green) - 19 Fish

GAME TWO - FINAL SCORES

 

Me (Red) - 29 Fish

Jeremy (Yellow) - 27 Fish

Mike (Green) - 24 Fish

Claudia...(Blue) - 19 Fish

My strategy for both games was simple: when one of my penguins was on the verge of getting trapped in a corner, I moved them as far away from the competition as possible. Also, if there was heavy competition for the three and two-fish tiles, I just let my opponents fight over it. Often I'd be left alone with a slew of one and two fish fish tiles after my opponents had run themselves out of moves.

This surprisingly deep and charming little game is light enough for kids to grasp and strategic enough to keep adults entertained. As the perfect opener (or closer!) to any game night, you'd do well to add this sucker to your collection.  

Next up, it was time to get cut-throat with a head-rollin' game of Guillotine.

This one has a really interesting genesis. Back in the late 90's, when Magic: the Gathering was at the height of its popularity, Wizards of the Coast published a series of quick n' easy card games that you could bring along to Thanksgiving dinners in order to make hanging out with your repellent family more tolerable.

All the other games in that oddball series (like Alpha Blitz, Pivot, Twitch, Go Wild, Instinct and Earthquake) have long-since vanished into obscurity, but Guillotine is still in print today. So, what made it the ultimate survivor in the 1998 Wizards of the Coast Hunger (Card) Games? Well, maybe it has something to do with its darkly humorous theme. Here's the lowdown on Guillotine from Board Game Geek:

"The French Revolution is famous in part for the use of the guillotine to put nobles to death, and this is the macabre subject of this light card game. As executioners pandering to the masses, the players are trying to behead the least popular nobles. Each day the nobles are lined up and players take turns killing the ones at the front of the line until all the nobles are gone. However, players are given cards which will manipulate the line order right before 'harvesting,' which is what makes the game interesting. After three days worth of chopping, the highest total carries the day."

Right off the bat I used the "Double Feature" card to decapitate a much-despised Lord and a Palace Guard all in one shot. I was hoping to harvest a few more exponential Guards but I quickly became the default recipient for a constant parade of "screw you" cards. Word to the wise: when you're teaching people how to play a game don't jump out to a quick lead and for the love of Sweet Baby Jesus never, ever look like you know what you're doing.

After Claudia started this grass-roots "let's all kick Dave in the knutz" trend she expertly took advantage of everyone's preoccupation by netting a few valuable craniums, like that of the Unpopular Judge. Mike floundered throughout the game and ended up with a disproportionate amount of popular pates. Meanwhile, Jeremy nearly laughed himself into a hernia with the unexpected appearance of the "Piss Boy". He then played "Fountain of Blood" to get himself back in contention.

FINAL SCORES

Claudia...23

Jeremy...22

Me...20

Mike...15

With its whimsically-twisted artwork, coal-black humor and a wealth of creative Action Card plays, Guillotine is a lot of gruesome fun. It's yet another game you can use to convince your non-game friends that there's more to the hobby then just crappy ol' Clue, Payday, Monopoly and Risk. 

Besides, what other game has a freakin' cardboard execution block included in the box?!?

Games continued to be tabled around the room. From 4:20 to 5:33 Dawn scored a whopping 128-points in Small World, humbling both Mike and Matt Iron Sheik-style.

At the same time, Claudia, Jeremy, Mark, Angela and Sabina indulged in two games of Cards Against Humanity. In the first match, Claudia proved to be the most creatively twisted, prompting Joey "Amputee" MacGee to confess that "we are deranged and evil" in the Game Record Log Notes. Mark was deemed the sickest of all the little monkeys in Game Two.  

The final game of the day for me was Uwe Rosenberg's bean-countin' classic, Bohnanza. Here's the skinny on this one from tha' Geek:

"As card games go, this one is quite revolutionary. Perhaps its oddest feature is that you cannot rearrange your hand, as you need to play the cards in the order that you draw them. The cards are colorful depictions of beans in various descriptive poses, and the object is to make coins by planting fields (sets) of these beans and then harvesting them. To help players match their cards up, the game features extensive trading and deal making."

Right from my initial draw I started with some sets, but they were pretty commonplace Beans. Nevertheless, I diligently planted both Blues and Waxies, not knowing that I'd soon be in direct competition with Andrew for the former and Audrey for the latter. I should have gotten out of this low-rent market right away but instead I just kept on plantin'. Sure, I ended up with a few decent runs but they were virtually worthless.

In contrast, Cheryl made plenty of shrewd trades for valuable Beans (like Reds) whilst sweet-talking the rest of us into giving her what she wanted. Andrew managed to parley some mid-value Beans like Chillis and Stinks into a respectable amount of points while Audrey outpaced me in Wax collection. She also made more prudent planting decisions, opting for scarcer crops such as Black-Eyed Beans.

FINAL SCORES

Cheryl...20 Gold

Andrew...15 Gold

Audrey...14 Gold

Me...11 Gold

    
If my enjoyment of tabletop games hinged on winning, I'd never play 'em. Nothing sums up this philosophy more then my deplorable win/loss (or more accurately, my loss/loss) record in Bohnanza. Even though I'm completely dialed into the frequency of the different cards, the importance of constant negotiation, the threat of mandatory planting and a stringent hand order, this rarely translates to in-game success for me.

But maybe that's why I like it so much. It certainly doesn't hurt that the game features plenty of logistical planning when it's not your turn, agile thinking when it is your turn and constant table-talk throughout. It's one of my all-time favorites and I highly recommend it to anyone who's reading this, especially if you dig card games.
This took us right up to 5:30pm: I.E. draw time for the prizes! Here's how that shook down:

GRAND DOOR PRIZE WINNER

($50.00 Gift Certificate to Monster Comic Lounge)

*** ANDREW ***

M.V.P. WINNER

($20.00 Gift Certificate to Monster Comic Lounge)

*** JEREMY ***

FIRST DOOR PRIZE RUNNER-UP DRAW

(for a Batmug, courtesy of Sabina)

*** SHAWN ***

SECOND DOOR PRIZE RUNNER UP DRAW

(for a Zombie Dashboard Bobble-Head, courtesy of Sabina)

*** DAWN ***

As the attendees made their final purchases and then slowly filtered out of the store, I noticed that my irritation over the event's trying logistics had long-since melted away. Above and beyond making amends for last year's poor showing by playing no less then fourteen different games in seven hours, I'd managed to assemble some of the coolest, nicest, funniest people on the planet who'd given me yet another wonderful cache of indelible gaming memories that I'll cherish for the rest of my life. And that's why I love this hobby so much.

I have no idea where Davecon 2015 will be. I don't know who'll be there. Hell, I don't even know if I'll be there. But I do know one thing for certain: 

It's gonna happen.  

Divided Loyalties: HAL-CON 2013

The convention scene here in Halifax continues to grow by leaps and bounds. It used to be that the only geeky event we had to look forward to every year was the late, lamented Fleet Con, which consisted of nothing more then a few vendor tables, a Halo tournament and some Klingons with obvious thyroid issues.

Despite its modesty, we loved Fleet Con because it was the one day out of the year we'd spend indoors playing games. Sadly, it eventually foundered and for the longest time we gamers had very little to look forward to when it came to annual events.

Eventually the sci-fi *slash* gaming convention HAL-CON rose from the ashes in 2010 to take it's place. Despite the organizer's best intention, the event's rebirth was a tad rocky.

The Lord Nelson Hotel proved to be a woefully undersized venue for the unexpected turnout. There weren't even any open gaming tables that year, just a few broom-closet sized rooms set aside for pre-registered gaming. Translation: even if you bought a new board game in the vendor section, there was absolutely no place to actually sit down and play it! In fact, we ended up going across the street to the Rockbottom Brewpub to play games there!

Despite HAL-CON's inaspicious debut as a gaming venue, the organizers proved to be a receptive and accommodating bunch. They listened to our feedback and in 2011 the event was vastly improved!  There were tons of game vendors and plenty of places to plunk down and dig into our new acquisitions.

But by 2012 I already started to see a tipping point. A surfeit of of amazing guests distracted me from gaming. Attendance had also grown exponentially and, once again, available gaming space was at a premium. Despite having to defend our open gaming table like The Road Warrior oil refinery, we still had plenty of fun last year.

When guests such as Richard Hatch, J. August Richards, Jewel Staite, and Billy Dee Williams were announced for this year's HAL-CON, I was instantly consumed by turmoil. How much time would I be able to allocate to gaming with so much time-sensitive awesomeness going on around me? 

There was also some question as to who's be going. Only Andrew and I were committed to going for all three days. Mike was planning to be there Saturday and Sunday while Chad and his family, along with Matt and Angela, would only be on site for Saturday. Mark wavered at first but eventually caved in when a free weekend pass became available. And Dean, the big wiener that he was, decided not to go at all.  

Before the big day I made it clear to Andrew that my attentions would be scattered at best. As such, we quickly came to the conclusion that parking in one spot all day long just wasn't going to be practical. This turned out to be a smart move since guarding the same table all day long is the equivalent of tying a dead albatross around our collective necks. Even if we took turns watching over our turf, it was going to limit our options and tie folks down so we decided to go "free range".

Friday turned out to be the perfect day to "test drive" this new approach. Andrew and I got a chance to register, get the lay of the land and lock down our strategies for the rest of the weekend. Just as predicted, I was completely preoccupied, attending signings and workshops, trolling through the vendor section and vainly attempting to video capture the limitless myriad of sights and sounds.

Knowing that I'd be running around like the dog in Up, Andrew busied himself in an epic game of Firefly. Periodically I'd check in on him to see how he was doing and despite some stiff competition he eventually emerged victorious! 'Atta boy!

He also ran into a friend from work named Fraser and the two of them played a few rounds of Mr. Jack Pocket. In Game One Andrew played Jack and Fraser played Sherlock and for Game Two they swapped roles. Regardless, Fraser proved triumphant in both games. At a glance, this one looked pretty intriguing to me and I pledged to try it before the weekend was out.

After all the autograph signings and workshops were done for the day, I finally sat down to play a game, which turned out to be the elegant thriller Hanabi.

As per the R&R games, here's the quick bang on this one:

Hanabi is "an intriguing and innovative card game. Race against the clock to build a dazzling fireworks finale! Trouble is, you can see the cards that everyone holds...except your own. Working together, you must give and receive vital information in order to play your cards in the proper launch sequence. Build and light each firework correctly to win the game and avoid a fizzling fiasco! Game design by famed Seven Wonders designer, Antoine Bauza."

Looking for the full, pyrotechnical details? You can read the game's rules in a flash right here.

Despite a rocky start, I think we did pretty durned good in that first game. At various times Fraser seemed paralyzed by the game's boundless depth and tension, I kept forgetting everything about my friggin' cards and Andrew made some petty bizarro discards. Pretty soon Green and White were locked up at "1" and "2" respectively.

Nevertheless our communication continued to improve and eventually we ended up with an "excellent and crowd-pleasing" grand total of 18 points! Huzzah!

From what I've heard, copies of Hanabi are pretty scarce right now and I can see why! This deceptively deep little brain-burner, consisting of only sixty cards, eight blue Clock Tokens and four black Fuse Tokens is one of the most original game experiences I've encountered recently!

The game shatters expectations right off the bat. In much the same way that Bohnanza prevents you from re-arranging cards in your hand, you can't look at any of the cards you draw in Hanabi. Needless to say this goes completely against every single impulse I have as a gamer. To make things even more challenging, the clues you provide to your team-mates are limited to two formats: "This card is a 'four'" or "These cards are Green" for example.  

This is compounded by a finite number of Clock Tokens which have a tendency to run out very, very quickly. Even armed with a couple of decent clues, plays often boil down to "educated guess" or "complete and total crap-shoot". If the card you end up flopping doesn't start, add to or complete one of the firework chains, then the Fuse ignites, putting a nail-biting time limit on the game.

This is definitely a must-buy for me. Inexpensive, simple to explain and hideously tense, Hanabi is a game that belongs in every board game collection!

By the time Hanabi wrapped up we decided to shove off. Even though I desperately wanted tomorrow to be a "gamier" affair, one glance at the schedule didn't provide a lot of hope. 

Saturday morning began with a memorable tour through the vendor section. One particular retailer was selling a metric shit-ton of board games, the prices for which tended to lean towards the steep side. Curiously enough, this juicy little title didn't have a price sticker on it:

Then, from out of nowhere, the lady behind the counter saw me holding it and spontaneously blurted out:

"That game is twenty-five dollars!"

For a second I just blinked at her. I couldn't believe my ears.

"Um, I'm sorry," I said. "It's how much?"

"Twenty-five dollars!" she repeated.

I couldn't get the money out of my wallet fast enough. Now I know that the concept of spending money to make money is pretty ludicrous, but I certainly made out like a bandito in that particular deal. What can I say, sometime I aim to misbehave.

Lady Luck continued to smile upon me when Andrew led me to another vendor who was selling a beautiful copy of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer:

Since the copy I currently owned had been badly crushed in a tragic Ebay shipping disaster, I quickly jumped as this shrink-wrapped, unpunched gem. After this fortuitous Joss Whedon-themed two-fer, I decided to retreat back to the Game Room with my booty for a brief spell of tranquility. I was gonna need it.

Just before my first obligatory Q&A of the day, Andrew pinned me down long enough for a quick game of Mr. Jack Pocket.

If this one's a complete mystery to you, here's Inspector Asmodee's "Elementary!" description:

"In Mr. Jack Pocket Edition, two players return to the scene of the crime, one to unmask the vile Mr. Jack, and the other to escape into the night. But this time, the game is all new. Suspects are printed on street tiles, and turned to hide their faces from the investigators. Four special action tiles will allow both players to maneuver the tiles and the investigators, one player trying to spot the elusive killer, and the other desperate to hide from sight."

Looking for the full profile on this notorious suspect? Turn your magnifying glass on the game's full rap sheet right here.

In our game I played Sherlock, Watson and their trusty hound Toby while Andrew played the role of that sick fuck Jack.

I promptly went to work, triangulating Holmes and Watson into an effective investigative ("effectigative"?) tag-team and eliminating a couple of key suspects right off the bat. Rattled by my initial success, a distinct lack of sleep and his crushing double-defeat the previous day, Andrew promptly screwed the pooch ("Toby?!? NOOOOOOOO!!!!") by soft-pitching an opportunity for me to eliminate a bunch of key characters. The next turn poor, violated Toby wriggled free from Andrew's sweaty embrace and then gave me a perfect line of sight right to the end of the street!

And with that the killer stood revealed: Jeremy Bert, sketch artist and serial canine molester!

After my quick and decisive victory I immediately proclaimed myself the Mr. Jack Pocket regional champion and then dashed off before Andrew could propose a rematch.

"I'm thinking that I'm just not very good at this game," Andrew lamented just as I fled from the table.  

So, what did I think of it? Well, above and beyond the fact that my win was largely predicated on Andrew's epic blunder, I'm not sure how qualified I am to passing judgement. But, hey, here goes:

• Throwing the Action Tokens randomly into the air might seem a bit goofy at first but it works perfectly well for the game. The way Actions are divided up amongst the two players is also thematically clever since it allows Jack to take advantage of Sherlock's missteps.
• Although the "Appeal for Witnesses" portion of the game may not seem like deductive reasoning in the strictest sense, a successful Sherlock player will need to balance Action selection, character moves and a solid memory in order to win. 
• The game is quick to set up and easy to explain, making it a solid choice for gaming with a significant other. 

I've always been vaguely interested in the original Mr. Jack and playing this version really piqued my curiosity again. There aren't a lot of games specifically designed for two players so when you find a good 'un, it's always worth looking into.

The rest of day was an insane whirlwind of Q&A's and signatures for me. For Andrew, it was an opportunity to get involved in an open session of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords, which they all cooperatively won. After hearing him rave about this one I started reading up on the viability of cloning technology. Man, I really would have loved to give that one a whirl.

As the day wore on, more and more regrets began to pile up. One of the key things I missed on Saturday was a meet and greet *slash* signing with RPG deity Monte Cook. Along with Jonathan Tweet and Skip Williams, Monte helped produce what I still believe is the definitive edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Man, I would have loved to have gotten my Dungeon Master's Guide signed by him.

Speaking of that hallowed tome, when Gary Gygax read Monte's contributions to the 3'rd Edition DMG he actually said that it would help him become a better Dungeon Master. Man, talk about your high praise!

In another painful revelation, I also discovered after the fact that Monte himself GM'ed a freakin' session of his new RPG Numenera for a handful of lucky participants! GAK! I know that saying "There was too much to do at HAL-CON this year!" sounds incredibly churlish, but my inability to be everywhere at once was pretty painful.

By the time I finally came to rest around 7 pm, Andrew had already bugged out, retreating to Chad's house for several games of 7 Wonders, Forbidden Desert and another bash at Hanabi. I must confess, I felt a twinge of jealousy when I heard about this little alterna-con.

Now that all of my obligations were over and done with, my only goal for Sunday was to game my face off. Thankfully Andrew and Mike were willing to accompany me once more into the breach and as a result I was rewarded with a relaxing and insightful day filled with gamey goodness.

Truly this was my first chance to "stop and smell the cardboard", so to speak. I also managed to snap a few fleeting photos that morning in order to document the environment.

This first pic should give you a good idea of the available gaming space. This was taken around 10 am and by mid-morning, every single one of these seats would be ocupado:

A variety of tabletop miniatures games were also well-represented:

Before Mike showed up I managed to finagled Andrew into a game of Jaipur.

In Jaipur players take on the role of traders looking to make a good impression with the Maharaja and score an invite to court. They do so by making early, numerous and lucrative trades for one of six different goods: Cloth, Spice, Leather, Gold, Silver and Diamonds.

On any given turn players can either take cards or trade cards. If you take just one card from the open market you simply replace it with the top card from the draw deck. If you want multiple goods from the market you need to replace them with a combination of cards from your hand or your Camel herd. If you want to beef up your future trading powers you can also snatch up all of the Camels in the market.

Players score Rupees by trading in sets of goods and taking one scoring token for each discarded card. Early trades tend to be more lucrative since the values of the scoring tokens drop as the round wears on. Whenever players trade in three, four or five of a kind they also earn highly-prized Bonus Tokens for their efforts. As an added perk, the player with the largest Camel Herd also scores five Rupees at the end of the round.

The round ends when three out of the six goods have been depleted or there are no cards left in the draw pile. Players tally up their collected Rupees and the person with the highest total score claims the first of three Excellence Markers. The first player to score two out of three Excellence Markers wins the game!

If you want the full skinny on how to wow the Maharaja, click on the following link for the full path to enlightenment.

I felt a little bit like a grifter after I invited Andrew to play this one with me. I'd played Jaipur quite a bit at home lately with Prudence Goodwyf, a very wily competitor who has a tendency to annihilate me in just about every game.

I made some pretty hefty early transactions for Gold and Diamonds. Andrew responded in kind with a five-card trade for Leather, netting a fabulous 10-point Bonus Token. To offset this I also orchestrated my own five-card trade and made sure to stockpile a surplus of Camels before the Gold, Spice and Cloth were all snatched up.

ROUND ONE SCORE

Me...83

Andrew...52

Andrew is nothing if not a quick study and things got a lot more competitive in the second round! He went right after THE GOOD STUFF, scoring the lion's share of Gold and Silver. I battled back, trying to trade in  as many three-card sets for Bonus Tokens as possible. Just before Andrew surged ahead of me I dropped a single Fabric card, depleting the third goods pile and bringing the second round to a premature close.

ROUND TWO SCORE

Me...68

Andrew...65

Although that second round was a real squeaker I managed to snag the second Excellence Marker for the win! 

Many of my comments RE: Mr. Jack Pocket also apply here. Although it's perfectly fine to play a multiplayer game that scales down to two people, its another thing to play a game specifically engineered for two players. 

Since you can only take goods or sell good, turns in Jaipur tend to fly by really, really quickly. As a result, it's a great game for people with the attention span of a hummingbird. Although early bulk trades are certainly desirable, sniping valuable goods away from your rival can also be a pretty smart tactic. And although nabbing an entire of herd of camels will surely improve your future trading prospects it also turns up a juicy spectrum of new options for your opponent!  

After Jaipur was over I took a peek at the HAL-CON board game library. Man, talk about a wall-full of entertainment goodness! 

 

So, not only can you bring in your own games from home or pick up something new n' shiny in the vendor section, you can also dip into the library and try out as many games as you want for free! Considering that some of these suckas can run you upwards to a hundred bucks a pop, it's a great way to test-drive a bunch o' titles that you're interested in without gambling with your wallet! 

Even before lunch rolled around the Gaming Hall looked like this:

When Mike arrived we decided to give Hanabi another shot.

I was pretty much mentally wrecked the first time I played it on Saturday so I was looking forward to trying it again. Not only did I have the advantage of familiarity, I was well-rested, caffeinated and raring to go. During the match I used my card rack to great effect, orienting each firework in creative ways in order to keep track of them. That way, everytime Andrew's voiced his stern mantra of "WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT YOUR CARDS?" I could answer quickly and accurately.

Like any other first-time player, Mike had to wrap his head around some of the game's more unique concepts. Despite a couple of missteps which saw the Yellow and White fireworks locked up at three apiece, Mike upheld his reputation as a quick learner and pretty soon we started to fire on all cylinders. By game's end we'd only activated one Fuse and scored a grand total of 18 points in the process! 

This bears repeating: MUST...BUY...THIS...GAME! 

We decided to continue with the "stressful" theme by engaging in a nail-biting play of this bad boy:

Forbidden Desert is Matt "Pandemic" Leacock's long-awaited sequel to Forbidden Island. So what's the big difference? Welp, here's the teaser trailer straight from the Gamewright website:

"Gear up for a thrilling adventure to recover a legendary flying machine buried deep in the ruins of an ancient desert city. You'll need to coordinate with your teammates and use every available resource if you hope to survive the scorching heat and relentless sandstorm. Find the flying machine and escape before you all become permanent artifacts of the Forbidden Desert!

"When we launched Forbidden Island in 2010, we had an inkling that we had created a hit game but never to the point that we’d be prompted to make a sequel. Well, here we are a few years later with just that in hand. Our challenge to designer Matt Leacock was to create a game that would contain familiar elements (cooperative play, modular board), while offering up a completely different in-game experience. In addition, we wanted it to be simultaneously approachable to new players while upping the ante for those who felt they had mastered Forbidden Island. All this resulted in a fresh new game with an innovative set of mechanics, such as an ever-shifting board, individual resource management, and unique method for locating the flying machine parts. Hopefully we’ve achieved our goals and quenched your thirst for adventure!"

Lookin' for the full specs on this legendary flying machine? You'll be able to rebuild that sucka blindfolded after you peruse the full rules, located right here.

COLORS/ROLES

Andrew...Blue Water Carrier

Me...Green Explorer

Mike...White Meteorologist

Initially things went pretty good for us. Andrew did a fantastic job keeping the rest of us hydrated, even after we peeled off to the hinterlands of the board. As we located three of the airship's bits, I used my Explorer skills to dig 'em out of the sand just like Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark, yo. When the Sand Storm meter started to creep up into hazardous levels, Mike used his Meteorological skills to skip a few critical draws.

Like the rest of Leacock's perfectly-tuned games, it literally came down to the last few actions and card draws. While searching for the last component at the far end of the map, Mike became mired in sand. Despite my best efforts, the handy wormhole-like Tunnel also got buried. By the time we puzzled out the location of the airship's prop by process of elimination, our opportunities were trickling away like sand in an hourglass.

Despite being dangerously parched, I decided to press my luck and go for it. Seeing that I was at death's door, Water-Bearer Andrew tried to converge on my ten-twenty.   

I

Unfortunately a sandstorm blew up, obliterating his path and cutting him off from Mike and I. Then, on the very next Storm Card phase, we drew this cruel fucker:

With the temps creeping up to lethal levels and my blood thickening like melted red crayons, my poor l'il Explorer dude collapsed on the spot.

I couldn't believe that we'd lost so close to victory! If that damned "Sun Beats Down" Card had stayed away for just a few more turns I'm sure that we would have won!

So how does Desert compare to Island?  Here are the similarities:

• It's co-operative.
• Each player has a unique role and power.
• Each player has four actions to spend on their turn.
• The game gets progressively tougher and the starting difficulty is variable.
• You gotta find four things in order to escape.
• Like Island, Desert doesn't suffer from Bossy Veteran Syndrome nearly as much as Pandemic does.

And here are the differences:

• The tiles don't sink, they blow around and get covered in sand. Not only does this make them impassable, characters and airship pieces can get buried until they're excavated.
• Water plays a critical part in the game. If you let your canteen run dry, yer pretty much boned, mate.
• If you excavate tiles with a Gear Symbol you get to draw a piece of Equipment which can help improve your odds. 
• Tiles with part symbols and directional arrows provide "clues" as to the whereabouts of the airship's components. 

My only gripe about this new version is that a desert filling up with sand just doesn't feel as immediate and intense as an island that's SINKING INTO THE FALKING WATER. IMHO, the streamlined n' stressful original is still the best introductory co-operative game and the perfect primer to more complicated fare like  Pandemic. Having said that, this new variant is sure to please players who've played Forbidden Island to death. 

After Andrew finally won a game of Mr. Jack Pocket by beating Mike's ass, we decided to tackle our final game of the day: Lost Legends.

Here's the adventure hook directly from Board Game Geek:

"Lost Legends is a fantasy card game by Mike Elliott that combines a streamlined Euro game design and card drafting with an interesting fantasy theme and battle mechanic. Players take on the role of heroes trying to assemble an arsenal of equipment in order to vanquish a series of monsters that they will encounter.

"The game begins with all players choosing one of five heroes each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Each player fights their own monster; this is not a cooperative game. The monster each hero will likely face is revealed to them before players draft cards for their equipment. An interesting aspect in this game is you may, if the conditions are right, evade a monster in front of you, and pass it to the hero next to you. But be aware if you do this you have to fight the monster you draw next!

"Players then select an equipment card drafted from a hand of cards, and pass the remainder of the hand to your left to prepare for battle with the monster in front of them. The equipment draft continues in this manner until only one card is left in each hand, which is discarded. Players then compare their drafted equipment to their monster to determine the result of the battle! The game consists of 3 levels filled with monsters to slay and new equipment to pick up.

"Players need Legend Points to win the game! These come in the form of trophies awarded for most monsters as well as sets of monsters slain. Can you defeat the monsters thrown in your path to glory and become the most Legendary?"

The full Dungeoneer's Survival Guide can be found by venturing a click in this direction.   

THE ROLES

Andrew...Sorceress

Me...Barbarian

Mike...Hunter

Right from the very first Equipment draft I kinda screwed up my tableau. Instead of being content with a Short Sword I had to go and buy the thematically-perfect Battle Axe, throwing over some pretty decent Leather Armor in the process. Naively I thought this particular card might come back around to me. Yeah, not so much. Despite the fact that I had more Life Points then everyone else, I also had nothing to insulate me from damage except for a set of well-worn Magic Bandages. Needless to say, I ended up getting beat like a rented mule.

To make matters even worse I ended up dumping that damned Axe in lieu of an Iron Mace in the final round. Turfing a bunch of Equipment cards gave me a tidy surplus of Skills, but I quickly burned through them when a lineup of Monsters (notably the Troll and Chaos Dragon) took turns stomping a mud hole in my ass. Even though this made for a challenging early game, I kept increasing my Life Points with every Level Up. Eventually this meant that I wasn't croaking as frequently as my competitors were. By the endgame, I'd collected 5 Trophy Tokens and a total of 19 Experience Points.

Although Mike had a more balanced spread of starting assets, this was off-set by his relative squishiness and his consistent role as a Monster Magnet. In fact, he was the first one to get an unbeatable beastie foisted on him and subsequently he was the first to get ganked. He did end up with a respectable array of Equipment, however. His Long Bow / Long Sword / Silver Wand combo ensured that he could at least compete in every combat, regardless of whether or not it was Melee, Ranged or Magic. Unfortunately, an endless wave of vicious attackers meant that Mike could get very little traction.

Things got even worse when an unending and increasingly-nasty conveyor belt of enemies came after him in the final round. Just as Mike was getting to his feet he usually pulled another lethal McNasty out of the Monster Card Pile or had something big and hairy sicced on him by either Andrew or myself. This insurmountable, endgame pall resulted in a grand total of 3 Trophy Tokens, 1 Challenge Trophy and 14 total Experience Points.

At least Andrew seemed to hit upon the optimal recipe for starting Equipment. By the end of the game he had every possible base covered: a multi-purpose Jade Staff for offense, an Iron Shield and Leather Armor for defense and an Evasion Trinket providing plenty of damage mitigation. Above all, his Mana Potion and Spellbook dove-tailed perfectly with his character's magic skills. This gave him a valuable leg up in those early combats.

But even as well-equipped as he was, he still had a run of bad luck towards the end of the game. In fact, the constant onslaught of Monsters made us wonder if we were doing something horribly, terribly wrong. Demoralized by the game's insurmountable difficulty and fatigued by a long day of gaming we decided to pack it in early. Andrew finished up with 18 Victory Points, 5 Trophy Tokens and 3 Challenge Trophies.

There's a lot to like about this game, primarily the card-drafting mechanism for Equipment, the advancement process and combat. I'm also a big fan of the game's intuitive graphic design; giving cards borders which match up to their appropriate spaces on the Hero Board is pretty clever. Folks who groove on games that involve character development are sure to find Lost Legends uniquely appealing.

"It's just way too difficult!" I observed as we put the components away.

"Yeah, there's a lot of fighting," Mike added.

"I'll skim over the rules to see if I missed something," Andrew said.

After a quick peek at the rule book Andrew made a dire proclamation.

"Welp, I see one thing we did wrong," he said.

"What?" Mike and I asked simultaneously.

"Your Equipment cards don't get Refreshed at the start of every new Phase. Only at the start of every new Level."

"What?!?" Mike and I demanded (simultaneously).

"That's insane," I railed. "That would make the game completely and totally impossible!"

The collective bitching kept up as we beetled our way out of the convention hall. Even after Mike parted ways with us, Andrew and I kept trying to reconcile our issues with the game on the drive home.

"There's gotta be something we're doing wrong. Otherwise the game is just way too difficult," Andrew observed.

"Maybe it's something we can house-rule. What if we just put a limit on how many Monsters we face based on the number of players?"

With that, Andrew started to chuckle to himself.

"What?  What is it?" I quizzed.

"I just realized what we were doing wrong. There's only supposed to be three or few Monsters per player in the Card Pile."

"Oh God!" I shouted. "That why we were getting killed so often! How many were we using?"

"Oh, I dunno.  Something like twenty."

After the resulting laughter died down we realized that poor Lost Legends hadn't gotten a very fair shake. Needless to say, a sooner-then-later replay is now on deck! 

***

A part of me wishes that HAL-CON could be split into two separate events: one just for workshops, Q&A's, autograph signings and costume contests and another for merchandise, board games and pre-registered RPG's. Maybe then my loyalties wouldn't feel quite so conflicted.

For the sake of full disclosure, the HAL-CON organizers do run a few separate, day-long table top gaming events during the year. Odin-willing, I hope to be in attendance for one or both of these things next year.

Even with these dedicated appointments, I've resigned myself to the harsh reality that every HAL-CON from here on in will force me to make some pretty tough choices.

But, hey, there are worst problems, amirite?