TableTop Day

This last weekend was International TableTop Day. It's the second time they've done this - and the first time Steph and I were able to participate.

It happened to coincide with Phoenix Games' 10th Anniversary this year, too.  So instead of one day of celebration and fun, we got two days.

On Saturday, we woke up early, and headed North to play some games. Wednesday Game Night usually pulls 18-20 folks, so I expected about the same number there for TableTop Day.  I was in for quite a shock.

We arrived about an hour after the event started, and the place was already packed.  As I do when I head to the store, I headed up front and chatted with Brian for a few minutes before finding a game to play.

My copy of Ricochet Robots had arrived, so I popped it open and quickly found a couple of other players.  We made one critical rules mistake (we tried to get any robot to the target rather than just the matching bot), but it didn't impact the fun of the game.  I think that overall I like Mutant Meeples better than this one, but it's not a bad game by any stretch. And they are different enough that I'll leave room on my shelf for both.

Following that, we broke out our copy of Discworld: The Witches. It was fun, but I don't think this game will be a top-shelf game for me. I think that one small house rule will change that, but at the cost of making the game more random.  That one small house rule is this: The Player(s) with the most cackle counters is eliminated before scores are counted.  It makes managing the cackle counters more important and means that players will stop for tea more often than they do now. But it does make the game a bit more swingy.

Following that, there was a Ticket To Ride tournament going on, and I sat in for a round.  It's been too long since I played this game, and I did terribly.  But that's okay - it was still fun.

At this point, I wandered up to the front again, and Brian asked me if I knew anything about Concept.  As it's one of the games I worked on, I was able to answer pretty easily.  And it sold!  And then the new buyer wanted to take it for a spin.

Twist my arm about off, why don't you?  There are people and groups who won't like this one, but I really really like it and can't wait to get my own copy ...

We played two full games, juggling seating arrangements so we'd have different "teams" each time.

I won both games, largely because Stephanie and I understand one anothers' thought processes well enough that we can "draw" specifically for one another to guess.

The next day, we went back for more.  Played more Discworld: The Witches and took Tokaido for a spin.  This one -- remember how I can often tell if I'm going to like a game by reading the rulebook?  I freely admit I was wrong about Tokaido.  The rulebook made it sound ... meh. Realistically, there's only one decision to make each turn, and sometimes you can't even do that. But - in play - it felt like my decisions mattered.

The Sunday events continued until the evening, but Steph and I had our twice-montly Dresden Files RPG game to get to.

So it was a weekend packed full of gaming.  I met some new folks and played a ton of new-to-me games (and a few old favorites). All-in-all, it was a great time - not unlike a brief convention, really - and I'm looking forward to next year.

Thanks to Geek and Sundry for giving me an excuse to play more games!