Gamehole Con 2021 - Day 2 Part 1

As I said...this will be a doozy.  Like 18.5 hours of gaming, although with some minimal gaps.  I even played solitaire - not the card game, but a game by myself - for a little bit to keep the high going.  I think after writing about Tapestry, I'll break this into two sections.  I should break it into a section per game for easier reading, but if anyone is reading this they can just go find coffee in the middle.

I started the morning with Tapestry.  I didn't have a game going into the morning, although E did, so I added one of the open slots.  Easier to do on a Thursday than a weekend.  Klund is, or at least was, big on this game and makes some accessories for the pieces.  I had never played despite his enjoyment of it and the fact that I like many other Stonemaier games.  Overall...fun, although long [took almost the full three hours], but the first time through I was at a serious disadvantage against both position [physically, it was important I read the far player's cards] and a few folks who'd played before.  Trying to unpack the iconology was difficult alone and not understanding the full benefit of finishing one of the four outside tracks put me at a disadvantage.  That became an issue because I moved far along on one track immediately only to have a guy with a different civilization power use it to basically pop to where I was and then take all the advantages that I had lined up in conjunction with my civ bonuses.  In terms of overall position, I went immediately from competitive to a solid fourth and a game of catch up.

That's all part of a game, I don't begrudge that and I don't mind losing at all.  But not being able to see his civ text on the far side of the table and not knowing it via some plays meant I was immediately kneecapped.  I know I was playing the game right because my turns were very long so I was leveraging resources to make resources in ways that efficiently extended me beyond the others' earnings, but in the end I didn't finish a single track and instead tried to play a very balanced game that stealthily took me to second to last despite that I don't think anyone even expected me to be anywhere but firmly and decisively last.  It definitely felt like some of the civs were way overpowered compared to others.  Apparently there's a lot of discussion around that conjecture.

I did enjoy the fun little buildings and mini games [cover a 3x3 for a bonus, covers rows and columns for a bonus, get tech cards for a bonus] that benefited from the base size and base shape of the buildings.  Made it very tactile, although honestly I'm generally pretty happy with meeples, cubes, dice and cardboard markers.  I have these next two images out of order...me earlier in the game, me later in the game.  Vice versa.  You can see the evolvement...

..from pretty empty to a board full of buildings, big and basic.  I'll note I also didn't like my era cards [or whatever they're called - the cards that apply to the "age" you're in].  My were generally a flat "counter a treachery" [which never happened] or gain a flat 10 points.  I think one basically did me no good at all, and the alternatives wouldn't have been any better.  The others' age cards seemed to have a LOT of interaction and focus.  Just luck of the draw there.  Once it gets going, I will admit it's fast.  Everyone can almost play through their turn as fast as they can move and as players finish up, the speed for the remaining players gets even faster despite all the pieces.  I will say that its ranking on Boardgamegeek comparative to Seasons seems wrong.  That's a very minimally strategic game in comparison.  Would I play it again?  Yep, but I'd make sure I could read all the civ cards first and take a slower approach to any one lane.

A general picture of the floor at Gamehole Con on a Thursday.  It was much more crowded on the weekend.  This was definitely preferable.  

E reading the Gamehole Con participants [e.g. famous, not rank and file] program.

That stuffy butt next to E is a Blink Dog collectible.  They do one every year for Gamehole Con.  E has all of them except the rare first year Owlbear stuffy.  You can tell it makes them happy.  That is indeed a wizard in the background.  I'll post a better picture of the wizard later.

This beholder in the vendor area was impressive.  If you peruse the Instagram tag, it was probably the favorite photo opportunity.

While I was playing Tapestry, E played Letters from Whitechapel.  E said it was difficult but really fun and they caught Jack the Ripper [one of the other players..."hey honey, I got to pretend I was Jack the Ripper this long weekend.  It was exhilarating."]

Bit more E playing Whitechapel.

We moved on to Fates of Madness next.  It's a very simple RPG card game.  As in a GM-lite tells a story based on the cards while the players try to navigate the encounter cooperatively.  You can search for treasure and trade it to upgrade a few core skills, bump each other's skills, and choose to attack or wait to make an attack more effective.  It was fun, although E and I died during the boss fight.

The hit points system is easy.  You move your card along the grid...at least until you end up dead.  I did get in a lot of healing before that happened.  Our game facilitator, game designer, and story teller was legally blind so we had to tell him the specifics of our status, but he had played so often he had the cards memorized and only needed to see the fuzzy nature of the card to know what it was and what it did. It was nice in that it was stripped down to almost the very basics with a few rules for bows/etc so there wasn't a ton to learn like in Pathfinder, which I've played before [and enjoy], but is complicated. It was a bit more like Tenefyr in nature which lies somewhere between this and Pathfinder.

This was in the vendor area.  I almost bought it because I know some folks in roller derby, including a team mate and one of E's early teachers, but I [mostly] trust the boardgamegeek ratings when it comes to spend versus fun for me and in the 14000 overall range, this wasn't near anything I'd played and enjoyed before.

I think in the upsell version that was there, you might actually get paintable figures rather than semi-generic wood tokens, which was indeed tempting if they could be tailored to particular local teams.

I can't tell what Klund is playing here.  I thought it was one of the Flip City variants, but on inspection, that doesn't seem right.  Wrong colors for one, and more placards than playing cards on his table. I can't pick it out from the publisher list for Flip City, although they also make Ponzi Scheme, which Apong liked well enough to buy.  It does seem to require using a finger to maintain where you're at which seems very inefficient.

Speaking of Apong, here he is - he showed up during the day.  I'm not sure what he's playing either, but maybe it's the aforementioned Ponzi Scheme near the beginning of the game when there's not much money in play.

There was a gap during my day and nothing to add without screwing up my schedule or rushing, so I wandered over to the games library to find something to learn by myself so I could manage my time appropriately.  I've always wondered about Tudor, so I checked it out.  Good news, per the rules, as the only player, I am the one who looks most like Henry VIII.  And, for that matter, the most like any of his wives including Anne Boleyn, with or without her head.  

Amusing aside, while I was checking out the game, I asked the librarian if she had come to Gameholecon as a Star Trek ensign two years earlier.  As soon as I did the guy behind the tables perked up and started watching me. She hesitantly said "yes" and I noted her hair was a much different color so she was hard to recognize.  At this point the guy moves from side eye to a bit more direct attention and I realized I was inadvertently, but clearly, in some sort of "hitting on her" territory.  I quickly added, "I was a winner in the Martian Dice competition" and things immediately became more relaxed and he and I chatted about Martian Dice and what a good game it was for a wide variety of situations including both family and bar/brewery.

Here's my setup for Tudor.  I didn't get to play test it much before having to head to another event because most of it was either still packaged or put away incorrectly, but I got the gist of play.  Roughly, pieces have different movement capabilities depending on which room they go to, and higher value pieces facilitate those moves from the staging rooms and have two moves of their own.  The goal is to get to the top of the board and secure an office by collecting and buying favor on the way, although you can be bumped from an office.  As you play you collect rings, and rings change your movement capabilities depending on the fingers they're on in conjunction with the initial rooms and the presence of a noble.  To the best of my understanding, the color of the rings does not matter, only the fingers/positions. But I disagree.  The colors do matter because you can go with a Vikings motif instead of a Packers motif in Packers territory.

For the end of Day 2, Part 1, E and I played Honga.  It's a super light game - more of a family game - where there's a saber toothed tiger named Honga who wants to eat all your resources.  You draw cards that have hands on them in four directions [a better card if you have the most mammoths on the board] and place them so that some hands point at Honga and some point at the resource/activity you want.  You can choose NOT to point at Honga, and then he'll come eat your berries or fish.  But not you.  See...family game.  You can climb a mountain to pray - first one to the top gets the most points and the mountain climbing starts over.  Collect fish, berries, etc.  Trade fish, berries, etc, for mammoths which are basically a tier 2 resource.  Collect resource bonus cards.  And trade mammoths and resources and cards for victory points [basically inventions and achievements as a stone age tribe].

It's amusing to have a bunch of adults sitting around playing a kids' game by Haba [company known for family games].  One nice thing about it is that it facilitates talking because no one has to overthink their choices.  Lot of chatter at the table, particularly when someone purposefully chose to let the tiger eat their things to make some other move.

Gamehole Con 2021 - Day 1

E and I spent the last five days either at, or traveling to and from, Gamehole Con in Madison, Wisconsin.  My wife doesn't go with us.  In part because she's not as into the board game scene as we are.  In part because it's almost a sausage fest.  In part because there's so much sitting involved.  In part because she was working.  This was our fifth year, although they skipped last year due to covid, so we've been going since E was 12.  That's a long time for something I decided to go to on a lark by looking up a midwest convention on the smaller side that was still well regarded.  It had a bigger impact on Klund when we invited him because we had extra bed space in our hotel room.  He's been going just as long and his life has a lot of board game centric threads to it now.

We rented an Air BnB with Klund, his kid Carson, his other kid K who was there for the weekend, and Apong/FrenchDip.  Proof of vaccination and fully masked at the Con was required [I forgot to take my wrist band off until this morning, although they seemed unnecessary because the lanyard and badge were proof you had at least proved you were vaccinated or tested], or at least the ability to front a convincing lie and forgeries, and most of Madison is even masked up out of doors at times because it's easier to remember your mask that way it seems.  Madison seems much more mask positive then Minneapolis, at least in the burbs where my trip to the grocery store today was a little bit startling given the lack of face covering.

I can not believe how busy this post and the next will be for the first two days out of four, particularly day two.  I think the second day we basically gamed from 8:00 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. not including time to the Alliant Convention Center.  I don't think I've gamed that much since my 20s.  On the way to the Con, we stopped at Norske Nook in Osseo for some lunch.  E's pancake was pretty much like their pancakes always are, big and delicious.  But my omelet and pie seemed a little less exciting than usual [passive aggressive Minnesota talk].  I talked to a local I've exchanged messages with before who said their food has been going downhill lately.  Presumably that's covid related as they have hiring signs up and we didn't see the waitress that was so nice to us last time we were there when my order got messed up [and she was paying enough attention that when we came back through she talked to us about it unprompted].  I hope she retired and wasn't a victim of the flu.

Still...even though it tasted like it had been on the shelf a day extra [same for E's to-go cookie which was dry], my banana cream pie to go was pretty tasty.

And the pies certainly look like something you'd want to eat...

E and I got to Madison about 1:00 p.m. [I picked them up from college, which was a first for a road trip].  It was an uneventful trip other than appreciating the traffic jam on the opposite side of the interstate and the number of dead deer littering the sides of the roads [stay safe Wisconsin night drivers].  We popped into the Steep N Brew in Madison to kill two hours, me by working and proofing my nephew's college paper on Millennial opportunity issues, and E by reading and playing games.  Shout out to Steep N Brew - that glass mug was big and your coffee was great. 

At three we met Klund at the AirBnB.  On the surface of things, very nice.  But it was a little strange.  I'm not going to put the pictures below in any narrative order, but if you look further down you can see it's got this Frank Lloyd Wright vibe on the outside.  Huge place, super long, bedrooms in the middle and off the ends, and a downstairs [only half finished; reminds me of our rental in Richfield].  But start looking under the covers and it's a bit dated and has the patchwork/rental vibe.  That stovetop takes forever to heat up.  I made spaghetti the first night and the gallon pot of water never really came to a full boil, even after an hour.  Klund had time to learn all the rules to Hadrian's Wall while I was working the stove. I'll let the fridge speak for itself. Be careful when you pull on that handle, very careful.  And don't expect to store much in the freezer. You have to use the downstairs fridge for that.

Outside was beautiful, although it was in the 30s and 40s and we were gaming, so we didn't get to take advantage of the porch.  Demerits for half-smoked cigarettes still out there because I did pop out long enough to check it all out.

The front room, which was about half of upstairs, was the nicest part.  Great place to game.  The tv went mostly unused and I think E was the only one who sat on the couch, mostly waiting for me to pack up the last day.

I did turn that fireplace on the second night, but with all of us in the house, it didn't need much additional heat.

The closet situation was downright weird.  Those run almost the length of half the house. I don't think you can see it, but there are even more closets down there at the end.    They were generally full of appliances and extraneous serving dishes and things we never considered as necessary for a gaming weekend.  My bed was to the left.  Klund and E said their beds were comfortable, but mine had some people divots that were extreme and you couldn't really settle into one without sort of rising up in the middle or toward the edges.  Not great, so I'm glad I can sleep anywhere.

Where Klund slept.  This later became the site of Bonsaigate.  Apparently the little jade bonsai tree down in that sunken office is a precious sixteen-year old loved plant and someone picked leaves off of it while we were renting the place.  But in the accusatory photo the owner sent, the blinds are up, and cleaning was there before and after were were, and Kevin never really went down there except to put his stuff at the other end of the table.  No one spent time in that area, let alone went down just to pick leaves off a random plant [I do admit to throwing away the leaves and bugs that fell off the succulent art that hung over the toilet and fell on the tank, although that was natural shedding].  Advice...don't leave your precious bonsai in the AirBnB.  For all we know proximity to the window and the overnight freeze or the cleaners were the problem. As of today, this is an unsettled issue.

The outside of the place.  Very nice, although I wouldn't want to live in that low spot between all the other houses.  Seems like flooding is only a matter of one big rainstorm, particularly with the more frequent storms in the Midwest.  Carsen assured me his ass enhances this photo.

Another photo of outside, right in front of the living room.  You can appreciate how low it is compared to the other house.  That's the same on the other side and on the front driveway.  Maybe a little less on the backside.

And here we are prepped to game, although this is probably an end of weekend picture.  That said, it didn't change much the whole weekend other than a game would migrate from these stacks to the table or a game would migrate from the scratch and dent sale at the Con to this pile.  We brought a lot of games to play beyond what we were scheduled to play at the convention center.  We never did get to the Midgard expansion or Flamme Rouge or most of Klund's games.

Klund did come prepared with social lubrication.  I brought lots of dinner foods, although I also took home a lot of dinner food.  Time was tight at the convention so unless folks wanted a 10 p.m. [or later; I think I ate post-11 p.m. one night] dinner it meant eating out.  Usually that was food trucks at the Con, although I entirely avoided the food trucks this year and ate at Liberty Station [a real meal sat better for me], eggs at the AirBnb, and a very late dinner of chicken or whatever was easiest to make in a hurry. Apong and the others managed to schedule in some gaps to get to downtown for ramen or otherwise, which was a wise, or at least fortunate, bit of planning.

We started our gaming weekend with Spicy, a great game I learned about from Actualol in his video on games that are suited to drinking, although that wasn't our primary intent.  Apong liked it enough he picked up a copy from the scratch and dent bin at the Con.  A great find. Basically the idea is you play a 1/2/3 face down and then everyone lies about the next higher card they play, either suit, number, or both.  You can call someone on number or suit, but only one.  If you get it right, you get the cards and they count toward a win, and the liar gets two cards and starts a new run.  If you get it wrong they get the cards and you draw two and start a new run.  If you exhaust your hand of six, you get a ten point card that counts toward the win, although if you get two of those cards it's an automatic win.  Very interactive.  Beautiful deck of cards and art and the theme of lying big cats having a spicy eating contest is amusing.  Couple of variants exist in the rules, although we haven't played any of those yet.

This is Hadrian's Wall.  Great game, although the bit in the rules about people rewriting history and leaving in slaves is important is a bit dubious.  Klund's observation, and the agreement after a playthrough, was that it didn't matter one bit what those meeples represented.  

Note that the Romans did have slaves at the wall, but for the usual domestic and administrative purposes, not to build the wall itself.  "...the Wall was built by the skilled Roman legionary masons, with thousands of auxiliary soldiers providing the labour and bringing the vital building supplies to the construction area..."  That said, there were agricultural slaves that were shackled ["fettered"] and so it's accurate, just probably unnecessary.  We discussed the exclusion of them from Five Tribes which has a thread on boardgamegeek.  I was unaware of the whole yellow train in Ticket to Ride incident.

After a few seconds you only consider them as their color.  Basically you're selecting where you want to place your effort and everything interacts and drives mini games, although there are whole swaths of the card you may not, or almost not, play.  That double record sheet is daunting at first and copies of it make up like 80% of the game box contents [hefty box because it feels like a ream of paper because...it is], but once you get going you can put in a good showing even if you're not completely sure where to put your effort.

Carsen enjoying Hadrian's Wall.  E wasn't so interested in this one and skipped, but it's not really their board game jam.

Afterwards, Klund and I played Power Grid. Him for the first time.  Me to reacquaint myself with the rules [I don't think I've played since the mid 2000s even though I own a copy.  I almost bought an expansion this year, but the China/Korea map wasn't available].  Despite the fact that our two person run through was suboptimal from a play perspective [you always know what your power selection is likely to trigger / provide for the other player if there are only two of you], it was a good run through in preparation for the next two nights with more players which were a total blast.

Spicy....you'll see me show photos of it in other posts.  It's a default game for me to take along to the brewery or anywhere else because it's fast and works with two people [but is much better with more].