Rochester Gamers Community

Thursday, August 13th
We had no problem getting our badges this morning at will call, so with a couple hours before the exhibit hall opened we headed into the Rio room. There wasn't many people here and we met up with "booth babe Beth, the board game booth babe". Curt decided to coin her this title and it stuck throughout the day. She did an excellent job teaching us "Castle for all Seasons", which we subsequently played. A good game, and Nate gave it his nod for best game demo of the day.

An aside here: the Rio room is simply awesome! Rather than milling around masses of people in the exhibit hall, hoping to get into a demo where you get to play half the game at best, you get to sit at tables, and have games explained to you where you get to play them to conclusion . In addition, free food is brought in throughout the day. I can't believe more people haven't found this room yet, as its about all I could ask for as a hard core board gamer.

Being about 10:30 at this point, we headed into the exhibit hall and started a snake-like path of wandering throughout the hall. I made it as far as the FFG booth before realizing that I had to snag a copy of the BSG expansion before it was sold out. So I waited in a 30 minute line while Nate and Curt continued the exhibit floor tour. Fortunately, while standing in line, I saw Michael hagiing around and was able to arrange a time for our RGC meetup.

I meandered around for a bit in the solo capacity at this point, took in some Dragon Age: Origins, as well as some random booths before meeting up with Nate and Curt again for some more wandering around. Next up was a talk-through for a FFG game called Android. It was a heavily themed game with loads of rules and mechanics, designed by Kevin Wilson. Not really my thing, but I sat through the talk and then asked a couple courtesy questions before permanently shelving that game in my mind. At some point we ended back at Z-man games for a game of Wasabi, which was new to Nate.

After lunch, we hit the Rio room again and found ourselves at the Ra: Dice game for a quick play. I didn't like it much, so was only too happy to head over to our next game, "Royal Palace", which got the nod from me for game of the day. Its a bit like "Louis XIV", only better. We met a woman named LeeAnn (or something like that) who joined us for the game and some good conversation.

Back to the exhibit hall for more wandering, and a demo of Cash 'n Guns. This was a fun party game that is something you can play with family and/or friends who aren't gamers. Its a bit like "Bang", but in a Reservoir Dogs setting. A quick tail over to FFG again found us at an Age of Conan demo with a presenter that had mentally checked out hours ago. He nearly put me to sleep on the spot, and consequently, the partial play left a bad taste in my mouth. By far, this was the worst demo of the day.

As we got kicked out of the exhibit hall, we headed over to the Rio room again for some free food and a game of "Chicago Express", a train based game that we spent nearly 30 minutes figuring out. A decent game that I would need another run through before judging.

Rounding out the night was a partial play of Dominion with Curt & Kevin who have not played it before. Wade, Michael, and Wade's entourage were ready to head out for drinks and dinner, so we frittered the rest of the night away by drinking and then getting booted from his hotel.

Back to our hotel for a game of "Fruit Basket Upset", designed by one of our group. Its not really my cup of tea, but we gave some feedback and headed to bed.

Summary:
Ripping off an idea from Game On, with Cody & Jon, I am going to conclude each blog with a concise list of games, with a Buy, Try, or Deny rating. The ratings are as follows:

Buy - Something I liked well enough to consider buying, or putting on my gift list.
Try - Something I enjoyed playing, and would play again, but have no intention of owning.
Deny - It was the first and last time I will ever play this game.

Castle for All Seasons - Buy
Wasabi - Try
Android - Deny
Ra: Dice Game - Deny
Royal Palace - Buy *pick of the day
Cash 'N' Guns - Buy
Age of Conan - Try
Chicago Express - Try
Dominion - Buy
Fruit Basket Upset - Deny