Our GenCon Demoing Frenzy

[netherspirit]

Oogiezone and I have spent most of the last two days doing nothing but demoing games. I have a rather extensive list of games I want and fortunately many of them have been available for demo.

We played a lot of Mayfair games because the Promo they are doing, for every game you demo or eveny of theirs you play in you get a resource ribbon (Ore, Grain, Sheep, Wood, Clay) You may recognize those...Once you get all 5 you get a "Knight of Catan" black ribbon, this ribbon entitles you to a 50% off coupon, a deck of events for Settlers of Catan (it basically replaces the dice), and a raffle ticket for a chance to win the $380 3-D settlers board. What a deal, so we played lost of games by them.

Reviews of the games on this list will be forthcoming after the con.

Mayfair Games

Mesopotamia: Cradle of Civilization
-We loved this game and bought it. Its an exploring, tile laying, resource management game, very cool.

Elasund: The First City
-Part of the Adventures of Catan line, I think there are 2 or 3 games. This one was also really fun, so we bought it as well.

Express
-Not so fun Train Card Game

Bison
-I really really really wanted to like this game, but couldn't get into it...Maybe we will try and play another game tommorrow.

Shear Panic
-A cute game about sheep, they are trying not to get sheared, pretty cool and nice components, didn't buy this one though.

Figaro
-A Card Game nice quick paced game for 3-5 players, its basically a screw your opponent game. We are probably going to get this one.

Rio-Grande Games

Thurn and Taxis
-This game was at the top of my list, we loved it and bought it. Great game.

Masons
-Another game that I really wanted to like, but couldn't get into, I will try and give it another go tommorrow.

Zig-Zag
-A crazy 2 player racing card game. We liked this one because its fun and something different than what we normaly play.

Knights and Robbers
-This is game reminded me of Othello, it was pretty cool but we didn't like it too much.

Other Companies
Can't remember the name
I don't remember the name but it was kind of crazy, it was a Jenga-Esque game, I will get the name tommorrow.

Mimic
-We didn't really like this game either, it was a little lame. More to come on that later.

There were more, I will think of them

Still on the list to Demo:

Blue Moon City
Quest Cards (looks really cool!)
And any other small company games we missed. We spend most of the past 2 days around the bigger companies booths, tommorrow will be small company day.

[geddy lifeson]

SOunds kick-ass! Thanks for the info, look forward to more.

tell me more about knights and robbers

[RichardD]

I thought that Mesopotamia was awful. Completely one-dimensional.

Blue Moon City gets good reviews. I also thought that it was awful, but then it was 15 months ago, I was playing the only copy in the world, it was made from DTP components, and had rules in an almost constant state of flux Playtesting with Reiner's always fun though.

[Hex_Enduction_Hour]

Originally Posted by netherspirit

Oogiezone and I have spent most of the last two days doing nothing but demoing games. I have a rather extensive list of games I want

NO kidding! What a great time with the GF, Nether. What is THURN AND TAXIS all about?

I think I'll stick with HS. I can't afford any other games what with my graphic novel hobby and the HS hobby. Plus, I don't want any other gaming interest to interfere with my 'scaping!!!

[geddy lifeson]

I am actually interested in Shear Panic and would like to know more about Thurn and Taxis as well.

[netherspirit]

So today we didn't do much demoing as we pretty much played every game there...almost. Maybe not everything there but everything that we were intested in which was a lot. We walked the entire Exhibit Hall which is FRACKING huge.

We demoed Blue Moon City today and liked it so we bought it.

We also found this cool game called Quest Cards so we picked that up too.

We tried to play Rum and Pirates but just couldn't get into it.

Also we found some older Fantasy Flight Games for $5 so we picked up a few of them.

Oh and Dragon Dice is still around!!! I used to play that in Junior High like 10 years ago. When Wizards bought TSR they dropped it and another smaller company picked up. The cleaned up the rules a bit so I will probably pick some of those up...maybe...its been awhile since I played.

We also saw this cool Euchre-like card game that had 6 suits and each card had a hero or dragon or something else on it that had special effects on the game. Pretty cool. It was called Mysticards or something, I have their card in my bag.

I will write up a big huge report (or maybe a bunch of smaller ones) for all the games we played.

RichardD - What I liked about Mesopotamia is that its easy to play, and it combines features of other games that we have. Its got resource management, tile laying, everything I like in a game. Oh yeah and it was half off because I was a Knight of Catan Different Strokes for Different Folks. What kind of games do you like?

[netherspirit]

So Gencon got over yesterday and we came home and crashed hard. What a long weekend. Next year we are definately getting a hotel room.

I am back at work now but will begin posting mini-reviews of all the games we demoed throughout this week.