Tag: rincon

RinCon 2023: Back better than ever in Tucson!

RinCon 2023: Back better than ever in Tucson!

What a difference nearly a year makes! After holding last fall’s convention in tandem with Tucson Comic- Con, RinCon held its annual board-game convention on its own again — and in a new location at the Casino Del Sol Resort and Casino in June. 

Having the option to stay at the hotel (which I did) where the convention is happening makes the entire weekend more relaxing and convenient. I didn’t have to schlep all my games around, and, if I needed a quick break, I’d just hop on up to my hotel room, which is easily accessible from the convention gaming area, which had plenty of room and tables. There resort also had a second hotel tower that was a little bit of a walk from the convention floor, but still not too bad of a walk. The facilities and gaming space were much nicer than previous places where RinCon was held, and there were plenty of food options at the resort, and grocery stores were about a 15-minute drive outside of the grounds. 

This is the pool and view from the Casino Del Sol Resort and Casino in Tucson.

I arrived at the con Friday afternoon after making the two-hour drive from Phoenix. First up on the agenda: teaching Votes for Women in the Women’s Space. I love teaching games in this space! It’s quieter and more intimate than the rest of the open gaming area, and the Women’s Space is so welcoming and a place to ask all the questions about whatever game is being taught. 

Will America vote into law the right for women to vote?

Votes for Women is a 2-4 player game in which the suffragists are working to pass the vote to allow women to vote in the U.S., while the Opposition player works against that. It’s a card-driven area-control game. I love the subject matter of this game, and as each side has their own player deck that’s phased in, the game removes the fraught decisions that otherwise come with other card-driven war games, lowering the barrier to entry for more types of gamers. A win-win!

This little bot plays as the third person. It was totally getting in the way of our grids!

After dinner, I signed up to play Power Grid with the Brazil map. I am always down for a game of Power Grid and had never played this map before. Only two of us signed up for the game, so we played with the Robot, which is something I had also never used before! It’s neat building the robot to plan its bot actions, but it seemed like a heavy lit remembering all the things it did. The Brazil map restock rates heavily leaned toward oil and trash, which changed the feel of the game vs the original game. I invested heavily in oil power plants, and that was the path to victory. 

For once, I was not a dollar short in many rounds of Power Grid.

The last game I played on Friday night was Golem. The game is based on the 16th-century legend of the Golem of Prague, an anthropomorphic creature that Rabbi Loew animated from a clay statue to protect his people. I enjoyed this game but there is SO MUCH going on! There’s a main board, individual player boards, and a marble contraption where drop marbles at the start of each turn to randomly indicate how strong each action will be for the round.

Let’s toss some marbles!

The main board starts with two golems for each player that move along tracks and perform actions, but if your golems pass your student, which is a separate track, there’s a cost to pay at the end of the round. 

There is a lot going on in Golem! But the combo-ing of actions is so satisfying!

At the start of your turn, you pick a marble in the slot with the action you want to do, and picking a specific color marble will also matter for end-of-round bonuses and activations on your player board. You take that action, which then can combo into a bunch of other actions depending on what you do and how you’ve upgraded your personal player board. It’s important to keep a balance between your resources — wisdom, coins, artifacts, etc. — but you also cannot do everything you want to do. I would love to play this game again! 

You also have a player board that marks your resources, and you can add extra golems to the board.

On Saturday morning, I did a quick lap around the vendor area. I may or may not have purchased a bunch of earrings. I do love dangly earrings. Next up was teaching a game of Scout. I love this trick-taking game where you can’t rearrange your hand and often bring it with me because it’s so compact and easy to teach. 

I carry Scout with me a lot, because it’s fun and it fits nicely into my purse.

After Scout, I was scheduled to teach a game of Twilight Inscription back at the Women’s Space. Twilight Inscription is my top new game that I played for the first time in 2022. It’s quite an epic game and I enjoyed teaching it to two other people that afternoon. Even though the game can hold 8 people, I capped the table to hold 4 people, and 3 ladies showed up to learn.

Twilight Inscription looks bonkers but once you’re underway, the iconography is easy to follow.

I then learned how to play Woodcraft. In Woodcraft, you’re gathering wood and crafting goods for customers in your workshop in the woods. This game has a delightful action-selection wheel — as actions get taken, the slide of the wheel gets moved ahead to the next section, giving bonuses to actions that haven’t been taken.

Chopping down some wood and fulfilling contracts.

If an action keeps getting picked, it will become ineligible until some of the other actions have been taken and the wheel’s inner circle rotates for more bonuses. It’s such a cool mechanism! Meanwhile, you’re planting trees and processing wood to fulfill contracts, while upgrading your workshop to be more efficient. 

Got a chance to hang out and game with David Short and JJ during the convention!

The last game I played on Saturday night was Sabika. Full disclosure: I had never heard of this game before but I’m so very happy I got to play it. This game has three rondels! You can’t see my face right now but it is definitely beaming. <Insert heart eye emoji here>.  

Look at all those rondels in Sabika!

Players are constructing towers, gardens and palaces as well as establishing trade routes by sending ships out through Europe. Meanwhile, you’re also carving poems and reactivating them for bonuses. Each rondel has different actions and different workers on them, and on your turn, you move 1 to 2 spaces to activate the action location. If you land where someone else is, you have to pay. This game was a lot of fun. 

During this game, the clock hit 11 p.m. You know what that means? It’s Eegee’s time. RinCon always treats the convention attendees with this Tucson favorite! Yums! 

I mixed and matched my Eegee’s flavors. So refreshing during hot desert nights!

On Sunday, I took another lap around the gaming area. I saw Trailblazer: The Arizona Trail being demoed. It’s the follow-up to Trailblazer: The John Muir Trail, designed by Dan Rice of the Phoenix area. I did not get a chance to play it but the copper color scheme, representative of the Southwest, and the miniatures are just gorgeous! It’s set to come to Kickstarter in February.  

Dan Rice’s first game Trailblazer was a success! I’m looking forward to this new one.

A nearby table was playing Dead Reckoning. Look at this neat pirate ship! 

This little pirate ship was super cute!

The last game of the convention for me was Lacrimosa. I had seriously hunted down a copy of this game to learn at this con and I was so happy that David Short had a copy and was willing to teach this game. The theme was what drew me in — Mozart is dead, and his final wish was to finish composing the Lacrimosa movement of his Opus Requiem. Players work as Mozart patrons helping to sell or exhibit his works, commission missing parts of the requiem and traveling across Europe to various courts and theaters. 

I really liked the music theme of Lacrimosa, plus its multi-use cards.

The game is a deckbuilder that isn’t a deckbuilder that’s filled with multi-use cards. You draw a few action cards each turn and decide to use them for actions or rewards based on how you tuck them into your player board. And instead of buying new cards, you’re upgrading your cards and discarding the old ones. This was probably my favorite game that I played at RinCon. I immediately bought a copy at my local FLGS when I got back into town. 

Here’s how you use the cards to take actions or bonuses. You tuck them into your player board.

I cannot express how much fun I had at this year’s Rincon. Last year’s gaming was tough, if I’m being honest, but this year made up for it tenfold. The new venue is fantastic, and the leaders and volunteers always work so hard to make the convention inclusive, inviting and so enjoyable to attend. The RinCon chair Karen had estimated that over 600 people attended this year’s convention. What a great turnout, and I can’t wait to go back next year! P.S. If RinCon is back at the Casino Del Sol next year, I highly recommend getting donuts at Sweetscapes Desserts inside the casino. The donuts are amazing! 

You can’t really tell but this is a strawberry old-fashioned donut. It was heavenly!
Tucson’s RinCon 2019: Trains, skulls and a giant rhino

Tucson’s RinCon 2019: Trains, skulls and a giant rhino

Two weekends ago, I went down to Tucson for their annual board game convention RinCon! I particularly love how a bunch of us from the Phoenix area all trek down south to Tucson to game nonstop for a few days. I also love all the unique perks that RinCon offers its convention-goers — from nightly midnight snacks to the wonderfully curated Women’s Space. 

Here’s one of the main rooms at RinCon. The tablecloths are color coded, so you’ll know if a table is reserved for scheduled gaming.

It’s the third year in a row I’ve gone, and the second year in a row I’ve been a special guest. About 600 people attended this year’s convention, which was held again at the Sheraton Tucson Hotel and Suites.

Gamers setting up giant Azul in the RinCon lobby.

Friday

My buddy Mark and I arrived Friday afternoon, and we dove immediately into a game of Mexica. I love, love this game, and it never fails to disappoint! Everyone always falls in love with the game’s components, and, for me personally, I enjoyed easing into a hectic convention with a game I’m quite familiar with. 

Mexica has such table presence! But it can be so mean! The new players in this game learned quickly that blocking people is the way to go.

I then taught a 4-player game of Irish Gauge, a stock-based cube-rail train game. It’s the first title in the Iron Rail series by Capstone Games, first published by Winsome games back in 2007.

These guys are always so fun to game with! I wish they all didn’t live clear across town and, for Mike, in Tucson!

It’s a 3-5 player game that plays in about 60 minutes. Learning the game is easy; there are 4 actions to choose from after the initial stock bidding around. Players are building track to expand their train company, auctioning of stocks, upgrading towns to cities, or calling dividends. When dividends are called, cubes are randomly pulled from a bag, and that determines which routes will pay out. It’s a very stripped down stock game — complete with adorable candy-like train pieces. Irish Gauge was the first of many train games I played during the weekend.

Irish Gauge is a quick 3-5 player stock–based train game.

I then taught a 3-player game Dead Man’s Cabal, a clever puzzly strategy game where players are trying to raise the dead. It has skulls, spells and zombie cards!  Players have a private action, and then everyone does a public action, based on the skulls in play, and each skull represents a board that has actions associated with it. If you don’t have a particular color of that skull in your supply, then you can’t take the action. I really enjoyed this midweight euro! 

So many skulls! This game has been delightful each time I’ve played it.

Next up was Tokyo Metro, an economic stock game from Jordan Draper games. This is probably the heaviest of his games — and a little busier and fiddly, too — where players are investing in stocks and working to increase the values of stocks, as trains pass through rail stations along a giant cloth map of the Japanese metro. Trains only move a certain number of spots, so you’ll have to calculate payout based on that train schedule, and only certain actions will come out each round, based on the action cards that are phased in. I’d love to try this again, as my train was totally melting down by this time of night.  

So many trains, and so many rail lines! Tokyo Metro is based on the Japanese metro.

Then at 11 p.m., I hosted a Mega Game of Welcome To. About 20 people came out, and we used the Halloween expansion pack for our game. Welcome To is a roll-and-write game that doesn’t involve dice but instead cards containing numbers and special abilities that players use to fill out a map of their city. Everyone selects a number simultaneously so it’s a game that can be played out on the big screen in a large group.

GloryHoundd took this photo of me hosting Welcome To on the big screen.

And even though I was nervous running my first mega game ever, I had a great time, and I think everyone did, too. The winner was GloryHoundd, and she received the game, as well as a couple expansion packs, and the second- and third-place winners received some Halloween candy. 

Winner winner chicken dinner! The winners of the Mega Welcome To game.

At midnight, RinCon served its first midnight snack of the convention: Eegee’s. For those unfamiliar, Eegee’s are Tucson-based frozen fruit drinks, and people lined up to get a cup of this sweet treat. All attendees get tickets with their badge, which they trade in for the midnight snacks on Friday and Saturday night. 

Saturday

I then started early on Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. by teaching a 2P game of Abomination. I love this game so much, and I believe it’ll be more widely available now for more folks to check out! But I like to preface that this is not a short game by any means. Even with our 2P game, it took well over 2 hours. 

Building bodies early on a Saturday morning.

I then was invited to do a noon panel called “How to Teach a Game in 5 Mins.” Five us from the board game industry talked with a group of folks about methods that worked for us for teaching games, whether light or heavy. The discussion included how to teach teenagers how to win graciously as well as empowering new gamers to teach other gamers. Also, we had a legit space scientist Dante Lauretta among us panelists who is a board-game designer and does educational outreach at the Boys and Girls Club in Tucson.

GloryHoundd and I then hung out at the bar after our panel and caught up for a bit while drinking our respective signature drinks. Our drinks were super yummy and provided a midday breather to an already busy day.  

Drannnnkss! GloryHoundd and I both enjoyed our signature convention drinks.

My next game was The Soo Line, where I learned that it’s pronounced like the name Sue and not so. That’s the Valley girl in me coming out!

Always a fun time with Greg, Dr. GloryHogg and Brian!

Anywho, The Soo Line is a 45-minute pick-up-and-deliver stock train game. I made some poor choices for bidding in the beginning and never quite caught up again! How does the Soo Line actually made any money when it has to come all the way across the board? Tell me your secrets, folks!

It was so hard getting the Soo line all the way across the map!

I then joined a group of a dozen people to play Blood on the Clocktower, a giant social-deduction game described to me as similar toWerewolf but gamier. Benjamin led many, many games of this during the entire convention, and it was SUCH. A. BLAST.

Our fearless leader Benjamin running Blood on the Clocktower.

Unlike Werewolf, when you die in Clocktower, you can still have one vote for the rest of the game so that you can help your side win the game. It’s humans vs. demons, and there’s even a character sheet so you can deduce who is which character, and strategically reveal information about yourself or others. 

I was the ravenskeeper, and even though I died, I was instrumental in finding the imp, leading the humans to victory!

After a quick dinner break, I taught a 4P game of Tiny Towns. I was so involved in teaching this game that I completely forgot to take a photo, but friends, let me tell you that I crushed the game. I played a second game of Irish Gauge with 4 different players and immediately after a few games of Strike.

Strike is such a bar game, in which you’re tossing dice into the box stadium, and if there are any pairs, you take back dice into your hand. Players get eliminated when they run out of dice, and the last person standing wins the game. 

Throw in your dice to get more dice! Strike is a fun filler!

I then got to hang out with David Short and taught him and my buddy Rob Watergate. I always get kind of nervous getting games I love to game designers, because they know game mechanisms so well and I’m afraid they’ll find something really off or broken about said game. Luckily, everyone ended enjoying the game! 

The rest of the night was a series of shorter games. We played NMBR 9 (always a good time) and Illusion (I can’t for the life of me figure out these color percentages) before getting pizza for our midnight snack. 

And then some late-night shenanigans 1 a.m. happened with my buddies Mark, Greg and Brian.

We then played Giant Rhino Hero, Point Salad and Skulls. This was my first time playing Giant Rhino Hero and it was a riot! Players are basically stacking cards to build a giant tower for the Rhino Hero to move up in.

This is when it got called than me, though some people might say that it doesn’t take much to reach a height taller than 5’3″!

The tower eventually got much taller than me, and its ultimate demise was captured on video. (Notice that I am in fact standing on a chair!)

Point Salad is a quick card drafting game in which you’re collecting fruits and veggies to score objective cards. And Skulls is a fun bidding, bluffing game that has gorgeous artwork. 

Sunday

I began my day teaching Watergate at the Women’s Space. Folks, I cannot tell you how amazing this space is. I love that RinCon sets aside a suite for women to relax, get away from the crowd, and learn scheduled board games from female GMs. Mari runs the space, which is fully stocked with meeple cookies, snacks and drinks.

A nice couch to chillax on during the convention!
Here’s Mari, who keeps the lovely Women Space up and running.

Two ladies signed to learn Watergate, and they enjoyed the game so much that they switched sides and played again. The same player won both times!

These ladies are ready to go head-to-head in the battle for the White House.

I ended the convention playing another game of Mexica and Coimbra, which was the top game I played in 2018. And in case you were wondering, I crushed my two opponents in Coimbra. 

Coimbra is such a good game. We need to get to get it on table more often!

And just like that, another awesome time in Tucson was had at RinCon. This convention never disappoints, and I love how friendly everyone is here. Karen Arnold Ewing is the chair of the convention, and she succeeds in making this con inclusive and inviting, especially with the incredible women’s space. There are gamers of all ages, and there is definitely something for everyone! 

Here’s RinCon’s fearless leader Karen Arnold Ewing, who, along with an army of volunteers, works tirelessly to put on a wonderful convention.

And just like that, three days of gaming came and went. I had a lot of fun hanging out with friends and meeting new ones, and hosting/teaching games. Thank you so much for having me, RinCon, and I can’t wait to be back next year!

I love these pronoun badges that are provided at every RinCon convention.


RinCon Games 2018: Panels, Women’s Space, A Drink Surprise

RinCon Games 2018: Panels, Women’s Space, A Drink Surprise

This past weekend was RinCon down in Tucson, which is a two-hour drive from Phoenix. Last year, I was only able to attend for one day. This year, the convention invited me to be a special guest, and I got to speak on some panels regarding subjects that are near and dear to me! How frakking awesome is that?

I drove south to Tucson on Friday after work and immediately jumped into a 7-player Sidereal Confluence, my new favorite con game after I busted it out at Strategicon. I’ve been bringing this game to conventions because I figure I can get a large player count for this game, which is absolutely fun and bonkers — if you love live negotiating! I got a chance to play this with friends I saw at Gila Monster, and a good time was had by all.

Sidereal Confluence is a live negotiation and trading game with asymmetrical alien factions.

We then played two games of Deception: Undercover Allies. The original Deception game is my favorite deduction-style game, so it was great playing this expansion. The new roles such as the Inside Man and Protective Detail made for some real nail-biters in finding the murderer. Plus, the microscopes and the police badges are a sweet addition.

I got a chance to play the expansion of my favorite social-deduction game.

On Saturday, I hopped into a game of At the Gates of Loyang, which is from my favorite designer Uwe Rosenberg. This has been one of my grail games to play, as I don’t know anyone local who has it. It’s an older game from 2009 and has the farming and harvest elements that are similar to his other games. I really liked the card-drafting mechanism for Loyang, in which players are placing cards from their hands into the courtyard to later pick two action cards. The player has to both pick a card from their hand and from the courtyard for their two card actions in that round.

I’m playing an Uwe game where I’m planting and harvesting fruits and veggies!

Then in typical Uwe fashion, you can plant and harvest your fruits and vegetables and complete orders from various customers. If you can’t satisfy some customers, then you’ll get a penalty. I need to find a copy of this game for my collection!

I then spoke from my first panel for the convention on diversity and inclusivity. Personally, I don’t have much experience doing public speaking so I’m always a little bit nervous doing these things, but everyone was so friendly that you can’t help but get caught up on discussions about making board gaming a better place for everyone. Topics such as how to promote welcoming spaces came up and how to best amplify those diverse voices in the industry. I was on the panel with Erin Escobedo, Jamie DuBois of Do Better Gaming, Jahmal Brown and Camdon Wright.

There was some good discussion on making gaming more welcoming and inclusive. (Photo by CritHitAZ)

I then met up with RinCon special guest Sarah Reed who taught me how to play her games Oaxaca and Project Dreamscape. It was a real treat finally meeting her in person and hanging out with her all weekend. I love the colorful artwork of Oaxaca and had a little too much fun activating some of the Handicraft Cards to target my opponents.

I love the colorful artwork in Oaxaca. You can target some of your opponents with some of the cards. But ultimately, the game forces you to specialize and be more efficient with gathering and crafting.

Come to think of it, we also started getting a little mean for Project Dreamscape! There’s an option to flip over cards, making it more expensive to get the cards we all want. Both games were really fun to play. I also learned about how Oaxaca came to be and gained useful information about creating prototypes during Sarah’s panel on Game Design, which also included David Short and James Earness of Cheapass Games.

It’s me and game designer extraordinaire Sarah Reed, who is originally from Sacramento. I’m glad we got a chance to meet in real life and hang out!

After that panel, I participated in a women in gaming panel with these lovely ladies: GloryHoundd, Marissa Kelly of Magpie Games, Sarah Reed and Griffin Maria. We talked about our experiences — good and bad — of being a female gamer, the role models we have or wished we had, and what motivates us to create content in a sometimes inhospitable environment. We all had different experiences and come from various corners of the board-game world. It was inspiring to listen to all these women speak.

Loved being on a panel with all these wonderful ladies. Karen Arnold Ewing (behind me in purple) is in charge of the convention and moderated the panel.

The Women’s Space came up in discussions as well. For the first time ever, RinCon dedicated a separate space for women to game in. This room was beyond fantastic — it had fresh-baked goods, snacks and a well-kept stash of products people could dig into.

Who doesn’t love fresh-baked goods? Women do it right!

Whenever I went into the Women’s Space, most folks were gaming but there were a few who just needed a quiet break away from the hustle and bustle of the main gaming areas. I think this is such a wonderful idea and hope that more conventions set up a place like this.

The Women’s Space was set up in a hotel suite away from the main convention floor. It was a nice retreat.

After the panel, I learned Gizmos, which is nothing like Potion Explosion despite marbles and a contraption from which the marbles come out of. It’s a quick engine-building game where you’re building these machines and scoring victory points. Certain machines will increase your capacity to hold various cards, which then will make your engine more efficient.

David Short taught us how to play Gizmos, a quick engine-builder that has marbles and a contraption that spits out marbles.

I then played Coimbra, which is my second time playing this game after Gila Monster. I cannot get enough of this game, with its crunchy decisions in a not-super-long eurogame. It’s essentially dice drafting in which pips matter for the first half of the round, and then the color of the dice matter for the second half of the round in receiving income or resources of the matching dice color. So crunchy! This is one I would love to add to my collection.

I love love this game, even if I’m not very good at it.

Lastly, I played Ginkopolis, which I first played at Arizona Game Fair. This game has card drafting, area control and multi-use cards. We played a 5P game that lasted into the wee hours of the night, briefly interrupted by some Eegee’s frozen treats at midnight. Also, on Friday night at midnight, the convention brought in some free pizza for a pizza party. Such cool perks from the con!

We played a 5P game of Ginkopolis that lasted in the night on Saturday night.

On Sunday morning, I signed up to teach Lisboa, one of my absolute favorite games and which I actually learned at last year’s RinCon, to some women in the Women’s Space. It’s a beast to teach, and I wanted to share my love of this game in a chill environment where people can ask all the questions they want. We got through the first half of the game before the time ended, but it seemed like most of them got the gist of it, enough to figure out if they would want to buy it. Also, the giant tweezers were a bit hit and made it very easy to point out iconography.

Had a good time teaching these ladies Lisboa. Hope they enjoyed the session!

After Lisboa, I purchased Oaxaca and found Sarah to say goodbye to her and have her sign my new game before making the trek back to Phoenix. The biggest surprise of the convention was finding out that RinCon named a drink after me! That is seriously the coolest thing! The drink was super yum and had a dragon on it to match the convention’s theme! Squee!!

I got a drink named after me! My life has totally peaked, and I can die happy.

And just like that, the weekend was over. I had a wonderful time gaming with old and new friends. I loved that the convention is so supportive in creating a safe and inclusive space for all types of gamers, especially with the addition of the Women’s Space. And thanks, RinCon, for having me as a special guest! Can’t wait until next year!

Cheers! And hope to see you at the next convention!

 

Rincon Games: Tucson’s board game convention

Rincon Games: Tucson’s board game convention

I went to RinCon for the first time last weekend down in Tucson and had an amazing time! I drove up Friday night to spend the night there so that I can game early in the morning. For those who know me in real life, I am so not a morning person and didn’t want to bother getting up early Saturday to make the 2-hour drive from Phoenix. I only got a day pass for Saturday. Next year, I hope to make it for the whole weekend!

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