Tag: seasons

Dice Tower West 2022: Board games in Las Vegas

Dice Tower West 2022: Board games in Las Vegas

My husband and I were going back and forth on attending Dice Tower West last weekend as it would be the first major convention we’d attend since the start of the pandemic. I had previously attended Consimworld in person last summer, but that was only about 200 gamers — Dice Tower West is probably nearly 10 times that amount. We decided to take a road trip to Las Vegas and had a fabulous time!

Thursday

We drove from Phoenix and arrived in Las Vegas on Thursday evening, and after a lovely dinner at one of my favorite restaurants ever — Firefly Tapas Kitchen and Bar — we checked into the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, where Dice Tower West is being held. Since my formerly-East Coaster husband, Chris, had never been to Las Vegas, I wanted to give him a tour of the town before we dove into board games. 

Firefly Tapas Kitchen + Bar is one of my favorite restaurants! I celebrated my 30th birthday there a lifetime ago!

We went to see O at the Bellagio, my favorite Cirque du Soleil show, and bought third-row seats. It was pretty epic sitting so close! I could feel the cold air when the water came down and the heat when the fires were ablazing. After the show, we meandered a small section of the Strip and ended up getting Secret Pizza at the Cosmopolitan. 

O by Cirque du Soleil is such an impressive show, a visual spectacle!

Friday

On Friday morning, we checked into the convention and scoped out the place. The Rio convention area is ginormous! I had last attended Dice Tower West in 2019, and this was much, much bigger and spread out, which made me feel safe to game with friends.

Me checking in at Dice Tower West. I accidentally matched the sign.

There were two main gaming rooms (one was mask optional and the other was mask required, where we stayed through the whole con.) The exhibitor hall was located in the mask-required room.

The convention area was so large and had many different rooms spread out at the Rio Hotel.

The convention area had the Dice Tower West library, panel rooms, lounge rooms, food rooms and breakaway rooms for gaming in a smaller space. There was no shortage of finding space or moving over to a quieter area.

The Dice Tower West library. They even had tables in the library!

The first game I played was Dog Lover. Such an adorable game! It’s the sequel to Cat Lover, a game I reviewed on Episode 117 of The Five By, and it introduces new elements such as Tricks and Traits to change up the card drafting. Players are rescuing dogs to feed them and can score even more points if the doggos become trained, go on walks and collect their favorite things. 

I just adore the artwork in Dog Lover!

Next up, I played Honey Buzz, which I purchased after talking with GameFreekGeekGirl at the Elf Creek Games booth. The awesome components drew me in, but the puzzly aspect of the game is what sold me! Honey Buzz is a bee worker placement game, where you place your beeples on a central board to expand your beehive, produce nectar and make honey. Expanding your beehive requires you to collect honeycomb tiles, which you then place into your area, and how you configure them will produce resources to complete objectives. There’s also a “bear market” where you can sell nectar, which are these semi-squishy beads in various shapes and sizes to correspond with different honey types. 

The beeples and components in Honey Buzz are cute!

I then attended a Twitch streamer event and met these wonderful ladies!

All these hard-working ladies are making such a positive impact in the board-gaming community: Amanda Panda, Beneeta and Monique, from Before You Play!

I then ran into Ta-Te Wu, the designer of Art Decko, originally released as Promenade, and beloved cat games like Cat Sudoku and Cat Rescue.

I finally got to meet Ta-Te Wu in person!

I then had a chance to playtest a new game he’s working on! Players are using cards from their hands to take control of a suit and place their meeple on it. It’s a neat bluffing, majority control card game that doesn’t have an official theme on it but I’m excited to see where this goes as all of Ta-Te’s games have such cute artwork on it. 

Chris and I got to playtest one of the games Ta-Te is working on.

I then got a chance to play So Clover! Uhh, this game is bonkers! Players are dealt cards with words on its four sides, and you randomly place it onto your plastic clover. You then write one word so that other players can guess which two words from the cards belong on that side of the clover. When it’s your turn, you remove the cards from the clover and are dealt a fifth dummy card, which then you place into the center of the board with the clover so that other players can choose which cards to place on which clover side. I can see how this is a fun party game, but man, the addition of the fifth card after you write your clues seemed to derail all of our games!

This game is bonkers! It still doesn’t beat my current party game at the moment, Just One, but it’s still fun!

I then played Floating Floors, a ninja dexterity game where you’re moving your piece across floating floorboards that you or your opponent have placed. Each turn, you roll three dice to determine which small shapes you’ll take and place them on the cards and add a floor on top of it. Ninjas then make their way across the matching squares in order to pick up bansen seals. 

Our ninjas precariously balancing on floating tiles.

Dice Tower West had plenty of events throughout the con. We took a break and watched Paula Deming’s live show. She sang, did some improv and chatted with the audience, and showcased her videos. It was a nearly full house! 

Lots of people came out to Paula Deming’s live show.

Amanda Panda then taught us Project L! This game is so neat! It’s a puzzly engine-builder game with polyominos where you collect objective tiles to place your puzzle pieces on it and as a prize, you receive another puzzle piece. The more puzzles you complete, the more pieces you’ll have to complete high-value tiles. The components and the square box are top-notch! It’s like a more brain-burnery NMBR9.  

Project L combines engine building and puzzle-building!

I finished Friday night with two quick games of Seasons. My buddy and I always fall back to this game because neither one of us owns it, and it’s a fast-paced game since we both know how to play. Plus, chonky dice! 

Seasons, an oldie and a goodie! I always love rolling these dice.

Saturday

I randomly caught the start of the Flea Market, which was hopping! We purchased an Oink game Mr. Face and Quixo, a wooden game that belongs to a series of games that my husband loves. 

Tic-Tac-Toe-ing our way around this wooden puzzle.

I then played Squaring Circleville. Love this game! I first played this game as a prototype back in BGG Con 2019 (which seems like a lifetime ago!), and the Kickstarter finally delivered this game earlier this year. I love the historical background of this game, where Circleville, Ohio, which was built in a circle, razed down structures to square off its town into a modern grid. Plus, it’s got a cool rondel action mechanism. 

I’ve been waiting for Squaring Circleville to be released, and it did not disappoint!

We then played Twin Palms with Greg and Stephanie, a very cool trick-taking game with only two suits and retro beach artwork that’s currently on Kickstarter. This game was so enjoyable, with such a clever twist on trick-taking! The Kickstarter is ending very soon, so if this is up your alley, I highly recommend backing it!

I love the artwork on Twin Palms! Plus, the unique trick-taking mechanism makes it easy for new gamers to join.

Next up was a party game prototype that my buddy Treg has been working on: My Soundtrack. I haven’t seen Treg for many years since we first met at GMT Weekend, so I was happy to run into him and his wife here. In the style of Apples to Apples, this music party game is all about building your life soundtrack. 

My husband played this winning card for this song on the soundtrack of my life. LOL

There are two stacks of cards: soundtrack cards and cards with song names and the artist on it. If it’s your turn, you draw two theme cards and pick one. The next two people to your left will each play a song card, and you have to pick which song is best. The winner of that duel has to compete one by one with everyone else at the table to pick the better matching song. The owner of the winning song gets a guitar pick! I like how in this game you aren’t competing with the entire table, but one by one, and even if you don’t know the songs, the game still makes hilarious gameplays based on the title alone. The person with three guitar picks wins the game, and there’s one final round where players get to choose who has the best soundtrack!

Fun times gaming with Treg; his wife, Jenny (right); and Maddy!

We also then all played Meeple Party, a cooperative puzzle-solving game, where players are moving meeples into and around a house party. Each player has photo conditions they need to complete, such as having two purple meeples and one yellow in the Dining Room, but also disaster cards, in which the meeples get all stressed if you don’t avoid it. It was quite challenging throwing a successful party to last until midnight! 

I haven’t been a house party this hectic since college!

After a lovely dinner off strip, I got a chance to finally play Merv, a game I purchased last summer but finally just pulled off my Shelf of Opportunity. I love the spatial puzzle of this game with the tile activations, and how in reality, you’re only taking 12 turns in the entire game, but each turn is so crunchy! Players are collecting resources to travel and trade along the Silk Road, as well as gain influence and power within the city walls. At the end of Year 2 and Year 3, there are Mongol hordes that will burn down your city, unless city walls are built or soldiers are placed at sites. Really enjoyed this one, and I can’t wait to play it again! 

And that concluded two days of gaming and events! Since it was the first large-ish convention I’ve attended since the pandemic, I took a more laid-back approach to gaming instead of trying to squeeze every single minute with an activity. It was so fun to enjoy Vegas being the con, get some gaming in, and see old friends and make new ones.

The West Coast contingent of the Five By podcast: (from left) Ruel Gaviola, Jose Chavez and John Gonzalez.

I think next time Chris and I will want to stay for a longer time. And with back-to-back conventions, next up is Arizona Game Fair this weekend, I feel like the world is slowly starting to return to the Before Times. And that makes me so joyful.

Hope to see you in 2023, Dice Tower West!
Recap of Strategicon: Gamex 2016

Recap of Strategicon: Gamex 2016

Strategicon holds its board-game convention three times a year in LA. I had so much fun the last two times I went (at Gateway and OrcCon) that my friend and I decided to make the trek west again.

Over the span of the 3 days I was there, I played 12 games, one that lasted 11 hours. (We left early Monday but the con continued until late that afternoon). It was a great mix of personal favorites and learning a whole bunch of new ones. Brace yourself, folks, there’s a lot of photos ahead …

Read More Read More