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SDHistCon 2025: Queen of Spies, Microverse, a video with Volko

By Meeple Lady | November 18, 2025 | Comments 4 comments

It’s November, friends, which means SDHistCon! I decided to fly into San Diego this year for reasons, which then created a different set of problems because many of us weren’t sure at the start of the con if our flights were still going to exist by the end of the convention. Luckily, the worst that happened to me was a flight delay.

I flew in early enough on Thursday to catch the first of two pre-convention events, which was a late lunch and hanging out at Stone Brewing at Liberty Station. I know I’ve said it before, but I always appreciate pre-convention events because it gives you a chance to get to know people in person out of the Discord – before all the gaming commences.

The early arrivers to San Diego met up at Stone Brewing.

The second event was at Eppig Brewing, where OMG – they had an ube cider. It was delightful! Highly recommended if you like ube! These are the things I miss from not living in California anymore. Eppig Brewing is right on the waterfront and it was great catching up with even more people while enjoying the cool weather.

Hanging out with friends at Eppig Brewing!

Friday

I started the day with Indonesia. Thanks, Andrew Heim, for running two games of this simultaneously! It’s been a long time since I’ve played a Splotter game, but this one and Food Chain Magnate are my favs from them. In Indonesia, you’re producing and shipping goods – rice, spice, rubber, siap faji and oil – across the country on boats. The brutal thing about this game is that if you have product to ship, it has to ship, even if you lose money paying to use other people’s boats to get the city that demands it. Weirdly, our cities never made it past level one. Lastly, the font for this game always makes me laugh. It totally reminds me of the font that everyone used in the 2000s for their wedding invitations.

Shipping my goods across Indonesia. The fancy pieces for Andrew’s game was a nice touch.

Next up was Microverse, a game that I got to play at Origins this past summer. It’s a fast-paced 4x game that plays in about an hour where players are alien factions are fighting in space – and not have their home planet blown up. So this past summer, my home planet got annihilated because I miscalculated how much speed someone could use to get to me. I vowed to prevent that from happening in this game.

Microverse is currently on the P500 for GMT.

Well … I was doing so well until the end, when someone attacked me and blew up my home planet. GAAAHH! The designer, Sam London, assured me that I put up a good fight though! That made me feel a little better. Kinda. I did back this game on the P500 so I am very much looking forward to this game!

Sam London ran his game that included John Butterfield and me.

I then played a prototype from Taylor Shuss called Quantum Train. It’s a trick-taking that takes place in space! Normal trick-taking rules apply for this game, which has alien suits, but the two highest cards get taken back by the player who played them for the card to be turned into passengers, and the two remaining cards remaining in the trick determine which direction the rocket ship on the board will go.

Moving the rocket ship to make passenger drop-offs in Quantum Train.

The now passenger cards that sit in front of a player have a location on the card where they’d like to get dropped off. When the rocket ship moves to that matching location, players can score their dropped-off passengers for points. Manipulating the rocket ship is a fun trick-taking twist. It really makes you really think about what card to play when you know you cannot win the trick.

The alien suits — and where that passenger wants to go to — in Quantum Train.

The last game of Friday night was Sidereal Confluence. I love this game, and in the pre-pandemic times, I used to run this game at most conventions I went to. I wasn’t sure if this game was something historical gamers wanted to play, but after some discussion in the SDHistCon Discord, I put it on the schedule and a full table came out to play. Hurray!

I think most everyone here had not played Sidereal Confluence before. They’re in for a treat!

In Sidereal Confluence, you are alien factions with cool technologies that produce resources that you cannot use. So the crux of the game is negotiating, negotiating, negotiating. I put a timer for the negotiation phases so that the game can move along quickly. There’s nothing quite like yelling at people for small cubes and large cubes and grabbing pieces across the board with my giant tweezers.

Of course I busted out my tweezers for Sidereal Confluence.

Dan Bullock, Brooks Barber, Cory Graham and I ended the night at a tiki bar, of course. We hit up False Idol in downtown San Diego, and the vibe was so cool. And of course, I had to order an ube bae, a drink blended with rum and sugarcane. I can’t resist anything ube. Those are the Filipino rules.

Dan, Brooks, Cory and I doing what we do best — finding the nearest tiki bar.

Saturday

Saturday morning started like any other morning – asking Volko Runhke, THE VOLKO, creator of the COIN system and all-around cool dude, to film a Tiktok with me that used a trending music mix of 4 Non Blondes/Nicki Minaj. I was a little nervous asking him to lipsync a song that contained curse words, but he did amazing! Thanks for participating, Volko! And thanks to Yoni for filming my vision!

What's up, @volko.bsky.social? Having some fun at @sdhistcon.bsky.social with this TikTok trend! #beezinthetrap

[image or embed]
— Meeple Lady (@meeplelady.bsky.social) November 8, 2025 at 1:13 PM

Next up with a game of Cross Bronx Expressway, a game I had originally played at Origins as well, but this time, I played a short scenario that took place in the 1990s. This decade was BRUTAL to the community, the faction I played. The game is a 3P game where the community, private and public sectors work to house vulnerable populations and build infrastructure in the South Bronx during the 1940s-2000s when urban development was basically creating all sorts of havoc. It has a collective loss condition so players need to kinda work together while working to achieve their objectives. In my game, an event removed the one infrastructure the community had, and I could not raise any money because in order to fundraise, you roll a die based on how many infrastructure you had on the board. See the dilemma? I was spiraling!

The 1990s were brutal for Bronx residents, especially for the community faction.

I then played a quick game of Yubibo, which I’ve been describing as Twister with fingers. Players use one hand for the game, and the other to turn a card from their deck, which dictates which person and finger they need to place a stick in between.

As more cards are played, more sticks – and possibly squishy balls – are in play, making everyone really focused in order to hold the precarious stick structure together. If too many sticks fall, the game is over. Man, my fingers were kinda cramping, and it was so difficult getting a good group shot. My fingers were very occupied!

Bruce Mansfield and the rest of us focusing on not dropping sticks in Yubibo.

We then played a quick game of Cat in the Box. This trick-taking game without any suits is seriously a convention staple of mine. We play it all the time! It always amuses me teaching this game to people and telling them that you have to decide what the suit is for a card that you played, and that at any time you can declare you are out of a certain color.

The last big game of the night was Game of Thrones. Love playing this game, especially with Dan Bullock and Brooks Barber, who were in the game I played this past summer at Consimworld.

Kathryn, Justin Fassino, O. Shane Balloun, Dan Bullock, Brooks Barber and I are all smiles at the start of this game.

Players are GOT houses trying to capture castles in 10 rounds. There’s always backstabbing, intrigue (as you place order tokens face down and they are all revealed simultaneously) and watching out for the Wildlings. Unfortunately, with SDHistCon closing its doors at 10 p.m. each night, we were unable to finish the game. Conquering Westeros just takes up so much time!

GOT houses all trying to capture castles.

Afterwards we went across the street to Point Break Bar and Grill, where we played even more Yubibo and just hung out until it closed. As much as I love playing all the games at conventions, it’s the moments like where you hang out with friends and share life stories that make it all worthwhile. And man, there are some bonkers stories!

The gang enjoying some Yubibo and libations.

Sunday

Sunday morning was the annual in-person SDHistCon board meeting. As an SDHistCon advisory board member, I attended the meeting with other board members and we talked about the state of the convention, the growing attendee list, plans for the future and other administrative stuff. The meeting is always open to the public for anyone who would like to attend.

The SDHistCon Board of Directors and Advisers.

After the meeting, we went outside to play Medusa’s Garden, a game that requires some space and moving around. In this game, one person is Perseus, who turns away from the group and holds up a mirror, their only viewpoint of the group playing behind them. The rest of the group gets a secret card that says they’re Medusa or statues. The game starts when everyone freezes like a statue, and the Medusa player discreetly touches another player, who then falls to the ground after 10 seconds, like a shattering statue. Perseus must figure out who in the group is Medusa. If Medusa can shatter the majority of her statues, Perseus loses. If Perseus identifies Medusa, they win instead.

Medusa’s Garden is absurdly fun, as you can tell by this photo.

Next up was Harmony of Discord Shogunate, a prototype from Sam London where players are warring Japanese clans trying to take control and complete their secret ambition. The game uses cards in a Pax-style market that has two clans on it and two actions, and on your turn, you can take one of the actions on the card or do an action with any clans on the card. If you take the first card, it’s free; the farther along the market the card is, the more coins it will take to use it. During the game, alliances can be made and broken, and battle resolution plays out in a specific order regarding samurais and others. The designer said this was the very first time this game had been played out in the wild, and he thought we were going to break the design, but the game ended up being really fun with our large group.

Creating chaos in Japan in Harmony of Discord Shogunate.

After that, we played Steel Beasts, another prototype from Sam London. It’s inspired by Tank Duel, a game I first played in New Orleans this summer, except Steel Beasts is played with just a deck of cards instead of including player boards. My experience in tank games are very limited, but I was able to quickly pick up the rhythm of the game as all the stats are printed on the card itself. The game is quick and fast, perfect when you have a small pocket of time in between games.

Mid-afternoon, I was on a panel titled “How do we talk about historical games?” with Dan Thurot and Liz Davidson, moderated by Akar Bharadvaj. We discussed how journalism about historical games fits into the broader conversation about history, how academics study and use historical games for teaching, and the moral/ethical obligations we have about historical games, and other topics. Thanks, Akar, for asking me to be on this panel with two heavyweights in the historical gaming sphere. <insert gif of here of a smiling cat that says “I’m just happy to be included”>

Liz Davidson (from left), me, Dan Thurot and Akar Bharadvaj.

After the panel, a group of us played Terra, a game about cooperation to save the world from environmental destruction. Players draw cards into their hand. If it’s a solution card, they keep it, but if it’s a crisis card, it’s placed face up into the middle of the table. Players then have a chance to play numbered solution cards to add into the crisis number on the crisis card. If they play the first matching solution card, they get 3 points, and the player that played the highest solution card gets 3 points. If crisis cards are not solved, they turn into full-blown crises and a collective loss can happen.

Terra is an old game, and it’s so weird seeing cutesy artwork on a serious-ish game.

Much like Terra, where players had to work together, players had to do the same thing in Bowie, a game from Dan Bullock. Four players are different versions of David Bowie, and you’re trying to visit locations to record albums while trying to prevent any version of Bowie from dying through the various things that happen living like a rock star, things like threats, dark princes and figures of the occult.

My Bowie successfully recorded a single in London and stay away from dark princes.

Monday

Monday was the last day of the con. It went by so fast! I started with a quick game of Close Assault, another prototype from Sam London. My experience in tank games has now tripled just from this convention! In this game, you’re playing as two teams of two players, and each team has a couple of cards that act as replacements if your officers die. Game play is similar to Rummy where sets of cards are played for an action that’s printed on the card, and a higher value set can partially or fully beat what your opponent played. I enjoyed the hand management aspect of this game, as well as sometimes hiding out in a house so that my tank doesn’t get destroyed.

Romero using a house for cover in Close Assault.

Next was a demo of Queen of Spies, a game coming to Gamefound next month by Liz Davidson and David Thompson. I had seen an earlier earlier version of this a year ago, and to see a game’s development and fruition are one of the highlights of attending conventions such as SDHistCon.

Queen of Spies is a solo, story-driven game about espionage and missions in occupied Belgium during World War I where you play as Alice – a former journalist turned spymaster – who runs a secret spy network. The artwork on this is gorgeous, and completing your missions before you run out of time or getting someone in your network imprisoned is hard work!

So cool to hang out with Liz Davidson and see her game develop over the year!

I then picked up a game I won at an auction: The Plum Island Horror. And guess what folks, I’ve already played it! I’ve had a very productive post-convention week. I love the horror theme of the game – as well as all the side jokes in the cards and rulebook – and playing cooperatively like a wargame to stop the hordes of murder zombies will always be a good time.

The artwork on this is super cool! I love this campy horror look.

And after that, I flew back home on Monday night, after a two-hour delay. The plane was super empty, which was a rare thing for me to see.

I can’t remember the last time I flew in a plane this empty.

This is my fourth SDHistCon, and I will definitely be back again next year. It’s such an intimate experience being surrounded by designers and gamers alike, and the location is super convenient to the airport as well as plentiful hotels and restaurants nearby.

A full house on Saturday, Day 2 of the convention!

SDHistCon was the last convention I will attend this year – maybe one day I’ll make it to Pax Unplugged, but it’s smack dab in the middle of holiday travel, and I do not want to add another trip during that chaotic time. But for 2026, I’d love to attend an overseas convention. What are some of your favorite non-U.S. conventions? Let me know! And thanks for making it all the way down here. Until next time!

Arizona Game Fair 2022: Our local convention is back!

By Meeple Lady | March 30, 2022 | Comments 0 Comment

It’s been over three years since the last Arizona Game Fair. The previous one had been scheduled for March 2020, but we all know what happened two years ago. This year, the Arizona Game Fair came back in full force, and it was just awesome to see so many familiar faces again in person!

The convention was held on March 10-13, 2022, but I ended up attending just that Friday through Sunday. The previous week, I had been at Dice Tower West and was unable to take that many days off again. Nonetheless, I got lots of gaming in — old games and new ones!

Friday

I opened my new copy of Sidereal Confluence and dusted out my giant tweezers for the occasion.

An Arizona convention wouldn’t be complete without a game of Sidereal Confluence. I dusted off my giant tweezers to run a 7P game of space trading and bartering on Friday morning. I love this game so much, even if I never do well in it! It’s the perfect con game, where a large group of folks can dedicate a few hours respectfully yelling at each other.

I wanted to take a photo before the trading madness began!

After the game, I took a break for lunch and then played a series of shorter games while waiting for friends to finish up their game. First up was No Thanks! Always a fun filler and a quick teach!

In No Thanks, each card is worth the number that’s printed on it, and you’re trying to have the lowest score in the game. If you have a chip, you can refuse a card. If not, you’ll end up taking it.

Next up was Favelas, a game I’ve always wanted to play. This cute tile-laying game is based on the iconic buildings in Rio de Janeiro. You’re stacking tiles onto your player board and each round, you score for the color majorities, which are dictated by dice rolled at the start of each round. During your turn though, you can also increase or decrease the pips on a die so that one color can be more or less valuable during scoring. So colorful and puzzly!

Favelas was surprisingly a crunchy puzzle!

Then I taught a game of Seikatsu. I just adore the components of this game! My version, and the Arizona Game Fair library version, has these acrylic poker chips that are used during this tile-laying game. I heard that newer editions aren’t like this? You draw chips from a bag and place it onto the center board. You can either score groups of birds now, or score sets of flowers at the end of the game, based on your perspective from the garden. This visual mechanism to the game is pretty clever!

I love the poker chip pieces in Seikatsu.

I then learned a solitaire game called Orchard. What a neat game! I normally don’t play solo games but I liked playing this. It’s a good quick game to play if you’re waiting for someone at a bar or restaurant, and it’s about the size of a deck of playing cards. In Orchard, you’re laying 9 down cards and overlapping them in order to grow your fruit harvest, and you have mini dice to keep track of your crop size. The game comes with 18 cards, so after you finish your quick 10-minute game, you’re all set to play another with the 9 other cards you separated out.

The Orchard is a delightful solo game where you’re building up your orchards by overlaying cards of the same exact crop.

The next game I played was Khora. Khora is a civilization-building game set in ancient Greece whose main action turn is similar to that of Twilight Imperium 4 or Puerto Rico. You pick two action tiles to play, and they resolve in the order of the actions, and you spend the whole game working to increase military, economy and culture. Also, the player boards in this game were top-notch.

Lots of different tracks in Khora. The dual-layer player boards made it easy to track your progress.

I then played Match Me! This co-op game was so much fun! Players are given an identical hand of cards that are essentially color swatches. Each player is given one category on their turn and gives players a clue so that they can play one of their color cards that they think best matches the clue. As the round continues, players are left with fewer cards, making it harder to give a good clue! For example, if the category was fast food, the clue giver would say McDonald’s, and hopefully everyone will play the yellow color face down.

Match Me is such a fun party game! I wonder if I’ll be able to ever find a copy.

We ended Friday night of the convention with a game of Squaring Circleville, a game I had also played at Dice Tower West.

Again, I love the historical background of Squaring Circleville, and I enjoy teaching it to folks — especially those who love the rondel mechanism! It’s so satisfying putting the giant cardboard pieces out to show which sections are upgraded.

The Ohio town of Circleville has been officially squared!

Saturday

We started Saturday with a game of Dune: Imperium. I’m enjoying this game more and more with each play. I’m not a huge fan of deckbuilders in general, but this game is the perfect blend of that and worker placement. The game ramps up with each round and it clocks in at under two hours.

I then learned Era: Medieval Age, which is an interesting twist on a roll and write. Instead of filling out player boards, you’re using the dice rolls to build out your little kingdom. I enjoyed the puzzle aspect of this, while the resource management for building things and not get attacked. My only complaint was that the player board was a bright yellow and hard to see the different phases and symbols on it.

If I owned a copy of this game, I’d paint the board so I can see the resources.

We then played a 5P game of Macaron. This cute trick-taking game involves two types of betting — both on the number of bids you think you’ll take as well as which suit, or flavor, is trump. You can also win tricks using some of the cards’ special abilities. Definitely a must-have for fans of trick-taking games. Made me want to get some macarons after the game!

Trying to win tricks and fulfill orders in Macaron.

After dinner, I played a game of Vivid Memories, which I didn’t enjoy. We pored through the rulebook on the spot, and it felt like the most important mechanism of this game was just an afterthought based on how the rulebook was written. The game, while gorgeous, is essentially a drafting game where you’re trying to collect memory cards and fragments in order to thread them on your player board and score. I think the rulebook should’ve stressed the importance of threading more, instead of the drafting, because by the time we realized how the game was supposed to play, we were halfway through round 2. And the game only goes to 3 rounds.

This is your brain in Vivid Memories, where you’re threading fragments and creating memories.

We ended Saturday night with a game of Dog Lover. I love the artwork on this one, and it’s quickly becoming my go-to 30-45 minute game at the last few gaming events I’ve been to! Who can say no to these doggies?

Look at all these good doggos learning tricks and going on walks.

Sunday

Clinic was right up my alley! There’s just so many crunchy decisions you have to make!

Sunday morning was for Clinic! This was the game I was hoping to play at this convention, and I was so happy that Brian was able to teach it to me! In Clinic, players are building a medical clinic, which requires building rooms; hiring doctors, nurses and orderlies, and getting patients — all the while making sure everyone has a parking space! And the more efficient your clinic is, meaning fewer steps each person has to take to get treated, the better it will be for your bottom line! I also like the spatial element to this game when you’re building rooms, as you can build up and out.

The car supply situation on the main board is getting out of hand, much like the parking situation on your player board!

While I was helping clean up Clinic, two ladies came by and asked if I was Filipino. And I said yes. They then got super excited about seeing another Filipino lady, and immediately called over another Filipino lady so that we could take a group photo. It just warmed my heart that they got so excited over seeing another person like them at a convention, and just reminds me how important representation is in these gaming spaces. We all got to know each other a bit and exchanged information to schedule a game day sometime!

These super nice Filipino ladies all introduced themselves to me!

I then played Juicy Fruits, a darling fruit-drafting with chunky wooden pieces! In this game, you’re collecting fruit pieces to fulfill orders and build buildings.

These wooden pieces are so chunky and satisfying to hold!

It reminds me of those childhood puzzle games where you’re moving number pieces to put them back in order, but in this game, you’re moving fruit tiles on your player board, and the farther they move, the more pieces of fruit you collect. Then you can trade your fruit in to fulfill orders or buy buildings for victory points. As you fulfill your orders, your player board opens up and the game can really escalate quickly to the end condition.

Juice Fruits is similar to those childhood puzzle games where you’re moving numbered pieces.

The last game I played at Arizona Game Fair was Long Shot: The Dice Game. It’s also roll-and-write game where you use your dice rolls to fill out your player sheet to buy horses, place bets, influence race movement and use special abilities. And on each roll, at least one horse will move, so you can strategically purchase the horse, or even bet on it. It’s such a riot!

We’re off at the races! Will your horse win? Who knows!?

And that concludes all the gaming I did at Arizona Game Fair. Thanks for having me! The convention was so chill, and, while it got really busy on Saturday afternoon, there was always a place to game and people to game with. I can’t describe how awesome it felt to do some nonstop convention gaming again, though I don’t recommend doing back to back conventions! As much as I will deny it, I am not a young person anymore! But it does inspire me to attend more conventions this year. Let’s see where 2022 takes us!

Arizona Game Fair 2019: Meeting Vital Lacerda

By Meeple Lady | April 8, 2019 | Comments 6 comments

Arizona Game Fair took place recently at the Mesa Convention Center, and I can’t even begin to tell you how awesome the convention was! Now in its third year, the con had over 1,200 attendees. That’s pretty fantastic! Convention founder Andrew Long said the first year had over 300 gamers and the second had 785. I am constantly in awe at how wonderful the Arizona gaming community is.

The convention was one I had been excited about for many, many months. For starters, I never thought I’d ever in a million years meet the designer of one of my absolute favorite games, Lisboa: Vital Lacerda himself! I mean, dude is from Portugal and attends a lot of overseas conventions, which I obviously don’t attend. And they say never meet your heroes because they’re sure to disappoint, but, my friends, I was not disappointed at all. Lacerda is passionate about gaming, friendly, humble and just lovely to be around. He is all about making sure gamers have a good time playing his heavy, intricate games.

It was so freaking hard not to fangirl scream every two seconds when Vital Lacerda was teaching his game. You should all be proud of me, folks!

I arrived Friday afternoon at the convention after working a half day, and I had scheduled a game at 3 p.m. with Chris, Julie, Ken and me to learn On Mars, Lacerda’s upcoming game.

Here we are playing it cool as Vital Lacerda teaches us On Mars.

On Mars is by far his heaviest game, in which astronauts are trying to settle the red planet. This game is nothing like Terraforming Mars, other than the location of the game. Players are collecting resources to explore Mars, build buildings, improve their technologies and gathering scientists. There’s an added element of moving back and forth between the space station and on Mars – for free on the rocket ship that moves as the game progresses or using one of your ships, which can be expensive – which then enables you to take any action on that side of the board. The actions in itself are not hard; the challenge is figuring out how to make your actions work together, in a puzzly interconnectivity that is Lacerda’s signature style. I cannot wait for this game to come out!

I naturally had to bring out the giant tweezers for On Mars. I am so excited for this game!

Chris and I then ordered some Vital LaCider from @CiderCorp and attended a Q&A on Lacerda, with the wonderful special guest Suzanne hosting the panel. She asked some really cool questions about what it’s like to be a game designer all the way to what his favorite pie is. My favorite part of the conversation was when Lacerda said that he’s always learning about new stuff about designing games and that he doesn’t feel like a game designer completely yet. I beg to differ, sir!

I live-tweeted some of the conversation. You can read the whole thread below:

Having a Vital LaCider for the Q&A with @vitallacerda and @425suzanne! #AZGameFair19 pic.twitter.com/uatMUPN2FI
— Meeple Lady💃🏽🌵🇵🇭 (@MeepleLady) March 30, 2019

After the panel, there was a Hungry Hungry Hippos tournament. My blue hippo was defective, and I got knocked out in the first round. I did not win one of these cool meeple trophies. Womp womp.

Everyone’s getting ready to chomp down some marbles!

There were plenty of tournaments at all game levels happening throughout the convention, as well as a contest for miniatures painting.

Here’s Andrew, Lord of the Board, sitting with some of the cool meeple trophies for the tournaments.

On Saturday, Chris and I hit the ground running with a 6-player game of Flamme Rouge. These guys placed some chocolate eggs on the track so that we passed them, we got a candy treat.

Benjamin and Steve both run g3gamenight in the northwest Valley, while Scott and Mike live down in Tucson.

In Flamme Rouge, players simultaneously draw four cards and pick one to play for both of their cyclists, their Rouleur and Sprinteur, and you go through the course dealing with inclines and other areas, while utilizing slipstream and avoiding exhaustion if you’re in the front of the pack. I started out strong, but my cyclists lost steam halfway through the game. Super fun!

Flamme Rouge is a fun simultaneous-card-selection and deckbuildng game!

Next up, we played Imhotep. My buddy Mark loves to 3D print things to deluxify his games, and it was really satisfying dropping cubes into these structures. He found these files on Thingiverse.

These structures hold all the giant cubes. I probably should’ve taken a better photo from the side so you can see how they all stack up. Next time!

I then taught a game of Teotihuacan, which meant I busted out my giant tweezers. I’ve taught this game a few times, and I finally feel like I got the hang of this teaching this beast. We ended the game by building the pyramid, and Chris nearly lapped all of us. The worst.

We finished our pyramid, which ended the game a few rounds early.

We then played a quick game of Catch the Moon, which is always a hit with gamers!

Catch the Moon is another great filler that always looks great on table.

Afterwards, I joined 10-player game of Welcome To. I’m pretty bad at this game, but it was still fun to game with all these cool peeps.

My Welcome To neighborhood wasn’t well developed. People trigger those objectives so fast!

Chris and I got asked on Friday to take some photos in costume for a live game on Saturday of The Usual Suspects, hosted by the Game State Show. The suspects’ photos were all lined up in the hallway after their show. Who looks the most suspicious and is guilty? Indeed it is not I.

Look at all these suspicious people! I do love having giant mugshots at home now.

I then took a break to get ready for one of my favorite things to do at a convention: run a ginormous game of Sidereal Confluence. I was able to gather 9 players for this game, which uses ALL THE ALIEN FACTIONS. I had never run a game this large before, but luckily, a few had played it before I had some help in answering questions. There’s a trajectory at the start of the game where I start explaining the rules and then I get a lot of puzzled looks about this game, which makes me worry that I’ve accidentally dragged folks into a 2-hour grudge match, but then once the first round gets underway, things start sorta clicking and people embrace the absurdity of the game, and we just all start yelling at each other for cubes.

Here are all nine players for Sidereal Confluence. Everyone is still pretty relaxed since we haven’t started yet, except GloryHoundd and me, who are already uber excited.

Luckily, we were seated in the far end of the convention floor, as we were all pretty loud, and lots of folks stopped by to see what the game was all about. And they’d see me standing with giant tweezers in hand counting down which players can take a colony they’ve successfully bid on. One person said it sounded like a craps table was happening on the convention floor. That is exactly what it look like – yelling, people throwing cubes, and hands going everywhere on a giant table with a million cards on it.

Sidereal Confluence is such a table hog!

We ended the night talking with Ferdinand of Cardboard Stacker and playing Filipino Fruit Market, which is a unique area-control, trick-taking card game with fruit.

This game by Peer Sylvester is a neat twist on trick taking. I wish it was widely available!

On Sunday, we began the day playing Passing Through Petra, which is a neat puzzly tile/trading game from J. Alex Kevern, who has designed crunchy one-hour games like Gold West and Sentient. Traders travel on a caravan through the desert, and you can welcome various traders into your market and facilitate trade with people who have the goods they want. But filling your market happens in a specific order, so timing your market with the appropriate tiles at the right time for maximum trades is just delightful. I just wish the caravan on the board wasn’t so fiddly though.

I enjoyed the puzzly aspect of Passing Through Petra but not the fiddly caravan mechanism.

I then taught a game of Mexica, which is always a hit with people and has such table presence that people stop by to take a look at the game.

I love how Mexica gets all kinds of mean!

I ended Arizona Game Fair chilling with Kevin Russ and Suzanne, and we played a first games. First up was Krass Kariert.

Chris, Kevin, Suzanne and I all hung out until it was about closing time on Sunday.

Krass Kariert is a quick fun card game in which you’re trying to beat what’s already played, through a simple hierarchy of singles, pairs, runs and triples. But you cannot rearrange your cards! If you need to play a pair, they have to be sitting next to each other. But as you pull cards from your hand, naturally, the gap closes, and you can find new combinations with the cards remaining. Super fun!

Krass Kariert is a fun quick card game from Amigo where everyone wins except the last player to clear their cards.

We of course played some roll-and-writes, too! I did spectacularly horrible in Metro X, but won Cartographer! Suzanne said there’s a bunch of roll-and-writes out there, and it’s all a matter of finding one that you resonate with. I guess I do better with placing tetris tiles and completing objective ones than filling numbers on subway routes.

Cartographer is a puzzle style roll-and-write set in the Roll Player world. It has four objectives for each game, with two scoring during each of the four seasons.

Lastly, there was a special tribute at the entrance for my buddy Tom Wells who had passed away recently at an all-too-young age of 50. I had fond memories playing Arkwright and The Colonists with him in previous conventions, as well as gaming with him on the occasional Saturday morning. His badge was hanging up all weekend.

We’ll miss you, Tom. I still can’t believe you’re gone.

And just like that, three games of gaming came and went. The chill atmosphere, friendly volunteers and wide open space made the convention a pleasure to attend. There were also vendors there such as Eagle-Gryphon Games and Gamelyn Games, as well as wood workers and artists. The convention also had a designated women’s space, which is pretty fantastic, and a separate area for RPGs. There was plenty to do for all the different types of gamers!

There was a lovely space for female gamers who were more comfortable away from the main convention floor, and lots of games scheduled in the space, too.

Thanks again Arizona Game Fair for having me as a guest. I can’t wait to see what’s in store next year. And folks, save the date for next year’s convention: March 20-22, 2020. Hope to see here! We’ve got sunny skies, perfect for outside gaming, and giant cactus!

Chris and I visited the Desert Botanical Gardens after the convention. Fun times!

BGG Con 2018: Another excellent time in Dallas

By Meeple Lady | December 10, 2018 | Comments 8 comments

Holy forkballs! It’s December already! Where did November go? Man, it’s been a busy, fun, amazing few weeks, and now that I’ve had some to come up for air, let’s talk about all the gaming I did at BGG.

This is my fifth consecutive BGG Con, and my fourth year volunteering for Team Geek. If you’re on Team Geek, you work eight 2-hour shifts throughout the course of the convention. And you get to do so in a sweet, sweet jersey. There’s also a volunteer dinner the Tuesday night before the convention so you can meet and hang out with fellow volunteers before the con gets underway on Wednesday. Here’s a photo of Team Geek from Jenny, who is also on team Geek:

2018 Team Geek #BGGcon18 pic.twitter.com/c78TyHIJBi
— Jenny (@McWilliamsons) November 15, 2018

Tuesday

I arrived in Dallas on Tuesday morning, had a wonderful breakfast with an old Phoenix friend at Yolk. What an adorable breakfast place, and my skillet was hearty and tasty. I was pleasantly surprised that they had an option for turkey sausage, considering I’m in the heart of Texas, where everything is all about other meats that I don’t eat.

I arrived at the Hyatt Regency at DFW after breakfast, checked in, took a quick nap (don’t judge — I flew out of Phoenix at 5:30 a.m.), and started volunteer shifts. As a veteran Teek Geek member, I got the first selection on volunteer shifts, so I was able to knock out three of my shifts on Tuesday before our welcome dinner of Mexican food. Yums!

Julie was leading volunteers on Tuesday who had signed up to work that day. Jon of JonGetsGames stopped by to help, too!

After dinner, we got our badges and free games, one of which was a sweet Everdell glass pint, and started gaming! First up was Teotihuacan: City of Gods, which was high on my to-play list for BGG. Kevin Russ, who I had met at RinCon two months prior, taught us how to play, and man, do I love this game!

Teotihuacan was my favorite game of BGG Con this year.

In Teotihuacan, each player is a powerful noble family working to build the temple of Teotihuacan. You’re using your workforce of dice to move around the board like a giant rondel. Depending on the value of your dice, you receive various resources at each location, and then at the end of your turn, your dice levels up.

The board looks incredibly intimidating but the iconography is clear in terms of what rewards you’ll receive at each location, and game play, in my opinion, is pretty straightforward. Making the most of those actions is much more difficult.

As with its predecesor Tzolk’in, the game is a lot about timing your actions correctly. Instead of the giant wheel cogs in Tzolk’in, the game is all about moving your dice in a way so that it levels up at the right moment, so that you can get resources to build temple steps and gain technology, among other things. Dice are moving in one direction in order to ascend to 6 pips, and then you get a reward and start over again at one location. Can’t wait until my game group gets of a copy of this game!

Next up, I learned and played Catch the Moon for the first time from Eric. I can’t say enough great things about this darling game. It’s one of the few games I purchased at BGG Con because I immediately fell in love with it. And true story: Eric is really good and mean at this game!

Catch the Moon is darling! Don’t mess up and make the moon cry!

Besides it being just adorable to look at, this dexterity game is easy enough for people to jump into and interesting enough to keep even the heaviest of gamers engaged. On your turn, you roll a die, and you place a ladder onto the cloud either touching one other ladder, two other ladders, or it has to be the highest point on the cloud platform. If you make ladders fall, the moon gets super sad and you receive a teardrop. If you get the last teardrop, the game ends and you’re eliminated, and the person with the fewest teardrops wins the game.

Getting some pre-con gaming in with Netters, Mitch, Eric, Daniel, Kimberly and Sum Fat Kid.

I then played Tokyo Jidohanbaiki, which is a game about Japanese vending machines and drinks. It’s a little — literally, teeny tiny — game where place your smol soda bottles on drink crates and not have them explode, but also when you choose for them to explode, you can wipe out your opponents.

Wednesday

Today was the first day of the convention. I worked two shifts at registration, which I love doing. I love greeting folks and seeing everyone’s excited and happy faces on Day 1.

I then met up with some Arizona folks to play some games before dinner that evening. I got a chance to play Meeple Circus for the first time. That game is a riot, and the circus soundtrack adds a nice touch for this game. I’m not normally a fan of adding apps or tech to board games, but this was stupid fun. I mean, who doesn’t love stacking meeples in a dexterity race while circus music is playing in the background?

Stacking meeples and animals in real time in Meeple Circus, which has its own circus soundtrack.

We then all went out to dinner to a vegan restaurant called Spiral Diner. This was all of our first time visiting this place, and, even though it’s quite a haul from the Hyatt Regency, it’s definitely worth checking out.

It’s Greg Dickson of Hooked on Geek, Andrew, Dr. GloryHogg and GloryHoundd!

I ordered an El Paso burger with a cashew patty and pistachio ice cream for dessert. Both were super yum and tasted like what I would normally eat as a non-vegan.

I ordered a cashew-based patty for my El Paso burger.

I had to try the pistachio ice cream. Excellent!

We then arrived back at the hotel to teach my favorite game to run at a convention: Sidereal Confluence. I enjoy having a large amount of people playing this game since it makes for a better economy, and luckily, seven people signed up to play. And I know live negotiation games aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, or that maybe I’m not even the best teacher of it, but I do enjoy sharing this game with others as I feel like it’s not a game that would normally get on table on a regular game day.

Sidereal Confluence is a table hog! I also love using my giant tweezers in the game.

I then ran across Eric teaching Eco Links, which is another real-time path-building game in which you’re trying to connects animals through a path. Even though the game is light, it reminded me of playing an 18xx because you’re playing these tiles on a board and looking for that sharp curve.

Eco Links is a real-time tile-laying, road-building game where players connect all the bears.

Thursday

On Thursday, I woke up early (for me) to game with Moe and play Fort Sumter at 9:30 a.m. Fort Sumter is a 2-player card-driven game that pits the Unionist and Secessionist player against each other. The game plays for 25-40 minutes, and takes place over three rounds and ends with a Final Crisis confrontation.

Similar to other CDGs like Twilight Struggle, players have a hand of cards and play them for events or action points. What’s different about this game, besides it taking a fraction of the time of a game of Twilight Struggle, is that in each round, you get a secret objective that you’re playing toward for extra victory points.

Fort Sumter plays in 25-40 minutes, and it’s a tense CDG!

I enjoyed the push and pull of this game, and that escalation of the game as more cubes come into play. This game is part of the GMT Lunchtime Games series, strategic games designed for the lunch hour. It’s a great game to play if you’re interested in learning how to play a card-driven game and don’t have an entire half-day to play.

Next up was lunch with Netters and Mitch, and then Netters taught me The Estates. Jeremy and @fencedingates also joined in on the game. This game is right up my alley! It involves bidding and blocking people, and is all kinds of mean! You are bidding to build pieces to place along three different streets, and any incomplete streets will score negative points in the end. Players can also dictate how long the game will go, and I love the closed economy of it.

Netters did a great job teaching this game. I enjoyed the bidding and just hanging out with all these cool folks. I wish Netters and Mitch lived closer to me!

I then taught this game I had heard about on Tuesday from JonGetsGames: Eye My Favorite Things. This game can be a tad absurd but it’s fun with the right folks. You pick a category for the person on your right, and they write down their top 5 items for that category and rank them, as well as something they hate in that category and rank them as a zero. Then you get the cards they wrote on, and then it becomes a trick-taking game based on what you think they ranked all the items they wrote on their cards. You do this three times, and then the person with the most VPs wins the game. It’s a game that compares random categories like soup, world problems, board games and ice cream flavors altogether.

Eye My Favorite Things was the biggest surprise of BGG Con!

I then met up with some friends at a meetup for female content contributors and their friends. Netters and I organized one last year and it was a nice refuge from the hustle and bustle of the main convention floor, and it gave people a chance to get to know each other in a smaller setting. The two games I played were — yep you guessed it — Catch the Moon and Eye My Favorite Things.

Oh, hai, friends! A great time was had by all!

FridayF

I started my Friday with a lovely game of Coimbra with these cool folks, Joe, Julie and Chris. I absolutely adore this game, and, even though I’m completely horrible at it, I’m always down to play it. It was a wonderful way to start my morning.

Coimbra is soooo good! So many tough decisions and working hard to make all your character cards work well together.

Chris and I then went to meet Jason and Donna Dinger for lunch, and Jason taught us Ground Floor, designed by David Short. In Ground Floor, you’re the CEO of a company, and you have to manage hiring new employees, expanding your office and scheduling your shipments. In addition, you’re literally building floors into your office building. That was a neat visual component to the game! The game plays for about two hours, and man, you quickly start running out of actions and can’t do everything you want to. I had a great time playing this!

Each player has their own board, which you start to build out for your company.

Jason then taught us another game, The King of Frontier. It’s one of his favorite games, and he managed to secure a copy of the first edition, since the new one has been completely revamped with a completely different aesthetic. I mean, who doesn’t want to play a game with these stick figures?

This little stick-figure guy is ready to build his lan, and do some funky dance moves, too.

It’s a neat tile-laying game that has a follow mechanism, and you’re building out a little kingdom and collecting resources on your player mat. Jason showed me photos of what the new edition looks like, and I think it has lot a lot of its charm with the new art.

I then attended a meetup from the Inside Voices Network. I played Wangdo with a different Eric and Chris. It’s a cute little area-control game where you draw bears from a bag in order to place them on the board. But you can only place a bear when you have the appropriate colored bears matching the spots surrounding that location. There are also cards you can play to benefit yourself or hurt an opponent, and the game is a race to collect all the tokens.

Wangdo is a fun quick area control, set collection bear game.

And the bear pieces look like yummy gummy bears.

Squee! These cute bears are not candy though.

Next, we played a prototype that Chris was demo-ing called Hour Town by LO5 Games. This game is a real-time worker-placement game where you collect resources to build buildings, some of which are multiple levels tall. And there’s also an area-control element in which you contributed the most resources toward a building. I like the up and down frantic-ness of this game, which lasts about 20 minutes. I hope this game gets published!

Hour Town is a fun prototype that Chris taught Eric and me. Sand timers galore!

I then played a game of Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra. I was a little skeptical about this game, mostly that it was relying too much on being gorgeous and like how could it be better than Azul, which was one of the top games I played in 2017.

I didn’t think it was possible to make Azul tiles look more like candy, but here we are!

The verdict is that this sequel is worth playing! It changes up gameplay to make it more puzzly, and more importantly, it’s a fixed amount of rounds. You’re working to complete vertical columns, and there’s an added element where you only score columns to the right of the pawn. Thus scoring can ramp up if you build your window in the right order. I enjoyed that extra elements to the game. And it comes with this little cardboard box to discard pieces in it, which makes it easier to pour back into the bag. I don’t need both copies though. One should suffice in your game collection.

I ended Friday night with my usual BGG Friday Night Shenanigans by playing Yummy Monster and Coconuts with my girlfriends.

My girlfriends and I are ready to feed the monsters! Now where’s the food items?

Yummy Monster is a flinging dexterity game in which each player is feeding a monster. Each player wears a mask over their face and slides cardboard claws onto their hands, and you throw pieces of food into the monster’s mouth, which is depicted as one of four walls you set up in the game box. It’s super ridiculous, but we had a lot of fun.

And of course, we love Coconuts. So much shenanigans.

Fun fact: the longer we play this game, the worse we become at it. How does that happen?

Saturday

Saturday began with seeing some sun (even though it was freezing outside) when Rand, who is originally from Dallas, invited us and took a car-load of us to his favorite BBQ joint Lockhart. The place is a tad farther from the convention, but definitely worth checking out if you have access to a vehicle. The meat was tasty, and there wasn’t a 40-minute wait for the meats, which is the case when we go out to Hard Eight This place is casual, homey and right in the middle of the Dallas arts district.

Amid the chowing down of the meats, I completely forgot to take a table photo of what we ate. But trust me, guys, this place was yum!

Saturday gaming began with Rescue Polar Bears. I’ve already been bracing myself for this game because everyone has been telling me how hard it is, and when you lose, these little guys die.

This game is a co-op action-point-allowance game where you’re trying to save the polar bears before all the ice melts. Brutal! But these components are just darling, and they make you super motivated to try to win the game by getting polar bears onto your boat and helicoptering them away!

We gotta rescue the polar bears before all the ice melts!

Saturday night was closing ceremonies. This is always a great time because so many game prizes were awarded! One year, I’ll totally win a prize package.

The main ballroom is packed for closing ceremonies. People want to win games!

I then unknowingly started a new tradition with my friends: teaching Battlestar Galactica immediately after closing ceremonies. This is my absolute favorite game, and I love teaching it to new people. I played this with Greg, Chris, GloryHoundd and DrGloryHogg. It’s my third year in a row that I’ve done this on the Saturday night at the convention.

All of our happy faces before the cylons tried to take over. Those dirty toasters!

GloryHoundd even had this shirt on, which I totally should’ve guessed she was the cyclon. She later revealed she was, after DrGloryHogg brigged her and Chris. DrGloryHogg has no reason to brig Chris but Chris ended up being the other cylon. Good job, humans!

The final game of BGG Con for me was Iki. The game is based in Edo, Japan, where artisans, street vendors and professionals are setting up shop. Players move their meeples along the city like a rondel. There’s also a track showing how protected your stores are from fire, and that determines the order for choosing how many spaces you want to move in the next round and the order to purchase character cards. This entire game has many clever elements! And some of the Japanese professionals are charming and based on historical writings.

When you do business with shop owners, you get resources and the shop owners gain experience. Timing also plays a large role because as shop owners maximize their experience, they move off the board and into your personal supply. So you might be expecting some resources, but another player has triggered your shop owner to be removed from the board. Iki is such a hidden gem, and I’m super sad that I can’t find a copy of it that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

And then just like that, six days came and went, and it was time to return to Phoenix, which was Chris’ first time visiting. Every year I say that I had an excellent time at BGG, and this year is no exception. It’s my one giant con for the year, and it’s truly an amazing experience hanging out and gaming with people I call my friends, even though they live all across the U.S. This year’s BGG was particularly special for me. Board-game Twitter just brings people together, you know?

I miss all these cool people and many others who had left by Saturday night! Can’t wait until we can all game again!

Anywho, if you’re interested in going to BGG Con next year, it’ll be moving to a bigger location in downtown Dallas, which means more tickets will be on sale! Staying at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas will result in access to restaurants and nearby attractions, something I’m very much looking forward to. Because, man, does it get expensive uber-ing out of DFW to get some good grub.

If you made it all the way here, thanks for reading about my experience at BGG Con! I hope everyone is having a wonderful December!

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

By Meeple Lady | October 4, 2018 | Comments 2 comments

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!

Strategicon Gateway 2018: Meeting more L.A. gamers and some alien trading

By Meeple Lady | September 3, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

I had the pleasure of dropping into one day of Strategicon in Los Angeles this past weekend. I love going to this convention, as I can visit family while board gaming, to make for a really productive weekend. I arrived early on Saturday morning ready to start gaming with wonderful folks from the board-gaming community. I was very excited to meet Jac, Ben and Albert, as well as see Ruel again, all of whom I had scheduled various games with.

We’re gaming early! Well, at 10 a.m. It was wonderful meeting Jac, Albert and Ben, who just moved to the U.S. recently, in real life!

Our first game for the day was Newton with Jac, Ben and Albert. Even though I had played this game already at Gila Monster, I totally didn’t mind playing it again. This game is super combo-tastic! Jac did an excellent job teaching Newton, and I loved being around her positive and enthusiastic energy. Albert and Ben were also equally fun to hang out with, as all of us ended up gaming together the entire day!

In this game of Newton, I didn’t do as well as my first play of it. My cards did not work as well together this time. We decided to draft cards for our masters, and it really helps even the playing field. (We didn’t draft in my first game of it.) So if you get a chance to play Newton, I highly recommend drafting so that no one player can be overpowered.

Newton is a great midweight game by the same designer who did Lorenzo Il Magnifico, which I love, and Grand Austria Hotel.

Next up was Trickerion, which I volunteered to teach. Ruel was supposed to join us, but his previous game and math trade ran long so he was unable to make it. I brought my beloved copy from home, which includes a gorgeous Meeple Realty insert. This game is a beast to teach, and I’m lucky that the group was patient with me, as there are so many things to remember. I do love this game so much.

Trickerion is one of my absolute favorite games! It’s a heavy worker-placement game that has programming and puzzly aspects. And the board is just gorgeous.

During our game of Trickerion, I ran into Michael of Unfiltered Gamers. We first met at Arizona Game Fair, where we were both part of the “So you want to be a game reviewer?” panel. Michael is a veteran content creator, and it’s always great talking shop with him and learning from him.

Got a chance to catch up with Michael of Unfiltered Gamers, who is based in Southern California, since meeting for the first time in February at Arizona Game Fair.

The gang and I then took a quick dinner break in shifts, as we didn’t want to lose our table in the basement. I love going to Strategicon, but my only complaint is that the basement is HOT AS BALLS. Either the air-conditioning isn’t as strong downstairs or the lack of air circulation, combined with the size of the crowds, makes the entire basement level really, really uncomfortable.

We found ourselves surfacing to the main level to get stronger air-conditioning and fresh air. The basement level holds open gaming and some RPGs, while the main convention floor is strictly for the scheduled gaming. That floor, by the way, is absolutely freezing. I hope the folks who run the convention either get fans in the basement or boost the air-conditioning down there. And this is coming from a person who says 100 degrees in Phoenix is a nice day!

The insanely warm and stuffy basement, in an otherwise wonderful and fun convention.

I then reconnected with Ruel, as our gaming schedules finally aligned, and he taught Welcome To … to me and five other folks.

I love meeting and hanging out with all these cool folks from board-gaming community!

Welcome To is a fun roll-and-write where you’re trying to place numbers into your neighborhood, score objectives and maximize your points, but instead of using dice, the game uses three different decks of cards that are flipped over at each turn. What a neat little game! We played it twice, and it’s a nice short game can play a bunch of folks. The box actually says 1-100 people!

Building my neighborhood in Welcome To. I didn’t realize the blank space is for the name of your city, not your name. Welcome to Meeple Lady sounds a bit odd …

After Welcome To, I impromptu taught a game of Gunkimono, a new retheme of an underrated game I adore, Heartland, which is a cut-throat tile-laying game about farming. Gunkimono uses samurais instead, but I personally love the look and theme of Heartland.

Gunkimono is a retheme of an old classic I love, Heartland. You’re trying to score victory points or honor points based on tiles you put on the board.

I wanted to grab some air and get a drink so I resurfaced up to the ground floor. I ran into the Brothers Murph, who are on one of my favorite podcasts, This Game Is Broken. I completely fangirled out and told them how much I enjoy their antics on the show. They were both super nice!

It’s me and the Brothers Murph! (This is me totally trying to be chill but secretly fangirling inside.)

Lastly, I had time for one more game and busted out Sidereal Confluence. This game is absolute bonkers, and I’ve secretly been wanting to play this at a convention so I wrangle up a lot of folks to play with me! It’s a live trading/negotiation game that plays up to nine players in about two hours. Each player is a unique asymmetrical alien race trying to use their technology converters to create resources.

The thing is, though, you don’t have the resources to run your converters, but the other aliens do. And this is where trading comes into play. Sidereal Confluence plays through six rounds, with each round comprised of 10 minutes of trading, as well as an economy phase and confluence phase. Anything goes during trading, and agreements are binding or else you’ll lose victory points.

Sidereal Confluence is an asymmetrical live-trading card game. And yep, it’s just as fun as it sounds!

If you like trading games, this game is soooo much fun! And while the game is strictly just cards, Sidereal grows into quite a table hog as more converters come into play. In each round, alien races can also research technologies, which will net victory points for the researcher, and then that technology will be available for all players in the next round. When I first stated teaching the game, I could see some confused looks and, to be honest, I wasn’t 100 percent sure folks would be down for it. But they assured me they wanted to play, and everyone ended up having a good time. I know I sure did!

I got to run a seven-player Sidereal Confluence game at Strategicon. Achievement unlocked!

Note to self: I am definitely bringing Sidereal to every convention I now to go. It’s so much fun! I also believe that a higher player count makes for a better experience, as the resource economy isn’t so starved. And with that, my very full day of hanging out with amazing gamers came to an end. I know I say it often, but I’m truly lucky to be part of such an awesome community. I can’t wait to hit up Strategicon next year!