Bencon notes...
May. 31st, 2004 07:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jcfialaBencon has been a pretty good convention if you're a board gamer. Luckily for my wife, she's in charge of the board game area at Bencon, and I've been helping her.
On Thursday night I raced off from work and showed up a the convention, where I set up the games for people to play... and wondered if anyone would show for them, as boardgames are often underattended. As it happens a few people did show up and start a game, although it escapes me at the moment which one. But it wasn't bad for a Thursday, which is historically only played on by the roleplayers.
Friday my wife and I were off at work during the day, but after work I showed up again and helped finish the day - one gentleman had been running the room during the day, and stuck around for the rest of the day as Talisman and a few other games were played.
Saturday continued the strong gameplay, often having several games going on at once. One gentleman was doing demos for 'Days of Wonder', and several other games would run, and it was generally pretty good other than the odd fact that the head of the Puffing Billy area never showed. He's usually very reliable, so that's a bit of a worry. I hope he's okay.
So, Tammy took over that area as well, and things went well. I played 'Ticket to Ride' by Days of Wonder, a nifty little board game where people attempt to create links between cities and get points for them. You collect colored cards, and turn in sets of the same color to create track between cities. If you can complete your itineraries, you gain the points for the card, but if you fail, then it's negative that many points. It's a simple game but fun, and I'm thinking of picking up a copy.
Less sucessful was 'Pirate's cove', a game where you play one of a number of pirates going around a few islands picking up gold, fame, and treasure, and fighting any other pirates you come across. Although there's the core of a good game in there (I particularly liked the way you can upgrade your ship, including by getting a special parrot), the current system is far too random - fighting involves rolling nd6 and counting the number of 5's and 6's. But even when rolling a lot of dice, you often don't roll the numbers you need. The randomness basically caused me to lose three or four turns, meaning I lost in the end. I think with a bit of work the randomness could be reduced... but it would be important to make sure that the pirates ships wouldn't get too powerful, as currently they're very very powerful. (Another problem)
After that I went home to feed the cats, but things were going just fine without me when I returned, my wife playing what turned out to be a six hour game of Rail Baron, which left me to cruise the dealer's room and play around on my laptop.
The dealer's room has been a disappointment. Of the six or seven dealers, only two of them sell games, and one of them is only selling CCGs and board games... and the other is Valhallas, which although a wonderful store, is the place I go each week. So although I just got my first full paycheck this year, I really didn't have much to spend it on. :( I did drop about $50 in the auction on Friday night, though.
Then, late Saturday I set up the Saturday games. Settlers of Catan started up, and so did Munchkin, where it was me, Hal, Hal's daughter, Hal's neice, and Jonathan, a young boy who had been in the 'Ticket to Ride' game. Hal's kids were pretty young, but that doesn't matter so much in Munchkin. His neice and Jonathan got pretty close to winning, but as it happens I did. Although my little monster (I forget exactly once) had 'Undead', 'From Hell', and ' sword' played on it to make it huge, I was able to use mind control gas to drive it off. The Wandering Monster had brought in a level 16 monster in addition to the huge thing, and it was that that I killed for my final level. 'Tis a silly game.
Now Tammy's gone off for a rest, it's a bit after nine, and I'm typing this up on my laptop as I watch the game of Settlers and a second game of Munchkin going on across the room. I'm sitting at my computer, reading SOS (a fanfic I'm fond of), listening to music, and occasionally architecting my new project - a program to handle this little convention I've got coming up. I see no reason not to use all these computers I have, after all.
On Thursday night I raced off from work and showed up a the convention, where I set up the games for people to play... and wondered if anyone would show for them, as boardgames are often underattended. As it happens a few people did show up and start a game, although it escapes me at the moment which one. But it wasn't bad for a Thursday, which is historically only played on by the roleplayers.
Friday my wife and I were off at work during the day, but after work I showed up again and helped finish the day - one gentleman had been running the room during the day, and stuck around for the rest of the day as Talisman and a few other games were played.
Saturday continued the strong gameplay, often having several games going on at once. One gentleman was doing demos for 'Days of Wonder', and several other games would run, and it was generally pretty good other than the odd fact that the head of the Puffing Billy area never showed. He's usually very reliable, so that's a bit of a worry. I hope he's okay.
So, Tammy took over that area as well, and things went well. I played 'Ticket to Ride' by Days of Wonder, a nifty little board game where people attempt to create links between cities and get points for them. You collect colored cards, and turn in sets of the same color to create track between cities. If you can complete your itineraries, you gain the points for the card, but if you fail, then it's negative that many points. It's a simple game but fun, and I'm thinking of picking up a copy.
Less sucessful was 'Pirate's cove', a game where you play one of a number of pirates going around a few islands picking up gold, fame, and treasure, and fighting any other pirates you come across. Although there's the core of a good game in there (I particularly liked the way you can upgrade your ship, including by getting a special parrot), the current system is far too random - fighting involves rolling nd6 and counting the number of 5's and 6's. But even when rolling a lot of dice, you often don't roll the numbers you need. The randomness basically caused me to lose three or four turns, meaning I lost in the end. I think with a bit of work the randomness could be reduced... but it would be important to make sure that the pirates ships wouldn't get too powerful, as currently they're very very powerful. (Another problem)
After that I went home to feed the cats, but things were going just fine without me when I returned, my wife playing what turned out to be a six hour game of Rail Baron, which left me to cruise the dealer's room and play around on my laptop.
The dealer's room has been a disappointment. Of the six or seven dealers, only two of them sell games, and one of them is only selling CCGs and board games... and the other is Valhallas, which although a wonderful store, is the place I go each week. So although I just got my first full paycheck this year, I really didn't have much to spend it on. :( I did drop about $50 in the auction on Friday night, though.
Then, late Saturday I set up the Saturday games. Settlers of Catan started up, and so did Munchkin, where it was me, Hal, Hal's daughter, Hal's neice, and Jonathan, a young boy who had been in the 'Ticket to Ride' game. Hal's kids were pretty young, but that doesn't matter so much in Munchkin. His neice and Jonathan got pretty close to winning, but as it happens I did. Although my little monster (I forget exactly once) had 'Undead', 'From Hell', and '
Now Tammy's gone off for a rest, it's a bit after nine, and I'm typing this up on my laptop as I watch the game of Settlers and a second game of Munchkin going on across the room. I'm sitting at my computer, reading SOS (a fanfic I'm fond of), listening to music, and occasionally architecting my new project - a program to handle this little convention I've got coming up. I see no reason not to use all these computers I have, after all.
