Holiday Season Gaming

I went to PAX Unplugged for the first time at the beginning of the month and intended on sharing a review and highlights of my convention experience right when I got back. But then I was immediately overwhelmed with everything that entails working in retail around the holidays, plus the added duties and work hours involved with being the new assistant manager at the shop. Thanks, Dan, for trusting me with the new role!

I am exhausted, BUT I'm having a blast! This was my third December working at the store, and I'd forgotten just how much fun it is to talk about board games all the time. Yes, we're a store that sells board games and people come in to buy them often. But the holiday season is when everyone really wants recommendations for their family and friends and when everyone wants board games more than anything else. As Dan likes to say, I'm the "resident board game guru," and besides the community, board games are what made me want to work at the store to begin with. It's always refreshing to get to talk about what I love this much and to help people find games they'll love.

So what have I been playing this month?

Unfortunately, not as many games at PAX or at home as I would like, for all of the above reasons. But I have had some really nice highlights:

Starting at PAX, I think I'm currently in my cozy game era. I keep being drawn to pretty games with not too many rules, but that still have some emergent complexity. They're games that, because of their aesthetic, actually keep me feeling relaxed without wanting to get hyper competitive or stress about winning. These were games like Islet (a pretty tile laying game), Creature Caravan (that I got signed by the designer!), and Altered (a newer TCG--never thought a TCG could be cozy!). I can tell a lot of other people are wanting cozy games right now too so I'm excited to figure out what I want to stock in the store.

In the same vein, 2024 has been the year of 2-player games for me. It's so nice to just come back from work and decompress with a board game with my partner rather than to try to coordinate a whole group. And there's been some really good releases:

I, along with apparently a lot of other people, can't get enough of Sky Team, a cooperative game where you play as a pilot and co-pilot. We can't keep that one on the shelves. I keep going back to Compile, a brand new game I found at Gen Con back in August. It's so different from any other card battle game I've played! My partner introduced me to Heroscape, I think my first real miniature wargame. I got my hands on Lord of the Rings Duel, and I think I like it better than 7 Wonders Duel. And finally, Boop the Halls has just been the best cozy 2-player game to wrap up the year. I'm going to be playing this one on repeat through to the new year!

You know... looking back through my photos and writing this out, maybe I did get to try a lot of games after all. Here's to even more great games in 2025!

Princes of Florence

This week I busted out an old favorite of mine - Princes of Florence. I have trouble getting this game to the table because it's one of the few games I'm EXTREMELY good at. Like, I've won tournaments. I have a group of four other experts that I get a semi-annual game in with at certain conventions. But I can't teach new players, because it's just... it's not fair. But everyone really wanted to try this, so I broke down and taught four new players the ins and outs of the game, and what they should do (and avoid letting me do) if they want to boost up their score. I mean, obviously since I've been talking myself up about this game so much I ended up losing by a single point. It was still an awesome time, and now I've got four new players who can put up a real fight against me. That's exciting.

WBC and beyond

I was recently at the World Boardgaming Championships. Obviously I played a zillion games there, but the one that really caught my attention was Merchant's Cove. This is a totally asymmetric game in the vein of Root. Each player is doing a completely different thing on their own boards, spending time as a resource and using that to produce various goods, which will be sold to adventurers coming in on boats. I fell in love with this completely, but we only had a chance to play one (of three) rounds before we had to pack up and make another event. I wanted to pick this up for myself as soon as I got home, but it was a long out of print Kickstarter. But because everything always works out perfectly for me, I had an enormous 400 item game lot traded in to the store a few days after getting home, and that lot obviously contained Merchants Cove and all relevant expansions. Beyond Merchants Cove, the other game I've been hooked on lately is Lorcana. This is a Trading Card Game, like Magic and Pokemon, but all Disney themed. This is NOT a game for the hardcore gamer. But let me tell you this - my kids are absolutely in love with the game. My wife has built more decks than I have. We've got a league starting on Wednesdays, and it's going to be run by my girls. And when my entire family falls into a game, I can't do anything but play with them. Got to encourage this type of behavior, right?