Octopus Overlords

Tickets went on sale at 3pm central today and were sold out at 5pm.

I missed the window and am now on the waiting list. I was considering passing this year. It's possible the decision has been made for me. Last year the waiting list had thousands of unfulfilled requests.

Whoa, that's crazy. Is it a situation where the convention is too big for what they historically would see? I attend an annual gaming convention here in NJ and over the last couple of years it has dramatically increased in size but the venue is the same. I have to believe sooner than later something is going to give because at some point on Saturday and Sunday it's rather difficult to move about freely.

They limit attendance to what the venue can reasonably handle so we can move around. The popularity has just gone through the roof and they don't want to make it bigger. They are trying to do more conventions, but their other one is Memorial Day weekend. That one has been on sale since November and still hasn't sold out.

Well, I guess that frees up those two days of PTO.

I've put myself on the wait list. I'll be holding my breath.

I got on the wait list about an hour after it sold out so I am somewhat hopeful, but I have no idea how deep the waitlist has gotten this late in the game (yeah, this late, 23 ours after they went on sale)

I'm hoping they will start doing conventions elsewhere. I would love to attend a BGG.con

Chrisoc13 wrote:I'm hoping they will start doing conventions elsewhere. I would love to attend a BGG.con

The leadership is local here, the 3 tractor trailers worth of board games is local here. I wouldn't hold my breath for a traveling show.

On the other hand, I am getting my ticket. Apparently their registration process is now very automated and they manually cut off new registrations when they think it is full and they had some abandoned sessions that they were counting, but were not followed through on. The top folks on the waiting list got their tickets.

No joy here yet. You might actually have to play games with other people this year.

Looks like all the secondaries went out on the same day. I imagine that the official wait list is going to stall out. I don't frequent their boards enough to get involved in their grey market, so I'm going to operate under the assumption that I'm not going.

Isgrimnur wrote:Looks like all the secondaries went out on the same day. I imagine that the official wait list is going to stall out. I don't frequent their boards enough to get involved in their grey market, so I'm going to operate under the assumption that I'm not going.

Wait list tickets tend to come available much closer to the con. It's possible a bunch will come up, but not likely to go very deep.

coopasonic wrote:The leadership is local here, the 3 tractor trailers worth of board games is local here. I wouldn't hold my breath for a traveling show.

Franchise?

If you are receiving this email, you are among the next fifteen people to be transferred tickets to BGG.CON 2016 as a buyer.

Please respond to this email within 72 hours to demonstrate that you still want to buy a ticket/tickets.

You should come see me and the guys at Gencon

It's on the bucket list. Origins is an easier sell, since my sister lives there.

Indy is close enough to drive there afterwards!

My ticket swap is now in progress.

Isgrimnur wrote:My ticket swap is now in progress.

Yay!

...and with 4 months to spare!

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/16 ... ickstarter

In an effort to relieve the demand for the con, announcing BGG.PreCON November 11-15. The kickstarter starts at 5pm central today. $80. Just open gaming and hot games from Essen.

I'm considering it. I'm not sure the wife or my health would be on board.

It just occurred to me that I can just do the DGM pre-con (depending on how this changes that) for much less money.

That pretty much curb-stomps the DGM pre-con weekend.

Jeff said he is working with Kevin on this so he isn't blindly destroying DGM.

That's good.

After 2.5 days they have sold less than 200 of the required minimum 800 tickets. If it happens it will be pretty small. Not betting on it happening at this point.

BGGPreCon Kickstarter cancelled with less than 36 hours to go.

$19,436 pledged of $64,000 goal.

It will be interesting to see what they do for next year.

Got on the waiting list. Got a ticket, a roommate, and a plane ticket.

I'm in.



I'll be there tomorrow evening.

My first day:

Clank!

Not bad. Similar to the Android Infiltration game (which is apparently no longer an active product) in that you want to get in and out with some phat loot before the dragon murderizes you. Sort of a boardgame version of Delve Deeper. I managed to come in last of three players when SL and coop tied, with coop getting the tiebreaker.

Colony

Dice drafting meets card engine building. Something I'd be willing to play again, but not really in my wheelhouse with the heavy dice mechanic. There's enough strategy there with the draft and pass mechanic to make it worth paying attention to your opponents. coop managed to stroll to a win on this one as well.

ShadowRift

Got a game and a half in on this one. The first half-game was to learn the mechanics. Deck building, a Legendary-style track, with your standard card-buying. The second game was run by SL with a specific enemy faction deck (six included). We managed to get a win with some pressure, but no deep threat where we were really worried about losing. This one, I might actually consider buying.

Black Orchestra

Same folks as Shadowrift, this one is Kill Hitler, with tracks of character motivation, government suspicion, and map exploration to gather resources to implement a plot. coop and I got a presentation of this and ShadowRift from the booth. I checked it out, and we looked over the rules, and I'm hoping to play it tomorrow.

I like Colony a lot (at least after my one play of the game.) But I like games with lots of dice too.

Colony ends up WAY more thinky than a dice rolling game should be. Played twice at Octocon, and the second time around was much easier.

No links, phone posting

Legendary: Firefly

Artwork looks like something you'd see at a high school art fair. Aside from that, it's a Legendary game. cool and I strolled through the first episode easily, then got schooled with a quickness by Patience and her crew.

Black Orchestra

Aside from mucking up the event rules, which probably made it harder than it was supposed to be, coop managed to mail Hitler a poison package in 1943, saving 20 million lives. If that had failed, I had a nice parcel of explosives ready to go. We played on Easy. Might want to purchase this one.

Ponzi Scheme

Played a 4-player game of this with coop and a local couple we know. The player trading was structured enough to keep coop happy and out of Bohnanza-phobia. I managed to win when the market crashed, and no one but me had the cash on hand to pay the required amounts. coop had the edge on points at the end, having just taken it from me, but he couldn't escape insolvency.

Captain Sonar

coop and one other previous player got six of us up to speed on the game in turn based mode. I started out as First Mate, completely neglected Silent Running, and we died a horrible death, failing to answer any incoming volleys. The next match, we switched roles, and I took Radio Operator. I got the other team pegged to the point where I announced when they changed sectors, much to their captain's chagrin. We had previously torpedoed them, they then went silent, then surfaced. I had two possible tracks, which were two spaces apart. We then torpedoed and mined them on successive turns, splitting the difference to get two indirect hits to finish them off. The final game, I stayed to take new crew for every other slot, and I ran captain. My radio operator was on point, and managed to lock them down. First officer kept me with the tools I needed, and my engineer kept me weapons hot. We walked over for my second win. All three games were turn based. I'd certainly be up to play again, and even try real time.

Isgrimnur wrote:I'd certainly be up to play again, and even try real time.

Coop's voice is gone, probably from teaching Captain Sonar to two big groups in a loud convention hall. That might make playing real time impossible for me today unfortunately. Maybe if I pointed emphatically.

My summary so far is I played most of the games Isg played, plus Tyrants of the Underdark. I'm rather proud of not buying any of them... so far.

Escape from Coldlitz

A remaster of an old British boardgame, its 1-5 escape officers against the heartless prison camp commander (played by coop, naturally). Two dice movement to run around the camp, acquiring ropes, wire cutters, passes, and keys.

I managed to get two POWs out over the wall. One gave up the escape to cover for the other, who then came up lame, and was captured, sending both into solitary. I was then hamstrung by crappy rolls. If you roll 5 or under, you get a card. Moving from the starting area to a safe spot usually takes a roll of eight or higher. Doubles let you roll again and add it to your rolls. So I spent most of the game rolling 6-7.

As the clock is running down, I get one more over the wall. coop has been burning through the deck, and staging guards to completely seal off the easy entrances. So one guy jumps the wall, gets the cutters out, and heads through the wire. At which point, coop guns him down. With nine turns left, the POWs concede.

Last Friday

A back-and-forth take on the hidden killer game, it's pretty much four rounds of Letters from Whitechapel. In rounds one and three, the killer hints the five teens. In rounds two and four, the teens are hunting the killer.

Despite some success in keeping the killer at bay, I couldn't run him to ground, letting him trigger the round five flavor text of him murdering all the surviving teens.

We then went to listen to a panel of a few game designers, which coop will have to detail. He then held my ticket for the raffle, which we continued our losing streak.

That will wrap it for me. coop stuck around, and might have another game recap from this evening.

Oh Friday morning I played in a Dice Masters "Little Cup" tournament (only commons and starter cards allowed). Having sold 80% of my Dice Masters collection I only had World's Finest left so I set up a villains team of mostly Batman villains and ended up taking the third place prize home... out of 6 players and the actual winner passed because he was running the tournament. The prizes were promo cards and there was just for entering so I got two cards... that I have no dice for. *shrug*

Isgrimnur wrote: We then went to listen to a panel of a few game designers, which coop will have to detail.

Rob Daviau
Matt Leacock
Eric Lang
Moderated by Rich Sommer

Isgrimnur wrote:That will wrap it for me. coop stuck around, and might have another game recap from this evening.

Nope, Coop tired. I hung around for like 15 minutes then decided to head home.

I did the impossible and bought *nothing* at the con... technically those two PACG sets I bought before the con, we just made the exchange there.

I think Last Friday is still a potential purchase. If I were going to buy anything else it would probably be Clank! or Escape from Colditz. I definitely need to try Colditz from the POW side and from the Guard side with 3 players. There isn't a copy in the DGM library as of yet.

I didn't hate anything I played this year, which is a change.

Isgrimnur wrote:Ponzi Scheme

Played a 4-player game of this with coop and a local couple we know. The player trading was structured enough to keep coop happy and out of Bohnanza-phobia. I managed to win when the market crashed, and no one but me had the cash on hand to pay the required amounts. coop had the edge on points at the end, having just taken it from me, but he couldn't escape insolvency.

I was just reading about this game from the other thread and my eventual 'meh' attitude to the "social" aspects of Bohnanza was the first thing that came to mind as a potential turn off to a game it looks like I'd otherwise really enjoy.

A vote in its favor is that coop has added it to his wishlist.

Yeah, look at my response in the other thread that describes how the trading works. It's very cool.

Missed the thread if there is one but is anyone going to the Spring version at the end of the month?

I would but 75% of my household was born that week which makes getting away for the holiday weekend a bit tough.

I'm not in for this one.

Ok, been following the threads some and my college buddy lives in Plano and asked me if I wanted to drive up so I thought I'd check to see if anyone wanted to get in a game of something.

I'm usually free on Saturdays, so would be up for dinner, either on- or off-site.

Isgrimnur wrote:I'm usually free on Saturdays, so would be up for dinner, either on- or off-site.

Cool, I don't have a clue what the schedule will be (never been to one of these) but I'll keep you posted. If we could work something out that'd be nice.