Figured I'd start this to see if anyone's going.
As of right now, we are still planning on it but will depend on funds situation when we get closer.
Have the badges since they were prepaid already. Just need to make sure we can do hotel, gas, tolls, and food
Pax unplugged 2024
Moderators: The Preacher, $iljanus, Zaxxon
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Punisher
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Pax unplugged 2024
All yourLightning Bolts are Belong to Us
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AWS260
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Re: Pax unplugged 2024
Yep, I'll be there. I'm getting in Thursday, my wife and kid arrive Friday evening.
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AWS260
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- Joined: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:51 pm
- Location: Brooklyn
Re: Pax unplugged 2024
I accidentally posted my PAX impressions in the Kickstarter thread. Here they are in the correct thread (with one more game added at the end of the list).
Impressions from some of the games I played at PAX Unplugged this year:
Spring Cleaning is a card game in the "shedding" genre; i.e., you want to get rid of your entire hand before everyone else. Two gimmicks: First, like Scout, you cannot rearrange the cards in your hand. Second, you will be putting cards face-up in front of you for anyone to use. It comes together wonderfully and is a ton of fun.
Around the World in 80 Days (not the 2016 game of the same name, or the 2004 one, or the 1986 one, or the 1957 one). You are drawing your route on a world map, using cards that show how far you can travel. Kind of boring.
Bauernschlau is an old game about fencing in sheep farms. You want to put the black sheep (negative points) in your opponents' farms and secure the white sheep (positive points) for your own. Lots of bluffing, highly interactive, super fun.
Valley of the Kings. A deck building game from the mid-2010s, following in the footsteps of Dominion. Not groundbreaking, but a very clean and engaging design.
Uptown. Abstract game about laying tiles on a grid and building the largest group of contiguous tiles. Somehow both super-interactive and kind of dry.
Australis. An upcoming game from prolific designer Leo Colovini, about exploring the Great Barrier Reef to, uh, score victory points. It's a nice medium-light eurogame with a bit of direct competition.
In Mutation, you are assembling a big, 3d pile of dice, trying to put together contiguous groups while breaking up the groups of your opponents. The designer has been working on it for more than a decade and finally released it at PAX in a very small print run. It's a nifty abstract game.
Time Trouble. I probably did not give this one a fair shake, since I just played the intro scenario. But we did not enjoy it at all. Fiddly and lacking in interaction, despite being a cooperative game.
Bable (aka Babel). A much better and more innovative cooperative game than Time Trouble. You are working cooperatively to build buildings, but you can only act when you are given an order by another player. The problem is that you speak different languages and have to figure out what commands to use for each player. A very impressive design, but we played with five players which seems like Extreme Difficulty mode. Probably an amazing experience with 3 players.
Operation Barclay, a 1v1 game about the Allies' effort to deceive the Axis about their invasion plans for southern Europe. A nice cat-and-mouse contest, but the mediocre rulebook meant that it took a long time to get rolling.
I demoed Mystic Curling Club, which is basically curling with d12s instead of stones, plus spells. Very breezy and fun.
As always, the real highlight was spending time with people who love games as much as I do. And it was pretty inspiring seeing so many people line up for the Indie Games Night Market to check out designers' weird passion projects.
Impressions from some of the games I played at PAX Unplugged this year:
Spring Cleaning is a card game in the "shedding" genre; i.e., you want to get rid of your entire hand before everyone else. Two gimmicks: First, like Scout, you cannot rearrange the cards in your hand. Second, you will be putting cards face-up in front of you for anyone to use. It comes together wonderfully and is a ton of fun.
Around the World in 80 Days (not the 2016 game of the same name, or the 2004 one, or the 1986 one, or the 1957 one). You are drawing your route on a world map, using cards that show how far you can travel. Kind of boring.
Bauernschlau is an old game about fencing in sheep farms. You want to put the black sheep (negative points) in your opponents' farms and secure the white sheep (positive points) for your own. Lots of bluffing, highly interactive, super fun.
Valley of the Kings. A deck building game from the mid-2010s, following in the footsteps of Dominion. Not groundbreaking, but a very clean and engaging design.
Uptown. Abstract game about laying tiles on a grid and building the largest group of contiguous tiles. Somehow both super-interactive and kind of dry.
Australis. An upcoming game from prolific designer Leo Colovini, about exploring the Great Barrier Reef to, uh, score victory points. It's a nice medium-light eurogame with a bit of direct competition.
In Mutation, you are assembling a big, 3d pile of dice, trying to put together contiguous groups while breaking up the groups of your opponents. The designer has been working on it for more than a decade and finally released it at PAX in a very small print run. It's a nifty abstract game.
Time Trouble. I probably did not give this one a fair shake, since I just played the intro scenario. But we did not enjoy it at all. Fiddly and lacking in interaction, despite being a cooperative game.
Bable (aka Babel). A much better and more innovative cooperative game than Time Trouble. You are working cooperatively to build buildings, but you can only act when you are given an order by another player. The problem is that you speak different languages and have to figure out what commands to use for each player. A very impressive design, but we played with five players which seems like Extreme Difficulty mode. Probably an amazing experience with 3 players.
Operation Barclay, a 1v1 game about the Allies' effort to deceive the Axis about their invasion plans for southern Europe. A nice cat-and-mouse contest, but the mediocre rulebook meant that it took a long time to get rolling.
I demoed Mystic Curling Club, which is basically curling with d12s instead of stones, plus spells. Very breezy and fun.
As always, the real highlight was spending time with people who love games as much as I do. And it was pretty inspiring seeing so many people line up for the Indie Games Night Market to check out designers' weird passion projects.