Intro
I started my day at 5am CDT so that I can get there prior to 9:30am EDT. I parked at the usual Meridian Parking Lot, 125 S Meridian for $20. The subsequent days, I found a better parking lot that cost $10 for 12 hours, 102 S Pennsylvania St, Indianapolis, IN 46204. Regardless of where you park, just make sure you don't park in the structured garage if you plan to leave Sunday after the event is over.
Listed below are the interesting games I've played.
Cool Photos
Giant Everdell Tree 🌳
Gamernauts (missing Cosmo) 🧑🚀
Laser Tag Team 🔫
Team Foor
We won 2nd place 🥈 and Captain David accepted the reward of 5 brand new War Hammer boxes!
Goliath Coins 🪙
Nolstagic Photos 🎮
Board Games
Legend
- 💰 - Bought/will buy
- 🥳 - Fun but won't buy
Anunnaki 🥳
Expand your soldiers and harvest resources from the tiles, use resources to buy build, and there is a light weight combat.
The game mechanics was quite fun. However, this game won't be released until Gen Con 2023.
Squid Games 🥳
Squid games mirrored the mini games in the TV series. It's a good party game, strong element of luck, and is press your luck type game.
It's a thrilling game. However, strong luck based games aren't my type of game.
Cat in the Box 💰
It's a competitive trick taking game. You get to control what suit your number is. If you choose not to follow the suit, you can no longer control that color for the remainder of your hand. Try to achieve your bid of tricks and be careful not to cause a paradox! Very cool!
Castles of Mad King Ludwig: Collector's Edition 🥳
The master builder will rearrange the rooms from most expensive to least expensive based on what they think each room is worth. Each player takes a turn connecting the room earning victory points, thus, building the castle.
The game seems very fun. However, there is a lot of calculation to it which I think will greatly stall the game on each player's turn.
Maglev Metro 🥳
Turn based game with: train movement, pick-up/drop-off passengers, build tracks, build stations. Each player has 2 actions and they try to build their engine based on passengers dropped off. There is a lot of effort towards acquiring passengers.
I really like this game, very engaging and exciting. However, it was very unbalanced where if a player's engine is ahead of everyone else, their engine can snowball exponentially where other players has no chance to catch up.
San Francisco 🥳
The element of the game is similar to Coloretto where on your turn, you either choose a card on display and draw & drop a card onto the display. It's a building/synergy medium-light weight game that generate victory points.
I enjoyed my time playing this game, but it was super exciting where I want to own the game.
Decorum 💰
Cooperative conflicting-objective game. All players have a private list of requirements that are conflicting with each other and need to decorate the house matching everyone's requirements. I really like this game!
Kites 🥳
Time based and turn based game - we have to make sure none of the hourglasses expire and need to play cards to flip the hourglass(es).
Great party game! I can see that once you learn the strategy, it will no longer be re-playable.
Foundations Of Rome 🥳
It's somewhat like Acquire regarding tile placement, easy to learn and strategic. On your turn, you can either earn income, spend money to reserve a spot, or replace/upgrade your spot(s) with a building. The art on each building tile is very intricate and the box is huge!
Very fun game, I would totally buy it. However, depending on the edition, it cost: $140, $220, or $270. Too rich for my blood 🩸!
Break The Code 🥳
This game reminds me of Sleuth, except, with math. There are 10 numbers with 2 colors for each number. The numbers are given to each player except a few remaining in the middle. First to guess the remaining numbers win!
The only problem is that, after a certain number of clues, everyone will figure out the remaining numbers at the same time. And whoever's turn it is, gets to guess.
MicroMacro: Crime - Full House 💰
Cooperative, detective work. It's like Finding Waldo, except, the giant picture containing a snippet of the timeline of events. There are a series of 8 questions and we must answer questions like: who killed the birdman, what did the birdman have for dinner, and where is the killer now? Very fun game!
Garden Nation 🥳
There are 7 regions, each containing 7 different colored tiles. Players take turns placing a building on a dictated region and then gain a qualified victory point card if any. The interesting part of the mechanics is that the tile in which the building is placed on will dictate the very next region for building placement.
I thought this game is pretty interesting. However, it didn't hit the spot at the end of the game.
Turing Machine 🥳
Whoever finds the 3 digit combination number first wins. To achieve that, every player checks a random set of numbers of your choice and validate it against the machine to deduce the combination number e.g. is 1st digit great than 2nd digit, true or false.
During the game, the guy next to me figured it out in 2 rounds while my clues didn't narrow down the answers yet. I can see how it can be unbalanced in some games. Otherwise, I very much enjoyed the test machine aspect.
Raccoon Tycoon 💰
Astoria is a land bustling with productivity and growth from new towns, factories, and railroads. A few savvy business tycoons (you and your opponents) are determined to make your fortunes on the crest of this wave. These tycoons start out as the producers of the key commodities to fill the insatiable demand of the animals of Astoria.
I would consider this a gateway game. It's simple, fun, somewhat strategic, and very exciting. Each resource has a value in a specific range and could change based on supply and demand. Selling the resources will reduce the money and there are cards to bump the value up. Money is used to buy buildings that gives you abilities and to buy victory point cards in an auction manner.
Under Falling Skies 🥳
The idea of the game is to prevent the mother alien ship from invasion and defend against the interceptor ships. It's all dice rolls and placement, but it doesn't favor lower or higher numbers. It all depends on your strategy on how much to focus on the winning condition while keeping the enemy at bay.
This is a 1 player game, but 2 brains are better than 1. I played this game with my buddy Cosmo and it was a lot of fun. However, I prefer to play games with more gamers. Thus, I won't be purchasing this game.
Brazil: Imperial 🥳
Brazil is a civilization type game with a small element of area control, depending on the map you choose. Actions include building, upgrading, refilling your resources, upgrading your action, buying cards which boost abilities, and building military. The game moves slow and there are 3 eras.
I finished 1 era of the demo and I felt like not much has happened. Comparing this game with Through the Ages, 1 age has a lot of involvement and excitement. I would rather play Through the Ages.
Living Forest 🥳
Lighter weight game consist of deck building and pressing your luck. Draw cards and hope to not draw cards that limit your number of actions. Actions can be used to purchase tiles to place on your board, purchase cards for your deck, water the fire, or move your figure.
The game is interesting, but not exciting enough to add to my collection.
Eschaton 🥳
Deck building, engine, and area control. I would say the deck building with the engine aspect complements very well. Victory points are scored per territory controlled at the end of the game, on top of some cards's VP value.
This game is pretty fun considering that I'm not big on area control type game. If you like area control, then definitely get this game!
