I managed to get 25 games to a table this past month, with 37 total plays. The 4-day gaming event known as GenCon helped boost my numbers this month as I ate/slept/drank games all of the days I attended. While I avoided buying a ton of games at GenCon, I did pick up expansions to games I already owned, which made me get them back to the table.
Here are the highlights from August:
Chicken - One of the games I did buy at GenCon! I had meant to back it on Kickstarter so I had my eye on it for awhile. The designer, Scott Almes, has put out a lot of the Tiny Epic series and many solo games with ButtonShy that I own and love. And I LOVE push-your-luck dice games.
Chicken is fast, fun, and easy to teach. You roll 4 white dice, if you get chickens you get points. If you get eggs, you get more dice. If you get foxes - be careful! You could bust and lose it all! And it comes in this portable little tube!Long Shot: The Dice Game w/ Expansions - I grabbed all the expansions for Long Shot at GenCon because it would have cost as much to ship as it would to buy them. So I was SAVING money. I’m so glad I did too, because they really change things up!
Mixing all the cards together gives you a variety of horse powers but the biggest game changer (pun intended) are the Track Events. These effect everyone and can change what bonuses you can get, how the horses move and more. I love this silly little game and the expansions were a good investment!
Passtally - This poor game has been on my shelf of shame since 2019, shortly after Dicebreaker did a video on it. I put it in my work bag and forced my friend to play it on break to see if it was worthy of keeping in my collection or time to let it go. Unfortunately for my shelves, it’s GOOD! You’re laying tiles, trying to make a path to your other dot, and the more tiles your line passes through, you tally up the score (eh? See what they did there?)
It’s a spatial puzzle, a mix of trying to boost your score without accidentally giving your opponent a good path. It’s gorgeous on the table. It does take 30-45 minutes to play, at least in the learning stages, so it was THE game we played for a week since that was the whole lunch break.Trash Talk - I think we spent an hour or more playing this game at GenCon with random people in the Friendly Skeleton (formerly Deep Water Games) room. It’s not a game I need to own, but it’s perfect for conventions or gaming clubs that need a quick and easy game to play while waiting for other things to happen.
The box is filled with a random assortment of items x2. 3 are given to the a single person. Then three cards with random words are revealed and the person arranges the items behind a screen, putting one with each word. Then everyone else has to try to guess which words they associated the item with. It can be very funny as you stretch to make a link between two things.Spire’s End: Hildegard - I posted about this playthrough earlier in the month… about time to get it back to the table!
And then there are my 137 games on BoardGameArena.
Bunny Kingdom - I’m slowly getting the hang of actually scoring points in this game. It’s card drafting and area control so this weird mix of chance and intention and the whole castles x resources = points doesn’t always make sense ot me, but I broke 150 the other day and actually WON a match so I must be improving!
Sea Salt And Paper - I posted about my obsession with this game a few weeks ago:
Any games on my lists you want to know more about? Let me know in the comments! What were your stand out games for this month? Let’s chat!