Well, just taking a minute to jot a quick note for the blog.  It’s been quiet this weekend – mostly because a lot of our writers have been busy playing games at a number of different events across the country!  I had to miss Great Lakes Games this year as my brother found himself in town – but we managed to convert his visit into an excuse to have my first annual Basement Con instead!

I must admit that this year, I have made better progress playing the new Essen games than any previous year… One reason is that I did have the opportunity to play a couple of games prior to leaving for Essen.  I also managed to have two gaming sessions between Essen and this weekend, getting in seven new games in those two meetings.  Having a full weekend of gaming at my house didn’t hurt either in the quest to play all the new games!  Of the new games, there are still about 10 in my possession that haven’t been played (and I am expecting a box to arrive from Germany via DHL with another 8-10 games inside!)

Here are the games that I played this weekend at Basement Con:

1. Rolling Bones
2. Master Merchant
3. Coney Island
4. Meltdown 2020
5. Timeline: Inventions
6. Rallyman: Dirt
7. Dungeon Fighter
8. Dungeon Fighter
9. Tournay
10. Pergamemnon
11. Fruit Ninja: TCG
12. Eclipse
13. Terra Evolution
14. Hawaii
15. Tschaak
16. Timeline: Inventions
17. Vanuatu
18. Walnut Grove
19. Talat
20. Trajan
21. Forgotten Planet
22. Carre
23. Ab in die Tonne
24. MIL (1049)
25. Fruit Ninja TCG
26. Carre
27. Helvetia
28. Dr Shark
29. Walnut Grove
30. Walnut Grove
31. Singapore
32. Trajan
33. Paperclip Railways
34. Poseidon’s Kingdom
35. Gnomes of Zavandor
36. Old Men of the Forest
37. Hawaii
38. Marble Monster
39. Galaxia
40. Fortuna
41. Feudalherren
42. City Tycoon
43. Recycle
44. PAX

So… to date, I have played 52 games from this fall – almost all of them from Essen. 18 of the games have been played more than once already, and three games were aborted prior to completion for various reasons.  My initial ratings are showing that this year is very similar to last year — there are many good games though an “alltime top 20” game has not yet emerged, though there are three games that might eventually reach that status for me.

A quantification of my ratings so far:

• 8 = Love it!
• 22 = Like it.
• 15 = Neutral
• 7 = Not for me…

The Love it! games so far are (in alphabetical order):  Ab in die Tonne, City Tycoon, Hawaii, Helvetia, Last Will, Rallyman: Dirt, Splits, Walnut Grove.

At this point, I’m keeping the rest of the actual details under wraps – mostly because I have found there can still be a fair amount of movement of my ratings in the first couple of plays of the Essen games.  Plenty of Essen games end up with lower ratings initially due to slow first games, multiple rules questions, my own tiredness from five days of gaming, etc.  Given that usual pattern, I’d prefer to give many of the games a second play before declaring a rating on them… and give the games a fair chance before I write about them… (Also, I’ve got a lot of First Impression columns to write, and I don’t want to spill the beans early!)

I’m probably taking the next week or two off from boardgaming to catch up on some real-life work issues, but I’m hoping to resume my regular weekly group as well as get another full weekend of gaming at Thanksgiving to try all the new games for the first time as well as getting back into the games that intrigued me from the first pass.

Hopefully in the next week or two, the folks who were at the other gaming events will have a chance to check in and let us know what they played. Also, the next two weekends will give others a chance to play the new games at EuroQuest, BGG.con and LobsterTrap (just to name a few of the bigger events)

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor