The long day for a father start early in the morning trying to convince Caterina that is much more better to be in the Halls at 9 instaed of having a relaxed breakfast and a holiday-like wake up.

I’m been good in that becasue we were able to reach the Entrance not too late and play more than 10 games. I will don’t say anything about the new halls organization until saturday.

Caterina top 3 of days are

Rokoko
Garden Dice
Tash-kalhar

My top 3 are

Garden Dice
Mini-krokinole
Rokoko

So, our game of the day has been Garden Dice

Caterina: “it is no nice that can concurr for the Spiel des Jahres. A real good grafic, theme and great materials”
Andrea: “I really liked the watering and crop rules that let you play using other players actions, I think that is a deep and strategic game”

Players compete trying to crop vegetables in 5 different kind. During theyr turn they have to roll 4 dice and use them for actions. Buying seeds, watering and cropping actions all need a die: higher scoring vegetables demanding higher dice. Plant seeds need two dice, that actually are the coordinates in the 6×6 garden’s grid. There are also birds, rabbits and other nice things that make the game challenging. Does the luck have a great impact in the game ? I think no. You can plan your actions and get benefit fro other players watering and cropping. In the end of the game you score for full sets of the five vegetables and also for having 3 or more vegetables of the same kind.

The mornig started with a nice Rokoko session: I like it, says Caterina and i think so. The game is nice and it looks loke you can have many different way to play and strategy.

Obviously Caterina won the game.

Than we moved to Glass Road that we are able to play in 4 thanks to two italian gamers. We didn’t liked it too much. We really loked the mechanic of the production of the resources but are been both bothered by the need to try to guess what other players are playing and/or keeping in theyr hands.

Caterina won again.

Than we had 5 match with the Krokinole board at lockWorks booth. I really liked the mini-korkinole, a 64cmx64cm board that works perfectly and that can be easily played at home. If you like Krokinole you have to try it. Also Caterina enjoied the sessions … We need to find a way to bring it at home.

Than we stop to try Sagario, a sort of chess-like abstract game we didn’t likeed at all. Probably we are not the players for this kind of games.

The next one, Ebbes, was another in the series of trumph/tricks card game.
This time the newelty was that what is trumph, wich color give you points and which one give you minus points are determinated during the game when the 1s are played.

The next stop was at Gen-X Games for Seven Sword. It is a tactical 2+ players game with two really different factions. One player has to move the 7 samurai defending the village from the bandits attack. Every Samurai has different values in attack, movement and leadership. The last one can be used reparing palisade or other things.

On the other side the cheap warriors, the archers or the knights. The game runs on 18 turns: the bandits are more but weaker and have to try to raid the village or kill the Samurai.

The rules are simple and the game works well but we are not been impressed. The core mechanism of the actions is nice and I think this game could satisfy the tastes of many gamers,

Caterina won again and than we moved in the direction of Cranio Creations booth to try Steam Park but all the tables were full … Maybe tomorrow.

Caterina decided to get a customized tiepin in the meanwhile ….

The next stop was at CGE to try the new Vlaada’s masterpiece: Tash-Kalar: arena of legends.

We played two games in a row and really liked. In the beginnig it could look to be abstract butit os not complitely true … You have really the sense of the battle. It looks Vlaada put a lot in this design and I’m really curious to try with the different decks and not only the basic ones.

We concluded our first day in the messe with two prototypes: Pandemonium and Blackhats by the finnish publishers.

The first one catched Caterina attention for the art and the theme: players are creature of another plane/place trying to get influence on earth using follwers and powers. It is not collaborative. The game looks nice and the basic structure i solid and ready. Still a lot to do in the fine tuning.

Finally a game of Dice Run, the new revised edition of an old-classic by Spartaco Albertarelli. I really liked it. During the game you move dice according to number/color cards you are playing. When a score card is revealed every player plays one of his scoring cards. The player making best get points. Scoring cards are something like “blue dice number 3 or orange dice number six. A really nice dice game packed in a small box. Something you need to play.

Finally we reached our room: we are ready to sleep protected by the great Smaill World’s amazon … See you tomorrow.

Liga and Caterina