Wow….

Still processing and at a general loss of words for the fair overall, so you’re probably just getting more captions and pictures. Maybe a little recap. I posted a few things on our twitter account during the day, but you’ll probably get a little more context and narrative here.

Let’s start with today’s acquisitions. (Not pictured are the Odin promos, the Arle expansion, and a A Tale of Pirates bandana):

It was a day of quite a few surprises for me. For one, I had picked up almost everything before 11 AM. I was expecting that to take up more of the day, but instead it left time for demoing a few things, and, well, general awe and wonder.

I went in knowing that few publishers took card, but I think I only encountered one that did (though I didn’t really ask).

For Origins/Gen Con, I know to expect that Rio Grande will have a demo room, and in order to buy their new releases, well, find some retailer in the hall, and generally they’re the only ones operating on that model. Here there were several with that setup, making Voodoo Prince, while there’s likely plenty of stock, the hardest to acquire title for me.

For some reason I was expecting the pieces in Tribe to be foam, but they’re wooden!

Also wooden, this tetherball-ish thing. (You throw the ball around the poll; as it unwinds, it knocks some things over; score points based on the face up pips of those, modified by the color on the top; you don’t want points):

@OpinionatedEaters break. So that choco-kebab?

Nope. That, surprisingly, is not the choco-kebab. That’s a different (delicious) stand. This is the choco-kebab:

He was slicing chocolate off it like a gyro. Haven’t had a chance to try. Did try the spiral potato, and not sure how it could live up to the hype and expectations, but it did. So good!

Hey, this looks like fun. The UPS man delivering packages on the floor of the fair shortly after opening:

Also, it was hot. I can’t compare to other years, but I went in the morning with a long sleeve shirt and a puffy vest, and came back in the afternoon with a t-shirt. Planning on t-shirt again today.

Obligatory giant games: Junk Art and both Flick ’em Ups.

Tried a two-player game of the new Adlung 112 Fire Hazard. Felt like a take on Onirim as a memory game rather than hand management. Pretty interesting.

Got in a partial game of Sebastian Fitzek Safehouse. When I say partial, we played from beginning to end. But, we may have left out some more advanced aspects. I say may because the teacher and other players largely only spoke German. It was fun to try to pick up the rules based upon the rudimentary German I know, and the teachers kinesthetic gestures.

You’re completing various mission cards to proceed on the path, trying to avoid the bad guy. At the end of the path, the page flips and you play another chapter. At the end of the fifth chapter, you reach the Safehouse. That timer is marking two minute increments and one of several ways the bad guy advances. If your mission card requires multiple cards of the same color, they must be played in ascending order. You can discuss what you have in the general vague coop game terminology (“I have some low cards in the color”)

What should make it interesting, and the part we didn’t use, is the grid of round white tokens. As best as I understand, to pass the 4th or 5th chapters, you need to have the suspect, motive, etc (represented by the rows) narrowed down to one option. Whenever you complete a mission card, the colored cards you use have icons matching some of the discs, and you flip them. White to black. If they’re already black? Back to white!

Packing update. All boxes plus my checked bag weigh in under 13 pounds! I’ve loaded the pockets of a vest I’ll wear with small card games, but otherwise here are the remaining components:

And two board bags and a rulebook bag:

Yeah, so you may notice those boards don’t quite fit. Get the 5 L bags, not the 3 L. (Also, any large square rulebook or board I had to leave in the box…)

This mornings acquisition plan is likely Venus Next, Noria, and Knights (the Blue Orange/Makaka book from last year). Still preliminary packing to see how much room is left. I feel compelled to bring back requests of my weekly group, and folks who have brought me things over the years. I’m trying to make spread the joy of this to them as best as I can, and many of the acquisition I’ve already made are actually theirs.