Well,  it’s that time of year again, where I trundle up to basically Canada (Niagara Falls NY) and get ready for a long weekend full of games.  This year is the 34th edition of the event, and I think this is around my 20th time actually being there.  In short, it’s an invitational event that started out as friends of Alan R. Moon, a guy you may have heard of…  It has grown through the years, and I believe about 400 people or so are invited each year.

(once you have been 20 times officially, you get a Black colored badge)

Unlike most cons, there isn’t much structure.  We meet up in a hotel with a lot of gaming tables.  Attendees bring their own games and set them up on tables around the exterior of the gaming space.  And then, welp, you find people to play games with.  No dealer hall. No ticketed events.  Depending on the year, sometimes folks will volunteer to run a puzzle hunt or a game show.  But for the most part, the plan is to show up, see your friends and make new friends, and play lots of games.  Oh yeah, maybe go outside to see those waterfall things.  And, if you’re really adventurous, take a drive to Rochester (to see the Strong Museum of Play) or Toronto.

(this year, I only glimpsed the falls from the car as I returned from Canada one afternoon)

Sure, there is always a little bit of gaming business going on – given that many of the attendees are either industry workers or game designers (or both).  There are always prototypes being played, and I’m sure that a number of deals get signed each year.   A few game companies also like to bring their works-in-progress to show off what they have.  One of the things I always ask now before I sit down to play a new game is to ask whether I can show pictures or write about it!  Props to some of the companies like Bezier which make this super easy…

As an aside, this year marks the one-year anniversary of my no-longer-new car; I bought it on the way up to the Gathering last year – and we made the road trip without too much issue.  Thankfully it was a bit warmer this year, and that helped my electric efficiency.  The trunk is filled with three crates of games, each with a theme.

1] New Games that I haven’t played enought to review yet list

2] Newish Games that I like and figured others wanted to play

3] 25th anniversary special – games all from 1999

Other than trying to find some games that are new to me, and play games that I brought, I have few specific plans.  As of now, I only have one thing scheduled – an attempt to play a 6 player team game of Millenium Blades.  I love playing longer games like this here as my whole day is free, and I’m not constrained with the usual schedule issues of game night.

During the week, there really isn’t much of a schedule – which I love.  Get up, play games, go eat, play more games, go to bed.  For the whole time, I think I had two things that were pre-scheduled – a dinner date on Thursday and a long-anticipated game of team Millenium Blades.  Other than that, just wander around, find my friends and play some games.

Though I haven’t been for the full Gathering in many years, I find that this event is a great way to get together with folks that I only see once or twice a year…

Just a bunch of game designers hanging out…

And some green haired folks too.

Always glad to hang out with other gaming press rockstars

And of course, my favorite tightrope walker – always nice to see him first thing in the morning (if you know, you know!)

So, with no schedule, there’s plenty of time for games.  Here is my list…

Thursday

• Perry Rhodan – the old 2p game from Kosmos
• Aeronautika – a super rare Jean du Poel game that Joe Huber finally acquired, and I was lucky enough to get a chance to play

• Snow white and the eleven dwarves x2 – a super interesting mathy-deduction game that plays 7 to 18 players?!  This might be my favorite game amongst those that play exactly 7 to 18
• Word traveler – the new game from OfficeDog.  Cooperative game where you try to get your teammates to guess where you’ve gone using Codenames-esque clues

• Odin – the little game from Helvetiq
• Tichu – a Gathering classic.  Tichu is a game that I only seem to play at the Gathering, a place where there is never a shortage of people looking for a game.

Friday

• Word Traveler

• Rebel princess (Bezier) – the re-do of this spanish game from Spiel 2023.

• The Cat game – umm, leave it to Michelle to have a game about cats.  It’s kinda like Telestrations but you get to use these cat figures in your art

• Wilmots Warehouse – my favorite game from GoF 2023, which is getting closer to production from CMYK.  It’s a memory storytelling game that is also cooperative.  Yeah, I know based on the description it totally sounds not-for-me; but the game is a hoot, and I can’t wait to be able to get my own copy from Target.

• Vampire village – A tower defense style game from Studio H
• Parade – some old school card game with a nasty twist
• Alibi – a murder mystery in a box from dv games

• Expressions x 2 – a cooperative, limited communication game.  I normally hate limited communication, but it works here, and we enjoyed both games
• Sufosaurus max – still one of the best recent games for 5-6 players.  A mix of competitive and cooperative poker hand building.
• Sunset over water – a relaxing beautiful game from Pencil First.
• Finca – man, talk about old school. Still a classic
• Matches – labeled a trick taking game, but really more of a shedding game.

Saturday

• Panda spin – A new take on the shedding genre from Matagot.  Cards have two sides on them, and as you play a shedding game, if your play loses, you take the cards back into your hand but flipped over to the side with stronger values.  The art is beautiful.  This is high on my list of games to make sure I get this October at Spiel 2024.

• Deep Print proto – sorry can’t talk about it, but maybe I will at Spiel 2024?
• Kyoto no neko – Another Matagot game; this time about cats exploring the neighborhood.  A little bit of an engine builder.  The bits are gorgeous though!

• Zenith – a 2p or 2v2 tug of war game from Play Punk, a new-ish company.  I really liked this 1v1, and I heard the team format worked well too

• Captain Flip – the first game from Play Punk, already available on BGA, and physically released at FIJ this spring.  Lots of fun; great for families.

• Matches – played with the advanced action cards for the first and assuredly only time.  Hello random take-that-ness. Ugh.
• Wilmots warehouse – yeah, still can’t get enough of this game!

• Now! A fun quick card game that can handle up to 8 players.  I’m liking this one more and more as I keep playing it
• Tesseract – my “hit of GenCon 2023”, though amazingly I didn’t play it until just a few weeks ago for the first time…
• Gardeners – a challenging cooperative game where players place tiles to meet a constantly changing set of score card criteria. Way harder than it looks!
• A light in the mist – we spent most of the night solving this escape room game which is staged through a Tarot deck.  Lots of great puzzles and I love the way that they used the cards in multiple ways to get you through the puzzles…

Sunday

• Jurgen searching for his handy – an older 2F proto
• Fischen – I played this game last year, and it has been tidied up.  I love this game.  It’s a trick taking deck building game with some lovely tempo challenges.  You take tricks and will score victory points for each card you take.  However, if you do not take many tricks, you will gain access to stronger cards – which will then let you score more points in later hands.

• Formosa tea – This older game is coming back to KS soon, and I was playing an advanced copy (review coming soon)

• Immigration proto – from Matt Carlson
• snow white x 11 dwarves – why not try this one again; this time with 9 players
• Ratjack – a new game from Studio H that has a bit of bluffing as players try to get their cards on the table to sum to 25.  Each card has a special action, so lots of unpredictable play
• Middle Ages – a new take on Majesty from Marc Andre.  Now you are building a city with different buildings.  The components are pretty nice; I especially like the way that the tiles have different cutouts on the bottom so that you always put them in the right place.  The game is a bit cut-throat with multiple building types that attack, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that you could still compete in the game even if you just ignored one of the attack building/defenses.

• Days of Wonder prototype which I cannot speak of
• Lord of the rings Duel – a re-imagining of 7W Duel, but now set in the LotR world.  No pics were allowed as it’s still in proto form; but they’re hoping to have it done by Spiel
• The Same game – the party game from Spielewiese, Essen 2023
• Nigoichi – A japanese game where each player is randomly assigned 2 of the face up words on the table, and they devise a clue (another word) to let everyone know which words are theirs.  One word is not given to a player, and everyone has to try to determine which word it is…
• Now!  Another group of 8, another game of Now!
• Zock and roll – the old push-your-luck dice rolling game.  I forgot how much hilarity comes from the cups with no tops nor bottoms
• Task team – a zany party game just released by Hachette.  Umm, it’s totally not my style, but late enough at night (and maybe with a few beers), it generates lots of laughs
• Mind map – Ended the night with this wordy party game.

Monday

• Wilmots warehouse – play number 3 or maybe 4.  I kinda lost track.  I was happy to teach this anytime people asked for it.

• LOTR duel – another play of this great 2p game, and I am proud to report that I am now undefeated against the designer (Antoine Bauza)
• The Otter hand
• Japanese tt with indescretion deck – I never got the name of it.  I don’t need to ever know the name either.
• Circles x 2 – A newly released game from Huch!  Done by the designer of The Crew.  Played each side once.  Flick a marble around the track, do the thing where the marble ends.  Supposedly a dexterity game, but it was too hard for me to control where the marble goes, so it was just a randomizer.
• Hot streak – OK, this is going to be another hit from CMYK.  It’s a race game, kinda like Honeybears.  You don’t own any of the racers, but you place bids on them.  The cards have a number of special abilities, so it’s quite unpredictable.  Oh, and did I mention that the racers are giant mascots?  It’s kinda like this game could happen at a minor league baseball all-star game using all the team’s humongous mascots!
• Millennium blades – The one game that I scheduled this week.  There has been a bit of excitement around MB as it is coming back to KS in the next few weeks.  I’d never played the team version of the game, and Luke was willing to organize a 2v2v2 game.  I had forgotten just how much I love the humor in the cards.  Seriously, the amount of work and ingenuity shown by the design team here in the attention to detail and the hilarious jokes cannot be emphasized enough.  This is a game I love and I wish I played it more often

• Kinfire delve – A nice cooperative game in the Kinfire universe.  Pretty tight right from the start.  We almost made it to the bottom of the exploration deck, but perished as a team.
• Fishing – Still love this game from 2F.  Can’t wait to have my own copy.
• The 4 doors – A proto from Matt Leacock.  I don’t think I can say anything else.
• Seers catalog – Had the designer (Taylor Reiner) teach us this shedding game.  Such a neat idea; you want to shed cards from your hand, but maybe not all of them as you’ll score positive points for the lowest value card left in your hand.  A zany twist on the shedding genre, and one that’s hard to figure out how to play well.  I hope to review this one soon!
• Yes no maybe – a party game from Friedemann?!  Sadly, that’s all I can say about it
• The rise and fall of tribes – a Japanese game that I will play once in my life
• Magical athlete – another oldie, but the Gathering is always time to play old classics.
• Crossword maker

Tuesday

• Botanicus – the new Hans im Gluck release.  This really has a classic feel about it with action planning in a set number of rounds.  You can never do all the things you want to do, and you have a tough decision each round as your action selection in the current round will affect your turn order in the next round.  I’m really digging this one so far, but I only had a chance to play it once.  I’m actually heading to Germany in May and I’m looking to pick up a copy on that trip as it is already released in Germany.

• Panda spin – the final game of the week for me was this super interesting, card flipping shedding game

Well, that’s about it.  Normally there’s some Opinionated Eater action going on during the week as well – but welp, the restaurant situation in Niagara Falls NY is…. something to make you not hungry.

Of note, I did make a trip to Canada, was there for about 30 minutes, and I bought lots of candy bars.

Also, the menu said that Leo Messi specifically made this sandwich for me.  While I doubt that, it is maybe the best thing I’ve ever eaten at a Hard Rock Cafe (is that damning with faint praise – maybe… but it’s a good sandwich)

Well, that pretty much sums up the trip.  Lots of fun, lots of games, and as usual, my short stay leaves me wanting more. Can’t wait for next year when I get the chance to do it all again!  And now, it’s time to catch up on some of those reviews!

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor