I have been blessed to be a part of the Gathering of Friends for more than 20 years now, and this annual event is one of the highlights of my (gaming) year.  Though the location has moved a few times over the years, it’s currently in Niagara Falls – and 450+ of my gaming friends trek there each year to play games, eat food, laugh with each other, and try to leave banana peels lying around.

I wrote a short piece on the first few days of the con when I arrived, but as it often happens, I was too busy and having too much fun to write more during the con itself.  Now that I’m back home, I have a bit more time to catch you up on what happened.

First – the games.  I managed 55 games over the five days.  I don’t track the results nor who I gamed with, but I feel confident that I played with at least 50 different people.  I will admit that I don’t mingle as much as I used to because I don’t even have enough time to play with all of my friends who I see only once or twice a year. 

Thursday – I arrived just after lunchtime, and it took me awhile to unpack the car and set my games up.  One of the fun features of the Gathering is that many of the attendees bring their own games for everyone to play – so it’s a common thing to see people walking around the perimeter of the gaming rooms looking for something to play,  Maybe one of the newest releases or maybe an old classic that you haven’t seen for twenty years.

Thursday Games

The Gang – this was my first game of the event, and I must say in retrospect, this felt like the “game of the convention”.  Anytime I walked around the game room, I would pretty much always see at least one or two copies of this in play.  While this game still really isn’t for me, it was getting played ALL THE TIME this week.

Expressions – what? Two cooperative games right off the bat?  Yeah, I was surprised as well. I hadn’t played this since the Gathering 2024, and I enjoyed this play well enough.  About once a year feels to be the right interval for me and this game.  

Tricket to Ride – so, I brought a prototype of my own to the Gathering.  In part to get some feedback from gamers that I respect and also to enter in the game design contest this year at the event

Kano – This is a new prototype; can’t say anything else about it

Cmyk prototype – umm, another prototype, still can’t say anything about it.  Once of the great things about the Gathering is that you get the chance to play so many games in design development. The general rule is to not talk about prototypes (or show pictures) unless you have specific permission from the designer/publisher.

FF proto Matagot – I look forward to my annual tussle with Friedemann over our favorite gaming table in the back corner, but FF wasn’t there this year.  However, a clever card game from his brain showed up, being shown by Matagot.  Not sure if I can say any more than that yet.

Tichu – In days of yore, Tichu was always amongst consideration for “Game of the Con”.  While not as prevalent as the past, Tichu was still a very frequent choice.  At home, I have an issue finding a local group of 4 to play – but at the Gathering, it’s pretty easy to find three other people who can play, and play well.  Thus, this tends to be the only time of the year when I regularly play.

Boitas – a neat trick taking game from India (I think).  A bit of a challenge figuring out the trump rank each round, but once you get the hang of it, there is a pretty neat game here to wrap your head around.  Scoring is a bit weird, you score based on a bit of set collection (you collect tokens based on the results of the tricks).  I’m not sure how many more times I want to play it, but at least one more for sure to explore the game

Friday

Oranges and lemons – this sort of game isn’t really on my usual dance card, but Derek J was so hyped about it (this would be his seventh or eighth play), so I went along for the ride.  It’s a resource management / worker placement game.  There are a number of different twists to keep things interesting, and you only play 8 rounds in the game, so you have to maximize your actions.  I’m glad to have tried it, and I’m glad to havehad someone who was able to teach me

Stephens – another complex action selection game.  This was actually played with my copy (maybe the fifth play for me) – I still love the complicated interplay between putting out worker cards that reward you in addition to choosing which of the action discs to put on it; thus shaping your overall strategy.

Kuzooka – a cooperative game that I thought was not for me (last played at the Gathering 2024).  I played it with a group of players who really liked the game, and well, it’s still not for me.  For what it’s worth, our group won the game – but I just don’t see what the fuss is all about here.

3 Chapters – Finally got a EN copy of this neat trick-taking/set collection game with a fairy tale theme.  I like this better at higher player counts (as it’s easier to get card interactions to happen), and this one continues to be a crowd favorite.

Showmanager – We couldn’t find a copy of Atlantic Star, so we had to settle for Showmanager.  Just kidding; this is clearly the favored version of this classic game. It had been a really long time since I had played this, and due to a few unlucky card  draws and some overly stingy loans taken from my Wolf and Ballet, I was mostly fighting to just not be last.  Still, a great blast from the past.

Final binary – A neat trick taking game where you modify a binary counter in front of you that you use to determine the strength of your card play.  Oh, and you have to try to exactly make your bid too.  So much to think about.

To be continued –  A comic themed game from Croatia where you try to get cards in the right order.  The idea is pretty awesome as is the theme; the exectution is… not as awesome.

Memory game from March 20 – OK, so we started this game over a month ago where we were tasked to remember 30 words with only a single Codenames style clue to remember each.  The scoring sheet also mandated the first letter or the length of the word for each clue.  As we reassembled in Niagara four weeks later, we tried to remember those words.  I won with 21 words remembered.

Saturday

Best shot – a partnership trick taking game with a golf theme. We aborted after one and a half holes.

Tricket to Ride – another play of my prototype; lots of people had wanted to try it, and I was happy to get another play in.  A few good suggestions were given at the end of the play, so hopefully the game is improving over the course of the week

The Gang – played with six players, a few of which had only minor poker experience.  Watching the poker sharks show their skills – successfully reading the hole cards of the entire table – was really interesting, but the group overall failed.  LIke I said, lots of folks were playing this during the week, myself included.

I’m Stuck In the Lift – a cute game where players secretly and simultaneously choose cards to determine how far an elevator will move; each player also has two ongoing bets at any given time which payoff if the elevator stops at the appointed level.  Fun to play once.

Yukidarumatozantai – Hopefully I spelled this correctly. A japanese game that has you trying to balance cards on the table and then placing your pawns on those cards.  As you would expect, the game didn’t end with option A: one player scoring enough points to win, but rather on Option B: one player loses when (s)he knocks over the card tower.

Hot Streak – So much fun playing this betting game.  Our group of eight degenerate gamblers hooted and hollered as the four mascots raced along the track.  This one is coming out soon from CMYK and I’m sure that the many games played of it this week at the Gathering will lead to sales

Escalado – a super old game where you stretch a track on the table and then turn a crank to vibrate it so that the horse race happens.  Kinda like a Tudor Electric Football thing though manually powered.  Not much of a game, but fun to set up and watch it happen for a few passes.

Die Erbraffer – an older game (rules from the Gaming Dumpster!) where you try to affect where inheritances flow down a weird recursive family tree.  A bit long for what the game offers, but this game was likely state of the art back in the 2000s

Tacta – the Op left a few promo copies of this 2p pattern matching game on the table, and Jim Brown and I tried it out.  A really interesting premise, but there definitely feels to be a big advantage to the player who goes second.

Tacta – so, we played the game twice with a switch in the starting player.  The second player won handily each tim

CGE proto – I am not allowed to say anything about this until the  29th

deck builder proto – another game that I’m sworn to secrecy.  I gave my crazy ideas to the game designer over dinner.

Yakari – I wrote the name of this game down, but in retrospect, I can’t remember anything about it.  A BGG search reminds me that this is an Indian themed kids cooperative game.  The fact I couldn’t remember anything without looking it up is all the review you need

Decathlon – the Ozaku game; still my favorite of this theme.  Lots of clever card play here over the ten events.

Blanco – A newer game from Kendi where you try to clear off two grids of cards by either matching the color in columns or the ranks in rows.  I’ve played it three times now, and it remains fine.

Big Top – The unique auction game re-released by Allplay.  For once, I got a starred card early so I wasn’t sweating it out near the end of the deck trying to get one of these cards that is necessary to compete for the win 

Tiny Laser Heist – this game has been all over Instagram, but I’d never been around a copy until now.  The game looks fine in pictures, and neat when set up. But as a game, it really didn’t work for us.  After fifteen minutes of setup and rules, we played a few turns and then quickly put it away

Tricket to ride – I had another request to play my prototype and I was happy to continue to play it.

Rascally rabbits – A super interesting idea from Ta-Te Wu (Tornado Sunrise).  It’s a trick taking game where you don’t play any cards, but instead just read out cards that you “have” based on a grid.  You cross out the cards as they are played.  A really novel idea, and one I hope to play more.

Panda bluffing proto – another proto from Ta-Te Wu.  Bluffing games aren’t really for me, but this was enjoyable enough.

Sunday

Tricket to ride – a few gamers watched our play on Saturday night and wanted to try it out; so we met up first thing on Sunday morning to play.  Good times.  Overall, I’ve been getting lots of good feedback on the game, so hopefully the game will have a future…

Hot Streak – 10am might be a little early for yelling and betting and whatnot; but there aren’t many games that can accommodate eight players so easily. 

Cities – One of the Gathering newbies shared their promo city scoring card with me, so I pulled out my copy and we played the Essen side.  I still really like this game, and after ten or so games, it continues to make it to the table on a regular basis

Don Quixote – I had a few requests to bring this interesting voting game and we managed to get everyone to the same table to play it. There is still an interesting balance between playing cards for their voting power and playing cards simply for their suit (as each played card scored based on its suit)

Thebes – Continuing down the Queen Games memory path, we dug for artifacts.  As usual, I can only dig for dirt, and my final score reflected that.

Rascally rabbits – A second play of the trick taking game without cards. Still really like this one

Moon Colony Bloodbath – The macabre engine builder from Rio Grande Games and Donald X. Vaccarino.  You try to put together a meaningful engine in the first few rounds and then watch it surely fall apart as you have to sacrifice your cards to stay in the game.  It has felt a bit same-ish at the 8+ game point, but at 8+ games, it’s way ahead of most other 2024/2025 games

Gibberers – the Japanese game where you and your friends generate a novel language  and then use those words to get the group to guess more and more complex terms.  Just imagine trying to get your friends to guess “cryptocurrency” or “dark matter” with only 30 total terms in play.  Definitely an experience game, and one I am glad to have tried.

Entenrallye – Joe Huber has a great goal each year, which is to play every game in his game collection.  Each year at conventions, I end up playing a game or two to help Joe’s annual quest.  There is about 100 too many die rolls in this game, but  many feel it is a classic, so I was happy enough to try to show off my hooptie.

Monday

Map masters – Captain Games calls this their new “d and d” game. Draw and draw.  A super neat game where you build a deck of map cards, and in each of the 6 rounds, you draw 5 cards from your deck, arrange them the best you can and then trace a path through your dungeon to collect things to score points.  The even neater part is that you can also play the game cooperatively.  I’ll give a full preview of this later in the week

Pit – remember how I told you that Huber has this annual quest.  Well, we played Pit to get another game off his list.  Also, it’s fun being the super loud group in the corner.  And, Joe’s version has the bell in it, and that’s another plus.

Tricket to ride – After the game design contest, a few of the judges asked to give the game a go.  I was happy to play with them

Faraway + expansion – This card drafting game where you play the cards and then score them in the opposite order still challenges my brain.  I did kind of OK in this one, but I didn’t get many map cards which really hurt my score in the end

Quiz wiz – a trivia game from Brain Games (from Latvia) where the group cooperatively tries to answer a few trivia questions with Country cards

Quiz wiz – the game is short (10-15 minutes) so we played twice

Tricket to ride – one last game of Tricket with a few of the Opinionated Gamers

Map masters – I was asked to teach this to a few of my friends as I had gushed about it over dinner.  Three of the four loved it.

Tag team – A really neat auto-battler from Scorpion Masque.  2 player only.  I’ll also write this game up in more detail later in the week.

Tuesday 

No games on Tuesday; I spent all two hours in the ballroom simply saying goodbye to friends and packing up the car.

That’s it for my trip. As usual, maybe one day too short, but I’d rather leave wanting more than the alternative of being there too long and wanting nothing more than to go home.

Until next year!

The Gaming Doctor