T5: Day Two

Posted on January 19, 2019 by xitoliv

Today we’ll start out with a short tour of part of the library people have brought. Luke has set his up on the ledge here. In alphabetical order, of course.

And here’s a list of what I saw played in the house yesterday: Mit List and Tücke, Canyon, Glorious Maximus, Die Sieben Siegel, Voltreffer, 8-Bit Trick,
Fox in the Forest, Double, Pepper, Auf falscher Fährte, Sextet, Investigate & Prosecute, Familiar’s Trouble, Foppen, Voodoo Prince, Let Me Off, Control Nut, Skull King: Das Wurfelspiel, Texas Showdown, Pitch, Eye My Favorite Things, Trick of the Rails, Schnäppchen Jagd, Hexenstich, and Cahoots.

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Posted in Convention Report | 4 Comments

T5: Day One

Posted on January 18, 2019 by xitoliv

First day is in the books. Three quarters of the folks have arrived, and I’m lucky I had my wife to “run registration” as even with 20 people, name tags, food, a tour of the house, room assignments, and what not took some time. Also thankful for Dale making us name tags and John being our airport shuttle – a job that took longer than anticipated due to an incident with a dog on the runway at LAX earlier in the day.

Here are a few photos of the main gaming space.

The library titles folks have brought is exciting. Titles I knew I wanted to try, titles I haven’t heard of, and rare editions of things. Here is a rare version of Flaschenteufel (Bottle Imp), where the bottle was a piece you had to cut out and assemble (and with incredible art.)

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T5: Background

Posted on January 17, 2019 by xitoliv

This is the story of what we’re doing this weekend: an April Fool’s Day joke that turned into a design competition that turned into a housecon.

I’ll start with a video of 50kaitenz.

I’ve made something of an accidental Twitter penpal of @kumagoro_h. He doesn’t speak any English and I don’t speak any Japanese, but we bond over a shared love of trick-taking games.

He is the man behind the “Trick Taking Party“. As he tells it, it began as an April Fool’s Day joke, but turned into a design competition. He had 68 entries, a three-person jury, and prize money. The submission period was in January 2017 (with the next submission period being December 2019). It first came across my radar in a tweet that I’ve since lost where among the Japanese words that I didn’t understand, I could clearly make out “TRICK TAKING PARTY”, and knew that I wanted to know more.

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Review: Shadows Amsterdam

Posted on January 16, 2019 by gamekahuna

  • By Mathieu Aubert
  • Art by M81 Studios
  • 2-8 players
  • 20 minutes
  • Review by Jonathan Franklin

A competitive party game with Dixit-style clues and Codenames-style objective correctness, plus the real time/no turns aspect of Word Slam

If you love the sound of this, go for it.  If you prefer German-style games to French-style games, read on.

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Posted in Essen 2018, Reviews | 2 Comments

Dale Yu: First Impressions of Catan Histories: Rise of the Inkas

Posted on January 15, 2019 by Dale Yu

Catan Histories: Rise of the Inkas

  • Designers: Klaus Teuber, Benjamin Teuber
  • Players: 3-4
  • Ages: 12+
  • Time: 90-120 minutes
  • Times played: 2 with copy provided by Catan Studio (via Asmodee NA)

The Catan Histories series has been one that I have following for years now.  I like the way that these games try to take the Catan game and shape it to specific times/cultures in history.  This most recent edition puts players in 15th Century South America, and they fight to be the most successful tribe over three eras of history.

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Posted in Essen 2018, Reviews | 2 Comments

Blackout Hong Kong – review by Simmy Peerutin

Posted on January 14, 2019 by simmyp

These days there is so much information about the games, both pre- and post release that text reviews are starting to feel a bit redundant. In the case of Blackout Hong Kong this probably applies to the latter but certainly not the former. There was hardly any pre-Essen information about this game and for reasons I will expand on later this is probably because there was a chance it wasn’t going to make it to the fair.

For those who have been out of circulation for the past few months, this is the latest big game from Eggertspeile and Alexander Pfister in which, during a total power failure, players assemble teams that search for and gather resources to fulfill objectives and earn victory points.

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Posted in Essen 2018, Reviews | 2 Comments