All the Meeples of the Rainbow.

A photographic journey through board games...

Recommend

Gathering Part 1....

Posted by Steph

Conventions

06 Sep 2021

Steph Hodge

(punkin312)

United States
Tennessee

Well, it's no Ginkgopolis...

Please thumb deserving posts

Hia Everyone!

As many of you know, I had the opportunity to visit and play games at The Gathering of Friends 2021 recently!

During the con, I played 121 games and 72 of them were NEW TO ME!

As I already posted my New to Me Blogpost last week, you probably saw the games I got to learn and what I felt about them.

Since I played so many games, I won't get into long reviews at all. I did take pics and if you have questions please let me know!

We started the con really late Thursday night since we go to the hotel at like midnight. I was happy to even get in a game that night at all!

First game of the con was one of the freebies called Sacred Rites.

This game is pretty fun but certainly better with more players. We had a blast reciting the words. this game is very "cultish" if you don't know what is going on.

If you are into games like Spyfall, I would highly recommend checking this out for some laughs. This party game is a keeper.

Microbadge: All the Meeples of the Rainbow blog

Friday the con actually started. I can recall what I played that day, but from that point forward everything else was played on a day and I have no idea what day was what!

We started with Scott's adorable new game called Loco Momo. New to me!

The mechanics are simple as you are just collecting tiles for your personal player board. The theme is definitely where it shines since it is so cute.

Ultimately I am glad to have tried it, but I don't suppose I will play it again. A random cute game that is forgettable in the long run.

I ended up teaching and playing a few games of Nidavellir.

I am happy to even get in 2 games of it! I seriously love this one so much! It was even better since I taught Brian M how to play and he continued to play and teach it a bunch of times during the con. Epic!

Albeit, the game really shines with 2 players, but I ended up playing with 4 and 5 players just to show it to people.

This is a game I will never turn down. I am highly addicted to it and it will be hard to beat this for my game of the year. It is holding strong.

We tried Camp Pinetop. New to me!

For the most part, this game works and is fun. Since we played with 5 players it sort of dragged on longer than I might have liked.

There are some interesting choices in which badges to collect so you can gain powers, but by the end of the game, you will already own most of the badges. It suffers from the problem of just being too much. As Michael always says "You don't want to give players everything". I think there is just too much going on.

I love Medici so I knew I definitely wanted to play Medici: The Dice Game. New to me!

This actually worked better than I might have expected. The Card Game didn't do much for me, but I will be looking to get this game for sure. I think you really get the feel of Medici with the collection of goods and having the biggest boat.

Super excited to have tried this one. No game will hold a candle to Medici, but this is a solid alternative if you have fewer players.

I wanted to love Roland Wright: The Dice Game. New to me!

So many colors and coloring you get to do in the game. You are forming patterns and trying to get points.

It has a similar problem as Camp Pinetop. You are basically doing everything. There are so many options for getting the color pips you need/want that nothing seems to matter as to what you draft or take as far as the dice results go.

This needed a lot of mechanics removed to make it a decent game with decent choices. As it stands right now, it is not worth playing again.

Joe H. was scouting for subjects to play his high stack of games from his collection. I was allocated for at least a few of them starting with Tante Tarantel. New to me!

Yes, there is a spider in this game, which is NOT ok! The Horror!!!

Okay, I survived but still lost by a lot. Well, several of my flies died along the way, but I got some points for at least one of them.

That was a game. Yeah, I wasn't a big fan of this one, but I tried it!

Another game he was looking to play was Löwenherz. New to me!

This is the game that came before Domaine, which I have played before. I honestly couldn't tell you the difference, but they felt similar. Lowenherz has a better look to it though.

This is a very weird abstract game. There is a sort of area control that you have to maintain with your knights or people will take over your land.

It is very confrontational. definitely not my style of game, but I did like the action selection mechanic, which was interesting.

Joe had a new Japanese game to show me called パフューマリー (Perfumery). New to me!

I always love trying his weird new Japanese games, especially if it is a title he is willing to play more than once.

While the game is pretty, it is also a dull engine builder. Simple worker placement to gain cards and play cards. Nothing about this one seemed cool or new. I didn't mind it as a game, but it is fairly forgettable in the long run.

We played a small box game called Sequoia. New to me!

This was one of the worst games I learned at The Gathering. There was a comment on the blog last week where someone loves it, so perhaps it just wasn't for me. However, the game has a similar area control to Las Vegas, but since everyone is rolling at the same time, it is hard to even evaluate what people are doing to make decent choices.

IMO there is nothing good about this game other than maybe the art. I would never choose to play this again especially with games like Las Vegas which are so much better.

I have been wanting to play Dodo for a while! New to me!

Scott had a copy available to try and we figured out the rules with a translation app thing.

The game isn't hard as you are simply trying to keep the egg from falling off the ramp. The method to construct the ramps on the mountain is a real-time dice rolling and token finding mechanic.

Ehhhhhhh this could have been way more interesting. I love the idea of saving this egg, but the way we had to do it was pretty lame. Definitely glad to have tried it.

OH EM GEEE Buonocore was around and I flagged him down in order to play a game. He decided it was time to play Die Sieben Siegel.

I always enjoy playing this game! Fantastic trick-taking game with so many great choices. I have been playing this game a long time, and I am still happy to give it a go when requested.

I was just happy to get in a game with Buonocore!

Ralph was looking for a game to play with me and he suggested My Farm Shop. New to me!

This game is super cute! I hadn't even heard about it but Pegasus typically has games I would love to try. I was glad he asked me to play!

In My farm Shop, players are building up their farm stalls to collect goods and trade goods for points. There are a bunch of cool stalls that will come into play. It is sort of like Machi Koro since dice are being rolls and players will gain access to the values of the dice that are leftover.

I have to say I was definitely more impressed with this game than the other Machi Koro types out there. This was more my vibes and play style.

Unfortunately for me, I played the first few rounds wrong so I shorted myself on possible goods I would have otherwise gotten. In the end, I was tied for 1st place. So, it was definitely close!

It was great to finally play a game with Ralph. He is also super bright since he brings around his own playmat to use at the con! I need to start doing something like that. Now where to get an awesome playmat...?

I got to check out Dragon Parks. New to me!

I love drafting and the cool see-through cards. This was pretty luck of the draw though. I didn't find many meaningful decisions to be made. I either want more cards to draft or alternative ways to score some points. It could be samey after a few plays.

Glad to have tried it since Ankama always has some fabulous artwork.

So, we had 5 players and chose to play Venice. New to me!

I was hopeful even after playing Ragusa which I really didn't like at all. Venice had a nice production with some interesting mechanics.

I had a lot of issues with the nice production, however. Everything was way too fiddly and too big for the board. It was comical how no one could keep their gondolier on the dang boat. It was ridiculous.

The game was FAR too long for what it was. I highly recommend not playing with 5 players.

As far as the actual mechanics in the game, it was fine. I don't like pick-up-and-deliver games as a general rule, so I was just really not into the whole experience of the game. Too much going on and just uninterested in what I was doing.

I can see why people might enjoy this one, but it didn't work for me.

New to the Collection:

Thanks for following along!

Happy Gaming!!!

-Steph

All images in this post are copyrighted, owned, and controlled by Steph Hodge Photography, unless otherwise noted.
Please contact me if you would like to purchase or use my images in any way.
Disclaimer: I am a contract Employee of BGG. I review games that are provided by the publisher. I am not compensated for my blog content.
Thank you.

18 Comments

Mon Sep 6, 2021 12:00 pm

Post Rolls

[+] Dice rolls

| Locked Hide Show Unlock Lock Comment

View Previous {{limitCount(numprevitems_calculated,commentParams.showcount)}} 1 « Pg. {{commentParams.pageid}} » {{data.config.endpage}}

[ShowHide] Thank you for helping us moderate the site. [Community Rules]

Edited
Posted
- Reply
- Quote
- Edit
- Delete

View More Comments {{limitCount(numnextitems_calculated,commentParams.showcount)}} / {{numnextitems_calculated}} 1 « Pg. {{commentParams.pageid}} » {{data.config.endpage}}

Contributors

Steph

All the Meeples of the Rainbow.

Gathering Part 1....

Search

Subscribe

Categories

Contributors