Negative Player Interaction

Let’s start out with the negative version of player interaction. This is when a player in a game can cause another player to lose something or to take something from another player. Or some other action that is actively putting them further away from winning the game.

A game like Uno, for example, is actively built around negative interactions for it’s core interaction. You are close to winning, draw two or skip your turn or I’ll reverse it away from you. All these actions are likely to keep you from winning the game. Or if I can deduce/guess what color you have, I might intentionally change it, though that one is more of the next type of interaction.

But you can get the idea for negative player interaction. It is about making another players position in the game worse. Now, sometimes that might be keeping them from winning the game, and that might be a part of the game, but games that rely too heavily on negative interaction are often the ones that end up in fights or people not liking games as much.

Neutral Player Interaction

Next u up is going to be neutral player interaction. This is when players might be racing towards a shared goal, for example. Or when spaces are limited for players. I go somewhere that you want to go in a game and it blocks you from going there. I’m passively impacting your strategy in the game. But it’s not, normally, done out a negative reason for it. It can be, but that’s again that situation where you might be blocking someone from winning a game.

An example of this is common in worker placement games. There are five worker spots that do different things. But only one worker can go to a spot. So if I take the one that sells goods, that means you can’t go there with your worker to sell your goods. You still play with the other options, but I’ve interacted with you in the game so that it limits what you can do.

I think a lot of games strive for this one because it’s pretty basic. And you don’t want it to be off putting to you players to have negative interactions. But a smart player can block good moves from another player if they want. However, it’ll cost them something in return and therefore going for that negative interaction is generally a bad plan.

Positive Player Interaction

Finally we have positive player interaction. This happens in a number of different games, so I’ll break it down in a couple of different examples. But the gist of it is, I do something and you get a benefit as well in the game.

An example of this would be New Frontiers or Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition. You pick an action to do and every other player gets to do that action. So that’s a positive because it means you get to do something every round. But as the player who picks that interaction, I get a benefit, so it’s not like I’m just picking something for everyone to do the same thing. This is a nice way to do it because it keeps players engaged at all times.

Another example is Flamecraft. In Flamecraft it’s a worker placement game but the spots aren’t limited. Instead, if I go to a location where another player has their worker, I give them a good. That is a positive because I go where I want to for my strategy, but there is a cost to me that benefits another player. It’s a bit different than the other type of positive interaction, because it can be seen as a slight negative for me, but only a slight one.

This sort of interaction is meant to make players feel good. It also shows up in worker placement games where you bump a worker back to someone’s worker pool, for example. That means they don’t need to spend a turn bringing back their workers.

Why One Way Or Another?

Now, I want to say, I don’t think that any version of player interaction is particularly bad or should be avoided. But I think that some maybe are more polarizing. Especially when it comes to positive or negative interactions. Mainly from two camps, “I don’t want to help others” or “I don’t like it when a game is mean to me”.

Both of them do, I think, have their place. And generally their space is on the opposite end of the spectrum. If I play a short game, I am more fine with negative interactions. Why, because the game is over fast, and the same with two player games. You are mean to me, I am mean to you. That is the expectation and there is no ganging up on someone. When it is a higher player count or longer game, that is less palatable because someone might be ganged up on and then be playing catch up for two hours.

On the flip side, I think positive interaction works better in longer and higher player count games. Firstly, at a higher player count it can help shorten the game. And in the example of New Frontiers and Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition, every player is engaged throughout the game. But I like that for a longer game because it keeps you from getting stuck behind or ganged up on.

Final Thoughts

I don’t think there is a right way or wrong way to do player interactions. And each way works, depending on the game. I think that some of them are better than others in certain situations though, and as a game designer or player, you need to know what makes sense for a game or for you.

Don’t add in a few negative interaction cards because that is what games do. Or as a player, don’t pick a game you can tell has take that cards if that doesn’t work for your group. Know your game and your group to create the right gaming experience.

But let me know your favorite games with all the different types of interaction.

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How To Play The Royal Limited

In The Royal Limited you play four turns and you need to get all of your cards, or all but one into your train either as passengers or as train cars to win at the highest level of the game. If you score four or more points, you lose the game. And two or three points, you’re just starting out as a conductor, so you’ll get better.

Trains and Passengers

How do you get cards out as train cars or passengers? Both are fairly simple to do, but you need train cars before you need passengers so we’ll talk about that one first. To play out a train you pick the card you want to play. The first one can be any card. Then you discard cards totally the number on the train car, so if it’s a three, three cards. Each additional card follows that same rule plus the additional one that it can’t match the color or number of the previous train car.

For playing passengers, most of them are very simple. You either need to match the color or the number to play a passenger onto that train car. There are two VIP passengers as well per game and they have additional special rules. So before they can be placed, you need to meet their conditions. They might have a specific color or be wild when it comes to placement. Each train car only can have a single passenger.

Activating Train Cars

When you play out a passenger you then activate the ability on the train that you play the passenger to. You must do the ability on the card if you are able. There are even some that are more specific than that. They give an ability and then a “next” ability. You must do that ability next and complete. If you are not able to complete that ability, then your turn ends and you draw back up to five cards in your hand.

When you turn does end, either because you can’t play more cards or because you don’t have any or don’t want to, you draw back up to five cards. When you tick down your timer. Then you end a turn and would begin your next turn and the “Train Departed” is at the top of the card, the position marking the turn, the game is over. You then count up the number of train cars/passengers that you didn’t use and the number of VIP passengers you didn’t get played and that determines your score.

What Doesn’t Work

Honestly, I don’t really have complaints about this one. The train maybe gets a little bit wide but with the cards overlapping I think I could fit it onto a TV tray. And that’s about it that I can find that might be an issue, and that’s only a very specific issue of it might not work on an airplane tray, but it also might as I haven’t tested it out.

What Works

Firstly the speed of this game is amazing. I talk while I play and I do intros, grab a drink, and then did some mini thoughts at the end of the video, and it’s a 38 minute video for five games. So the game just flies by, I know it says twenty minutes, I think it’s a ten minute max game.

I really like how the VIP passengers are double sided. I thought that maybe it would start to feel the same with the passengers, but with eight total passengers there are a ton of combinations that you can play. And the more challenging those VIP passengers are, I think it makes the game itself more interesting because I want to or need to to win the game, figure out how to get at least one VIP into play.

And I like the abilities on the cards. Sometimes they are good, and that’s great for you. But sometimes you look at it, especially final round, and it’s discard a card or put a card on top of the deck. Well, you do both of those, you are at a minimum of two cards that you won’t be able to play, and then you’ll just be a beginner conductor.

Final Thoughts on The Royal Limited

I’m skipping the who this is for. If you like solo games, you probably know from the description if you’ll like this game. If you know someone who likes solo games, it’s cheap, get them it and see if they like it.

But I did very much enjoy this game. I think one of the elements that I really liked is the simplicity of play. The powers are the main thing you need to remember, and that’s just part of playing a passenger is using the cars power. It’s not like some of the Button Shy solo games where it’s a bit challenging to keep it straight in the tiny rule books.

This game is fast and easy to learn. That is always going to work for a solo game for me. And I didn’t feel like the challenge was too light. I need to think about what I’m doing, you saw me rewind a move once or twice. But it is not a game where you need to think and agonize over everything. So I see it as that kind of palette cleanser solo game. When you want that brain reset or refresh to happen, I would grab The Royal Limited.

My Grade: B+
Strategy: B+
Luck: C-

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Catch up here.

The 7th Citadel – The Story

I might have already started talking about the story, but I want to continue that conversation around it because I think there are some interesting story elements to the game.

Firstly, this is a unique feeling world. Sure, worms could make it feel like Dune or Tremors, but it doesn’t. Thus far I don’t feel like they’ve played a major impact on the game. Still, it’s really nice to see it as a backdrop in the world, something that is a looming threat from the story. Also just their whole necrodruid element feels like something unique that you don’t get in a lot of other games, which I appreciate.

The story itself comes in bits and pieces. A lot of the story that I’m getting is more about the general world. As I walked to Kel in the video it’s getting bits of story from characters we meet along the way, or more often from situations that we run across. And those are just atmospheric to the world.

Then you also get your story elements in each quest as well and leading into and out of the quests. I think that the 7th Citadel does a good job of balancing story and game play. Because the game play is very simple, but it’s engaging. That push your luck and resource and life management is fantastic. But it wouldn’t be as good without that more direct story.

If you’re enjoying this, checkout the new crowdfunding campaign for it happening now.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I play small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well. And I might do more deck construction with Star Wars Unlimited on Mondays as well or pack openings. Right now it’ll be more Slay the Spire.

On Wednesdays, I play solo campaign games. I plan on playing a campaign game coming up. Right now I’m torn between two games. Well, more than that if you watched through the end of the video. And that is more of The 7th Citadel. I plan to keep playing through The Drums of Desolation for a while so join me for that.

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Mind Space

I like my roll and write games, and Mind Space isn’t an exception to that. I think that it’s a fun little roll and write game that works well as a solo experience. Does it stand out as the most unique game from other roll and write games, I don’t know about that, but it is simple to play solo and a fun time.

I enjoy the scoring in the game quite well. I think there are some strategy elements, and one rule, that I forgot. Mainly that you get money for completing an area. Also pushing for blue to be in every area is huge as well, so overlapping that as needed to cover them all and get rid of those negative points. But that’s just thinking back on it. Scoring wise I really enjoy what the game did. I like that each area scores differently as that gives you different strategies to think about.

If all the colors just scored the same, say all of them were adjacent to another color like purple to orange is, it would feel like the same thing. But because Pink cares about repeated shapes, and orange just cares about how many, there seems to be a number of ways to score. And for a pretty simple game, like Mind Space, that is a good thing.

For me as a solo gamer, I also like the Mind Space’s rules are simple for the solo play. It’s simply pretend like the game has done scoring of goals at different times in the game. Is it a little bit of memory of what round it is, kind of, but it’s simple enough to count and check, so that makes it easy. And for a solo game, I like that it’s fast, but also it’s not too fast because I still need to think about where I place everything. It’s a good filler style of solo game and likely multiplayer as well.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. That is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but that’s the goal. And I do small solo game plays. That is going to be interspersed with learning to paint. I am not going to be teaching you how to paint, I’m going to be learning myself. So join me on Monday for solo gaming or painting.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least 10 games of Rogue Angels. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. My goal, play four different campaigns 10 times each. It’s tricky, but I think that I can do it. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games. The next part of Rogue Angels can be found coming up here.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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Rogue Angels – The Characters

Let’s talk about the characters and how they differ in this game. It’s another area where I think the game can shine. You see me play with two characters in the game, but there are so many more. There are 16 different heroes that you can play as. And I like that variety in the game because right now I have two pretty different types of heroes.

Taria is my tank of a character. She is best at attacking and can hit from a long distance. Even her movement card that’s stronger is about her moving into range and doing damage. She also has an area affect damage that she can do which makes her better when she finds herself surrounded.

Gia on the other hand, they are more on the stealth and tactical side of the game. Yes, Gia can dish out some damage when need be, but their cloaking and their ability to interact with objects at range really sets them up to be the one who infiltrates areas.

Now, those show two of them like I said before. And right now I’m just playing with two because it makes it easier on me. In the prototype box there are a total of four characters to play. And you might see some or one of them later on. Why, because Rogue Angels is about getting attached and roll playing your characters. But survival is not guaranteed. When you die, you pick a new character. So the campaign continues just with someone new for you.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. That is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but that’s the goal. And I do small solo game plays. That is going to be interspersed with learning to paint. I am not going to be teaching you how to paint, I’m going to be learning myself. So join me on Monday for solo gaming or painting.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least 10 games of Rogue Angels. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. My goal, play four different campaigns 10 times each. It’s tricky, but I think that I can do it. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games. The next part of Rogue Angels can be found coming up here.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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Rogue Angels – Action System

Let’s next talk about the card play system. I think for me, that’s one of the areas that Rogue Angels really shines in. The card play is simple and I mean that in the best way possible. It’s not that the card actions or choices are simple, it’s that how you play with the cards is simple.

Cards fall into specific slots on your cooldown track. And at the end of your turn they cool down. So something that is very good, it might land on the track at a four. Or something that is a bit more basic, quick movement, or further movement I should say, might be a two. So you get to do that extra movement more often.

Filled Slots

But the game also doesn’t let you do actions if you can’t place them. Now, it’s probably rare that you’d do it to yourself, but wounds take up spots on the action track as well. The more wounds you take, the more that they fill in. So it’s possible to have all four action spots completely filled. As a player you need to decide if you just compete with your basic action cards or you rest, and cool down other actions faster, or cool the wounds off of the track faster. The sooner they come off the track, the sooner you can play more cards.

Though, if there is still room on the track, you can always play a card in a slot higher than it should be. So a card that cools down at a two you can place up to the four if you want. This can be forced, if there is already a card in the two and three slot. Or it can happen if you choose as well. And you might choose because some cards, stealth for example, stay persistent while it’s in the track.

Basic Cards

Now, sometimes you just don’t have a card that works, or the one you want to use is further up the track. So the game never locks you out of actions. You always are able to play a basic interact and a basic move card. They both do a base of one, so they are worse than your other cards. But if you need to move twice and you’re cooling down your good move card, it is always an option.

And, like I said, you can always do it twice. Even the same action. They go into the zero slot for cooldown. The zero slot doesn’t actually exist. When something gets to zero it goes back to your hand. So in this case you play it and immediately get it back, no waiting for the end of the turn. I appreciate this element of the system as well because it means that you always can do something, which is important for a game.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. That is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but that’s the goal. And I do small solo game plays. That is going to be interspersed with learning to paint. I am not going to be teaching you how to paint, I’m going to be learning myself. So join me on Monday for solo gaming or painting.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least 10 games of Rogue Angels. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. We’ll see if I am able to get four different campaigns played at least 10 games this year. It’s tricky, but I think that I can do it. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games. The next part of Rogue Angels can be found coming up here.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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Join me as I play Rogue Angels. I plan on playing it around 8 PM Central time every week, at least 10 weeks, over on Malts and Meeples YouTube. What story will I find, how will the characters I play progress in this prototype of Rogue Angels. Thanks to Emil Larson for sending it my way and I’m excited to show it off.

Rogue Angels

Well, I have ten weeks to talk about this, which means that I’m going to be hitting on different aspects each week. And I love Rogue Angels. I’ve played it on Table Top Simulator a few times. And now I get to play it in real life. Even though this is only a prototype, it is a game that will be in my Top 100 next year. My rule is that I need to play a game in person, or with a physical copy, and I have now.

So let’s preview some of what is going to be coming up that I’ll talk about over the next handful of weeks.

• Character Stories
• Campaign Story
• Card Play System
• Enemy AI System
• Maps and Set-up System
• And More

Today I want to start by talking about the campaign story. I know, it likely would make more sense to do characters first, because that is the one I had at the top. But I want to explore that more with you as I play, the campaign story, I’ve seen more of.

Campaign Story

I think how Emil handles the story is an interesting way. I know the first time that I played with him and talked with him, one of the big things was how the story was meant to be interspersed like cut scenes. So it isn’t a big block of text and then some third person dialog at you. It’s just dialog with a little bit of description thrown in so you know the setting. But the setting and all of that, that is mainly on the board.

Compared this to other games, let’s go with Gloomhaven and Frosthaven, when you go on a mission, get into a scenario there, it’s a lot of text up front. Frosthaven does a better job of mixing in more story throughout, but most of the heavy lifting is information up front. Rogue Angels it’s just dialog. You see what you need to see because of the scenario.

What does this do for the game? Well, I think that it helps keep you immersed in the game and setting. Both do in their own way, but Rogue Angels is more about that action, that interaction. And you see that with a lot of faction specific stuff. When you interact with talking to people and making decisions off of groups that it going to determine things like your favor more so.

Is one better than the other, I’m not sure. I like how both do it, but I think that it’s worth talking about how Rogue Angels is different. And it plays into the type of game that it is or I expect it to be. I already have come across character choices and more personal choices on who you like, than in Gloomhaven. So it’s probably more like Role Player Adventures that way.

Upcoming Streams

It’ll be tomorrow where I breakdown what is going to be happening on Mondays. To checkout the article that comes out there. But I do plan to keep streaming at 9 PM Central time. And most of it is going to be playing solo games that are one offs, or opening cards like it has been.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least 10 games of Rogue Angels. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. We’ll see if I am able to get four different campaigns played at least 10 games this year. It’s tricky, but I think that I can do it. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games. The next part of Rogue Angels can be found coming up here.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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2023 Nerdy Goals

Go To GenCon

How is this even a goal? I don’t know, but I want to go to GenCon again. But I’m excited to go again this year, and I think that it might be a bigger group going who I know this year, which will be exciting if that’s the case. This is going to be my big shot to try a ton of new games like always. And it’s a chance to connect with some of the Man vs Meeple and Tablenauts crew and others potentially as well. And at this point in time, those evenings are as exciting as anything else to me.

Watch my Backlog

I said that there would be some things that feel like repeats. But this is about catching up on movies and TV shows that I need to catch up on. Mainly things like the latest season of Dragon Prince. Or movies like Sonic 2 before Sonic 3 comes out. There are others as well that I want to catch up on because there were a lot of good shows and not enough time. Wheel of Time and One Piece are two more. Of course, I mean the One Piece Netflix show, I’m not starting the 1000+ episodes of the anime, I’ll wait for the new one.

Plus, I know that there are a few new shows or seasons coming out that I want to see. Dragon Prince is having another season, and the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender are both exciting. And I talked about the anime that I want to watch. You can see those here.

Read More Comics

I did an okay job of this last year. I won’t say that I hit my goal, which I talked about on 10 Minute Marvel, of a comic a day. But I would guess that I ready 100+ comic issues. My goal is to keep on reading and improve upon that. I got a few trade paperbacks for Christmas, so that is a solid spot to start. I finished up King in Black yesterday, and Time Runs Out (I think that is it) in the past few days. But I already have a bit more that I know I want to read. Secret Wars, Ultimate Universe, and more as well.

Read More Manga and Backlog

This one is a bit of both, I am really enjoying diving into manga. But I want to get through more of the backlog of manga and the ones that my wife has read but I haven’t. I really enjoy reading those as well, but make it a more intentional, read comic or manga right before bed versus fiddling on the phone. And I just got some new manga this past week, read two of them last night, so now I have more coming from one of the series thus far. We’ll see if I get more of the other one as well.

Get Into a Workout Routine

What does this have to do with being nerdy? Well, it’s when I can work through some of my backlog. I have weights, I have a stationary bike, let me use them. What shows or movies might my wife not be interested in, and then do a workout and watch something. It’s not that hard, I just need to get into the routine. And more of a routine the better because I’m a generally healthy nerdy person, but I want to do even better.

Final Thoughts

I’ll be touching on Malts and Meeples and the plans for that tomorrow. But these are the nerdy things that I want to do in 2024. And I think that a lot of them are attainable, I want to keep them small. So what are your reasonable and attainable nerdy resolutions? Let me know down in the comment section below.

And do you ever set your goals on a theme? Mine is to get through backlogs across the board. Instead of running towards whatever is new, always, to work through some of the things that I’ve been wanting to watch, read, play, whatever it might be. Obviously some are outliers from that, but more fall into that category.

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2023 Board Gaming

Let’s break down the numbers. Firstly, let’s talk about the big general numbers. I got in 1,062 game plays in 2023. That is a ton, and I suspect that it’ll be my high, though that depends on what new solo board games come in. We’ll get down to individual game numbers here, eventually, but a lot of that is my solo game plays early on in 2023. I was on pace for 2,500 game plays at one point. But 1,062 plays is still a crazy number.

In those plays, I played 134 different games. So that means that some games were played a ton. Others not so much, but a few games see a lot of play and they’ll make up a lot of my board gaming. Some of this comes from solo games that I play between meetings at work and a smaller percentage of the games that I stream on Wednesday nights over on Malts and Meeples YouTube.

Top Played Games

So let’s look at the top played games, we’re just going to do the Top 5. All of the five are solo games that I play between meetings at work or other times like that. The one with the most plays is Grove followed by Orchard. Two games in the same family that I played 385 and 140 times respectively. I love them because they are very fast games to play.

Next up we have Relics of Rajavihara with 73 plays. This one is a campaign puzzle style game. So that one I won’t be adding more plays to in future years. The next two are Criss Cross, a roll and write game that you can play solo with 58 plays. And then For Northwood! A solo trick taking game.  This is the one that I want to play a bunch more of this next year.

Top Campaign Games

I think it’s also fair to talk about some campaign games, bigger games that I’ve gotten a number of plays of. Then I want to wrap up with my one off board gaming that aren’t solo plays. But what are the top campaign based board gaming experiences for me. Or at least the ones that I play solo fairly often. Though, not all of these are solo.

Tainted Grail and My City Roll and Build top the list. Tainted Grail I wrapped up the final campaign this year with 17 plays. My City Roll and Build I’ve almost played twice through, so that is 21 plays thus far. I need to wrap it up soon. Then a few others made the list, Frosthaven is the new one that I’m playing with a group and that is at 11 plays this year. And it’s going to start strong in January with a weekend day devoted to it coming up quickly. Followed by two that I streamed, Lands of Galzyr and ISS Vanguard. Both of those are at 10 games played.

Top Multiplayer Games

So, Tainted Grail and Frosthaven would both be on the list. But I want to touch on some games that I haven’t talked about. What are some one off games that I played mainly multiplayer that I got to the table a bunch? I say that because I did play Criss Cross a few times multiplayer, but it is mainly solo plays.

Birds of a Feather tops the list. This one I did play solo a few times, I think twice, but then six plays where it was with other people. I like it as a fun, light, and filler with push yoiur luck.  Then we have Gasha and Strike both 7 times. Again filler games, but Strike is just so much fun. I really enjoy being able to sit down and play this one with a group of four or five and just play it a few times in a row. The last two rounding it out are Crokinole and Via Magica. Two fun games, and Crokinole isn’t a filler but is more of an evening of light gaming.

Final Thoughts

2023 obviously was a great year for me board gaming. I got to try a ton of new games, and I got a ton of plays in. I didn’t go into all the numbers, but I had 28 games that were played over 5 times and 73 total that were played over two. So it’s a lot of gaming and a lot of repeating of games throughout the year. I  hope to do a lot of that again this year. I know that I will be going through Frosthaven a lot here in 2024. And I expect that I’ll be at 30 plays of that, might make into my Top 5.

And I mentioned this in a previous article. You can check that out here for more details. But I want to play through more games on my shelf of opportunity. I love having a ton of games and games to learn and play. But my game room is at critical mass, so I need to sort and get more games ready to be played and learned in 2024. That is going to make for a lot of reviews and a lot of fun board gaming. What is a game that you want to play in 2024?

Top 3 Memorable Games

3. Gloomhaven Days

You might wonder why this is lower on the list, but this is mainly because the list isn’t in any order. Also because we did this a few times. When we were playing through Gloomhaven we knew how long it would take us, the game has a lot. So we set aside a few Saturdays or Sundays to play Gloomhaven. It is harder now with Frosthaven, two of us have kids. Multiple times we sat down and played three or four scenarios of Gloomhaven on a Saturday.

I remember those times because I like just having a day of gaming. And to play with a game the whole time is just great. I like days of gaming with a lot of different games. Gen Con is the main spot for that, but I’ve hosted days like that as well. But to pick one game, like Gloomhaven and have the group, drink beer, I think we’d order in pizza for dinner and just play the whole day is great. And it is one of those experiences where I know I can recreate it, but it is rarer or harder to do now.

2. Pandemic Legacy Season 1

I like legacy and campaign games. Oddly enough, I think everything on the list will be one or the other of those. But one is just a one off play. But Pandemic Legacy was a mind blowing gaming event. Or less of an event, but more a year of gaming. We got together once a month or so, and we’d play Pandemic Legacy. We would have a meal, sometimes, and play through the month or maybe a bit ahead if we wanted to get in two plays.

But it was great because it was the first time of having a group game like that. Also, when you play a legacy game for the first time, I think, unless you dislike the game, there is something special about it. I play as a character, I can die, and there is story and changes unfolding in Pandemic Legacy, that is great. And yes, it is hard to destroy the cards at first. But we got into it so we were in the experience. And, I think, it’s one of the first times where gaming was such an event and an anticipation with it. Yes, I did game nights before, but Pandemic Legacy felt different.

1. Roll Player Adventures at Gen Con

This one, I’m not sure I’d put it to the top of my list but it was one of the coolest events at Gen Con. And you’ll notice the only Gen Con related event. I thought about putting some other ones down on the list. But Roll Player Adventures stands out to me because I got to play it as a prototype. And I was there with a friend playing it with two other people. So it was a great group for it as well.

But it started off memorable when the designer/developer who was running the demo asks if we want to play the first or second scenario. If was just my friend and myself and we said second. Then we proceeded to take a stab at how well we did on the first scenario and picked all the options that were us doing it poorly.

So it was just a funny start, and then as the group dynamics were set-up throughout the game, we had a great time. And I started messing around with my character, not in a game breaking way but in a role playing way, to be the unofficial leader of the group, in their mind. It was just a blast and a silly and fun experience that playing through the whole game lived up to.

Final Thoughts

I think I could find more games that are great as I go. Playing Lords of Hellas for the first time. Starting up TIME Stories and that experience of just a different type of game. The Ice Cool Tournament at Gen Con, that maybe should have made the list. Or the games of Metal Gear Solid at CMON Expo really recently.

To a lot of other ones where it might be less about the game, but getting together with the Man vs Meeple crew twice at Gen Con and both times having the AC not working at the restaurant (and then we did game as well). And the first year I got to play Ready Set Bet for the first time and just falling in love with that game.

Or all the times playing Magic the Gathering with a group from work. We’d get together in the evenings, most of us were single and most without kids. And then playing during lunch as well, which morphed into lunch board games as well. That is when and why I got into Magic the Gathering. So many different experiences.

What are some of your best games and gaming experiences? It might even be for a mediocre game, but is the situation is right, that can still be a memorable gaming experience.

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