Deranged – This game from HobbyWorld out of Russia is still in demo/beta phase, but the quality of the production seems like it’s very close to done. And it was one of the games on my radar from before the con. I liked this idea that you were having to get rid of curses to escape this town. But you also had another secret objective. But there’s a chance that you’re going to end up becoming “deranged”. Basically, there’s a chance that you’re going to turn into the monsters that you’re trying to avoid in the town, and the only way to save yourself is to kill a human. The game play was a lot of fun, and the game plays quite quickly. It was one of the highlight demos from the con.

Homebrewers – I brew my own beer, or I have in the past, and I have never been that interested in the theme of brewing beer in a board game before. But I saw this one on the table, and it looked simpler than some of the other ones, so I decided to demo it. It was a lot of fun. The game is basically an engine builder, where you try and balance brewing four different types of beers, but you can make them better by adding ingredients to the beer that will gain you more money or cause your beers to score better at the summer beer festival and Oktoberfest. So you’re trying to build up this engine that is going to make your brewing as efficient as possible. The game also plays really fast, which was something that I was worried about with a lot of engine building games.

Bottom of the 9th – Not a new game, but an interesting little baseball game. Instead of having to play 9 innings, this game basically just puts you in the pressure situation of dealing with pushing a run or two across to win the game in the bottom of the 9th inning. The game plays fast, and offers some luck, but also some decision. I’m not sure that the game is for me, simply because I don’t have someone whom I’d play it with all that often. But the concept of the game was interesting, and it seemed to work well for what it was supposed to do.

God of War – One of the bigger games at the con, this was one that we actually tested out fairly late and we waited in time to get demoed. God of War is based on the video game(s) and you take on different characters as they fight against the hive of dark elves. The game offers some interesting choices for deck building, and has something I like, which is that you add cards you get to the top of your deck, so you aren’t waiting for them to randomly show up. The demo game, was, unfortunately a bit easy, which was intentional, but that meant that while you got a feel for the game, it was hard to tell how challenging the actual game would be. I liked the theme, and I liked how it played, but I’ll be curious to see as reviews come out, how hard the game actually is.

Final Hour – If games of Arkham Horror and Eldritch Horror are too long, Final Hour focuses down on that last battle with the cultists as all you’re trying to do is figure out what the ritual is, before time runs out. This game is supposed to play in two hours, and I can see it playing in even less than that once you know what you’re doing. It’s really a puzzle game as you try and figure out what two symbols are missing from the board, but with a couple of interesting mechanics in it. You get a random, I believe, action that you’re going to take, and you have two different parts, move/attack or move/search, but you don’t know which one you’ll take for sure. Because the first two people in “initiative” get to move/attack and last two move/search. But you might not have the low number card you want to go faster and attack, so you’re move/search hurts the team. The game seemed like it would have some nice pressure to it. Not sure if there’s room in my Lovecraft collection for the game, though.

Dreams of Tomorrow – Not all demos are good, unfortunately. This one is hard to know what I actually think about it. There were two factors that made it hard to really demo this game. The first was that the person who got us into the demo was way to aggressive about it. We almost felt trapped into doing it, and then the person who was running the demo was clearly done running demos of the game. The concept was interesting, you’re trying to create a series of dreams to give you points but really to send back in time to stop the world from being destroyed. But while the rondel mechanic (taking actions in a circle so that you can’t get to some actions right when you want to) was interesting, the game itself was more of an abstract puzzle with a few little twists to it. I don’t think, even with a good demo I would have loved this game, but the demo definitely made it worse.

Letter Jam – So, this is a game that I was excited for going into the convention. And because of that, we actually ended up demoing it twice. The reason for that is that the first person we demoed with was clearly done with running demos, either for the day, but it seemed like for the con, on day one, and one of the people was not that interested in actually playing it. Letter Jam is a cooperative game, and the person who I was there with, didn’t realize that until half way through. But the concept for the game, a Hanabi/Mastermind style word game, is interesting, so we decided to try it again a couple of days later. We actually avoided getting into the first demo to get into because it was the same person doing the demo as the first time, but the group we had for the second time and the person running the game, which isn’t something that’s needed for the game, did a great job, and it was so much more fun. At that point it was sold out though, otherwise I would have probably come home with it.

Zona – Another game that I really wanted to see on the table. This game is very interesting as you fight monsters and search for secrets to be the first to get into the vault around Chernobyl. So it’s an alternate world with monsters and magic, but a ton of fun. You have dice that you rolled for combat, but there are ways to mitigate them. The game was also interesting, because the people demoing it were only taught the rules, since the rule book was still in Polish and cards had just gotten translated into English. The aesthetic and game play, though, were a lot of fun, from what we got for it, and I want to see a more finished version of the game, but if it plays like it did, I think it’s a game that I’d want to get.

Now, I know that there are so many more games that we demoed at the convention. There was a wrestling game, Just One (for the fun of it), Iron Forest to see the prototype, and more. Like I said, we could have just done demos the whole time and it would have been a blast.

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Catan (or Settlers of Catan)

Why it would work: Because the game is still popular, so it would be printing money. Whomever makes it would just be able to Scrooge McDuck through gold coins. But besides that, why else might it work. Because you can build out and explore more world. You’d be able to sail to new lands, find new things, and add to the game and the board by unlocking things. This would probably be a less story driven game, but as long as it generally stays true to the base game, people will like it. Or it could be story heavy, maybe you go with a medieval time frame, where you are building up your city state and every game kind of wipes out your city state, and you have to rebuild again.

What I’d Change: I wouldn’t change much from this game. The game is simple enough that while you might add in some things, I don’t think that there is much to change. I would maybe go with the variant that I’ve played with Catan where you start with the pieces upside down (assuming you don’t need a consistent board), so there can be a exploratory aspect to it, or at least as you add in pieces and the board grows I’d do that. I’d also probably start with a fixed board, so instead of building out the hexes, the hexes are always going to be there in the same order.

What I’d Keep: I’d really keep most of the game. I think that the resource aspect is very luck heavy, but people who still play the game often probably like that aspect well enough or at least numb to it. I’d also keep the base things like the roads, settlements, and cities, and I’d add in the Seafarers stuff as well, including gold, that would just help keep the game feeling diverse. I’d maybe steal some from the other expansions, but I haven’t played that many of them, so I can’t speak that much to them, but you’d probably want to bring in bits of them, maybe allowing you to build upgrades for your main city.

What I’d Add: Well, like I said, I think the main board should be fixed, and then you’d have random islands that you would put out as you find them and that would make your game unique. I think that I’d also give player powers, that is something that almost always makes a game feel more unique. Having a power, like maybe you are a wood baron or a sheep baron, you get to start off the game with one of that resource no matter where you put your last settlement.  Or maybe it’s going to be that as a sheep baron you can always trade in sheep at a 3 to 1 rate. Something that makes you unique as a player and probably some way that you can update your character. Maybe if you win you get to put an upgrade on your unique character, so you are a sheep baron, your base ability is that you can always trade 3 to 1, but now you can put something on your card that allows you to start the game with a sheep, but with the downside that you get to go last when placing your settlements, or something to try and balance out that added power. Or maybe you get to upgrade a die number of on something and downgrade another one to keep it balanced.

Would I Play This Game: With how I have it thus far, I’m not sure, I would likely want more built into this game to keep it interesting. If people wanted to play it, I wouldn’t complain, but there would have to be pieces that seemed really cool. So the answer would probably be yes, but I wouldn’t be getting it day one.

Here’s one I would be more excited about –

Arkham Horror/Eldritch Horror

Why it would work: This game already has a bit of a story element in it. So that is a big plus, and it has a story/world with a way to build on it. You start with the lesser elder gods and you build it up until eventually you are a facing off against the big bad cthulhu. Plus, you already have unique characters, so it feels like you are playing some in this cooperative game. Also, it’s a cooperative game, I think that it makes it easier.

What I’d Change: Another game that wouldn’t need a ton changed. I’d probably make the game a little easier. At least for the start, obviously, you are going to be upgrading your characters as time goes on, or at least upgrading things that they can find, so they’ll get stronger and stronger. Then probably you’d have to make the end elder gods even harder. I’d also make it so that like Pandemic Legacy there are just some ways to basically lose a location forever, or make it harder to get to if there is too much supernatural activity there. I’d also possibly make the board have more locations, so from some of the expansions, but then just condense the board so that things are a bit smaller on it so it wouldn’t take up two tables.

What I’d Keep: I’d definitely keep the custom characters, and obviously the elder gods in the scenario would be easy to keep as well. Just build up a story about why this is all happening, and I think that it would be pretty easy to just jump in and get going.

What I’d Add: So upgrades and flaws for the characters, or insanity effects/wounds. You’re character shouldn’t be killed off the first time they die from damage or insanity, just inflict something negative on them. So, if you’re insane, maybe you’re only allowed to have an even number of items, or maybe you can’t go into a place with another character, so you have to go around them. If you’re injured, maybe you break a leg and you can’t move as quickly. However, with upgrades, you might get a new power or something like that, or you could slowly upgrade your wound threshold or sanity threshold so it’s harder to go insane. I’d also add in story elements, maybe things that are opened up in game as you find things or complete milestones of sorts, but definitely stories about how cultists are trying to get bigger and badder elder gods as you keep on stopping them. And I’d go with the Pandemic Legacy version of you have twice to beat an elder god, so that the game lasts longer and also so that while if you fail your board will be worse off, but you’ll be able to play more times.

Would I Play This Game: Yes, I would in a heartbeat. I like the Lovecraftian world, and feel like there are strong story elements ready to be built in. This game would have a lot of fun aspects to it, and maybe there should be ways to shorten up the game slightly, especially if built on Arkham Horror versus Eldritch Horror which is a long game. Make it so we can get it done in five hours consistently and that would work.