Alfred Wallace: A First Time for Everything

So, last week around this time I was a tired, bitter, angry young man, surrounded by un-unpacked boxes.  Now the boxes are mostly unpacked, the books and games are mostly on shelves, and I have life mostly together.  That’s good, by my standards.  Luckily, throughout all this I had some gaming to do, too.

I was pleased to discover that I have at best the second-most games in the greater State College area, as it is home to the redoubtable Josh Adelson, aka Mr. Cranky.  He got in touch with me shortly after I moved in, and decided to take in one day of the WBCs down in Lancaster, just a shortish ride down the road from State College.  We were joined by his lovely wife Jean, and in no time we were at the convention site.  You could tell, as there was a sudden increase in the number of men with beards and suspenders walking around.  (Amish country is a good place for a boardgaming convention, I think.)

This was the first time I’d ever been to something like a convention.  I was only there for one day, and didn’t do any tournaments, so I definitely did not get the benefits of the full WBC experience.  That said, I did get my $30 worth of fun, even with my name misspelled on my badge.

My first stop was the vendors’ area.  It’s likely the most heavily-trafficked area of the con.  Gamers draw power from being near games, I think, and this is a good place to be near a great many of them at once.  It’s also a good place to meet the hobby’s luminaries; I got to meet Richard Borg, for one, and some of the principals of my favorite game companies.  It was kind of reassuring that nobody had any idea who I was.  (Although, again: Misspelled badge.) Naturally, I also spent plenty of money, in spite of myself.  Deals abounded.  I got a $132 wargame for $45 since it had a dent in the box, and I like to think that justified my $30 ticket all by itself.  Sadly, by the time I got there Z-Man had sold out of Duel in the Dark, or I’d have grabbed that.  (By the way.  This was brought up on a mailing list I’m on, and I thought I’d throw it out: Is this game’s theme going to cause problems when it gets shown at Essen?)

Dominating the center of the vendors’ area was a huge…tent-like thing where some outfit was selling DVDs of war (-related) movies.  Good war movies, bad war movies, everything.  Whether you’re into The Bridge Over the River Kwai or Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS, they could help you out.  They also had clips showing on TVs parked along the outside.  One showed a fifteen-minute scene of a Waterloo movie over and over.  Another—which was far more popular—had some Russian tank movie.  There were no subtitles.  What it did have, and in great quantity, were action scenes (reconstructed; it was clearly some kind of drama) involving tanks from WW2.  I watched for a while, because hey: Tanks.  Better yet, it had one T-34 jumping over the wreck of another one, and if you can’t watch that, then you may not be a wargamer.  I called it “porn for wargamers,” which my fellow observers seemed to agree with.  One snippet of conversation among us:

“So there are no subtitles?”
“Nope.”
“What’s going on?”
“Tanks are shootin’ at each other.”
“Are there any characters?”
“Who knows?”

And all this could be yours for $90!  I’d have spent $20.  (Again: Tanks.)

For much of the day I hung out at the Rio Grande demo area.  I met Jay Tummelson, who seemed to be enjoying himself at least as much as anyone else.  He had several of the latest releases out, and was teaching them to folks.  I played Guatemala Café and Cash-a-Catch.  Guatemala Café was OK.  It has some interesting ideas; I like the mechanism by which you move items from one board (where you “buy” things) to the other (where they actually become useful).  It seemed like it was less than the sum of its parts, though. 

Cash-a-Catch was…well, it has a bell.  That’s one thing going for it.  Is there anything better than a bell in a game?  Would Pit be played today if it weren’t for the bell?  (Why do you think Wheedle didn’t catch on?  I’ll tell you: No bell.  If Out of the Box had a bell in there, it’d have sold like hotcakes at a hotcake-fancier’s convention.)

Anyway, I amused myself by ringing the bell periodically throughout the rules explanation, at least until a woman playing If Wishes were Fishes the next table over got irritated and shot me a look that would have melted concrete.  I think I only rang it once or twice after that.

The game seemed to be missing something.  We played with a full copy; I mean, there just wasn’t enough going on to hold my interest.  (I didn’t get to ring the bell very often.) I think I won.  The basic idea is that you’re buying and selling fish.  Sometimes you lose fish—they get stolen, or they spoil.  Somehow, the idea of being a bean farmer holds more interest than being a fishmonger.  C-a-C and Bohnanza have some similar ideas—limited storage areas/fields, for one—but Bohnanza’s actually fun.  At least for me; C-a-C was really pretty popular.

Wandering around, I liked looking at what people were playing.  I actually have fun just observing games, seeing how they work.  I got to see some of Z-Man’s upcoming 1960: Making of the President being played, and it looked great.  I’m eagerly awaiting this one.  Someone also had what looked like a playtest copy of possibly the most complicated naval warfare game of all time.  Each player sat in front of a gigantic schematic drawing of a battleship—I think it was Bismarck vs. Hood—and had to track damage as it occurred throughout the ship.  So a hit might take out part of your port-side radio operations, or what-have-you.  It seemed like a lot of work.  I don’t think it’d be too fun for fleet actions…

One popular game was Worthington’s Cowboys: Way of the Gun.  The game embodies beer-n-pretzels fun in a box.  It looks good, the rules are simple, and the players get to make gun noises and talk like cowboys.  What’s not to love?  Cowboys doesn’t work so great with just two players, but if you have a huge furball going, with everyone taking a cowboy, it can be great fun. 

We got back to State College in the early morning hours.  I was tired, but laden with games and had a fun time.  Next time down, I’ll have to try to get in on a tournament or two…

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