Frank Branham: Dia die Los Muertos, Essen, crowds, chili

Happy Dia die Los Muertos. I likely won't be getting any gaming done this week, with Halloween, work, and our wedding anniversary taking over this week. (You did know that Sandi and I were married on November 2nd in a cemetery, right?)

The crowds and noise surrounding most Halloween events really keep me from enjoying what should be my ideal holiday. Probably it is a mixture of age and general grinchiness. I still love quieter cemeteries, and the yearly tour of the Woodruff Arts Center's Dia die Los Muertos altars. Most are created by school classes or organizations with so much personal and clever ways of remembering the dead, especially in comparison to the cutesy and commercialized Halloween circuses.

I've started thinking similar things about game conventions. The smaller BGG, Gathering, Gulf Games, Games Day Atlanta seem so much purer and more interesting. You have a people, games, and enough space for them to enjoy and celebrate games in whatever form they wish. And that's it. There are no table reservations for demo times, tournament tickets, demo tickets, free play tickets. No one argues about the exact details of tickets. There are no arguments about who can play what games where, who can sell which games. Bags of games need only be taken a few dozen steps from the car instead of several city blocks and/or to a variety of public transportation.

I really don't understand the draw of bigger cons anymore. Perhaps I did during my (relative) youth in the same days when playing Wizwar with 11 people was clearly going to be more fun than playing it with a mere 4 wizards. (It wasn't.) Or a live action roleplaying game absolutely required 50 players before it started to get fun, and 200+ players made for a proper game. (Eek!)

While I cannot imagine Essen failing anytime soon, I do wonder if people still have love for the big cons. I also wonder if the outlay for companies who need demo people, booth space, flights, is still worth supporting the large cons when the Internet is so very pervasive, and information so fast and cheap. The thrill of getting to play all the new games is a little less so when there are already 5 reviews on the Geek, the publishing company has already posted the rules and has been posting a blog for months.

There are some nice social aspects to being able to see and chat with people at the cons. But I find the environment of the large cons too big, too distracting, and too noisy. (I sometimes think this even about the relatively small confines of the Gathering, so I am clearly an extremist.)

And in Atlanta, I am totally blessed. Ward Batty runs 3 game weekends which draw out of towners, I've got a couple of wonderful game groups I can visit, and the occasional nearby private con. For the cost of attending a couple of large cons, I can pretty much just order a most of the games I'd like and play them in me beloved relative calm and quiet.

The Essen Games no one talks about

Two games that no one has really mentioned that were high on my radar are:

Fleet 1715: This is a card game in the style of Old Town by the same designer with a different system, and a new theme. In fact, this one has 20 pre-programmed puzzles instead of the inductive style of the original. Still...it is a new deduction game by someone who totally gets them.

There is a great and glorious oddity on the tiny card box that speaks volumes about the perceived differences between German and English-speaking gamers. The game is from a German company, with English text on the cards, but German rules in the box. The back of box flavor text is in both languages. The English describes in florid text the sinking of the Spanish fleet, a hurricane, gold bars, millions of dollars of treasure, a great battle. It runs a full paragraph.

The German text is a single line which roughly says "A deduction game about the sinking of the Spanish fleet in 1715."

Piraten auf Schatzjagd: Took forever before it was even listed on the 'Geek, even though it was announced at Nuremburg 2006. It costs $80 and is a dexterity game with giant 12" pirate ships that shoot and knock bits off of each other with a 5' square board. So it is probably a Euro rules-ish version of the old Crossbows and Catapults pirate game. This is actually (honestly) my most desired game so far this year. Adam Spielt apparently went through quite a bit of angst trying to figure out how to pack my copy.

The Great Chili Cookoff....um cookoff

It would be vastly unfair of me to review this as I was a playtester/developer (The designer, Dan Baden, also thanks me as mentor, which is ever so slightly disturbing.) It is a cute light game with some superficial resemblance to Nicht die Bohne. I did finally get to play the game with the upper limit of 7 people, and found that it works quite well. I realized what a blessing this was as we searched Dan's massive game library for something else that supports 7 players.

Dan invited a group over for a bit of a launch party at his house, as his author's copies had just arrived. In fact, there was a bit of a chili cookoff involved with 3 people creating odd types of chili. Dan's recipe was extremely experimental as he decided to try and make a chili containing chocolate just to prove it can be done.

It needed work. I do feel so very happy that Jolly Roger changed the ingredient to chocolate from the prototype's Dog Bone. (I'm pretty sure the Milk Bone-looking beef and chicken flavored treat that dogs love has never been featured in any sane chili recipe ever. Dan argues that people put weird things in chili. I may have to avoid chili contests. They now scare me. )



© 2006 Frank Branham

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Happy anniversary! Chocolate and chilis go great together.  In fact, traditional Mayan hot chocolate is made with chilis. My latest chili recipe (which has been very successful when I host game days...nothing feeds crowds of 15-25 better than a big ol pot o’ chili) includes not only dark chocolate, but brown sugar and cinnamon as well (along with the usual beef, beans, chipotles in adobo, various tomato products, chili powder, cumin, garlic, onion, beer, etc.).  I’m not sure exactly how much of everything goes in, but my last pot of chili got two bags of dark chocolate chips, and it came out great. The big ol’ pirate game was one that caught my eye, too.  Although, in the end, I realized the wife would kill me if I got another goofy “shoot things at each other” game, especially one that would’ve cost $80-100.  Although it did spend quite a bit of time in my online shopping cart… Posted by Jon Theys on Nov 2, 2006 at 09:01 AM | #

Frank, a few comments 1) No one talked about Fleet 1715 primarily because not many people have copies.  Apparently there was a printing error somewhere in the game that basically breaks the game.  I as well wanted a copy but my minions told me that Stefan was forced to stop selling the game as it was irrevocably broken due to the printing error 2) My big pirate ship is apparently in the mail already.  I can’t wait for xmas morning when my kids get to open it up 3) I agree with you about the large cons (GenCon, etc) and how they’re just not set up for gaming.  However, I don’t lump Essen into the same category because, for me, Essen is still just a trade show.  Go and see the games and buy them.  No ticket buying for the priviledge of playing games with strangers.  And no LARPers. Happy anniversary Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Nov 2, 2006 at 10:20 AM | #

Fleet 1715 will be reprinted in a few months per the designer. The game certainly looked interesting due to it’s theme and seemed to function along standard deduction games. Posted by Lorna Wong on Nov 2, 2006 at 10:29 AM | #

Tyler and I were married *on* Halloween 2 years ago.  It is our favorite holiday as well.  Happy anniversary! Posted by Valerie Putman on Nov 2, 2006 at 11:02 AM | #

Frank, Piraten auf Schatzjagd was on my pre-Essen to investigate list as well.  I was surprised to see a copy of it in the window of a small neighborhood Essen toy store. It looked really cute, but there was no way I’d have enough room in my bags to get it home. I’m looking forward to Dale’s report on it.  Maybe I’ll have to pick it up from Adamspielt for my nephews. Scott Posted by Scott Tepper on Nov 2, 2006 at 12:31 PM | #

Lorna, I agree… Fleet 1715 looks interesting.  Old Town, which came out 2 years ago, is another interesting deduction game from the same designer that falls a little short due to the fiddly scoring system used—but the deduction part works pretty well IMHO. Posted by Dale Yu on Nov 2, 2006 at 01:03 PM | #

One advantage big cons have is the dealer room, auction and art show that usually aren’t represented at smaller cons.  These features hook the ancillary gamers of the family into wanting to attend as well as the hardcore gamers among us.  Only the hardcore in the family attend the smaller primarily (or entirely) gaming cons and minicons. Posted by Scott Russell on Nov 2, 2006 at 01:26 PM | #

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