July Alexandria Gaming Group Microcon

I managed to make it to this month's Microconvention yesterday and stayed until 10:30. I tried a couple of new games, but nothing spectacular. One was called Red Dragon Inn or something to that effect. It's a card game where each player took on a character drinking and gambling at a proverbial rustic inn, the generic hangout in fantasy novels. The goal is to be the last person standing after everyone else has either lost all their money or passed out. The twist is that each player has his/her own special deck of cards geared toward his/her character's abilities. For example, my character was a a sword maiden who could hold her liquor and put the hurt on everyone, but too dim witted to ever win a round of cards. So my goal was to avoid gambling, and conserve as much of my money as possible, while inflicting pa..., uh, buying everyone drinks, that is. If you're in the right mood, and everyone gets into to their roles, this can be fairly amusing. But I doubt that I'd be interested in playing it again. Yet another card game that is kind of fun on the first play, but, at least to me, seems more than a little tedious once the novelty wears off.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I got a chance to play Puerto Rico with all experienced players. A rather odd session. I thought for sure I had the game in the bag at mid game. I was the only coffee producer and money was rolling in. I managed to buy 2 of the 10 point buildings before anyone else had 1. But things just went dry thereafter, and a couple of bad decisions at the end the game caused me to lose by 3 points. The winning score ws 33. I can't remember the last time I played in a game where I scored less than 35, let alone the winning score. It was fun nonetheless.

It was great seeing some old friends: Tim, Laura, Andy, Janna, Jennifer, Gabriel, etc., and met some new people as well. We held it at the Martha Washington Library in Alexandria instead of at River Towers, and I actually liked it better. Turnout was on the light side, but it was a fun crowd. And I crushed Tim in a game of Hansa at the end of the evening... What's not to like about that!

Laura started to teach us Palazzo, a game where each player competes to construct the tallest and most beautiful buildings. We didn't have time to make it too far, but I was starting to get the hang of it. I wouldn't mind trying it again some time.

One competely ridiculous game I got talked into trying was Candyman. I should have realized it as soon as I saw the game board. At first blush it seemed like a slightly more complicated and cut throat version of Candyland. That turned out to be pretty much the case and it was about as much fun. 30 minutes of my life that I will never get back!