FallCon - A Cornucopia of Gaming

And here's the breakdown of how the Blitz works. Participants will be assigned an initial rank. Starting with the top ranked player, participants will then select which game they wishes to play in Round 1. This selection process will continue until each player has been assigned a game. Note there is only 1 copy of each game so top ranked players will have the most choice. The selection process is done in reverse order during the 2nd round to make things fair.

Following the 2nd round and based on the aggregate results of the games, players will be reseeded and then select the games they wish to play in Round 3. The tournament continues in this way through Round 4 (with selections based on updated rankings) until a final winner is determined based on total aggregate ranking after playing all 4 games.

Note that based on time restrictions, should it become apparent that we are running out of time due to slow play, Marc will opt to cancel the Round 3 games.

This is a great event, put on by a passionate ambassador for boardgaming. Let's fill this up and make this a successful trip for Marc!

Jasen
 

Name:  The Settlers of Catan
Designer: Klaus Teuber
# of Players: 3-4
Playtime: 90 minutes
MSRP: $54.99 CDN
Link to Rules
Synopsis: You are immigrants to the island of Catan, trying to tame the land and establish a foothold for your colony. You build roads, settlements and cities by spending resources that you produce and harvest from the areas around you, or trade for with your fellow islanders. The game turns into a race to build settlements (worth 1pt), cities (2pts), the longest road (3 pts), the largest army (3pts), and special monuments (1 pts) as the first one to 10 points wins!

Are you ready to build the best colony on the wonderful island of Catan?

The one, the only, Settlers of Catan! This game has been largely responsible for the modern resurgence in boardgaming and for introducing "Euro" style games to the North American masses. It is a modern classic and is often the first game of this style that people learn to play, as was the case with me.

As with most mass-adopted classics, Settlers' rules are elegant in their simplicity: roll a pair of dice; collect resources based on which tiles are adjoining to your buildings; trade to get the resources you are missing; then build roads, buildings and developments to expand your colony and to get you closer to the 10 point victory goal. The novel-for-its-time modular board also lends itself to a considerable amount of replayability.

From my perspective, the best part of the game is the negotiation phase, where you trade the resources you collected with those players who have the resources you need. Offers fly fast and furious with everyone trying to get the best deal possible for their prized resources. The fine balance between getting what you need and preventing your opponent from getting the better of you really allows this game to shine.

It wouldn’t be Fallcon without our annual Settlers tournament. If you haven't yet played this classic, the scheduled event is a great time to have us teach you the game. Mind you, we'd be just as happy teaching you in the open gaming area. Find a couple of your friends and join us at the table!

Darren

Synopsis: The Forbidden Island is sinking and you must find its precious artifacts before they are lost forever!

In this cooperative game, you and your allies must find the four idols and escape before the island sinks under your feet. For the mission to be successful, you must retrieve all 4 idols and escape via the helicopter pad. The loss of any team member, any artifact or the flooding of the helicopter pad would result in a embarrassing blemish on your adventurer resume (it's well known you aspire to become the next Indiana Jones).   

Forbidden Island has all the hallmarks of a great "gateway" game and serves as an excellent launching point to introduce families and friends into the boardgaming hobby. It is quick, easy to teach and learn, has gorgeous components and also has a low price point. Very few games will give you similar bang for the buck.

Cooperative games, like Forbidden Island are great for bringing in new players into gaming.  Cooperative mechanics remove the potential pitfall of pitting one player against another, as the group must work together to defeat the game itself.  One particularly nice aspect of Forbidden Island is its simple mechanism to alter the difficulty level of the missions. If you find the game too easy, just add another ‘Water Rises’ card to the deck and you will quickly find yourself scrambling to find a safe place to move! As a result, the game scales well with any age group and provides enough challenge to keep veteran gamers involved the whole time. You'll find yourself wanting to test your metal against the more difficult levels as you become proficient at moving around the sinking island.

I've personally enjoyed this with my kids and my fellow gamers. It is just a matter of scaling up the difficulty level and amount of advice offered based upon the gaming level of the group. I can highly recommended this game, especially as an introduction to cooperative games. For those looking for a little bit more challenge, and possibly a bit darker theme, I would highly recommend Pandemic and Pandemic: On the Brink, also designed by Matt Leacock.

Darren Bezzant

As an update to yesterday's post, I thought I'd put up links to 2 excellent articles about Gavan Brown and his recent design JAB: Realtime Boxing.

A Sweet Science on Dice Hate Me

A Conversation with Gavan Brown on Go Forth and Game

I like to fool myself into thinking that my (poor) teaching of the game to Seth and Michael of Tasty Minstrel Games back in 2009 played a part in them publishing the game. Delusions of grandeur, I know.

While we frown upon fisticuffs at FallCon, we hope to have at least 1 copy of JAB in our open game library. It would be great to see some impromptu JAB "fights" in the open gaming area!

Best of luck to Gavan with his 1st published game!

Jasen