Destin, Florida
October 21 – 24, 1999
First things first… hats off to Greg Schloesser for coordinating such an incredible gaming event. Thanks to Vicki Watson and all the others who coordinated decorations and food and stuff.
Now, on with the show.
Some random highlights (to be followed by a more extensive report later.)
1) I managed to play nearly forty games… (not including numerous spins at Loopin’ Louie). Of that total, I managed to win 8 (and I’m darn proud of it.) 21 of them I’d never played before!
2) As always, Frank Branham’s collection was a treasure trove of heretofore unknown goodies: Piratenbilliards, Saturn, Headquarter, Quacksalbe, Himmelsturmer, Bewitched… yipes.
3) I managed to play my first Swedish game IN SWEDISH (with Magnus Lundgren translating)… JAGERSPRO (a horse racing game with a number of interesting mechanisms but WAY too much Swedish text.)
4) I was, shall we say, less than enthused by some of the games I got to play for the first time… Jump! (which I’d had high hopes for), Torres and Rette Sich Von Kann all were much weaker than I’d expected. (Yes, I’ll say more about that later, too.)
5) Theme for the weekend: get beat up by kids. Calvin Douds not only finished a close 2nd behind Buster Williamson in Buried Treasure over his dad & I, but this 10 year old also managed to give all of us card-playing advice throughout the game. Cassie Berg won the first game I played (a round of Loopin’ Louie). Karie Rodriguez (Lindsay Schloesser’s cousin) snuck up from behind to win Cloud 9. Timothy McCarthy managed to finish one point out of the lead at Gold Connection, with me 3 pts behind him!
6) Second theme for the weekend: Mark plays LOTS of games wrong. I discovered I was playing Papua, Lost Cities AND Can’t Stop incorrectly. Sheesh.
7) Moments of great laughter: Quacksalbe at 3:30 AM with Frank, Ben & Sheldon; Honeybears at midnight with Cassie & Craig Berg, Greg Schloesser & George Michaels; an uproarious 6 player game of Die ErbRaffer; a win in The Gothic Game!; the blatant sucking-up of some players during Apples to Apples; and a great mixed age game of Cloud 9 that went down to the wire.
8) Great new games: It’s a good thing I bought Hallo Dachs! from Adam Spielt (in fact, Greg brought my order with him to GGIV)… because I’d have to buy it if I didn’t. The same goes for Zirkus Flocahti. Cosa Nostra was enjoyable enough I played it twice, as was Honeybears (another part of my AS order). Finally, Ty Douds’ prototype for Victory & Honor got a couple of workouts at GGIV… it still needs tweaking but there’s a very interesting game in there!
9) The world premiere of my own prototype, Ted Goes To Gulf Games: OK, so it was a weak mish-mash of Raj, Get the Goods and a metric ton of Ted jokes… but we had fun with it. I’m still proud of the timing mechanism and I’m trying to find a more universal theme. (Heck, who knows? How many people would buy a game about an obscure bunch of gaming fanatics playing games they’d never heard of?! Frank?) 🙂
10) As usual, Gulf Games is as much about people as it is about games… meeting new friends, putting faces with long-time Internet correspondents, renewing old bonds… Buster said it well: “These guys like to win but they love to play.”
I look forward to our next Gulf Games… some 6+ hours from the Gulf in MY neck of the woods – Chattanooga!