Orlando, Florida
March 1 – 4, 2001
Orlando! The City of the Mouse… home of Walt Disney World (best place to escape from reality ever built)… too bad I didn’t spend any time in the Mouse’s Kingdom!
(Actually, due to the radiator hose on my car going bad on the way in, I saw more of Orlando than I did of Navarre Beach or New Orleans – other Gulf Games I attended without my wife!)
Chip, Dennis, Craig & I drove down on Wednesday, gamed pretty much non-stop through Sunday morning, and drove back Sunday afternoon… not good for my health and/or sleep habits (I’m still fighting off the cold I got) but great fun nonetheless!
Final Tally:
47 games played (+2 in Nashville before we left)
11 games won
19 games I’d never played before
Best of Show (in my ever-humble opinion):
Strand Cup – good thing I’m the one who brought it!… a very nifty multi-player volleyball game (which uses the team concept brilliantly)
Wyatt Earp – a GREAT addition to the Mystery Rummy line with it’s own pecularities… the graphics are great and I couldn’t be happier that Jay’s publishing it in English (it will be an easy game to introduce to non-gamers)
Steinbeisser – a simple but very enjoyable roll’n’move/hosage game from Schmidt Spiele, with very cool bits and quick game play
Traumfabrik – it’s not a “new” game… but it’s probably the best eurogame to introduce non-gamers to (due to the theme and simple structure)…
Evo – a game that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to… and enjoyed enough I played it twice!
Set the Wayback Machine For… (best older games I played):
Metropolis – Chinatown meets Big City… and thanks to Andy Merritt, we got the rules right (buildings do NOT count toward the 5 occupied plots in a city block!)
Overthrone – OK, it’s not that old, but I enjoy it more and more each time I play it! (Thanks to Frank DiLorenzo, I ended up playing it twice at Gulf Games…)
Honeybears – the game’s even more fun when you’ve got the right rules (somehow, I’d missed the 6 point bonus for ending each race…)
Don’t Understand the Hype… (games I enjoyed… but…)
Dragon’s Gold – not a bad little negotiation game, but I’m not sure what the big deal was… (sorry, Bruno – it just wasn’t my cup of tea) – I played it once with the wrong rules and once with the right rules.
San Marco – El Grande with less variety… granted, I’m a huge El Grande fan. It’s a good game, but it’s not the Second Coming of Gaming. (Another strike against it – while our game moved quickly, I’d avoid it with anyone who tends to analysis paralysis.)
Murder in the Abbey – it’s crazy expensive now and a nifty cross of Clue and Eco’s “The Name of the Rose“… but we played with 6 (too little information to start with) and should have played with 4… still, a good game.
Wongar – it’s not as bad as the early press said… but it certainly isn’t very good. There’s a great theme (aboriginal art) and a decent game system that have NOTHING to do with each other.
Buffy – hey, any game where I can kill The Master with a #2 pencil has something going for it, but it’s just a well-done Games Workshop chase & kill game.
Great Gaming Experiences…
Princes of Florence with Vonda Matthews, Derk Solko & Jon Pessano… after Derk’s “You know this isn’t fluff, right?” comment, I kicked them around the table and closed out with a 70 point win!
High Bohn with Mark Johnson, Kenny Douds, Ken Girton & Greg Schloesser… which I lost by ONE stinking point to Mark Johnson – still my pick for best expansion in the Bohnanza universe.
All three of my games of Strand Cup… esp. after we discovered that the game works better with speed scoring (scoring after every point, including side outs).
San Francisco with Tim Watson, Chip Triplett, Eddie Bonet & Dennis Mills... this game gets better and better with each playing – and I won by 2 points in the closest finish I’ve seen in this game.