Savannah, Georgia
August 1 – 4, 2002
I can’t remember a more relaxing family vacation than GG10! Everyone in the K-ban family is primed and eager for GG12 in Williamsburg (Birmingham scheduling just doesn’t fit in with our school year). I refrained from gaming after the prize table and spent that time catching up with friends that I hadn’t had the time to chat with one-on-one. This event was so well thought out and organized that it was impossible to find fault – even for a cynical New Yorker.
Highlights for me –
***meeting folk that I had been e-mailing for 5+ years –Greg, Ty, Teddy, Moo, Craig – but had never met – and seeing the wives and kids bond as well.
***putting faces and voices to the names I’ve been reading about in weekly session reports for all these years
***seeing Ms ‘I don’t game with groups of people’ win the “Take It Easy” contest. My wife protests far too much. Whenever she games she does very well and has a great time. Thanks to all who taught her new games.
*** seeing Jen come out of gaming retirement and join in occasionally. At 14 it’s not ‘cool’ to be seen enjoying yourself with adults.
*** seeing Josh game non-stop and really catch the gaming bug. He’s been joining us for weekly Gamenites for only a few months now. I’m reliving thru him those fabulous 5 years when Jen was a mainstay in our group. He’s starting to invite classmates to join us on Friday evenings.
***learning new games like Trendy, Too Many Cooks, How Ruck, Pirates Cove and Blokus
***teaching old favorites like Winchester, Bakschisch and Adel Verplichtet
*** caring more about how much I laughed rather than how often I won
I just spent a marvelous 4 days in Savannah, GA at Gulf Games 10. Greg Schloesser and his extended family do an incredible job of making everyone feel welcome.
I finally got to meet many LIST members for the first time –Herr Kitchen Table, the World’s Sexiest Gamer(Ty), Teddy, Bayou Boy, Wardo, Moo, Sheldon, Derk, David &Theresa and many others.
I got to play many old favorites – Bakschisch, Tycoon, Winchester, Raj, Metro, Take It Easy, etc.
Of the games that were new to me –
Trendy (SpielSpass) – new, simple, filler card game from Knizia. 20 minutes, tops – trying to match fashion trends with sets of 3, 4, 5 , 6 or 7 designers. On your turn you play a card face up in front of you. If it completes a set, all those with that designer claim their card and score that many points. Throw in a monkey wrench of a Super Model for each flavor (counts double but scores single) and a ‘sold-out’ card for each designer that wipes the table clean and you’re playing in under 3 minutes.
Too Many COOKS (R&R) – another Knizia card game. Frank has a winner here (and has seemingly scooped his German rivals). Players are making soup (mushroom, onion, pea,pepper and ‘no soup today’). Everyone has to complete each of their5 recipe cards once in the 5 rounds of play. Each recipe indicates cards that score +1 for you and others that score -1. The ‘No soup today’ card means that you get +5 if you take no tricks at all but-1 for each card you DO take. Players add ingredients to the pot and if their sum reaches or exceeds 10 points the trick is completed. Some interesting card playing decisions and light fun.
Blokus – I’m not a big fan of abstracts but this one is surprisingly fun – and was VERY popular among the women folk in attendance. Plastic colored shapes are placed on the grid with the restriction that you can only touch the CORNERS of your own color. Your score is the number of unplaced tile segments AFTER everyone is stuck.
Squint (Out of the Box) Pictionary for those who can’t draw. Frantic clue giving with plastic shapes. Life can be unfair as the player before me can get the others to guess ‘stairs’ on one tile and I draw ‘suspenders’. Fun, but not my cup of tea.Every copy there got sold quickly.
PiratES COVE (HiG) – too bad Greg and Teddy singing pirate songs and YMCA don’t come with the package 😉 A well-produced dice fest and guessing game combo. I won but wasn’t swayed to buy a copy.
How RUCK (Kosmos) – 2-player tug of war among Scotsmen.Greg had paste-ups for the dozen or so cards with German text. Wait for the Rio Grande edition (as Heave Ho) for September. Derk and I had fun with this one. Not particularly deep or strategic but it was fun to play.
Foppen (FF) thanks to Joe Huber for teaching this1995 sleeper of a trick taking card game to my wife, Sandy. Very clever with uneven suits, no trump and a fool token that makes you skip a round – costly in a game where you’re trying to get rid of your hand. Derk convinced me that no matter how badly I played, I would only miss half the hands.
I watched the tail end of a game of SchrilleStille (Zoch) that everyone seemed to enjoy. Adam Spielt is still blowing out these well-produced beauties at around $13 plus shipping.