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Travis Cooper
United States
Salt Lake City
Utah
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SaltCON is a convention here in Salt Lake City. I've been tempted to go in the past, but it always seems like spending money just to play games that mostly I can play at my house wasn't worth it. I waffled back and forth for a while and I finally decided I didn't really have any game purchases in mind for this month, so I would go and check it out. I ordered my ticket that last day before the prices went up and then last Saturday I headed over to the convention.
Spies&Spooks: The Cold War Edition
The first table I saw with the orange cone (meaning they were open for more players) was Spies & Spooks. I've never heard of the game, and it looked like there weren't a ton of open games at the moment so I sat down to play. The concept was kind of cool, the idea is to smuggle out secrets based on your random character card and mission card. Of course as you're going you can steal secrets from other players, or even kill them. I offered a few suggestions that I think the guys teaching the game thought were good. In the end I felt that getting killed was a huge penalty and it made it hard to come back and feel like you had a chance to win. I think I'll keep the game on my radar, we'll see what happens in the future.
7 Wonders
After wandering around trying to find a game forming I saw a big group sitting at a table with one guy reading the rules to 7 Wonders. I asked if any of them had played before, and when they said no I offered to teach. It turns out somebody had just bailed and they even had an open seat. So, I sat down and explained to them how to play the game. This was one of my worst games, I didn't have any manufactured goods and neither of my neighbors did either. Both of them had access to quite a bit from their other neighbor and so the 3rd age left me not being able to build hardly anything. I did have a pretty good military so I wasn't totally embarrassed by my score.
Crokinole
I was having a hard time finding a table to play at, so I decided to head back to the Crokinole tournament that Mayday Games was sponsoring. I've never played myself, but I have always wanted to try. As I was watching the games in progress Seth asked me if I'd like to play a game. I had figured out the rules from watching, so we sat down and played. I made a couple of decent shots here and there. I even scored in a couple of rounds, but I was obviously a novice and lost. I went back right before the finals started and got in another game later as well. I had a lot of fun playing, but the cost of a board seems a bit much for how much I'd actually play. Hopefully some day I'll buy my own board, maybe when my kids are older and can play against me.
Founding Fathers
After Crokinole finished up I noticed a table with people reading the rules to Ra. I found out one guy had played years ago, but I offered to teach the rules. I went through the rules and kind of watching things progress to make sure they had the hang of things. While I was watching, I saw a couple of guys walking in with Founding Fathers. They asked me if I was looking for a game, and so I sat down and a couple of other guys (part of the convention staff) joined us as well. This game I've looked at a couple of times, but the playing time has always scared me away. After they explained the rules I asked if it really took as long as the box says, because it sounded like it would play pretty fast. They said that typically games take 45 minutes (this is on my wishlist now).
Shadows over Camelot
Again, after wandering around for a while I saw a group of guys reading the rules to Shadows over Camelot. I asked if I could join them and again explained the rules. I tried not to offer up too many suggestions, so they could figure things out on their own. We did okay for a while, but we got stopped towards the end. We got the card that doesn't allow us to play a grail card until we finish a quest, so we went to take on the saxons. Right before we laid our last card, somebody drew from the black deck to add the last saxon and we lost the quest. After that we weren't close to finishing any quests, and we were only one seige engine away from dying. The next card was an excalibur adding the last seige engine. I think if we would have beat the saxons we would have been fine. It was a good game, and they did pretty well for their first play through.
Pastiche
I guess I should make mention of this game. A lot of people were playing this as it was the release event for the game. A local designer designed the game and he was there doing demos. Fred Distribution was there as well promoting the game. I did try to go play a game, but they were getting close to starting a tournament. The designer explained the rules to me and I watched parts of the game in progress. I would have entered the tournament, but I didn't have enough time to stay if I continued to do well. It sounds like a decent game, maybe a little too simple for my tastes, but there are other people I play with that I think would enjoy it. I didn't buy my own copy, but they did sell out and everybody got an autograph as well. Congrats to Sean D. MacDonald for getting his game published, hopefully it has even wider success.
Final Thoughts
I have mixed feelings about the convention looking back on it. I feel like it was pretty hard to get a game in being there by myself. I recognized several people from various places, but even still, they usually had a group already and played with each other. I even asked people standing around a few times if they wanted to play and they always said they were waiting for the rest of their group. I did get in a couple of games that I actually had interest in, Crokinole and Founding Fathers; however, the games I really wanted to play I never got a chance at.
I hold a monthly game night at my house and I think I have a better time at those than I did at the convention. Probably because I know I will get to play games I actually want to play. Rather than just being thrown into a game because I want to play something, and that is all that I can get into.
There were a decent number of games in the library, but for the most part they were games I already have, or didn't have much interest in. I really do think that the biggest problem was that I was there by myself. I'm not sure what can be done to help out people there on their own, but it means I probably won't attend again unless I can get together a group to go with. Was it worth the $20? Probably not. Most of the time I spent either teaching people games or walking around trying to find something to join. I didn't get much playing time in games that I actually cared to play.
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