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My CHITAG 2010
Jason Kotarski
United States
Flint
Michigan
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In 2009, I convinced my wife to attend our first ever gaming convention, Chicago Toy and Game Fair. When we were dating she lived in Chicago and I lived in Flint, Michigan so we have some great memories of being together in Chicago. It seemed like a semi- romantic getaway so she agreed. We had such a great time we decided to make plans to go again this year. Once again, we were both glad we did.
Here's a little bit about our experience.
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Board Game: Tobago
[Average Rating:7.20 Overall Rank:216]
Jason Kotarski
United States
Flint
Michigan
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As soon as we mafe our way into the exhibit hall, one of the the volunteers in the Rio Grande area caught me taking a look at Tobago and invited us to play a game with him.
We were planning to check out the rest of the hall before settling in but checking out Tobago has been high on my "to-do" list for some time so we decided to give it a go.
What a fun game! The components are gorgeous and the deduction mechanic is very unique. I think the idea of narrow down the location of the treasure and racing to get your share is a lot of fun. The game has a pretty quick learning curve which is always encouraging. Our host set us free after 2 or 3 rounds and we were on our own. A father and son duo stopped by and asked if they could watch and I was able to teach them the whole game in a matter of minutes. After we took off they were super excited to get started on their own game.
We enjoyed the game so much, I didn't mind paying full retail picking up a copy from the Chicagoland Games booth.
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Jason Kotarski
United States
Flint
Michigan
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After I lost my first game of Tobago, we decided to get back on track with our walk around the exhibit hall.
There seemed to be a lot of education toy and game companies around. We stopped and looked at a few booths but I was really looking for more games that would fit into the hobby games category. I'm also quite intrigued by self-publishers right now. You see, one of the biggest reasons I had CHITAG on the calendar for a few months was that I had been working on a game of my own that I had submitted to the Rio Grande Game Design Contest.
My game, Over the Road, got second place at UCon in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I lost by a hair to an abstract strategy game called Verlatical. I was hoping I'd be the one from our region to present my game to Jay Tummelson so I made sure to keep the calendar clear.
Since getting such positive feed back about my game I've begun to explore options for self-publishing. When I saw a little booth for an interesting looking self-published game called S'quarrels we stopped to check it out.
The game looked pretty cute. A simple set-collection/rummy game with the theme of squirrels collecting nuts before winter. The game includes some action cards (that reminded me a bit of Fluxx) that change up the game play a bit. It seemed like a light game that might be fun with non-gamer friends over the holidays so we dropped $10 to support the little guy.
I chatted about printing and distribution a little bit with the designer and we made around way around the rest of the hall.
(Later on we played the game with my wife's aunt, whom we were staying with, and we decided it was a fun little filler.)
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Jason Kotarski
United States
Flint
Michigan
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After heading over to the Navy Pier food court for some Chicago-style hot dogs we grabbed a table in the Mayfair gaming area and had someone teach us Wacky Wacky West.
Wacky Wacky West is a decent tile laying game where players are expanding roads, rails, and rivers of a western town while trying to protect a certain type of building (secret goal) from being destroyed by the expansion of the city.
I really wanted to try this game because I had read that it was designed by Klaus Teuber and won the SdJ back in the early 90's. It was a pretty fun game. The one thing that bugged me about the game was the possibility of elimination. A person has 6 buildings to protect and it's possible that they can all get covered before the end of the game. Then the only option for playing is to keep quiet and try to screw everyone else by covering the other buildings. The game does have a neat voting mechanic. I'd be willing to give this on another play at some point.
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Jason Kotarski
United States
Flint
Michigan
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Since we were int he Mayfair area already, I grabbed a copy of Ablaze! to check out. I love the idea of fighting spreading forest fires so I was hopeful that it would a good choice.
I didn't really enjoy the gameplay very much. It felt more like an abstract game to me. I love me some theme and I hate me some math so it was a disappointing experience for me. My wife didn't have as much of an issue with it as I did. She likes math and abstract strategy more than me though.
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Jason Kotarski
United States
Flint
Michigan
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After spending some time playing Mayfair games we decided to check something our from the Chicagoland Games library. My wife and I saw Tom Vasel talking about The Adventurers on his Top 100 Games of All time videos and put it on our list of games to check out.
We say down with the box and I started flipping through the huge (to me, anyway) rulebook to try to figure out how to play. Before getting past page one, a guy name Jordan who was there to demo a prototype of his game, Node, came and offered to teach us to play!
After getting the game set up we all died in The Temple of Chac but man, what a great way to go out! Sure it's a press-your-luck dice-fest, but I loved every minute of it! My wife is usually opposed to games with miniatures but she loved it too. Even though the game has miniatures, it's not a miniatures game. We checked to see if we could pick up a copy at CHITAG but noone had any in stock. We were a little bummed but had a great time playing so we tried to focus on the positive.
(We went to Corner Bakery on Sunday morning before heading back to Michigan and went to check out the Barnes and Noble next door. We were super stoked to find that they had a copy of the game so I spend the last of my birthday money to pick it up!)
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Jason Kotarski
United States
Flint
Michigan
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After playing the Adventurers with Jordan, we offered to test his game, Node.
It was a decent little game. It was a light tile-laying game where computer hackers are fighting for control of different areas in a corporate server. It had simple gameplay with 8-bit graphics. While the graphics fit the game. I wasn't crazy about the look but I did enjoy playing. Jordan was super nice. We chatted a bit about publishing and decided to call it a day.
We were off to meet my in-laws, who were spending the day were our 19 month old daughter, at the Chistmas Lighting parade downtown Chicago.
Overall, CHITAG is a great family experience with options for the younger crowd and the more mature gamer. 
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