AGE 2011: Shopping A Lot and Occasionally Playing A Thing
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Being the story of my second Australian Games Expo and the fun times that were had by all.
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I travelled to AGE with my good buddy Max and his entourage of chauffeurs, chefs, and massage therapists. In the car we agreed that Tilt to Live was the videogame of the year, and discussed its various achievements and how to earn them. He put forth that shredding the bad guys with your spikes was awesome, and I concurred.
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Upon arriving at the venue, we were greeted by a Wacky Waving Arm Flailing Inflatable Tube Man, denoting a family-friendly atmosphere.
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We arrived just in time to see the Board Games Australia awards being presented. Tommy Dean gave a rousing speech proclaiming the virtues of Dice Town, and I ended up demoing Make N Break Compact to a bewildered family.
Little did they know they were tangling with Australia's second best!
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Speaking of Tommy, him and his Blood Bowl tournament used up all the tables this year. It seemed like Cancon had grown by eating all of AGE's open gaming tables. Boo hiss. Time for a bigger venue?
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I picked up my maths trade winnings while I remembered. These consisted of a Pitchcar Mini expansion crammed into a Weetbix box, and some expansion cards for my favourite euro, Poffle*.
* Princes of Florence
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Next I went hunting for recursive bargains at the vendor stalls. I found Bargain Hunter.
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I got to play a demo of Zoowaboo with Al and Giles (pictured). This was the game of the show for me and was super rad. Al wisely bought a copy.
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Prior to dinner we checked into our suites, only to find the hotel bursting at the seams with drunken shirtless Serbians. Apparently a Serbian booze festival had booked out every room but ours. There were bottles in the pool and bouncers in the lifts.
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Max and I played some Tilt to Live while we waited for the Serbians to free up the lifts. We agreed that freezing and burning your enemies at the same time is awesome.
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Soon night fell, and after an Italian meal with James and Ewen, I went off to the open gaming at the Tradies. This time there were plenty of seats and beer available.
I got in games of:
Ring-O Flamingo with Max (rad)
Cash 'n' Guns: Yakuza with Shingo (cultural)
Cracked Ice with James (dextrous)
Ace of Aces and Go with Jaime (bewildering)
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11.
RPG: Fiasco
[Average Rating:8.25 Overall Rank:2]
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Finally, the stars were right and Jaime and I got in our long-awaited game of Fiasco!
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Since it was a super-special convention type event I bust out the rarest playset of all, Poppleton Mall.
The adventures of Tex Rainbow Smith and the Satanic Austrian record store will live long in my memory.
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The next day was the protospiel, but I had a little free time before my first session to do some more shopping. Matt from the previous night's Fiasco game was working on the Games Paradise stall, and he sold me the Wives & Servants edition of this fine game.
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I also picked up a second GM pack of fudge dice for use in my TSoY games. Having eight dice per player allows for many ludicrous bonuses.
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Next up was the protospiel, where I played two prototypes. Both had potential. One was a set-collecting art game, and the other was a fantasy football stats game, but in realtime!
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I then took in Martin Wallace's game design lecture, which was entertaining and informative. He's a charming bastard and was the very soul of tact and grace as the punters asked about intellectual property. He even said some nice things about John Bohrer publishing Transamerica.
In this photo, Martin has just said that he's a struggling full-time game designer, and Richard Vickery is remarking that he's obviously not starving. You can almost hear Martin's teeth grinding.
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After the talk I went shopping again and was stoked -- stoked! -- to find a copy of Noumenon. It's the game in which you don't know why you're a cockroach playing dominoes, but you think it's probably important.
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The stokage continued as I picked up this limited edition thing for ten bucks! There's not even a picture of it, that's how obscure it is!
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I also picked up this, and a copy of the generically named new 18XX card game, Railroad Barons. That'll stand out from the crowd, eh gamers?
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Terry and I had dinner together at a vegan restaurant. It was one of those Supreme Master places. (John Farrell is pretty keen on her, from memory.)
It was tolerable but not as good as the other vegan restaurant a few doors down.
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After dinner Terry and I played 1830 for what seemed to him to be an eternity. He somehow won, even though it seemed certain that Brendan had won. Despite these many flaws I love 1830.
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After the ordeal was over the rhinos got up in Knizia's generic retread, Botswana. The rhinos were plastic, though, and at least it wasn't bloody Egypt again.
We also played Wyatt Earp which Terry had just bought. Once again Belle Starr languished uncaptured.
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On the Monday I played a little Cardcassonne, which was like a midway between Coloretto and Zooloretto. Good stuff. I also played a bit of Dominion with some refugees from the Magic room (they loved it sick) and some Stone Age which I lost.
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On the way out I got this for $19... whatta bargain. It's like Pandemic but fun.
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We drove back to Sydney, I got back late, and my girlfriend was worried. And that is my tale.
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