Not to be confused with the music festival, Sasquatch Boardgame Festival happens yearly in the fall around the end of October or beginning of November in Bellevue, WA. I’d been invited a couple times in the past few years but hadn’t made it. This year I finally decided to make it work.
It’s a five day festival running from Wednesday through Sunday where people get together to play games. One fun aspect is that they bring new games from the big German game festival that happens in the fall. Most have not been released in the US yet, so it’s fun to get to preview. One of the local game shops also brings some back to sell, so there is the opportunity to buy the ones you like. I ended up picking up two: Royal Goods and Undersea Adventure.
Royal Goods is a card game in which you are trying to build the best set of production facilities to make goods like coal, flour, fabric, clothes, glass, etc. You earn money throughout by producing goods and selling them, then building new buildings to make new goods. Everything is represented by cards, so goods get stacked as facedown cards and traded into the discard pile as money. It’s very fun and fairly quick once people know how to play. The first game was a little tough because I was tired, but after I got the hang of it it was really fun.
Undersea adventure is a game where you are trying to collect the most treasure from the bottom of the ocean before oxygen runs out. The treasure is represented by small tiles set in a path and you roll a die to see how far you move down. The die has the numbers 1-3 on it, but you jump over other divers so you can move up to five spaces. The thing is, each treasure you pick up slows you down on the return trip by one space. So there is the potential you could move zero spaces on a turn. The treasure also speeds up how fast the oxygen runs out, which each player causing a loss of one per treasure tile. It’s another quick game that is a lot of fun to play.
The other game I played that I really liked was called Chronicler, a quick to play civilization building game. It was pretty lightweight and quick as well, though I felt two games was probably enough so I didn’t buy it as well. It is, however, on my maybe soon list.
I had a great time and last week I went ahead and registered for next year. I’m already looking forward to it!
You are such a good writer Murray. Your ideas come out so crisp and understandable. I’d like to see you spend more time at it. I know that now may not be the time, considering your job as a baby care giver, but maybe eventually. Love you, G-ma