Hi everyone, Sarah here. This past weekend I was very lucky to have been able to attend a board gaming convention with my family, a few friends and about 1800 other board gamers. Since I haven’t shared a board game post here in quite some time, I thought I would share a few of my favorite new games that I played for the first time at the convention.
First up is Favor of the Pharaoh. In this game you roll dice and then assign your dice to be able to pick up tiles that will give you upgrades to make your dice more powerful to help you win the Pharaoh’s Favor at the end of the game. You are able to roll your dice multiple times as long as you lock in at least one die with each roll. This was a fun quick game with lots of choices.
In Isle of Skye you build up you kingdom by laying tiles surrounding your starting castle tile. Each game will have a randomized set of scoring objectives so each time you play the game will feel totally different. You receive new tiles to place by buying tiles from your opponents as well as keeping the tiles that belong to you that no one else bought. You then place them on your board in ways to try to score the most points according to the scoring objectives.
If you like puzzles Dimension is a really fun puzzle game. In each round there is a set of cards laid down that have rules letting each player know how their spheres need to be placed on their board. The timer is then turned over and players simultaneously try to work out the best placement of their spheres to meet each of the rules.
In Between Two Cities you are cooperatively working with your two neighbors to build the best cities possible according to the scoring objectives. With each of your partners you will build a separate city and the lowest score of your two cities determines your end score. The player with the highest lowest score wins.
This game is probably a little more advanced then most of the games that I’ve shared here, but it was my favorite of the convention so I wanted to talk about it as well. In Steam Time you are placing your markers on various parts of the board in order to obtain items such as resources, scoring cards, money or ship upgrades which will help you later in the game. The interesting thing about this game vs. other games of this type is that you can only move forward on the tracks unless you receive a special ability that allows you to go back in time.
This was my third time attending this convention and last year I created a mini album of the trip that I shared on the TLP blog. If you are interested in seeing how I recorded my convention weekend make sure to check it out as well.
If you like playing board games check and see if there’s a local gaming convention near you. These are a ton of fun to attend, usually cheaper and more laid back than the bigger conventions, but still provide a ton of fun. There are new local conventions starting up every year so hopefully there’s one near you to enjoy.
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