Family Board Game Day at Half Off Books

We had our first showing of family board games at Half Off Books in Orange City, on Enterprise – just south of Saxon.

It was exciting for me to have a retail outlet I could bring our games to and share them with the public. Given this was my first attempt at a retail environment, I am not sure how to quantify success. We had one person come in and say “Hey! Settlers of Catan! I love that game! I played it with some friends a little while back and have never seen it again. I had no idea where to get it.” She obviously gave us her e-mail address so we could keep in touch with her.

We had two other couples ask us about some of the other games.

We had two tables set up with Settlers of Catan and Last Night On Earth out and visible.

We also had two tables set up with a bunch of our games out for people to see and look at. We had many open games, with the intent that if someone wanted to try them out, we would let them actually play the game – what better way to see if you like it, right?

We will be at the Altamonte Half Off Books, in Orlando, this Saturday, from 10 – 5. If you want to come out and join us and play a game or two, we would love to meet you.

To get to the Half Off Books in Altamonte Springs, get to the I-4 and SR 436 intersection. Get onto 436 and head west (away from the Altamonte Mall). There is a plaza on the right side, across from Rooms To Go and Popeye’s. They are in that plaza.

My friend, John was in attendance and assisting me with manning the tables. We got in a few games to make the day exciting. We played Last Night On Earth, Oregon, and Carcassonne. I won LNOE and Oregon, but he beat me at Carcassonne.

Everyone who comes out to meet us will receive a 10% off coupon for your next purchase from us at www.bestdanggames.com.

If you live in Orlando, and want to play some games with us on Saturday, June 14, come out and play!

What Kinds of Games Will I Like?

This is a common question we hear out there. It is especially relevant in the world of hobby gaming. Everyone tends to like the old standards…Monopoly, Life, Sorry, Trivial Pursuit, etc. That’s how they are designed. You are supposed to like them.

But I have found over the last seven months or so, that is not actually the case when it comes to hobby games. They are so different in styles and themes that you kind of need to know what you like to know what new games are worth your hard earned gaming money.

As the owner of a gaming retail site, I am in a unique positon. I have access to games I would not normally see, and I have to play them to see what they are like…otherwise I can not accurately reccomend games to you…the gaming public. Oh, how life is hard! So, I have to play games I would not typically like, and get my friends and family to do the same – games don’t just play themselves.

I have a friend who helped me create the video you see on the front page of our store, http://www.bestdanggames.com. Before we shot that video, we spent a couple hours doing research about game videos and such, just trying to see what types of videos to start developing for the site. As a teen, he used to always keep a game of Risk in his trunk. His mantra was “Will stop for Risk!” While talking through different games, we started talking about HIS gaming style and we had some interesting revelations.

• Gaming Publishers really seem to have their own personality. Just like people and music, if you like a few of the company’s games, it is probably a good bet that you will like others of theirs. Rio Grande tends to consistantly put out great Eurogames. Their track record shows many Spiel Des Jahres award winners. Fantasy Flight Games, on the other hand, tends to consistantly put out LARGE games that take many hours to learn and play – but the games are high quality games and a little on the more expensive side. Days of Wonder puts out game systems, such as Memoir ’44 and BattleLore, as well as accessible games like Ticket to Ride, Shadows Over Camelot, and Pirate’s Cove. Once you find your gaming personality, you can probably pick a publisher and run with it.
• Your age and lifestyle may affect your gaming style – I am a 38 year old gamer. I have a wife and two kids. Most of my friends have a spouse and at least one child (under the age of 10). Most of my friends are at a high career point in their lives. This leaves little time for gaming…unfortunately. Therefore, whenever I say “can we try this game I opened from Fantasy Flight?” they tend to groan and say alright…”but you need to read the rules before you come over”. The games that seem to go over REAL well with my friends are the shorter games by Rio Grande Games and Settlers of Catan. I happen to really like the Warcraft series of video games, so I can’t wait for the short World Of Warcraft Adventures games. I can not think of subjecting my family and friends to the five-hour event that the World of Warcraft board game is.
• Just because you like the video game, don’t expect to like the board game – I have another friend who used to game on the PC with me. His game of choice for quite a while was Starcraft. Trust me when I say “I used to have my butt handed to me many times from his strategic playing”. So, when I got my hands on the Starcraft board game, you can bet I called him. I went over with two games to try out on him – at different extremes. We played Starcraft and Settlers of Catan. He had a real hard time getting into Starcraft, but we played Catan twice. This was curious to me. His reasoning was that it was more complicated and involved than the PC version. He identified that he did not like games with “phases”. The kind where there is a Planning Phase, Action Phase, Resolution Phase, and so on. He liked Settlers because it was ” I do these three things, then it is your turn” and we repeat that over and over.
• Themes can determine what you like – Theme does not seem to bother me so much. But, back to my video buddy…it was wildly erratic, with not much pattern (immediately identifyable). Here is what he liked and did not like from what I showed him. 1) Settlers of Catan – Yes, 2) Carcassone – No, 3) Puerto Rico – Maybe, 4) Arkham Horror – Not really (He is a fan of HP Lovecraft – game was too big), 5) Shadows Over Camelot – Probably, 6) Ticket to Ride -Yes, 7) Starcraft – No, 8 ) Memoir ’44 – Maybe, BattleLore – Probably, 9) Zombies!!! – Yes, and 10) Pirate’s Cove – Maybe. Do you see a pattern? I was scratching my head – remember, this person used to live for Risk, a famously long game where two players battle it out in the end.  We narrowed it down to a historical or period-piece kind of game – Setttlers, Puerto Rico, Ticket To Ride, Shadows, Memoir, BattleLore, Pirates, and Zombies (he is a movie buff, and everyone loves zombies!).
• Dice rolling and card-picking strategy games are different – There will be a more full review of some of the Rio Grande games coming soon, but I got to play three of them, so far. I was again surprised by the result. I had a friend over to try Key Harvest with me and my wife. The game was a roaring success and she said “I bet my husband will like this more than Settlers” (her husband is the video guy). I did not expect to like a game about farming – but it was a deeper game than the theme seemed. I took Oregon and Airships to my friend’s place (the one that played Starcraft).  Oregon was a huge success – so much so that we played twice. Airships, on the other hand was kind of tedious for us. We did not really enjoy the extra math and dice structuring it required – neither of us were fans of games like Yahtzee and the like.

So, the big question asked in the title is not as clear as you might think, but once you find your groove, you can go with it and feel strong in your choice. I suggest you try games once or twice before you decide to give it a thumbs up or down. Trying to learn a game greatly influences your ability to enjoy it. My wife won’t go near Starcraft after we spent several hours trying to learn it.

I have one more story, before I close. The same day I took Oregon and Airships to my friend’s house, I also made a daring move and opened a copy of War of the Ring – the large Fantasy Flight game based on Lord of the Rings. I am a big fan of the movies, as is my friend. But, after my experiences with Starcraft and Arkham Horror, I was a bit frightened at the complexity it was going to have. Thankfully there was an introductory version of the rules – but they played very similar to Risk. We liked the game and want to take it further and get into the more advanced rules, but when it was done, we both said “How about another game of Oregon?”. We had been at it all day, so the answer was no…but we kept going back to the simplicity.

So, what kind of gamer am I? I will write another post about that…later.