RogerBW's Blog

Mini-TringCons are all-day house gaming events run by the organiser of TringCon, in Deepest Buckinghamshire. Images follow: cc-by-sa on everything.

The games began with Isle of Skye, which continues to be quite enjoyable. In particular, while having a Carcassone-style tile laying mechanic, it doesn't drag out for ages the way Carcassone does. I still came in last by a large margin, but at least I had fun doing it.

Then Leaving Earth, which wasn't as much of a success as last time, as two of the players lost track of the mission planning, and therefore weren't having much fun while the other two raced to get a sample of Venusian life back to Earth.

I think I need to write a Book of Mission Plans, so that players who are getting started can get a bit of a leg up rather than having to calculate everything from first principles.

Some of us hadn't played Colt Express, so we gave that a try next. I played Ghost this time, and felt I was getting a bit more of a handle on the game than I have on previous occasions. (I also won, but we were all within $1,000 of each other, and without the Shootiest Bandit award – which I always try for when I'm playing this game – I'd have come last.)

Finally Cacao again, which continues to be good fun. It's another tile-laying game, but with interesting tweaks, and scoring based on alternating tiles rather than completing areas. It's very hard to tell who's doing well as the game's going on, and in fact I won this one by a fairly narrow margin.