Along with Fantastic Fest and, recently, GenCon, BGG is something that I now look forward to every year. A comparatively small convention (only about 700 people this year), the Dallas-based convention focuses exclusively on board games.

The highlight reel:

Although Agricola is still hugely popular, it came out at last year’s BGG. This year the new hotness was definitely Dominion. When describing the game, most people reached for the easiest comparison: Magic the Gathering. More specifically, the deck building mechanic and the strategy of playing from your graveyard. You essentially build your deck as you play, trying to saturate your deck with certain cards in order to increase the odds of drawing specific combos. Your victory points are also cards, effectively useless for anything but points at the end. So you have to decide if you want to go for a bunch of the low hanging 3s and fill your deck with cards that do nothing, or hold out for more valuable but more expensive single cards.

Battlestar Galactica – This came out at GenCon and I dismissed it as an effort to capitalize on the show’s IP. But then I noticed that everyone around me was playing it. This turned out to be my favorite game. It is nominally a co-op game where all the players are humans aboard the Galactica trying to survive long enough to jump the fleet away from danger. Each character has different strengths and weaknesses and these roles must be carefully managed through player discussion and compromise. These mechanics alone are enough to make the game good, but the game’s real hook makes it fantastic: one or more of the players is a Cylon trying to make sure the humans fail. The Cylon players secretly thwart the humans for as long as possible before they are discovered. Plus, halfway through the game you do a Sleeper Agent phase, where one or more humans turn into Cylons or Cylon sympathizers. Great game with an added meta game of trust and betrayal.

In our first game, as President Tom Zarak, I led the fleet to Kobol in spite of Chief Tyrol, Admiral Adama and Baltar’s treachery. In the second game, the Galactica was crippled by a massive Cylon fleet consisting of every enemy ship in the game. While we hemmorraged resources, we turned to our Chief Engineer, Tyrol, to repair the ship. He then gleefully revealed his true Cylon face, retreating to the resurreciton ship as the Galactica burned up.

Duck Dealer – A game of intergalactic trade. You plot trade routes, carrying cargo from planet to planet, combining items to form more valuable commodities. The hitch is that every time you take an action, it brings the game closer to ending. So you can’t just frivolously move to a planet and trade only one item. Instead you program out a complex chain of actions, hoping that you have accumulated enough resources to execute them. It was like playing chess and planning ahead 20 moves. I won the game, but it broke my brain.

Ghost Stories – Another co-op game. In this one, the players are Chinese warriors who must defend their village from wave after wave of invading ghosts. While I liked this game and the co-operative strategies were tasty, I didn’t like the growing sense of hopelessness and dread the game creates. You essentially begin the game in a last stand situation and it just gets worse. You run from station to station fighting off ghosts and that is all you do.

Garden Competition – Last year we poked through the vast BGG game library, looking for rare, weird, and unknown games. Garden Competition was just such a jewel and we revisited it again this year. Players are trying to create the best garden in time for the annual competition. The judges are looking for things like “Does this garden have any Impatiens?” or “Does this garden have a variety of yellow flowers?” But this criteria starts out secret, with each player knowing only a few things that judges are looking for. Only through schmoozing and careful study of opponent’s gardens can one glean clues as to how to grow the most awesome garden. In the end it was a close race, but Andre blew us away with his mad gardening skills.

Dark Tower – Truly a nostalgic treat. Steven found a working copy of Dark Tower in the library. It needed only fresh batteries to bring it to life. As a child I had coveted this game, but it was insanely expensive and forever out of reach. So this was the first time I played it. The electronic tower was incredibly primitive and charming, but must have seemed like a magical artifact in the 80s. I watched with delight as it whirred and beeped, displaying the results of a combat with brigands by lighting up translucent images and updating an LED display. After a few turns, it was simple to figure out its internal logic and essentially game the system. Still, it was the fulfillment of a childhood dream.

Space Alert – Wow, this was crazy fun. This game was a combination of Robo Rally, Space Dealer and Galaxy Trucker (it was actually set in the same universe as Galaxy Trucker). Like Space Dealer, the game lasts a finite amount of time, kept track of by an audio CD. In this case it was 7 minutes. You play crew members on a ship tasked to warp into a hot zone, map it and warp out. The ship is fully automated, so the crew just has to worry about fighting off alien invaders while it maps the sector. Players get a hand of cards to program out their moves, Robo Rally style. One player takes on the role of captain, directing the rest of the crew on how best to make use of their cards. The ship’s lasers must be fired, shields activated and energy replenished, all in correct order. If players don’t communicate about what they are doing, you could end up firing the laser before it has a target or draining all the energy so there isn’t any left for the shields. Meanwhile, the communications officer has to pay attention to the audio cd and warn everyone of incoming threats and upcoming data transfers (when players can trade cards). There are two CDs worth of missions, plus downloadable audio tracks.

The vendors were there in full force again, tempting us from the wings with numerous ways to unload money. A new vendor this year was Low Tech games who blew me away with their prices. Pretty much online prices minus tax or shipping. So I picked up all the big box Arkham Horror expansions and Dominion for about $30 each. Over at the Rio Grande/Some Other Company booth, I picked up a Carcassonne mini expansion. Then I looked at the new Catapult expansion. Now, most people know I am a Carcassonne whore and I will buy pretty much anything with that name on it. But this was going too far. $18 for a wooden catapult that actually launched whimsical meeple tiles into the air? Really? It looked more like a Board 2 Pieces tie-in than something to do with building castles in France.

And then there was the flea market. Oh man, this was like board game Christmas. Imagine a neighborhood yard sale crossed with the frenetic energy of a crowded Cairo marketplace. For one hour we were crushed into one of the overflow rooms to haggle and snatch up insane deals before someone else came along. $15 for Return of the Heroes AND the expansion? Yes, please! I also came away with Amun-Re, Kill Doctor Lucky and Dungeon Twister. And, had I known it was only $10, I would have snatched up that old school electronic Dungeons & Dragons game.

All in all, it was a fantastic four days of board gaming. I look forward to next year. In the meantime I must plan a massive game of Arkham Horror…