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Let's start with Quilt Show, the only new title on display from Rio Grande Games, with co-designers Judy Martin (r) and Steve Bennett (m) on hand for part of the show to demo their game. Quilt Show was one of four winners of a 2009 game design contest, and two dozen copies were available for purchase ahead of the game's general retail release in July 2014.
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Since my mom is also a Judy Martin who has done some quilting in her time, I thought it appropriate to try out the game, so designer Judy and I competed in a head-to-head Martin match-up.
Quilt Show has the feeling of Ticket to Ride crossed with Alhambra in that each turn you either draft fabric cards or use those cards to purchase quilt blocks on display. The cards come in six colors as well as two-color combinations and wild cards that feature all colors; six patterns of quilt blocks are included, and you use n+2 stacks, with n = number of players. Each quilt block is one of the six colors, and it bears a value of 2, 3 or 5, with you needing to discard 1, 2 or 3 cards to buy a block depending on its value. Each time you buy a block, time passes, with you being able to buy up to four blocks a turn and taking one time marker for you each block you purchase.
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When time runs out, everyone uses the blocks they've acquired to create quilt of particular sizes, with all the blocks in a quilt needing to be the same color or pattern. (While I normally think of myself as somewhat particular in terms of how I organize game bits, apparently I'm not averse to throwing together quilt blocks in any old manner. Perhaps I've finally shaken that gamer OCD after all.)
Each player has markers labeled 1-3, and you can choose to add one marker to a quilt, if desired. Once you're all set, everyone reveals their quilts, and the highest value quilts earn money for their creators. Remaining quilt blocks and cards carry over to the next round, and after three rounds, whoever has the most money wins.
As you can tell from the description, Quilt Show features game elements familiar to most folks who visit BGG, but I love that this subject matter, combined with a game that can be learned and taught easily, could serve as an entry point for new gamers. Martin has written many quilting books and seems to be well-known in the quilting community (from my admittedly limited experience), so I can imagine a few write-ups of the game in quilting magazines.
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Carey Grayson's Pandemic: Contagion, due to debut at Gen Con 2014 in August, was being demoed by Z-Man Games. I'm not sure whether the disease specimen trays are showing up in this game or were being used only for the demo. For details on the game, check out my preview on BGGN. Man, that one guy is eyeing me like I'm the antidote to his plague...
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Robert Dougherty and Darwin Kastle's Star Realms from White Wizard Games had spots for fifteen demo games at once, and the seats were almost always full. Lots of games being played after hours, too. Amazing to see so much demo space devoted to a $15 card game, but as I understand it, space is cheap at Origins.
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Monster Truck Mayhem, designed by Matt Riddle (l) and Ben Pinchback (r) and coming from Dice Hate Me Games in 2015, is a real-time dice-rolling game in which you're trying to take your truck through an obstacle course faster than anyone else.
Each player rolls three dice, with each die featuring the numbers 1-3, a tire, a lightning bolt, and something else I can't recall. I must be getting old. Everyone rolls at the same time, and you can set aside any dice that you want to save, then roll the remaining dice. If you get a pair of numbers, you can choose to call out that number, move that many spaces, then reroll those dice; if you roll a three-of-a-kind, you must move ahead, which could be bad as you might land on spinout spaces that require you to roll tires in order to start moving again. The path includes shortcuts that require you to roll specific results in order to clear them, and the game will include multiple boards so that you can shorten or lengthen the race as desired. Lots of hooting and yelling in this one.
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Kobolds Ate My Baby! is a role-playing game from Ninth Level Games, which has published a spin-off card game titled Knuckle Sammich: A Kobolds Ate My Baby! Card Game. This game has been available in a print-and-play edition and a DriveThruCards edition printed on demand, and will be available in an honest-to-goodness published edition around August 2014.
This game, credited to Daniel Landis and Christopher O'Neill, plays much like Love Letter in that players hold one card in hand, draw one card each turn, then play and use the power of one of their cards. If you look at Cheat, Fork and Bite in the image below, you'll notice that the card powers are identical to the powers on the similarly numbered cards in Love Letter.
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That said, Knuckle Sammich accommodates 2-7 players and includes more cards with varied powers, including a -1 and π. Every game should fit π in somewhere.
In August 2014, Ninth Level Games also plans to start a Kickstarter project for Schrödinger's Cats, a Liar's Dice-style card game in which players have a hand of cards labeled Dead, Live, Empty or Heisenberg (of the Uncertainty Principle). Players take turns laying one or more cards face up or face down, drawing new cards in some circumstances, and making a claim about the contents of the boxes that have been revealed and in players' hands. Heisenberg boxes contain dead cats, contain live cats, and are empty, with the most recent claim determining their contents.
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