RichieCon 2024 has come and gone!  This year there were some twists and turns, but everything worked out in the end!  For those of you who don’t know: RichieCon 2024 is the gathering of Richie and his friends … honestly, it’s just an excuse to play games every year!  It’s not even really a Con, but we like to put a little pomp into it to make it sound more bombastic.  This is actually the 10th year of RichieCon, but only the 9th actual convocation (as we skipped a year for CoVid).   

This year’s RichieCon 2024 token is cool: it’s actually hollowed out and you can only see the year and RTS symbol if you hold it up to the light! See above!  You need the Token to get into the Con, and it can only be obtained through “secret means!”  (Find me or Max in the Hall).  Thanks to Josh M. for designing it and Max M. for printing it!

The name RichieCon is a bit of a joke: I asked my friend Kurt many many years ago:
“Hey, you wanna go this board game convention that’s far away?” 

Kurt said, “Man! That’s like a $1000 plane ticket and then a $1000 hotel bill!  Why don’t you host your own convention and call it RichieCon! It’ll be a lot cheaper!”

And thus, RichieCon was born.

PreCon

The week before RichieCon is a lot of putting boxes in boxes.  To have some semblance of order, I try to put related games in bigger boxes and label what’s in there.  See the “hot games” box above!

Sam and Teresa and Sara usually come over and help me put everything together. A big thanks to those three for all their help this year! See some of the boxes we put together above!  

RichieCon Day 0: Secret RichieCon House

RichieCon has a lot of out of town guests that come into town a day early (Friday) and randomly show up with no place to go.  I learned many years ago that it’s nice to have a “secret” RichieCon house for out-of-town guests to hang out on Friday before the Con.  

The “secret” RichieCon house is modeled after the out-of-towners dinner you have for out-of-town guests for a wedding. It’s a way to say “thank you” for coming from so far away! This year, we had guests from Portland WA, Austin TX, Denver CO, Phoenix AZ, Las Cruces NM, Albuquerque NM, and from as far away as Madison WI!

RichieCon Day 1: Morning Pivot!

RichieCon Day 1 hit a scheduling SNAFU, so we had to pivot and hold RichieCon Day 1 partly at the “secret” RichieCon house!  I guess it’s not so secret anymore!

Thanks to everyone who helped me move boxes and boxes and boxes of games to the “secret” RichieCon house! I couldn’t have done it without Sam, Charlie, Jeremy, Joe, Kurt, and a bunch of other people I didn’t see moving boxes because I was so busy! RichieCon is a community effort!

RichieCon Day 1: Part II!  This Time, It’s Personal

Once we got into the Rec Center for the second half of the day, many games were played!

RichieCon Day 2: More Games!

Sound Mitigation

If you have ever been to a board game convention, you know there is a lot of background noise.  We had some issues last year with the background noise being too much, so we tried some sound mitigation techniques.  Basically, the Rec Center has very hard sonic surfaces, so sound bounces and echoes a little too much.  Luckily, the Rec Center bought a fairly large carpet (see above) to help with some of that.

We also bought 5 CostCo rugs (for $18 each) to augment the sound mitigation of the  hard sonically bright floors. See above and below.

I also have some friends who work in theater and they were able to hang up up some “quilts” on the wall:

These quilts (see above) were hanging and absorbed some of the sound.

The general consensus was that the rugs and quilts all helped, but not quite as much as we hoped.  We will probably hang more quilts and get more rugs for next year!  Thanks to Becca and Jeff for providing the hanging quilts!

Games of the Con

I think the game of the Con was Slay The Spire!  I saw this game played more than any other game!  I think I taught it 3 to 4 times over the course of 3 days and it was played more time than that! See above!

Flock Together was pretty popular! I saw this played a bunch of times! See above!

The Cat Box was a running joke: “Play Games from the Cat Box!”  But, there were a lot of games played from here! Race To The Raft!  Cat In The Box!  Hissy Fit!  Power Hungry Pets! I saw all of those games played at least once!

The Astro Knight games were popular: I saw both the base game and Astro Knights Eternity being played!  I suspect that’s my fault … see below …

Casting Shadows was quite popular! I think that was played at least 3 times!

The weirdest game I played was the RPG Fiasco: It reminded me a lot of Spirit of 77!  The point is to make each other laugh as you make up crazy stuff!

Forest Shuffle may have the other big game of the Con after Slay The Spire: Kurt taught this game many many times!  See above!

SO many great games played!  Set A Watch! See above!

Leviathan Wilds was also quite popular!  I taught that at least three times, and I saw other people playing it!

Interesting Games

Every year, we stop the Con for a little bit to have a “meeting of the souls” where we all talk about our favorite board games! It’s a chance for everyone to give feedback on games they’ve enjoyed since last we met!!  The real point of this is to try to recommend games that people might be interested in.  What happens is that we recommend games, and then we end up teaching them the rest of the Con! 

#6 What game from the last year surprised you the most?  Good or bad surprise?

Rich:

Slay The Spire was a huge surprise to me! I almost didn’t back it on Kickstarter, but wow! My games groups loved it and it was probably the most played game at RichieCon!

Sam:

 – Hissy Fit. It’s a light, fast, cute game about getting your cat into the carrier to go to the vet. It is also surprisingly fun to play.

#5 What game in the last year do you disagree with reviewers on?”

Rich:

Two weeks ago, Daybreak won the Spiel Des Jahres.  Everybody seems to love this game except for me. I generally love Matt Leacock designs, but this one felt way too random for me.

Sam:

Tom Vasel didn’t like Race to the Raft. However, I really enjoyed the puzzley nature of creating the path and moving the cats to get them all off the island.

#4 What game (that you paid for) did you really dislike? It’s easy to dislike games other people paid for, but what did you pay for that you disliked?

Rich:
The cooperative expansion for Valroc: The Legend of Aquiny.  The base game of Valroc is a card-drafting, worker placement game that’s pretty good.  The cooperative expansion looked cool with campaign envelopes, but the limited communication was too limited and the very very slow upgrade paths made this not fun.  I would still recommend people try the base game Valroc.

Sam:

I picked up a copy of Call to Adventure (a story crafting game) and felt kind of meh about my plays of it. I’m hopeful that it may grow on me as I play more and actually get the rules all the way right.

#3 What game that came out in the last year that you liked but other’s didn’t?

Rich:

Gotham City Chronicles: Solo and Co-operative Expansion.  This was so much work to get to the point where I could play solo (6 days of reading and printing and setting-up), but in the end I had fun.  I don’t think most people like Gotham City Chronicles, especially Shut-Up & Sit-Down, because it’s so much work. But I still like it!

 

Sam:

 

Almost Innocent. I really enjoyed the logic puzzle aspect of it. Richie didn’t enjoy it but was also really tired that night and not necessarily sharp enough to do heavy logical deduction.

#2 What was your favorite expansion that came out in the last year?

Rich: 
Set A Watch: the new stand-alone expansion and the Set A Watch: Doomed Run! (Strictly speaking, they came from the same kickstarter)!  I love this system because even if you roll badly, you can still place dice on powers to activate them!

Sam:

– +1 on Set a Watch: Doomed Run. I only played one of the missions but it was fun to play the characters that were assigned to me and use their powers and items. The two I had ended up chaining together pretty well.

To be different:: Astro Knights Eternity. It’s a good cooperative deck building game and the story parts surrounding the scenario were really good too.

#1 What was your favorite game that came out in the last year?

Rich:

A cooperative bag-building super hero game set in the unique world of Invincicble?  Sign me up!  This game was so much better than I expected, the upgrade paths makes this game engaging and keep you involved!

 

Sam:

 

+1 to Invincible (Richie) and World Wonders (Kurt)

 

To be different: Age of Civilization. It’s a really tight worker placement game where you draft your unique civilization powers which include number of workers and then use your workers to research technology, get money, build wonders, and go to war to get victory points. Bonus points: it’s a small box, has good solo modes, and takes 45 minutes to an hour.

 

Theme Song

During the “meeting of souls” and sharing of games, Joe shared with us his version of the theme Song for RichieCon!  Sung to the tune of the Suffragette City by David Bowie!  And yes, the entire room said said “Hey Man!” at the appropriate places!

RichieCon City: sung to the tune of Suffragette City by David Bowie (new lyrics by Junkerman)

Hey Man, you gotta play in the game
Hey Man, custom pieces ain’t no shame!
Hey Man, your kickstarter is drear.
She said your package should be shipping by the end of the year

Hey Man, you really gotta choose
Hey Man, which game you gonna lose
Hey Man, you better learn all the rules
She said you’re getting killed by Sauron or the Cult of Cthulu

[Chorus]
Oh don’t lean on us man cuz you can’t defeat the wizard
I’m back in RichieCon City!
Well don’t lean on me man cuz you blew up all the kittens
You know my RichieCon City!
It’s outta sight, it’s alright!

Conclusion

As we bring all the games back to the house …

As we clean the Rec Center and put it back the way it was ..

And we lock the door .. heading home … we wonder …. was it all worth it?

Yes! It was! It so much fun to see everyone, despite the issues! We look forward to seeing everyone next year!