RichieCon 2025 had a lot of drama this year!  We had to get a new venue this year because of … reasons. 

New Venue

For RichieCon 2025, we had to go looking for a new venue.  We ended up at Fruchthendler Elementary School!

This venue was great! It was a little expensive to rent it for two days, but it was spacious and easy set-up in!  The cafeteria had plenty of tables!

It even had a stage which we used some presentations (see below).

The best part of the new venue was the sound baffling!  The major complaint we always got from the Rec Center was how LOUD it was.   With the Sound baffles all over the cafeteria, that was not a problem this year!

Because of the cost, we engaged a Sponsor to help defray the costs: Thanks to Return From Subroutine Games for helping out!  See their website here!

Day -1: Getting Coolers

Because of the new venue, we don’t have a refrigerator any more! So, I had to put the call out to all my friends to get coolers to store drinks and perishables in!  In the weeks leading up to RichieCon 2025, I collected about 10 coolers!

We actually ended up having too many coolers, but that’s a good problem to have!

Day 0: Boxception and Sleeve-It!

We end up playing some games as we get ready for RIchieCon … but they aren’t the funnest games in the world!

The Wednesday before RichieCon has become Boxception: The Cooperative Dexterity game of putting boxes in other boxes! 

We end up putting about 200 games into 20 boxes over the night! (Some boxes have tons of games, some have just a few!)

We also spend some time playing “Sleeve-It!”  In this case, Teresa played a solo game of “Sleeve-It!” with the Lord of the Rings Trick-Taking game!

Day 1: The Secret RichieCon House

A large contingent of people rent an AirBNB and stay near Fruchthendler so that it’s easy to go back and forth: it also is a great place to game before everyone arrives!  Most of the out-of-towners end up here over the course of Friday before we have access to Fruchthendler!

Day 2:  RichieCon 2025 Starts!

Day 3, The Last Day: RichieCon 2025

Top 6 Interesting Games Since Last Year!

On Saturday of RichieCon, we like to do a little show to bring the RichieCon Community together! In that show, we discuss some games that drew our attention since the last year.  The purpose of this list is to give people some ideas of games to play for the remainder of RichieCon! Without further ado, here’s our 6 questions with answers from Richie, Kurt, and Sam!

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

Richie: The Secrets of Zorro.  This fun little cooperative game didn’t have a very big Kickstarter, but me and friends really liked it!  It’s quick, it’s fun, and very thematic!  Good Surprise! See our review here to see if you might like it!
Kurt: Wandering Galaxy; disappointing given the awesomeness of Forgotten Waters & Freelancers Sam: Luddite. From watching the comic book into video on the wall in the man cave I was expecting it to be very story driven and thematic and RPG-like. It turned out to be a very fun roll and write that had none of that. See Richie’s review here.

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

Richie: Tales of Arthurian Knights.  This game went over like gang-busters in my group, getting played multiple times and getting borrowed for birthday parties!  All of my friends gave it a strong 8.5 (maybe 9), but the the Dice Tower seemed less enthusiastic and only gave it a 6 or 6.5.  We were very surprised!  We loved it!  See our Review here.

Kurt: THE GANG! Tom Vasel didn’t like this game very much, but my group (Kurt’s group) loved loved this game! 

Sam: Soul Raiders. Tom V. thought it was great end gave it an 8. I wanted to like it because it has great art and a great premise but ended up being too random and grindy for the story driven feel that it was giving off. My final score 5.5.  See our thoughts here.

#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?

Richie: I bought and sold two games because I disliked them so much.  Corps of Discovery: in a game where one resource can mean the difference between winning and losing, the rules needed to be tighter.  It didn’t land for me (I gave it a 4/10), but it might for you.   The Dice Tower and other reviewers seem to like this game (9/10), so try it for yourself to see if you might like it.  See our thoughts here.    I also wanted to like Freedom Five sooooooo muuuucch, but I ended up hating it and selling it. I am still very depressed about this: see our very different review here.

Kurt: Bear Mountain Camping Adventure.  It’s all Richie’s fault; he pointed me at the game! I backed it, but when it came in, it wasn’t fun even though the production was gorgeous.

Sam: I don’t actually have one this year… Perhaps because I’ve been both buying and playing less this year I’ve been more selective (sorry Rich) and haven’t both bought and played a game I didn’t like. EDITOR: to be fair, part of Rich’s job is to review games, so he’ll take chances more

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

Richie: Aeon’s End: The Descent.  Aeon’s End is a great cooperative deck-building game with mages working together fighting the Big Bad.  Aeon’s End: The Descent is a standalone expansion in the same universe, but adds the The Friends and Foes module!  This module makes Aeon’s End a little more balanced as it tends to mitigate the Variable Turn Order problems! See our review here for more discussion.

Kurt: Forest Shuffle (Alpine & Woodland Edge)
Sam: Townsfolk Tussle: Foul Neighbors. We played with the expansion characters and bosses and it worked great. Our final battle ended in the perfect cartoon way of pushing the plunger on the dynamite and blowing up both the outhouse and the big bad in one shot. (EDITOR: It was so fun! That’s why it made our Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2024!)

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

Richie: Marvel United Season 3/Multiverse.  It’s not even close: I spent so much time playing the content of Season 3 and I had so much fun. Sentinels of the Multiverse used to be my favorite game of all time, but I think Marvel United has supplanted it!

Kurt: Tie: Fromage & Fellowship of the Ring Trick taking game

Sam: Limiting to only those released in the last year: Fellowship of the Ring trick taking game. It’s light, fast, thematic to the story, plays well, and is easy to just keep playing and lose track of time while going through the different chapters.  Expanding to played no matter release date: Imperium (specifically classics). I really enjoyed how each civilization feels and plays differently from each other even though they all share common market decks and basic mechanics.

Solsbury Hill

It’s become a tradition that every year, Joe must sing a parody song and make everyone laugh.  This year, I helped and together Joe and I penned the parody Fruchthendler (sung to the tune of Solsbury Hill) as a means to vent our frustration of getting unceremoniously kicked out of the Rec Center.  It’s mostly meant in jest, but with a little heartfelt sentinement!  We also had the audience participate with Kazoos.  No joke. Thanks for Mike H. for directing the world’s greatest kazoo group!  See lyrics below, and video below that!!!

Fruchthendler – sung to the tune of Solsbury Hill

Driving up to Fruchthendler
I could see the parking lot
Left the public defender
Firebird is our new mascot   (Firebird is the mascot of Fruchthendler Elementary school)

This was something of a mess,
Called HOA, they had disclosed
Richie Con would be suppressed
Through attrition, I got hosed

I called Cthulu in frustration
The Swim Team cancelled my reservation,
It’s like that game of Gloom Gloom Gloom,
“Joe”, I said,
“Grab your games, we’re going to clone the zone”

Yeah, clone some zones

The Aquatics had made me blind
The chlorine spewed out from my guts
Our holy grail had been maligned
Our old game venue had been cut

So I bravely ran away
Quest to find a new place to hut
With my minstrels Joe and Mike
And where’d you get them coconuts?

I was feeling down in chicanery

Highly Overbearing Authority  (stop song in cheesy fashion to point out that we satirically re-acronymed HOA)
They won that game of Gloom Gloom Gloom”
“Mike”, I said,
“Grab your games, we’re moving Richie-Con”

Hey –like your mom…

Found a new place to play our games
It’s probably when we want to be
Because of HOA I have no claims
To a place I thought was free

Screwed by faceless bureaucrats
Who close their gates to my party
Add one to my gaming stats–
In their pool, I will pee                –soon as I saw “pee,” I had to go there…

I’m not afraid of their displacement
Even if I have to pay rent
I won that game of Gloom Gloom Gloom
“Kurt”, I said,
“Keep your games, and come to Richie Con!”

“Wha!”

“Hey!”

“Con!”

Most Played Games

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition was played quite a bit! I personally saw at least 3 plays of it!

By far the most played game was Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking game!  We had sleeved it just before, and it was good thing we did!  It was pretty much always being played!

I saw Lon teaching Nana (Japanese version of Trio) quite a bit!

I saw Aeon’s End: Descent played a number of times!

Weird Games

Lon brought a lot of weird games from Japan.

 DroPolter (above) was this weird one like Jacks where you grab things on the table, but can’t drop anything!

Toy Story is a cooperative memory game ONLY in Japan! It was my birthday present!

Nana is the original Japanese game that’s the inspiration for Trio!

There were several RPGs going too!

Kurt R. brought the original Dark Tower game … and it worked!  Did you know that they stored the values in BCD in 128-Nibble RAM memory?  Josh looked it up!  This game is from 1981!!!

Conclusion

After all was said and done, was it worth it?  I think so! I got to see friends from out of town and play games with everyone for my birthday, and that’s what I wanted!

What will happen next year?  I really don’t know!  This was a very expensive and stressful year because of the events leading to the venue change.   I love the new venue, but it is expensive.  Will we come back?  Come back next year and find out!