by Ambie Valdés

Last weekend I went to my second MeepleCon, a board game convention in Las Vegas! The convention was three days, but we ended up getting a flight early Sunday morning to go home (other flights were a lot more expensive), so we were only there on Friday and Saturday. But we still had tons of fun playing games!

I played 22 plays of 15 different games at the convention (plus some Craps), 8 of which were new to me. The most played and my favorite new game was The Mind, a new cooperative card game where you have to play the cards in order without talking! Jess had a copy that she borrowed from Scott Alden and was bringing it around to everyone at the convention to try out. It was really hard and a lot of fun, and I really want to get it. Unfortunately, it's currently only available in Germany, but I heard that it will be coming over soon.

Ambie, Cassadi, and Crystal discuss some games they've played recently, including Brass: Lancashire, Paperback, and Clank!: Sunken Treasures. We then talk about board games that trap you or you have to escape. In this week's "Board Game Etymology" segment, Crystal discusses the origins of the word "escape."

by Ambie Valdés

This weekend over Memorial Day weekend, I got to attend HeavyCon for the first time! HeavyCon is a convention run by Heavy Cardboard, a podcast about heavier board games (heavy Euros, 18xx games, and wargames). There were 90 attendees, and since everyone was there to play heavy games, it was easy finding people to play pick up games of heavy economic games and 18xx games! Toby and I typically don't schedule games at conventions, and this one was no exception.

Over the weekend (Thursday-Sunday), I had 23 plays of 22 unique games. A bunch of the games were new to me, and 3 of the games were 18xx games (although those weren't new to me)!

by Ambie Valdés

This year was my husband (Toby) and my first year at BGG.CON, and it was amazing. I tried out 53 distinct games, 49 of which were new to me (some were really quick dexterity games). I'm obviously not going to go over every game I played (you can see what I played here, but here are some highlights of the convention for me.

One of the best things at BGG.CON is the library. The library is HUGE. A whole conference room is filled with board games on all the walls, a lot of which are brand new games from Essen! There was also a section in the main hall with a lot of the hot games set up so that people could play them. Because BGG.CON is right after Essen, it was great for trying out all those games I've been hearing about the past month.