Gen Con 2024 games wrap-up, part 2/2
About: In a town of artisans, small dragons with certain specialties collect goods to create enchantments and expand the town’s shops.
How to play: Players draw dragon cards and place them on shop cards to gather resources, improve the shops, and eventually build new ones. Your Reputation is your score, earned by enchanting shops, building up new ones, doing good deeds for other players, and through bonus cards and such.
My thoughts: I’ve seen this game around for a while but hadn’t been dying to play it, and got a ticket for the event because nothing else at the same time jumped out at me; yes, it’s a game about cute dragons, but does it have anything else?
What I didn’t count on was just how cute the dragons are. And it turned out to be a pretty fun game, too. Another chill game in which you’re just trying to build your own success rather than try to sabotage anyone else’s. There was some randomness factor with drawing cards, but nothing that relied on luck. Thinking back on it now, I can’t really identify what made it such an enjoyable game to play (aside from the absolutely adorable, top-tier art and the delightfully punny names), but I certainly had a good time playing it.
My rating: Literally the cutest. Sorry, Calico.
A Message from the Stars
About: A mysterious alien race is sending humanity a message, and it’s up to you to decode it.
How to play: A GM and a team/teams of players each secretly and randomly select three words from a list. Each side gives single-word clues to the other. However, the GM also has a set of letters that players have to guess, based solely on the scoring of the letters in the clue words. Players must deduce what these secret letters are, after which each side tries to guess the words chosen at the beginning.
My thoughts: I didn’t really remember what this game’s description was by the time Gen Con came around, but it turned out to be far more cerebral—and far less thematic—than I anticipated. It also felt very much like two separate games: determining the secret letters was the bulk of the game play, with guessing the words coming in almost as an afterthought. Trying to figure out the letters was a serious exercise in logic, and in the end, my game partner, another demo agent, and I had to resort to guessing a couple of them. (Guessing the words was a simple matter of association and most likely answer.)
Ultimately, I really liked the logic of the letter guessing aspect, but it would take a particular type of player to find the enjoyment in it, and the word-guessing part seemed disjointed and unnecessary. Plus, I was expecting something a bit more alien-oriented and it was decidedly… not.
My rating: Good bones, limited appeal
The Worst Game Ever
About: By combining the most hated tabletop game mechanics, the designer truly created the Worst Game Ever.
How to play: You have chips. You draw cards. The cards do what they tell you and then you try to steal other players’ chips. Game ends when somebody’s out of chips. If you’ve played Fluxx, it plays similarly. The deck includes such classic actions as “table flip” (remove all “stays in play” cards), “I Know the Designer” (makes all dice rolls against you more difficult), and Useless Card (stays in play, does nothing).
My thoughts: At 11:00 p.m. on a Friday night with a group of friends, this game was hilarious. The designer knew exactly what he was doing. We consistently broke the game (only occasionally by using the “Break the Game” card) and had an absolute blast doing so. I suspect it takes the right crowd to appreciate this game, but it certainly nailed it for us.
My rating: 10/10, would definitely complain about dice rolls and sing random songs again
