Spent two happy days at the LinCon 2016 gaming convention in Linköping. 1500 gaming geeks of all ages from newborn to dotage, and with a very good gender balance. The only age/gender demographic that was visibly missing was old women. But brown and black people were sadly almost entirely absent. My own main complaint though was that for the first time neither of my kids came along to the convention.
This year I didn't learn any new games, but I taught a couple and I took part (rather ineptly) in a little Blokus tournament. Here's what I played, all enjoyable games that I recommend.
- Agricola (2007). Build the best farm in Early Modern Germany! Worker placement and resource management.
- Glass Road (2013). Build the best glassworks & brickworks in Early Modern Germany! Resource management. By Uwe Rosenberg who designed Agricola, Bohnanza and more.
- Caylus (2005). Build the worker's village at one of Louis the Fair's castle construction projects. Worker placement and resource management.
- Elysium (2015). Collect sets of cards under the vague pretence of constructing your own version of Greek mythology.
- Tobago (2009). Find buried treasure by adding successive scraps of treasure map that constrain the set of possible spots until only one remains.
- Dominion (2008). Deck building.
- Kingdom Builder (2011). Settle land according to recombinant rules that make for a different game each time. By Donald X. Vaccarino who designed Dominion.
- Blokus (2000). Abstract.
- Repello (2010). Abstract.
- Heckmeck (2005). Abstract. By Reiner Knizia who designed Tigris & Euphrates, Samurai and more.
2016 was my fourth LinCon after 2010 and 2013 with Jr, and 2015 with Jrette.
Always free tea at LinCon!
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