International TableTop Day at Hex and Co.

Saturday, April 28th was International Tabletop Day, a celebration of board games, role playing games and other games played at the table with people. While 2018 marks the 6th year of this particular celebration, it was my first. I've long been a proponent of tabletop gaming: my cousins raised me on the classics and I started discovering a more diverse range of games in my mid-to-late 20s thanks to PAX East. I decided to venture out to Hex and Co. on Manhattan's Upper West Side and participate in their activities for the day.

An outside shot of Hex and Co. (photo from Fault Line Theater)

HEX AND CO.

Hex and Company is a relatively new (opened in 2017) board game cafe just a few blocks away from Columbia University, and across the street from Tom's Restaurant (of Seinfeld fame). There's about a dozen tables for customers to sit down and play some board games, of which there are ample quantities. For ITTD, there were a few tables in the front reserved for game designers demonstrating their games. There were also promotional items for people coming in to celebrate ITTD for games like Castle Panic (a personal favorite). There was also a raffle going on every now and then, with a few board games given away as prizes. The event was fairly attended, as I was there for 6 - 7 hours and the shop was never less than 75% occupied for that time. This is my second time going to Hex and Co., and both times have been quite enjoyable. The clientele there was very diverse too, and the bustle and excitement to play games was enjoyable to be around.

THE DEMOS

There were six games exhibiting during the day, with two rotating in later in the day. My friend and I were able to play through five of the six, for more information, click on the titles of each game:

SOMEONE HAS DIED: Someone Has Died is a card game I have a lot of experience with. I first encountered it at PAX East 2017, in the Kickstarter/Indie Booth. Someone Has Died is a social card game with a simple premise: the players are brought together by an arbiter who has to divvy up the estate of a deceased person (the identity of the deceased and their estate are determined by the arbiter, with the help of an identity card from the deck). The players must argue on their own behalf for the inheritance, by revealing their identity, their relationship to the deceased and other details of their lives, through the various cards in the deck. If a judge happens to like a particular player's argument or performance, they may gift them an objection card, which that player can use to trip up their rivals. After two rounds of questions (one from the arbiter, one player to player), the arbiter chooses who gets what from the inheritance, if anything. My friend Andrew and I played quite a few rounds with creators Adi and Liz, and Andrew was made into an instant fan: he was drawn by the spontaneity and the improv skills needed, as was I.

Someone Has Died was successfully funded via Kickstarter and is now available for pre-orders. The game is due out in August, and comes with my recommendation!

YEAH! DIAMONDS: YEAH! Diamonds by Game and a Curry is a tile-deck building game. Players are mining an island for gems. The island is a 4 x 4 tile grid, and to mine you're using the tiles you have on hand to pull tiles out from a given direction: a right arrow means you pull one from the right hand column, up arrow from the top row, down arrow from the bottom row, and left arrow from the left column. The tiles you take off the board also have arrows or other special abilities (swap any two tiles, take one of the middle four tiles). The only tiles unaffected by these movements are rock tiles, which are immovable and serve as obstacles. Scoring is based on what type of gems you have and how many of each type you have. The simple concept becomes a complex strategic battle: which gems do you go for, how do you block your opponents, and how do you work past the natural barriers?

YEAH! Diamonds is available right now, check out their Facebook page for more info!

FIRE TOWER: Fire Tower is Runaway Parade Games first game, currently on Kickstarter. You and your friends are fighting a raging forest fire, but the goal isn't to put out the fire: the goal is to use the fire to destroy the others' towers, leaving yours the last tower standing. To do so, you must manipulate the wind, set off various types of ignition, and defend your own area from those around you. Each player is given cards that can either shift the wind, put out fires in specific patterns, put up barriers, or place fire tokens in specific patterns. It's a harrowing race against time... and the players around you! Playing this game was fun and tense, as we had a full four player game and as the wind shifted in one direction so did the fortunes of half the table. I had a lot of fun playing this and I'm going to be getting a copy, likely through their Kickstarter.

The Kickstarter ends on May 24th, so if you're interested in getting on board early, now's the time!

CLEAR THE DECKS!: Clear the Decks is a cooperative card game where players command a naval ship during the late 17th - early 18th century. The players must work together to take down an enemy ship, which has it's own cannons, offices, boarders and hull pieces to shatter, blow up and shoot holes through. Cannons take one full turn to reload, so coordination and communication are vital amongst players. In the demo we played, I was dangerously close to losing all of my guns, and a few of them were temporarily disabled by boarders. Luckily, with a few choice cards from my allies, and some luck on my own end, we were able to overcome the enemy ship.

Clear the Decks! will soon be available on Kickstarter. For more information, check out their website!

GLADIUS the Card Game: Gladius is a competitive card game, where players are Roman citizens of wealth who bet on the gladitorial games. Players choose a role, each role has different abilities you can use once per game. The terms of the contest are decided first: a card is played that dictates the terms of the fight (1 vs 1, 2 vs 1, etc.) and the skills used during the fight (theatricality, fight and/or luck). Players then use their bet cards and choose a fighter or group of fighters they think will win. The next round involves players using their influence (their cards) to either enhance their gladiators, injure their opponents' gladiators or change their bets. Players can also use their special abilities, but those are single use per game. Once influence is played, cards are revealed, and the fights resolved. The winner receives the award amount based on how many players bet with them, losers lose the amount of gold indicated on their score cards, and the next round begins. The winner is determined after four rounds.

The demo I played in was quite tense, as I lost the first round, won 100 gold in the second, and 200 in the third. I was down a solid 700 gold to the lead player by the last round. Fortunately, my character ability allowed me to look at all the influence played on each gladiator, and I was able to prevent damage to my own gladiator, and then use a few cards in my hand to switch some more positive influence on my own. I won 900 gold, and the game, with that key round. EXCITING STUFF!

GLADIUS is still in playtest development, but you can follow their progress on Twitter!

OTHER GAMES PLAYED

While we spent a good amount of time playing demos, we also wanted to sample the large library of games at Hex and Co. My friend Andrew brought his copy of Scott Pilgrim, and I also grabbed Quadropolis off the shelf.

SCOTT PILGRIM'S PRECIOUS LITTLE CARD GAME

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Card Game (hitherto known as "Scott Pilgrim"... such a long title!) is a game from Renegade Game Studios. Scott Pilgrim is an interesting game: a deckbuilder, which in and of itself is not uncommon in comic book based games, the unique part is that all the cards are double-sided. No game will ever play the same with this dual nature. The point of the game is to score enough Victory points, this can be done by fighting battles (either social, musical or the standard butt kicking variety), getting a job, getting housing, and/or beat on an Evil-Ex. You acquire cards with plot points (romance, music, work are the categories), and these cards can give you more plot points or give you an attack ability. Your attack abilities are used in the battle phase, where you declare an attack on an enemy, draw a new hand, and try to make a combo from those cards (the combos are listed on the back of your character card, which resemble Street Fighter moves).

The game took a while to get used to, with the double sided nature of the cards, and the general newness of the game to us, but we ended up having a pretty good time. if you're a fan of the franchise, or if you like unique takes on deck building games, this game might be for you!

QUADROPOLIS

Quadropolis is a game from Days of Wonder. In it, players are mayors of competing cities, looking to build beautiful cities that outshine their opponents'. Players spend four round picking tiles from the main board and building up their cities. Different tiles give different point totals, and points multiple based on configuration. A row of power plants gives points based on the length of the chain you make, 2 in a row nets you 3 points, 3 in a row nets you 7, etc. Only residences can be stacked one on top of the other. Scoring is done at the end of the game.

Both Andrew and I pursued different strategies: I was trying to build residential towers and minimize excess people and energy (which give you - 1 points to your score if you have any at the end of the game). Andrew opted for optimal configurations, netting points based on how the game wanted tiles configured. In the end, I beat Andrew by one point: the difference being that he had one extra meeple, which gave him -1 points. The game has a lot of complexity and depth, and I was sorely tempted to buy it on the spot.

And that was my International Tabletop Day at Hex and Co. Hex and Co. is a terrific store, and if you have spare time, and want to play some games with some friends, I highly recommend stopping by, grabbing a snack, and pulling some games off the shelves!