42 – The Family Gamers Podcast – Granite Game Summit

This past weekend, Anitra attended Granite Game Summit 2017 in Nashua, NH. It was a lot of fun, but also very different from the type of events we normally attend as The Family Gamers. We discuss what G2S was like, highlights of the show, and what else happened in our family the past two weeks.The Grimm Forest Kickstarter is almost over, it is funded and we are super excited about it. We talked to Druid City Games a few weeks ago about this game, and if it sounds interesting to you, you should go check it out right now.

Andrew backed the Kickstarter for the newly restored version of the classic boardgame Stop Thief! Rob Daviau (designer of Pandemic Legacy and SeaFall) was instrumental in bringing this game back from the dead and modernizing it.

While Anitra was gone, Andrew and the kids played: Machi Koro, Potion Explosion (although we’ve talked about this before with Married with Board Games, now we own the physical board game, and we love it), and lots of LEGO building.

As a family, we all tried out Tumble Tree, a circular card-based dexterity game. It was surprisingly challenging and also surprisingly beautiful. Stay tuned for a full review soon.

About Granite Game Summit

Granite Game Summit (G2S) is all about playing board games. It’s not a tradeshow like PAX or even like Boston FIG, more like a scaled-up version of a local boardgame group meetup. G2S organized by a group of people from New Hampshire, including Kevin Craine (@baba_geek). You may remember Kevin from our podcast, since we interviewed him about his game Robit Riddle last year.

Highlights of G2S

Play to Win games: You may enter raffles to win specific board games. You earn raffle tickets by playing the game you want to win!

Designer Alley: This was a little closer to tradeshow style. Each designer got a designated table in an obvious area and a 2-hour block, specifically for the purpose of showing off a game they had designed. Some designers used this for self-promotion, but many used it for playtesting a game still in development.

Math Trade: a type of round-robin trade arrangement where you offer up games you no longer want, and receive new games that you want. This math trade was set up a few weeks in advance, and moderated by a computer program. All participants showed up on Saturday afternoon already knowing what games to give and what they were getting in return. There was an auction that was run in a similar way (auction happened online, and all participants were responsible for arranging exchanges on their own during the weekend).

Gaming Highlights

Friday: Dr. Eureka (puzzle/dexterity children’s game – review coming soon), Letter Tycoon, and Wizard (trick taking game).

Saturday: Dimension (another puzzle/dexterity game), Flash Point Fire Rescue (a cooperative disaster-prevention game), and In Vino Morte (“In Wine, Death” – simple party deduction game).

Honorable mention for Chroma Cubes – a competitive coloring game, not yet available but it will be sometime this summer. It was surprisingly strategic, and I’m really glad I got to play it.

Sunday: MoonQuake Escape! (more on this one next week), World’s Fair 1893 (in which I suddenly found myself dragooned into the role of teacher), and Imhotep (resource management game with some unpredictability).

Honorable mention: I introduced Anomia to a bunch of people who had never played it before. One of my favorite party games, as always!

We are already looking forward to the next Granite Game Summit. Check their website for dates if you are interested too. Please don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes… and until next time, play games with your kids!

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