Today was Day 1 of 2024’s Geekway to the West, an annual board gaming convention in St. Louis. We’ve been going for more than a decade, and I still lose most of the games I play — but I find ways to have fun anyway. Here’s a rundown of today’s plays and my initial reactions to the games.
Faraway (2023)
This is a cute little adventure card came in which players explore a “mysterious continent” and battle to earn more “fame” than their opponents. To do that, they build a row of eight cards in front of them, left to right, then they move back through the path they created, collecting resources and scoring points on their cards.
There is a little bit of card drafting at play. A little wagering (when it comes to determining play order). The art on the cards is colorful and creative. The adventure theme is on point. It’s pretty light, which I tend to like.
I didn’t play well at all this first time. As soon as I started to understand all the mechanics, I realized I’d built my chain of cards in the wrong direction. Guess there’s always next time 😉
This is a short and sweet Tetris-like, tile-placing game that’s easy to learn and quick to play – even by yourself. It also really appealed to my love of (attempted) organization.
Players earn points by drawing and placing item tiles of different shapes on their player boards. The placement of the shapes in each section of the player board corresponds to a one (of a set of four) community goal cards ranging from easy to hard. In group play, the highest score wins.
I grabbed this from the “Play and Win” room and took it to a quiet spot in the convention center while I waited on hold for a telehealth appointment. I was able to teach myself fairly easily and play through at least once, but I didn’t keep score so I’m not even sure how I did.
I enjoyed the theme. The components aren’t anything amazing, but they’re solid. I know this would be fun with my kids, but it might not appeal to my usual gaming group. Still, I might see if they’ll indulge me sometime this weekend so I can see how it plays with others.
Harmonies is about landscape & animal habitat building, and I’m a sucker for nature games. Of today’s plays, I think this one was my favorite.
Players draft landscape tokens and play them on their board to create a habitat, then use tokens (resources) to play animals on their board for points.
The landscapes themselves were pretty and the components were nice as well. The token drafting reminded me of games like “Azul.”
As usual, I didn’t win – but I didn’t lose horribly, either. The theme was really immersive – everything from the way the resources functioned to how they scored points were logical and meaningful. I often find I understand games more easily when the theme is functional. It’s a huge pet peeve of mine when the theme is sloppily applied and not actually relevant to game play.
It’s bees in space, basically. This worker placement game was definitely the heaviest of the day (but not the heaviest of this type of game I’ve played before).
Players move little worker bees representing their faction around a board to essentially build out a spaceship/colony that generates resources and scores points. It’s a machine-builder, and the different factions have their own superpowers/strengths. One player’s faction seemed to overpower the others today, and he totally creamed the rest of us.
Again, the theme was creative and immersive, but this time around there was too much going on for me to be effective on my first play through. I spent far too much time trying different actions around the board and never did settle into a strategy. I’d play this again, but it wasn’t my favorite today.
We closed out the day with this quick and easy nature game, which has some similarities with the card game Uno, in that you’re trying to be the first to play all your tiles. Players build out a hive around the Queen bee by matching colors on the side of the tiles.
The play is simple but fun. I actually won the two rounds we were able to play before we had to leave for the day.
Bonus points for how wholesome this game and its creators are. Each of Grandpa Beck’s Games comes with one of Grandma Beck’s recipes – this one a whole wheat pancake/waffle recipe. I might have to try it.
Definitely looking forward to playing this one with my girls. 🙂
Looking forward to day 2…
Laura Inlow 