This weekend I attend the Gathering of Strangers board game convention in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah.
Brian, Whitnie, Marcus and Myself drove down from Pocatello early Saturday morning, its about an two and one half hour drive.
When we arrived in the city we decided to have lunch first, and Brian made us drive around for about a half an hour looking for an Indian place that he was sure of where it was located. After not finding it we Brian suggested the Lemon Grass, A Thai place, of course we we got there we found out that they do not serve lunch on Saturday. Luckily Trang Restaurant is located right next door.
Trang Restaurant is a an Asian place that I usually try to stop at every time I'm in Salt Lake, The food is excellent with a very diverse menu and the best dumplings I have ever had in my life.
Lunch was about an hour so we did not get to the convention till 1:oo pm. The first game we played was Inkognito, older deduction game, Whitnie and Marcus won that game.
After I was asked by David to play Succession: Intrigue in the Royal Court, a small negotiation bluffing game, which I did not really care for, it was extremely light, but we were only playing with three, and I think it would be better with a full five players.
Next David asked me to play Plunder, a small Pirate card game, which I like much more than the previous game, although it was light, I felt that if I had more experience with the game and there was at least one additional player this would be a lot of fun, don't get me wrong I did have fun, but with more players it would be a blast.
While David and I played Plunder they had the raffle, Marcus, Brian, David and I all won prizes. I won a copy of Zooloretto.
Funny enough, the next game I played was my spanking new copy of Zooloretto. I played this game with Robert, Tammy and Jordan. Nice little game from the creators of Coloretto. It was quick and fun and a really nice prize. Oh and Jordan won the game.
While I was playing these games Brian, Whitnie, Marcus and one other person played Thurn and Taxis. I don't know who won that game.
After that they played a game of Power Grid, which Marcus won.
After that Marcus said he was hungry though we were planning on playing a game of Mall of Horror with Josh from our game group who was also there.
Josh and Eric were in the middle of a game of Twilight Struggle and probably had another hour to go, so we decided we would get pizza and bring it back. I asked Tim from Game Night Games for a local pizza place and he suggested The Pie.
We got over there ordered a 16" ultimate veggie and a 23" pepperoni, The 23" was huge, I mean gigantic we couldn't even fit in the back seat of Marcus' car. I mean it was massive (no really it was big).
Got back to the convention just as Josh and Eric were finishing their game and chowed down on some Pizza and started a game of Mall of Horror.
Playing the game was Josh, Brian, Eric, Marcus, Jordan, Myself and Whitnie, this is a Voting Negotiation game about survival from a zombie invasion. A kind of last man standing type of game, much like Lifeboats. During the game they made the announcement that the convention was shutting down shortly, but we were able to finish with Brian and Myself tying for the win.
All in all, Gathering of Strangers is a great con, and I know I'll be attending again next year.
