This past weekend was GameALot. The hosts describe it best on their site: “Gamealot is 3 days of board games, card games, role playing games, miniatures, and anything else that you want to run. You, the gamers, get to decide what games you want to host and possibly teach people.”
GameALot was located at the new location for Mission Fun and Games out in St. Albert. The registration fee was a donation to the food bank of at least $20 per person for the weekend. The wife used her store discount to get a very large volume of baby formula for about $55 for our entry.
We arrived late on Friday due to both of us having some not so fun days at work. Because of our crankiness and being newbs to the GameALot experience I don’t think we made the best players the first night. However after getting some food, rolling some dice and slapping down some cards we both started feeling better and got into a much better mood. It really helped that there were so many people there willing to give new people the chance to play. I have to say most of the game organizers were patient with us and really got us to open up a little. I played Legendary: A Marvel deck building game, followed by the Pathfinder deck building game and finally some Ticket to ride. My wife separated from me for a bit and played Pandemic.
Saturday was a completely different day. My wife and I slept in a little and went for breakfast. We brought along some of our own games as there were still open tables where we could host some pickup games. We arrived late so the first games had already started. We decided to break out Poo! and hosted that for a bit until my Smallworld tournament qualifier game. At this point my wife wandered off for some Munchkin and we spent most of the day apart. She played several new games or hosted the ones we brought. I tried out Age of Empires: The Age of discovery which I enjoyed then we had some dinner. My wife’s qualifier for the Smallworld tourney led into the final match. I was hoping for her to qualify but she was beat out. In the final game I started out strong so I basically painted a target on my back. I was thoroughly trounced. That’s okay it merely stoked the fires of my fury for the win next time! While I didn’t get the trophy (seriously there was a trophy) I did get a door prize: Munchkin: Cthulhu.
Sunday started off with some Munchkin. My wife won a door prize of Munchkin Deluxe, while we were playing the exact same game. It was meant to be. After that I went for the big game of the weekend: Twilight Imperium. I wish I had spent some time with the rule book as it was my first attempt at the game. I basically tooled around and just tried to figure it out. I lost of course but had a great time playing. At one point my single fighter ended up defending Mecatol Rex against an invading fleet. Complete Luke Skywalker moment when I played the “Direct hit” action card against a Dreadnaught. At about 5 hours of game time it killed the rest of the day, so my wife spent her day playing new games or hosting them.
As this was hosted in a board game store everything being played was available for purchase. You could even buy a game and host it then and there. My wife picked up Red Dragon Inn which she played on Sunday. She also picked up some expansions for the various editions of munchkin we already own or won copies of.
One of the organizers asked my wife to help host next year. I think she might have fun doing that but I also think she would like to just show up and play. She spent the car ride home debating ideas she had for improvement, so I think she’s excited to try but hesitant as she’s never helped organize a large event before. In the mean time I think we are definitely going to start going out on Sundays for open board game days at Mission Fun and Games. The variety of players available definitely made board games more interesting.
To sum up GameALot was a fun weekend of meeting board gamers of all ages and trying out new games. The cost was reasonable and went to a worthy cause. The myriad of games played meant that I was able to play whatever style of game I was in the mood for. I could share my favorite games with new people and was introduced to new games I’ve always wanted to try or never even heard of before. All I had to do was walk up to a table and ask if there was room for one more. There was no pressure to play anything I didn’t want to play and if I felt like it I could just hang around and watch people play. I would highly recommend coming out for the next GameALot to anyone who is up for some table top fun.
Check back next week when I review Smallworld.
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