Just got back from a fabulous gaming vacation.  Read on for some quick hit reviews of some cool new boardgames…

The Oasis of Fun is a four day gathering of boardgamers that happens every year in June at a hotel in Atlanta.  This is an invitation-only event with about 100 attendees this year.  Some people were there just to play boardgames and have fun, but most of the people were there to play lots and lots of boardgames and have lots and lots of fun.

For those who aren’t familiar with the “Euro-gaming” crowd, let me just point out some things that speak to the atmosphere of an event such as the Oasis of Fun.  Boardgamers are, on the one hand, highly competitive people who like to play these games because of the challenge and because of the mental skill necessary to comprehend the rules and to out-strategize the other players.  On the other hand, these same boardgamers tend to be a little bit older and a little bit more casual than, say, your hard-core CCG players.  Whatever “issues” these people have (hey, we all have some issues), they don’t bring them to the gaming table.  At a big gathering like this, everyone is just so excited to try out new games and to share in a mutual enthusiasm for the hobby that the competition is entirely secondary to the much more important business of making friends and having fun.

First of all, a big “shout-out” to my Connecticut homeboys, Brian and Dave, for helping to get me invited to this year’s Oasis.  Brian sometimes comments around here as “Umberhulk”.  Anyway, this event was a great chance for me to re-connect with my old CT boardgaming crowd, and it was also a chance for me to forge all sorts of new relationships with boardgamers from around the south.  Everyone was really pleasant to a newcomer like myself, and I feel like I did my part to make sure that everyone else was having a good time as well.

The convention experience for me was pretty low stress.  Since my registration check had been mailed in a few months ago,  I just had to show up, pick up my name badge, and put some games onto the prize table.  After that, it was all open gaming, except for one or two “socializing” events, like a big Take it Easy tournament and the drawing for prize table picks.  The hotel was just a touch on the mediocre side, but not grubby, and very affordable at $65 a night.  I had access to Arby’s and Subway right across the street from the hotel, and several other restaurants within just a few blocks (the hotel is right near the Atlanta airport).  The “main” open gaming room did get a bit cramped at times, but there was sufficient table space to start new games throughout the weekend.  If anything, the close quarters helped to maintain the intimate feel of the event.  At least I had a hotel room to myself, and I could nip back for a nap whenever I needed a “time out.”  My biggest problem was that I kept rushing through my meals so that I could get back to the gaming room as quickly as possible – self-induced stress more than anything else.

You get mixed feelings at an event like this when you walk around the room and see people playing lots of games that you wish you were also playing.  “Hey, I always wanted to try that!”, “Hey, that’s one of my favorites!”, or “I have no idea what that is,  but it looks like fun!”  On the positive side, at the Oasis of Fun it is very easy to find some folks looking to start up a new game, and then dive right into a cool game of your own.

So, then, on to some highlights.  I played at least 12 games over the course of 72 hours that were entirely new to me, and another 3 that I had only played once before.  That still leaves another 15 or so games that I played where I knew the rules and had no excuse for losing.  Actually, my win-loss ratio for the 4 days wasn’t that great.  I probably had a half dozen games where I came in a very close second, sometimes losing by the thinnest of margins.  Still, I was playing more for the sake of keeping games moving and trying to keep things fun for everyone else. 

Breaking news… This just in… The 2007 Spiel Des Jahr is Zooloretto.  The game has a cute panda on the cover.  Over the last week, I have played this three times, winning the third time out.  It’s a game where you pick up a “cart” containing 2 or 3 animal tiles every round, and then you have to place the animals into pens in your little zoo.  You only have room for three different types of animals, or perhaps four if you build an expansion onto your zoo.  Extra animals count as negative points at the end of the game.  While the game feels light, the scoring is fairly tight, and you do have some meaningful choices to make as the game progresses.  Although the game’s central mechanic of tile distribution is borrowed from Coloretto, by the same designer, I find Zooloretto to be a much deeper game because you can use your money chips for some strategic flexibility, including the buying of animals from other players.  It’s just right for what a family friendly Spiel Des Jahr should be.  Did I mention it has a really cute panda on the box cover? 

My personal pick from the Oasis of Fun prize table was something called On the Underground.  This may only just now be making it into U.S. retail channels.  This is a light rail game comparable in some ways to Ticket to Ride, but the actual gameplay is very different.  Here, you have a map of the London Metro system, and lots of little wooden bits representing the different subway lines.  What’s cool is that you control multiple colors in the game, and you can choose which of your colors to develop on a given turn.  There’s also this passenger guy who wants to visit various stations, and you can build track to help him get where he wants to go.  When I play the game, I refer to the special passenger pawn as “Mr. Wigglesworth,” but you can name him anything you like.  Overall, this is a game with a lot of theme (by Eurogame standards), and the tight scoring makes for some tense gameplay decisions.

Now, for a game that’s more of a quirky, personal highlight.  I had a chance to play Factory Fun, which is something of a puzzle game where players have a sort of “speed round” to grab machines for their factories, then work to find the most efficient way to attach the new machine to an existing layout.  Each pipe that you lay lowers your score, but stringing together several machines in a row can net you some nice multipliers.  This game isn’t for everyone.  It’s both a little silly and a bit of a brain burner at the same time.  My biggest problem with this one right now is that I can’t seem to find very any online retailers who have it in stock.

Probably the most popular game at this year’s Oasis of Fun, in terms of the number of times it got played by the convention as a whole, was a new game called Notre Dame.  It has something to do with families in Paris competing for prestige points while donating some money to help with constructing the Notre Dame cathedral.  This is very much a resource management game.  You need “agents” to populate buildings in your city district so that you can get increased benefit from your actions.  Money is very tight and hard to come by.  You also have to fight off the increasing population of rats in your disctrict.  If you don’t take care of the rats, then the plague will hit and you will lose 2 victory points and one of your agents (from your most populated building) will die of the plague.  The game is structured so that it is not uncommon for players to take the “plague penalty” multiple times during the game.  If you put too much effort into fighting the plague, then you may lose out on other opportunities to gain victory points.  Notre Dame has a somewhat weird “card drafting” mechanism for determining what you can do in a turn, and the overall player interaction is a little low.  Still, this was the “gamer’s game” of the year for the Oasis of Fun 2007 crowd.

Over the course of the weekend, I managed to strike a good balance between serious games and lighter games, and I’m pretty happy about that.  More importantly, I made an effort to circulate and play lots of games with lots of different people, incluing my old buddies from Connecticut, and a bunch of new folks as well.  Again, it is the people who make an event like this so awesome, and it is the quality of the people, even above and beyond the quality of the games, that makes me excited about going back to this event next year.

A couple of weeks ago, I explained why I wasn’t going to Origins.  After this past weekend, I don’t regret that one bit.  Let’s just leave it at that.