GameStorm: A Storm of Games
James Ernest arrives in Vancouver. March 24,2022
I went to the first GameStorm sometime in the early 2000s. I think I’m an honorary guest now. Sometimes I miss this con because of scheduling conflicts, but I always go when I can. GameStorm was one of the first casualties on the 2020 Covid season, which means I haven’t seen some of these folks in three years.
The fun began on Thursday, with a relaxing train ride from Seattle to Portland. At just over three hours, if you include time at the airport, the train is literally faster than flying. And cheap at $27. I always manage to do some creative writing on this ride, even when I don’t expect to be in the mood. I should take the train all the time.
This time, I was inspired to outline a story I’ve been thinking about for a few months: a gambler learns how to beat the game of Prima Carta (think Faro, but in the Carrisor universe), but no matter what he tries, someone always manages to screw him out of his winnings. I figured out a plan to make the chapters align with the ranks of the deck. More on that someday soon.
The GameStorm hotel is the Holiday Inn Columbia Riverfront. The con staff gave us a quick health screening at the door, where I showed proof of vaccination in exchange for a purple wristband. Games and events were already running on Thursday night.
I spent a good deal of the weekend testing Shipwrights of Marino, playing twice with six players, and once with four. We decided that the game is probably too big with six. Not only is there a long wait between turns, but players actually advance less on the average turn. That means the game is even longer than two three-player games.
At this point, we could tinker with the game and see if it can handle more people, or we can admit that it doesn’t, and fine-tune it for smaller groups. Considering that Shipwrights is mostly a wait-you-turn game, I don’t mind reducing the player cap to 4 or 5.
We also found some better solutions to some small issues, which you’ll see in a forthcoming update. I think I will shrink the deck to 54 cards, which is a standard tuck box at Drive Thru, now that we don’t need enough contracts for six players. And will give me a chance to remove the most suspicious cards.
I also played a lot of Vines this weekend, including Coralon, Thief, Poison, Ducks and Geese, and Up and Down. Played a lot of Thief, which is great fun and easy to teach. We decided that using the whole deck is a mistake with only three people, and it’s more interesting (and easier) to play with hands of 12. I’ll make that official change shortly.
I sat on four panels: Getting Your Games to Market, Intellectual Properties and Games, Table Top Game Design, and Teaching Other People to Play. It was hard to cover all of tabletop game design in an hour, but at least we hit some of the highlights. There was a videographer in the panel room, so hopefully these panels will be available online.
Along with lots of Shipwrights and Vines, we got to play one game of Stuff and Nonsense, and another of Young Jacob Marley. Jacob Marley was great fun, but sadly at the moment Cheapass Games site is still offline and the files can’t be found. I’ll be working on a solution in the next few weeks.
And as fast as that, the con was over. As I’ve said before, it was great to get back into the swing of things, even though things are still a little odd. Mask mandates are starting to lapse, but some areas of the convention still required them, and I wore mine almost all the time. It’s worth the hassle (and the risk) to see people and play games again.
So now I’m exhausted and inspired, just like I should be after a convention. New ideas show up in my dreams. I am driven to create, and less interested in movies and video games. It’s like waking up from hibernation.
So there you have it. Another convention is on the books. Sadly, I failed to shoot any video of this con, but a lot of the same people were also at Game Storm in 2019, when I shot this retrospective for Cheapass Games.
Next Stop, South Pacificon in early May!
Those darned freebooters. Always bootin’. Always free.