Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
OrcaCon 2023 Retrospective
OrcaCon is a convention held in Bellevue, Washington in January every year. Sadly, I wasn’t able to go last year and the two years before that…well, something happened. I’m not really sure what.
I went to my first OrcaCon in January 2020 and then everything went to hell so I wasn’t able to make it back again until this year.
I just got back on Sunday and thought I would give you a report of what happened and how it was.
I did mention the 2020 OrcaCon in my post about convention experiences, so you know I had a blast then.
Did I have a blast this weekend?
Well, except for the rain, it was actually pretty good!
The drive down to Bellevue from Vancouver on Friday morning was beautiful (cloudy and spitting rain when I left but by the time I had crossed the border, the sun was out) and I got down there just before Noon.
The rain started just when I got to Bellevue. It was ok the rest of the weekend, raining off and on (but never too badly when I went out to the parking lot for the food trucks) but the drive home on Sunday was hideous with rain.
My voice was a bit hoarse from singling along with the music I had been listening to on the way down, which made teaching a game first thing a bit rough!
But I persevered.
You don’t want to know about the drive, though.
You want to know about the games!
So let’s take a look.
Read MoreTop 10 Games Played in 2022 – #10-6
(Edit – Now check out the Top 5!)
It’s been a while since I’ve done a true Top 10 list.
Last year’s Top 10 was rolled into my Top 25 Games Played of All Time.
I didn’t play enough in 2020 to do a Top 10, so it was a Top 5 instead.
We have to go back to 2019 since there was a Top 10 list!
I know you’ve missed it, haven’t you?
You know you have.
As I mentioned in my Blog in Review post, I played 111 unique games in 2022, definitely enough to get a Top 10 list going.
As I was putting together the list, I realized that I left off a game that I thought would be on it.
Underwater Cities, played for the first time this year (and twice in the same month!), is a phenomenal game.
When I realized I left it off the list, I went looking to see what it would replace…and decided it wouldn’t replace any of them.
I would definitely say that it’s my #11, though.
It could move up in the future, especially if I play it some more.
With that all being said, let’s get into the first half of the Top 10 Games Played in 2022 list.
You know, so you can get on with your day.
Read More5 Great Books Read in 2022
I know this blog doesn’t do a lot of book stuff, but I do have some book reviews out there.
And there will be at least one more coming in the next month!
So I thought it would be cool to do a “Great Books Read in 2022” post just to let you know what I’ve been up to when I haven’t been gaming.
My Goodreads Reading Challenge I set for myself for 2022 was 55 books. I exceeded that by reading 61!
I did cheat a little bit, with a couple of novellas, but I’m still proud of that achievement.
I was going to do “the best books read” in this post, but I think I’m going to instead do just five interesting books that you may want to pick up and read yourself. That will let me spread the genres out a little bit.
I hope you’ll let me know some of the stuff you’ve read in the comments section.
You can check out every book I read in 2022 here.
Also, I’m not going to highlight the Peter Ash books by Nick Petrie, since I’ve already done a whole post about them. Though I will say that I’ve now read all of them (I hadn’t read the last two, I think, when I wrote that post) and they are all just as good.
On that note, let’s begin!
Read MoreNew to Me – December 2022
December was a curtailed month for games.
The last game I played was on December 13 (or December 16 if you count my Combat Commander ladder game I played on a Friday night).
Between a Sunday Funday being snowed out, Christmas falling on a Sunday, as well as the last week before Christmas being all “work from home” (and thus no games got played at lunch), it was a short month!
I still managed to get 8 games played, and 4 of them were new to me!
That made the Cult of the New to Me happy.
What didn’t make them happy was that all of them were from 2022.
That got me a bit of the side-eye.
Even so, I’m not dissatisfied because four games is enough to make a substantial post!
With OrcaCon coming up in January (this coming weekend!) and three other Sunday Fundays, not to mention a regular work schedule, we should be back to regular programming in January.
Besides, I have so much work to do with upcoming “end of year” posts that it’s a good thing I only have 4 games to write about!
So without further ado (all of my ado died in the Marvel Mutant Massacre anyway), let’s begin!
Read MoreBlog in Review – 2022
It’s the new year and welcome to 2023!
As has been my tradition for the past 3 years, here is my annual post about the year that was, 2022 in this case.
Unlike last year, where I talked about how 2021 really should be thrown into the trash heap, I’m going to try and not do an actual year’s retrospective.
We all know about the evils that are out there, both foreign and domestic, and how the world and economy are taking yet another turn for the worse.
At least this year no beloved icon died on New Year’s Eve to make the transition into the new year even more terrible than it was (though I was sad to hear that Anita Pointer of the Pointer Sisters did die earlier in the day).
So I’m just going to celebrate the new year and wish everybody the best in 2023.
Personally, it was a year of ups and downs mentally (that seems to be a theme the last three years), and unfortunately more down than up as far as blogging goes.
Let’s have a look at all of the stats.
Read MoreTime of Crisis – Storage Solution from Rails on Board
One more for the road.
It’s near the end of the year so it’s time for one more post about storage solutions!
This time, we’re going to be talking about the Cube4Me storage solutions for Time of Crisis from Rails on Board.
Time of Crisis had another issue with it, which made me actually wait before actually using this storage system.
I needed the 3-inch box! Which I ordered from GMT Games in their P500 sale back in November and was finally able to pick up on Christmas Day.
The Cube4Me trays wouldn’t fit in the original 2-inch box.
This is how my game looked before, with a lot of baggies.
Sure, baggies are nice. If you have enough baggies, you can separate everything.
But why not have trays?
Read MoreApp Review – Chai
Sometimes we just need a little peace in our lives, especially during these tumultuous times.
What can be more peaceful than brewing and selling tea?
Ok, maybe a certain panda game, but other than that?
I’ve heard a ton of good things about the card game Chai by Steeped Games (designed by Dan and Connie Kazmaier with artwork by Mary Haasdyk, Sahana VJ, published in 2019) but I hadn’t had the chance to play it yet.
Then a surprise announcement from Digidiced, one of the best boardgame app publishers, said that it was coming to digital soon (and then quickly it was “soon” and it was out!).
After having played an asynchronous multiplayer game and a few games against the AI, I have to say that this is probably one of the sleeper hits of 2022, if you are into these kinds of games.
What is Chai? And is it any good? How about the app?
This review will answer all of those questions.
But only if you bring me a biscuit.
Read MoreApp Review – Early Access – Unmatched: Battle of Legends
(Edit: 3/2/23: And now it’s out of Early Access and also available on iOS and Android! Along with the season pass or the first DLC, whichever you prefer.)
One of the biggest 2-player game systems right now seems to be the Unmatched series by Restoration Games.
I could be wrong, but I do hear a lot about it and expansions keep coming for it!
I had been wanting to try it out but wasn’t able to get my hands on it.
So when Acram Digital offered me a review copy of the brand new (at the time, and sorry for the lateness of this review) Early Access Steam digital adaptation of the game, I jumped at the chance!
This Early Access edition came to Steam on September 15 and I’ve been playing it off and on for a while now.
What is this game, how is it and how’s the app?
This is a review of both the game and the app, though it’s primarily the app version.
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreMerry Christmas from Dude Take Your Turn
Hey, everyone
I know I haven’t been as prolific in writing as I would like to be and you haven’t seen a lot of new posts from me recently.
I’ve been keeping some going, but I’m nowhere near where I want.
(More on that in my “year in review” post next week).
Anyway, I just wanted to wish everyone who reads this the merriest of Christmases (or whatever holiday you celebrate) and the happiest of new years.
I cherish all of you immensely and I am so thankful for everybody who comes and reads the words that I write.
With my current week-long holiday, I’m hoping to get some more posted before the end of the year, but in the meantime, spend time with your family and I hope all of your time is pleasant and celebratory.
And I hope you get every game you wanted under the tree this year!
Versailles 1919 – Another Great Storage Solution from Rails On Board
Edit: 12/22/23 – I finally received the new tarot-card sized trays from Cube4Me and they’re really handy! Same sizes as the regular card trays: 28 cards deep or 42 cards deep, but having these for Versailles 1919 and other game will come in handy.
Now back to the original post.
As you can see from previous posts, I’ve become a very big fan of the Rails on Board/Cube4Me storage tray solutions for many wargames.
So far I’ve shown you Imperial Struggle along with two Commands & Colors games.
Now it’s time to show you Versailles 1919, a game about the negotiating of the post-World War I treaty at Versailles.
It’s a game I really want to get to the table as I’ve had it for two years now.
But now at least it looks good and will be easy to put on the table!
Here’s how the game looked before.
Baggies baggies everywhere!
Now with the Cube4Me storage trays, how do you think it will look?
Read More
Dude! Take Your Turn! 